This lesson plan examines women’s literary authority in Christine de Pizan’s 15th-century treatise and in Alison Bechdel’s 2006 graphic memoir. Part of the Medieval Meets Modern Series.
Video by Moira Fitzgibbons
Video
Selected Editions
Bechdel, Alison. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. Mariner Books, 2007.
De Pizan, Christine. Collected Works (“The Book of the Queen”). Circa 1410-1414. Digitised Manuscripts, London, British Library, Harley MS 4431. Accessed 5 December 2020.
—-. The Book of the City of Ladies, rev. ed. Trans. by Earl Jeffrey Richards; foreword by Natalie Zemon Davis. Persea Books, 1998.
—-.The Book of the City of Ladies. Ed. and trans. by Rosalind Brown-Grant. Penguin Classics, 1999.
—-. The Selected Writings of Christine de Pizan. Ed. by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski; trans. by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Kevin Brownlee. W.W. Norton & Co., 1997.
Context and Analysis
Ho, Cynthia. “Communal and Individual Biography in Christine de Pizan’s Book of the City of Ladies.” CEA Critic: An Offical Journal of the College English Association 57.1 (1994): pp. 31-40.
Lydenberg, Robin.“Reading Lessons in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic.” College Literature 44.2 (2017): pp. 133-165.
Cite
Moira Fitzgibbons,"Book of the City of Ladies" and "Fun Home," Middle Ages for Educators, December 7, 2020. Accessed[date]. https://middleagesforeducators.princeton.edu/node/1236/