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<\/a><\/p>\n1 autobiography, self-writing, spaces for (and against, and excluding) women: moving to France, the court, reading, learning:<\/p>\n
- \n
- the trope of humility and ignorance: ex. Othea<\/i> (1400, start: p. 30-31), Path of Long Study<\/i> (1402-03, prologue: 60-61)<\/li>\n
- Fortune\u2019s Transformation<\/i> (1404: 91-99)<\/li>\n
- Vision<\/i> (1405) and strange bodily image (173-77), Christine\u2019s complaints (fortune vs misfortune) and a personal path of long reading and learning and writing (192-96); compare her complaints (about her own life and the state of the world) in the\u00a0Path of Long Study<\/i> (61-66)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n2 places for thought:<\/p>\n
- \n
- reading, Boethius & his Consolation of Philosophy<\/i>, sibyl-guides, dream-vision and travels (in this world and its wonders, ex. 75-80, and in other worlds, ex. 80-87), and a marvellous garden and fountain of learning (69-74, where a number of great thinkers hang out; an other world outside of time and space as Aristotle, Avicenna, Homer, Orpheus, and others on p. 73 don\u2019t coincide in real life; for some post-medieval analogues, see H.P. Lovecraft\u00a0<\/a>and Thomas Ligotti<\/a>): the Path of Long Study\u00a0<\/i><\/li>\n
- the afterlife: Prison of Human Life<\/i> (1418)<\/li>\n
- flight & refuge \/ imprisonment in an abbey: Joan<\/i> (1429: 253 stanza 1)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n3 building space, creating a new space for oneself, and what happens next:<\/p>\n
- \n
- public space: Roman de la Rose<\/i> debate (1401-2)<\/li>\n
- City of Ladies<\/i> (1405): the end (153-5) … and the start of the Treasure \/ Three Virtues <\/i>(1405), continuing and maintaining The Work (156-58)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Images above: Christine de Pizan, <\/i>The Path of Long Study: <\/i>British Library Harley MS 4431<\/a> f. <\/i>188r<\/a>, <\/i>189v<\/a>, & <\/i>192v<\/a><\/p>\n
4 framing our discussions, the other world that was\u2014by serendipitous fortune\u2014on the board during class:<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\nBonus movie: The Passion of Joan of Arc<\/i> (dir. Dreyer, 1928); black and white, silent, with intertitles & script based on the original trial transcript\u2014see last week\u2019s comments for a link to it\u2014there are several versions with soundtracks online; here is one set to the music of Arvo P\u00e4rt<\/a><\/p>\n
THURSDAY<\/p>\n
Reading:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Path of Long Study <\/i>extracts (60-87)<\/li>\n
- Vision<\/i> extracts (173-201)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Images (and the limits of the imaginable): BL Harley 4431\u00a0http:\/\/www.bl.uk\/manuscripts\/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_4431<\/a><\/p>\n
Possible other worlds: future France<\/p>\n
- \n
- histories, moral works: allegory, didacticism, virtue, education\n
- \n
- for examples of how allegory works\u2014allegoresis (building it) and exegesis (interpreting it, making sense of it, moving to the aim of understanding)\u2014see Othea<\/i> (30-41)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- specular works \/ mirrors of princes \/ political treatises:\n
- \n
- (1) during her intensive writing period around 1400, with France in decline under Charles VI:\u00a0Othea<\/i> (1400), Charles V <\/i>(1404), Fortune\u2019s Transformation<\/i> (1404),\u00a0Three Virtues<\/i> (1405-06)<\/li>\n
- (2) France in crisis:\u00a0Body Politic<\/i> (1404-07), Arms<\/i> (1410), Peace<\/i> (1412-13)<\/li>\n
- (3) after Christine\u2019s 1418 retreat from the world, ending in hope: a new king, Charles VII, and Joan of Arc:\u00a0Joan<\/i> (1429)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
On commentary, and on the commentary in this class:<\/p>\n
1. Textual examples from Christine de Pizan: Othea<\/i> (30-41).<\/p>\n
- \n
- Step 1: looking attentively, reading, observing, describing<\/li>\n
- Step 2: gloss, explanation, like a first level of footnotes; for example providing further information about a deity, mythological figure, fictional character, place, or other proper noun; may include a second layer (with respect to Step 1 as a first layer) of storytelling<\/li>\n
- Step 3: allegory, analysis, interpretation; often (as in the examples here) prescriptive; this is the step at which many paths will be possible, and where the reader \/ Christine makes choices (aka judgement calls) on which of these paths to follow. Why choose a path and why do this at all: understanding, moral (and political and social) improvement, eventual prescription of a path (or paths) to follow in order to attain individual and collective salvation. Step 3 involves a step up in thinking to a higher level of abstraction, and may involve theorization (be that the application of an existing theory\u2014see Step 4 for an example\u2014or its reworking or the making of a new theory).<\/li>\n
- Step 4 (in the Othea<\/i> cases and some other examples; not an obligatory necessary step in all allegory, explanation, analysis, interpretation, and exegesis; indeed, the appeal to authority is one of the commonest informal fallacies in argumentation…): a \u201cQED\u201d (quod erat demonstrandum, proven, full stop \/ period) of citing or quoting authoritative judgement \/ opinion \/ interpretation. In the examples we saw, the first authority is usually one of the Church Fathers, early writers \/ commentators on Christianity (the textual corpus and field is called \u201cpatristics\u201d): ex. St Jerome. This first authority may be cited or quoted. The second and final authority is Christian holy scripture, quoted directly.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
2. Visual example:\u00a0Christine de Pizan, The Path of Long Study<\/i>: British Library Harley MS 4431 f. 188r<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdvl310d\/files\/2018\/02\/3986CB0C-23FC-4B76-8365-ACDAB890608C.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nWe did several analyses of this one image, bringing in a range of associations: colours and composition and iconography, comparisons with other compositions that were reminiscent, intertextual allusion (ex. Jacob\u2019s ladder), the personal and autobiographical, the imaginatively associative; selecting a point of focus (one or more figures, the background, a colour; or the composisition as a whole); throwing in some modern theoretical approaches, and other anachronisms, and creative (but sensible and intelligent) misreadings; for example using psychological & psychoanalytic interpretations as a contemporary cultural parallel to religion as the Step 4 \u201cQED.\u201d<\/p>\n
3. Textual example associated with that visual example: what happens in the Path of Long Study<\/i> when Christine meets that ladder; and her observation exercises, more dramatically when seeing all the stars and planets afterwards, but also when travelling the earth and when encountering a new person\/ification for the first time.<\/p>\n
4. A final, non-Medieval, example: Kim Jong-Un Looking At Things<\/a>…<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdvl310d\/files\/2018\/02\/39352324-B923-44E9-B020-E4DAB39F7D5A-1024x1024.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Utopias and other alternate\/~ive worlds: Christine de Pizan TUESDAY Prologue and frame: your questions and comments from last week… Space and\/of\/as women – other worlds – possible future other worlds: utopia 1 autobiography, self-writing, spaces for (and against, and excluding) women: moving to France, the court, reading, learning: the trope of humility and ignorance: ex. … Continue reading Week 7<\/span>
- (2) France in crisis:\u00a0Body Politic<\/i> (1404-07), Arms<\/i> (1410), Peace<\/i> (1412-13)<\/li>\n
- specular works \/ mirrors of princes \/ political treatises:\n
- for examples of how allegory works\u2014allegoresis (building it) and exegesis (interpreting it, making sense of it, moving to the aim of understanding)\u2014see Othea<\/i> (30-41)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- Vision<\/i> extracts (173-201)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- City of Ladies<\/i> (1405): the end (153-5) … and the start of the Treasure \/ Three Virtues <\/i>(1405), continuing and maintaining The Work (156-58)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- the afterlife: Prison of Human Life<\/i> (1418)<\/li>\n
- Fortune\u2019s Transformation<\/i> (1404: 91-99)<\/li>\n