The Vision of Christine de Pizan

Christine de Pizan's 'The Vision' is both a powerful contemporary response to the chaos that would eventually precipitate Henry V's invasion of France and a fascinating view of the author's own progress as a woman reader writer and public commentator in the late Middle Ages. As a long-time intimate of the French court Christine here analyses the origins of the civil strife in which France found itself in 1405 and offers a possible future calling for its resolution in the voice of a prophet. Alongside her documentation of the difficulties faced by a medieval woman left widowed early in life she also explores issues of gender and authorship interpretation and misinterpretation in her remarkable career as a writer and advisor of princes. Glenda McLeod is Professor Emerita Gainesville State College; Charity Cannon Willard was Professor Emerita Ladycliff College.