Le Livre de la mutation de fortune
1403 poem by Christine de Pizan
 | |
| Author | Christine de Pisan |
|---|---|
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
Publication date | 1403 |
Le Livre de la mutation de fortune is a 1403 poem by Christine de Pizan.[1][2] It is a universal history that tells the story of how Fortune has affected events.[3] The frame narrative describes the process of the narrator's transformation into a man following the death of their husband and, as such, is an early text concerning gender transition.
Background
Christine de Pizan's husband, Étienne du Castel, died in 1389, leaving her to support her mother and her children as a court writer.[4] Her work emphasizes how learning comforted her after his death.[5]
Description
Christine de Pizan completed this poem of 23,636 verses in 1403. The narrator of the text explains how they became a man after the death of their husband to become a writer, an occupation considered masculine.[6]
The narrator asserts their male identity, making the text an early account of transgender representation in French medieval literature:[7]
- Vous diray qui je suis
- Qui de femelle devint masle
- Par fortune qu'ainsi le voult
- Si me mua et corps et voult
- En homme naturel parfaict :
- Et jadis fut femme de fait
- Homme suis je ne mens pas[8],
Before addressing the subject of their transformation, the narrator cites two other cases of women being transformed into men: Tiresias and Yplis (the Roman poet Ovid's Iphis).
The author and the narrator share the same name: Christine. The text lists the successive transformations made by the character of Fortune. The narrator indicates that they were transformed into a man by Fortune after their husband died in a shipwreck when they were 25 years old and already a mother. They assert that 13 years later, they are and remain a man. Their poem is therefore an early account of gender transition.[9]
Fortune performed the metamorphosis by touching every part of the narrator's body, until they completely became a man. They also claim to be in every way like their father, resembling him, except for their gender assigned at birth. This transformation of the narrator, contrary to the metamorphosis described in L'Ovide moralisé, takes place from the outside, the appearance of the narrator becoming conform to their inner male soul.[10][11]
The narrator indicates that they use metaphors in their story, which they think does not exclude the truth.[9]
In the explanatory comments inserted between sections of the text, the writer indicates that the narrator is "a person", and that the text tells how they served Fortune and conducted themself. The narrator indicates that they were assigned female at birth: "fus nee fille, sanz fable".
Posterity
Some of the miniatures in the book inspired works from Robinet Testard and Jean Pichore who worked for Louise of Savoy, among them the face of the goddess or the horizontal wheel.[12][11]
See also
- Christine de Pizan
References
- ^ texte, Christine de Pisan Auteur du (1501–1600). Christine de Pisan : « Livre de la mutation de fortune » (in French). Retrieved 29 November 2021.
- ^ Le Livre de la Mutation de fortune available at Gallica
- ^ Brownlee, Kevin (1991). "The Image of History in Christine de Pizan's Livre de la Mutacion de Fortune". Yale French Studies: 44–56. doi:10.2307/2929093. ISSN 0044-0078. JSTOR 2929093.
- ^ Brown-Grant, Rosalind (1999), Introduction, The Book of the City of Ladies, by Christine de Pizan, translated by Rosalind Brown-Grant, London: Penguin Books.
- ^ Griffin, Miranda (2009). "Transforming Fortune: Reading and Chance in Christine de Pizan's "Mutacion de Fortune" and "Chemin de long estude"". The Modern Language Review. 104 (1): 55–70. doi:10.2307/20468123. ISSN 0026-7937. JSTOR 20468123.
- ^ Larousse, Éditions. "Christine de Pisan ou Christine de Pizan – LAROUSSE". larousse.fr (in French). Retrieved 29 November 2021.
- ^ Gutt, Blake (1 December 2020). "Transgender mutation and the canon: Christine de Pizan's Livre de la Mutacion de Fortune". Postmedieval. 11 (4): 451–458. doi:10.1057/s41280-020-00197-2. ISSN 2040-5979. S2CID 234533118.
- ^ « Je vous dirai qui je suis, moi qui de femme devins mâle, ainsi par fortune mon visage et mon corps se sont changés en ceux d'un homme parfait ; jadis je fus femme, homme je suis je ne mens pas »
- ^ a b Gutt, Blake (1 December 2020). "Transgender mutation and the canon: Christine de Pizan's Livre de la Mutacion de Fortune". Postmedieval. 11 (4): 451–458. doi:10.1057/s41280-020-00197-2. ISSN 2040-5979. S2CID 234533118.
- ^ Akbari, Suzanne (1 January 2007). ""Metaphor and Metamorphosis in the Ovide moralisé and Christine de Pizan's Mutacion de Fortune"". Metamorphosis: The Changing Face of Ovid in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Ed. Alison Keith and Stephen Rupp. Retrieved 29 November 2021.
- ^ a b Mills, Robert (2015). Seeing sodomy in the Middle Ages. Chicago. ISBN 978-0-226-16912-5. OCLC 871670498.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Vassilieva-Codognet, Olga (1 January 2016). "Quelques échos des miniatures du Livre de la mutacion de Fortune dans l'entourage de Louise de Savoie". Le Moyen Français. 78–79: 255–271. doi:10.1484/J.LMFR.5.111482. ISSN 0226-0174. Retrieved 29 November 2021.
