The Image of History in Christine de Pizan's Livre de la Mutacion de Fortune

Author(s): Kevin Brownlee

Source: Yale French Studies, Special Issue: Contexts: Style and Values in Medieval Art and
Literature (1991), pp. 44-56
Published by: Yale University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2929093
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KEVIN BROWNLEE

The Image of History in

Christine de Pizan's Livre de la
Mutacion de Fortune

Christine de Pizan's Livre de la Mutacion de Fortune' (completed in

1403) is a universal history framedby a personal history. The structure
of the work involves an extended presentation of human history as a
function of the operations of Fortune,in seven parts. Parts2, 3, and the
beginning of Part 4 present a detailed "anatomy"of Fortune in allegorical terms; the conclusion of Part 4, as well as Parts 5, 6, and 7,
contain a universal history, from the creation of the world down to the
establishment of the RomanEmpire,with an epilogue which considers
contemporary medieval Europe.This universal history is preceded in
Part 1 of the Mutacion by a personal history: an allegorical autobiography in miniature which traces Christine's development into the author of the present book. At the very end of Part7, we returnonce again
to this portrait of Christine as author-figure,which serves to effect
closure for the work as a whole. The plot structure of the Mutacion
thus involves a first-person configuration which both "explains"how
Christine-protagonist became Christine-author,and represents herfigures her-in the very act of writing, of transcribinghistory.
The construct that makes this possible involves a double mimesis
of history. At the beginning of Part 4, Christine initiates her description of the interior of Fortune'sCastle (donjon, 1. 7061),whose external
appearanceand whose inhabitants she has just treatedin detail in Parts
2 and 3. Within, there is a "marveloushall" (une sale merveilleuse, 1.
7069)-round in shape, enormous in size, beautiful in appearance.The
1. All citations arefrom Le Livredela Mutacion de Fortunepar Christinede Pisan,
Suzanne Solente, ed. (Paris:Picard, 1959-66). Translationsare mine.
YFSSpecial Edition, Contexts: Style and Valuesin Medieval Art and Literature,
ed. Daniel Poirion and Nancy FreemanRegalado,X 1991 by YaleUniversity.

44

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KEVIN BROWNLEE

45

rest of the Mutacion will be situated, diegetically, inside this hall, for
its walls are painted with all the events of human history:
Si sont la escriptes les gestes
Des grans princes et les conquestes
De tous les regnes, qu'ilz acquistrent ...
La est la vie de chacuns
Empereurset princes et roys,
Et leurs estas, et leurs arrois
Pourtraict,et leurs propresfigures,
Et trestoutes les aventures,
Qui en leur vies leur advint ... [Ll. 7107-09; 7114-191
There were written the deeds of the greatprinces, and the conquests of
all the kingdoms that they acquired.... There was portrayedthe life of
every emperor and prince and king, their condition, their behavior,
their very appearance,and every single adventurethat befell them during their lives.
It is Fortune herself who controls these lives: "Et, quant les princes, qui
la servent ... / sont trespassez, lors, pour memoire, / elle fait pourtraire l'istoire / d'eulz (11.7141; 7143-45) [And when the princes who
serve Fortune ... die, then, to preserve their memory, she has their
stories portrayed (on the walls)].
This visual depiction of human history is presented by Christineauthor as part of her first-person experience as protagonist of the
Mutacion:
Si nommeray les creatures,
Dont je vi la les pourtraitures,
Non pas de tous, car trop seroie
Lonc, quant trestout deviseroye,
Mais des principaulx grans seigneurs ...
Si com vendra a ma memoire. [Ll. 7153-57; 7162]
And I will name the people whose portraitsI saw there-not everyone,
for it would be too long if I describedeverything, but the most important great lords . . . as my memory recalls it.
At the diegetic center of the Mutacion de Fortune, we have, then,
the following construct: a woman in the past (Christine-protagonist)
who looked at a series of wall paintings depicting, comprehensively, all
the great events of human history; and that same woman in the present
(Christine-author), who remembers her past experience of this visual
mimesis of history, and translates the visual images into verbal im-

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ages, a process which necessarily involves a rigorousselectivity. In this

essay, I would like to explore three interrelated aspects of this construct: First, the ways in which it utilizes, combines, and transformsa
set of key model texts: in particular,the Aeneid and the Roman de la
Rose, but also the Prose Lancelot and the Divine Comedy. Second, the
ways in which it is used to structure the vast historical subject matter
of the Mutacion. And third, the implications this construct has for
both the identity and the authority of Christine the inscribed authorfigure. In terms of the topic of the present volume, what is at issue in
each case is a particularly striking example of the interdependence of
"style and value," image and text, that is central to the entire enterprise of the Mutacion de Fortune: the fundamental relationship between Christine's imaging of history and her authorial self-representation.
The Mutacion de Fortune'scentral construct of a protagonist reading a sequence of wall paintings is informed by a series of key modeltexts. First and foremost, there is-as Suzanne Solente, the work's
modem editor, suggests-the famous scene from the beginning of
Guillaume de Lorris'sRoman de la Rose in which Amant comes upon
the walls which enclose the Garden of Deduit and the God of Love:2
Quantj'oi un poi avantale,
Si vi un vergiergrantet 16,
Toutclos d'unhaut murbatailli6,
Portraitdeforset entaillie
A maintesrichesescritures.
Lesymageset les paintures
Le murvolentiersregardai;
Si conteraiet vous dirai
De ces ymagesles semblances,
Si cum moi vint en remembrances.
[Ll.129-3813
WhenI hadgoneaheadthusfora little, I sawa largeandroomygarden,
entirelyenclosedby a high crenelatedwall, figured[portrait]outside
andinscribedwith manyfinewritings.I willinglylookedat the images
2. As Solente suggests. See Mutacion, 1.l and 2.351. In this context it is worth
recalling a significant textual detail. In the opening description of the exterior wall of
Fortune'sCastle, at the beginning of Mutation 2, there is a brief mention of a series of
(undescribed)portraits (11.1577-86), which function to lure people inside (i.e., in a
contrarymanner to those on the exteriorwall of Deduit's Garden).
3. All citations are from Le Roman de la Rose, ed. Daniel Poirion, (Paris:GarnierFlammarion, 1974).Translationsare mine.

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KEVIN BROWNLEE

47

andpaintingson the wall, andI shall recountto you andtell you the
of these imagesas they occurto my memory.
appearance
What Amant proceeds to describe are ten portraits of personifications of the vices or undesirable qualities that are excluded from the
courtly world of the Garden.4 He concludes by explaining: "Ces
ymages bien avise / qui, si comme j'ai devise, / furent a or et a asur /
de toutes pars paintes ou mur (11.463-66) [I carefully looked at these
images, which, as I have described,were painted in gold and azure all
along the wall].
The Mutacion's recall of this moment in the Rose sets in motion a
series of important contrasts between the protagonists of the two
works that serves to define Christine-here, as so often in her
ceuvre5-in contradistinction to the author-figuresof the dominant
vernacularmodel-text of the late French Middle Ages. First, the wall
paintings of Deduit's Garden are on the outside, while those on Fortune's Castle are on the inside. This contrast involves two extremes
in terms of the "experience"of the first-personprotagonist in the two
works. Forthe Rose's Amant, the encounter with the wall paintings is
the beginning of his initiation into the world of the Garden, i.e., the
world of erotic love under the auspices of the Dieu d'Amours. For
the Mutacion's Christine, the encounter with the wall paintings is
the final stage of her long initiation into the world of Fortune'sCastle,
an initiation that began in earnest only after she had passed beyond
erotic love, i.e., only after the death of her husband and the beginning
of her widowhood, as elaborately describedin Part 1 of the Mutacion.6
4. These negative qualities that are excluded from Guillaume de Lorris'scourtly
vergier are an integral part of history under the control of Fortune,as depicted in the
Mutacion-including the history of Christine's own life. Cf., e.g., her treatment of
widows' financial problems (11.6983-7052).
5. ForChristine as polemical readerof the Rose,see KevinBrownlee,"Discoursesof
the Self: Christinede Pizan and the Romandela Rose,"RomanicReview 79 (1988):199221.
6. The plot line of Part 1 has Christine's mother (Nature, 1. 366) first place her in
Fortune'sservice as she emerges from childhood, when she is a grantpucelle (1.470; see
11.469-89ff.). Fortunethen "arranges"her marriage,sending her by ship to the city of
Ymeneds, where she lives for ten years, happily marriedto her "si loyal ami" (1.995).
Envious of Christine's happiness (11.1168-69), Fortuneterminates her marriageby recalling her to her court: her husbandis presentedas drowningduringthis "returnvoyage" and Fortunethen transformsthe newly widowed Christine into a man in orderto
enable her to take charge of her captainless nef (11.1237; 1410) and avoid shipwreck.
Christine is therebyable to arrivefor the second time at Fortune'sCastle (11.1409-106),
which she now can fully understand(11.1417-21). It is this "secondstage"of Christine's
entrance into Fortune'sservice that is presented as her true initiation.

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Furthermore,the "static"personification allegories painted on the

exterior walls of Deduit's Garden offer a striking contrast to the "dynamic" historical narrativedepicted on the interior walls of Fortune's
Castle. In this context, it is important to note that Christine-author
very explicitly digresses in orderto present-as a kind of prelude to the
historical narrative paintings-a different and complementary set
which figure allegorically the intellectual qualities and disciplines
required in order both to transcribe and to interpret the events of
human history: "an intellectual hierarchy, headed by Philosophy."7
On the one hand, this scene recalls and rewrites the opening of the
Consolatio Philosophiae, both linking Christine to and distancing her
from the Boethian model. LadyPhilosophy is here a portrait, a text to
be read, rather than a full-fledged personification characterwho intervenes actively in the allegorical narrativeto instruct the protagonist.
On the other hand, the Mutacion's personification portraits of
(positive) intellectual qualities provide a symmetrical contrast with
the Rose's personification portraits of (negative)affective and physical
qualities, and thus emphasize the difference between Guillaumeprotagonist as Male Lover and Christine-protagonist as Female clerc.
The second major subtext for this scene in the Mutacion is the
locus classicus of ekphrasis for the Latin Middle Ages: the moment in
Aeneid 1 (11.455-93) when Aeneas, newly arrived at Carthage, sees
depicted on the Temple of Junothe history of the TrojanWar,including
his own participation in it (11.488-89).8 Aeneas's reaction is twofold:
on the one hand, he feels relief and a proleptic sense of safety, because
of the esteem and sympathy for the Trojansimplicit in the Carthaginian representation of their sufferingandheroism.9 On the other hand,
Aeneas feels great sadness at this mimetic evocation of past losses, at
once public and personal: " . . . animum pictura pascit inani / multa
7. Nadia Margolis, The Poetics of History: An Analysis of Christine de Pisan's
"Livrede la Mutacion de Fortune."Diss. Stanford,1977, 183; see also, 184-98. Forthe
Mutacion's "static"ekphrasisof Philosophy,the seven liberalarts,etc., see especially 11.
7173-86; 7195-98; 7203-08.
8. For an important study of the key ekphrastic moments in the Aeneid and the
Rose, see Stephen G. Nichols, "Ekphrasis,Iconoclasm, and Desire" in Rethinking the
"Romance of the Rose," ed. Kevin Brownlee and Sylvia Huot (forthcoming).Nichols
shows how Guillaume de LorrisrewritesVirgilin terms of the mimetic tension between
history and desire.
9. For the limitations of Aeneas's perception and the ironic distance thus created
between readerandprotagonist,see R. O. A. M. Lyne,FurtherVoicesin Vergil's"Aeneid"
(Oxford:Clarendon, 1987), 209-10; and W. R. Johnson'sDarkness Visible. A Study of
Vergil's"Aeneid"(Berkeley/LosAngeles: University of CaliforniaPress, 1976),99-105.

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KEVIN BROWNLEE

49

gemens, largoque umectat flumine vultum" (Aen. 1.464-65, ed. Austin) [with many tears and sighs he feeds his soul on what is nothing but
a picture; trans. MandelbaumJ.
A readingof the key ekphrastic moment of Mutacion 4 against that
of Aeneid 1 emphasizes the following contrastive features which serve
in part to define Christine as protagonist and as author vis-a-vis
Aeneas as hero and Virgil as historian. First, Christine-protagonist,
unlike Aeneas, sees a public history that is not her own. The story of
her life has already been recounted in Part 1 of the Mutacion, and is
separatefrom (though, perhaps,in a sense, parallel to) the political and
military past events which constitute the principal subject matter of
Parts 4-7. Christine's personal history thus "prepares"her to be a
reader of public history at the level of plot. Second, Christine'sreaction
does not involve personal affect the way Aeneas'sdid. She is not moved
to cry but rather to recount. In this sense, her personal history "prepares"her to be a writer of public history at the level of composition.
Third, the historical narrative that Christine will go on to recount is
universal rather than "merely"Trojan.Indeed, it will contain the history both of the TrojanWarand of Aeneas'sfounding of Rome. Finally,a
significant contrast obtains between the two protagonists in terms of
narrative context. Aeneas's confrontation with ekphrastic history occurs immediately beforehis first encounter with Dido. It is, in a sense,
a prelude to the extended erotic engagement between Aeneas and Dido
that will be fully developed in Aeneid 4. Significantly, Aeneas's account of his own past in Books 2 and3 will be promptedby the amorous
Dido's request, i.e., at the level of plot, it is motivated by the power of
eros, which is about to make itself felt in his "biography"in Aeneid 4.
By Mutacion 4, Christine's "autobiography,"by contrast, has already
progressedto a point definitively beyond the "stage"of personal erotic
love. It is Christine's widowhood that has effected this progression,
and this suggests, I submit, an interesting comparison with Dido. For
Christine may be seen as a Dido made good in the literary sphere-a
Dido, that is, who becomes not a tragic victim of erotic passion on the
stage of political history, but rather, a female Virgil, a poet who recounts historia.
In terms of the models of the Rose and the Aeneid, what emerges is
a contrastive self-representationof Christine de Pizan which serves to
guaranteeher authority as author of the Mutacion: radically detached
from direct involvement in either the erotic or in the political, she
appears neither as lyric lover (like Guillaume), nor as narrative hero

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(like Aeneas). Rather,the events of Christine's "personal"life are presented as having transformed her into a new kind of clerc: a learned
woman poet of history-the author of the Mutacion.
In this connection, I would like to turn briefly to two other modeltexts that inform the scene in which the protagonist of the Mutacion
confronts the visual mimesis of history on the interior walls of Fortune's Castle. The first comes from the Prose Lancelot, and is evoked
by a negative comparison that immediately follows Christine's very
first mention of Fortune'ssale merveilleuse (1. 7069):
Oncqueen la GardePerilleuse,
Dont dit le rommantLancelot,
Qui sienne,quantconquisel'ot,
Fu,n'ot autretantde merveilles
Commeil ot la ... [Ll.7070-741
Therewereneverso manymarvelsin the GardePerilleusewhich the
romancesaysbelongedto Lancelotafterhe hadconqueredit.
The primaryreference here is to the Castle of the Douloureuse Garde,
the conquest of which constituted Lancelot's first great exploit (and
resulted in his learning both his own and his father's name [Sommer,
ed., 3.152]). Christine conflates the Castle of the Douloureuse Garde
with the Forest Perilleuse (Sommer, ed., 5.243-52).10 This negative
evocation of Lancelot as model serves to differentiate Christine, once
again, from a famous male protagonist motivated by erotic desire, at a
liminal moment in his "biography."Christine's diegetic status as
"posterotic"is thus reemphasized. At the same time, of course, Christine's experience as readerand writer is implicitly presented as a superior version of chivalric romance: her aventure will be to view and to
describe the wall paintings which figure history.
In this context, I would like to mention, somewhat speculatively, a
furthersuggestive detail with regardto Lancelot as (negative)model for
Christine: the scene in which Lancelot, a prisoner in Morgan'scastle,
paints on the wall of his room the story of his life, and in particular,of
his love for Guenevere. As Michel Zink has observedin a recent study
of this passage, "the function of the frescoes painted by Lancelot is
thus to compensate him as much as possible for the absence of the
queen. For want of seeing her, he feasts his eyes on her por10. As noted by Solente, ed., 2.351. Forthe "geographyof the Lancelot,"see Charles
M61a,La Reine et le Graal: La Conjointuredans les romans du Graal, de Chr6tiende
Troyesau Livre de Lancelot (Paris:Seuil, 1984),362-63.

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KEVIN BROWNLEE

51

trait ... Likewise, for want of having new adventures, he paints and
contemplates those that he has already experienced, which were all
motivated solely by his love for the queen" (54-55).11 In addition,
Lancelot conceives the idea of this compensatory mimesis when he
sees through his window a man painting on the walls of Morgan's
palace "une anciene ystoire" (Sommer, ed., 5.217)-the story of
Aeneas ("cestoit [lestoireJdeneas comment il se parti de troies [& sen
ala en exilJ")[it was the story of Aeneas: how he left Troy and went off
into exile]. Lancelot's wall paintings are thus presented as an "imitation" of Aeneas, but one that is profoundly eroticized-as if Aeneas
had undertaken all his exploits for the sake of Dido.
This overwriting of political by personalhistory-and its attendant
dangers-are of course quite relevant to the concerns of the Mutacion,
and particularly so in the context of visual mimesis. Again, Lancelot
would constitute a negative exemplum for the first-personprotagonist
of the Mutacion. This is all the more striking in that King Arthur's
later discovery of Lancelot'swall paintings (in La Mortle Roi Artu, ed.
Frappier,61-64) provides him with the conclusive evidence of the
adultery between his wife and his knight that leads to the ultimate
destruction of the Arthurian world. This episode thus emblematizes
the bivalence of this mimetic art in terms of the tension between
private eroticism and public history. In a private erotic context (i.e., as
"first-person"history), Lancelot'smimetic arthas a positive valenceit comforts him for the absence of Guenevere. In a public historical
context, this same mimesis (as "third-person"history) has a negative
valence: it reveals a political transgression-royal adultery-that will
destroy the polis. In the Mutacion, by contrast, the mimesis of an
exclusively public- "third-person"-history on the walls of Fortune's
Castle enlightens Christine-protagonist and empowers Christineauthor.
The last of the model ekphrastic texts I would like to consider
involves yet another liminal moment: Dante-protagonist'sexperience
on the First PurgatorialTerrace,12 after he has just passed through the
11. Michel Zink, "LesToiles d'Agamanoret les fresques de Lancelot,"Litt6rature
38 (1980):43-61.
12. Solente suggests Purg. 12.16ff.as a source forMutacion, 11.7107ff.in ed., 1.xlvii
and 2.351. Christine explicitly mentions "Dante de Florence,le vaillant / Poete"in 11.
4645-46 andin 1.4663, which introducesher citation in Frenchof Inferno26.1-5, in the
context of her condemnation of the Guelf/Ghibelline wars in Italy.Forthe classic study
of the presence of the Commedia in the Mutacion, see A. Farinelli,Dante e la Francia
dall' era media al secolo di Voltaire(Milan, 1908),2 vols. especially 1.37, 166, 180-90

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Gate into Purgatoryproper.It is on this initial Terracethat the positive

and negative exempla of Pride-the first sin to be purged13-are presented ekphrastically,in a series of portraitsof which God is the fabbro
(Purg. 10.99) [craftsmanJ.'4Dante first encounters three "stories"illustrating humility on the wall formed by the "encircling bank" [ripa
intorno, Purg. 10.29J of the Mountain, which is here made of pure
white marble and "addorno/ d'intagli si, che non pur Policleto, / ma
la natura 1i avrebbescorno" (Purg.10.31-33) [adornedwith such carvings that not only Polycletus but Nature herself would there be put to
shame]. The initial story is that of the Annunciation; then comes
David dancing before the ark;finally, Trajanand the widow-this last,
an interesting presence in light of Christine's self-presentation as
widow in the Mutacion. In each case, this divine mimesis involves a
miraculous fusion of visual image and verbalexpression, which Dante
terms visibile parlare- "visible speech" (Purg.10.95).
As he is leaving the First Terrace,Dante sees twelve examples of
pridehumbled, each one "figured"[figurato,Purg. 12.23Jon the floor of
the pathway he is following around the Mountain. We begin with the
fall of Satan, and end with the fall of Troy.15The series as a whole
presents history as exemplum and exemplum as history. History originates with the first instance of pridefulness, Lucifer's rebellion; the
subsequent series of historical events are simultaneously repetitions
of Lucifer'smaster model, and require to be read as such, that is, both
figurally and didactically.
What makes such a text and such a readingpossible-indeed, necessary-is the power of God as a mimetic artist:
Qualdi pennelfu maestroo di stile
che ritraessel'ombree' trattich'ivi
mirarfarienouno ingegnosottile?
and 2.287. See also Solente, ed., 1.xlvi-xlviii. The epic journeyof Dante-protagonistin
the Commedia is explicitly presentedas a model for that of Christine-protagonistin the
Livre du Chemin de Long Estude, an allegorical autobiographydating from 1402-03,
whose title is derivedfrom Inf.1. 83-84 (see ed., Puschel, 11.1125-70).
13. All citations are from the text of Giorgio Petrocchias found in Charles S. Singleton, Dante Alighieri. The Divine Comedy, (Princeton:Princeton University Press,
1970-75), 6 vols. Translationsare by Singleton, selectively emended.
14. For the ways in which Purg. 10 treats the problems of mimesis, see Nancy J.
Vickers, "Seeing is Believing: Gregory,Trajan,and Dante's Art," Dante Studies 101
(1983): 67-85.
15. The final three of these exempla (Cyrus,Holofernes, and Troy)can be read as
theologically contextualized instances of the "mutacionsde Fortune,"and are, indeed,
treated in Christine's narrativefrom the perspective of human history.

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KEVIN BROWNLEE

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Mortili mortie i vivi pareanvivi:

non vide mei di me chi vide il vero,
quant'io calcai,fin che chinatogivi. [Purg.12.64-91
Whatmasterwas he of brushor of pencil who drewthe formsand
lineamentswhichtherewouldmakeeverysubtlegeniuswonder?Dead
the dead,andthelivingseemedalive.Hewhosawtherealityof allI trod
upon,while I went bent down,saw not betterthanI!
Severalimportant parallels and contrasts are at issue here in terms
of the Commedia and the Mutacion. First, there is the relationship
between history and self. In both works, the mimesis of history and the
protagonist'sexperience of this mimesis on the level of plot constitute
a key stage in the story of the literary vocation of the first-person
protagonist, in the way in which Dante and Christine each represent
their development from past acting self into present writing self. For
Dante-protagonist,however,the diegetic experienceof historical mimesis in Purg. 10 and 12 is simply one episode-albeit a very important
one-among many. ForChristine, this experience at the level of plot is
presented as the basic authorization for her role as historian.
Second, there is a contrast in terms of the status of historical mimesis. The divine mimesis of history in Purg. 10 and 12 involves an
explicit fusing of image and word, in a manner possible only for God.
The "human" mimesis of history on the walls of Fortune'sCastle in
the Mutacion is sequential ratherthan simultaneous: the terminology
of the image and of the word are thus used interchangeablyto describe
it. The deeds of history that Christine sees are from the beginning
describedboth aspourtraitures (1.7154) and as escriptures(1.7203).It is
as if the mimesis of history experiencedby Christine-protagonistwere
being presented both as a series of wall paintings and as a book; or
rather, as a master set of illuminations with written commentary
underneath.
Third, there is a striking contrast in the relationship between personal and public history in the Commedia vis-A-visthat in the Mutacion. The personal history that Dante tells is presented as literally
true, i.e., it is true in the same way as public history is true. Christine's
personal history in the Mutacion is told as allegory, i.e., it is in a
qualitatively differentdiscourse from that used by Christine as "public
historian."
In this connection, it is important to recall the distinction between
Dante's exile and Christine's widowhood as the key biographicevents
in the respective lives of the two authors as presented in the Com-

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media and in the Mutacion. First, there is the important correspondence between history and gender:Dante's exile is public andpolitical;
Christine's widowhood is private and personal. In addition, there is a
key temporal difference:Dante's exile is in the diegetic future, that is,
it will come after the personal revelation-and after the direct experience of history-which the Commedia's plot line recounts. Christine's widowhood is in the diegetic present, that is, it precedes and,
indeed, initiates her "indirect"experience of history at the level of the
Mutacion's plot. Both Dante's otherworldly journey and his exile
(which is linked to the composition of the poem that recordsthe journey) are presented as interventions by God in Dante's life. Christine's
"otherworldlyjourney"is presented as an allegory of her unfolding life
on earth. And her widowhood-directly linked to her clerkly and writerly vocation-is presented as the intervention of Fortunein that life.
The final authorial self-portraitthat emerges from the Commedia is of
an inspired male poet chosen by God; in the Mutacion, we have a
woman historian chosen by Fortune.
It is in this context that the model providedby the Commedia for
Christine-protagonist'sexperience of the ekphrasisof history in Mutacion 4 is related to the three other models we have been considering:
the Romance of the Rose, the Aeneid, and the Prose Lancelot. The
central construct of an ekphrastic mimesis of history in the Mutacion
involves the self-presentation of Christine-protagonistas fundamentally separated-detached-from history: she is not a direct participant. This detachment is an essential component both of her identity
and of her authority in the Mutacion,6 and is reinforced by the repeated use of the construct at important structural moments in the
Mutacion's historical narrative.
Three examples are particularlypertinent to the present argument.
The first comes at almost the precise midpoint of the Mutacion and
serves to mark the transition from ancient Near Eastern history to
ancient Greek history. Christine-authorintervenes in the text in order
to situate this structural division within the plot-line experience of
Christine-protagonist: "Toutes ces choses, que j'ay dictes, / furent en
16. ForChristine'stransformationinto a man-at the level of plot-in orderboth to
readand to write history (in Mutacion 1),see KevinBrownlee,"Ovideet le moi poetique
a la fin du moyen age: JeanFroissartet Christine de Pizan"in Modernit6au
Omoderne>>
moyen age: LeD6fi du passe, ed. BrigiteCazelles andCharlesM61a(Geneva:Droz, 1990),
153-73, and Nadia Margolis, "Christinede Pizan:The Poetess as Historian,"Journalof
the History of Ideas 47 (1986):367-70.

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KEVIN BROWNLEE

55

la paroit escriptes / de la sale ou Fortune maint ... / et plusieurs

autres, dont diray / partie . . . " (11.11729-31; 11733-34) [All the
things that I have recounted were inscribed on the walls of the hall
where Fortune lives . .. along with many other things which I will

recount in part].
A similar kind of link between author and protagonist in terms of
the "experience" of history serves as the introduction to the single
longest segment in Christine's historical narrative, the story of the
TrojanWar(11.14059-18244):
Enla sale, quej'aydescripte,
Vi l'istoirede Troyeescripte;
Et d'or et d'azurles ymages

Bien pourtrais. . .
Trestout devisoitl'escripture,
Qui estoit soubzla pourtraiture.
Si la deviserayen brief . .. [LI. 14059-62; 14065-671

In the hall whichI havedescribed,I saw the historyof Troyinscribed;

and the images were well portrayedin gold and azure.... Everything

wasdescribedby the writingwhichwasbelowthe paintings,andI will

now describeit in abridgedform.
The very last section of the Mutacion's historical narrative (11.
23301-594) treats contemporaryEurope,i.e., the one part of universal
history that Christine de Pizan lived through, knew from personal
experience. Yet even this is presented,within the plot structure,as part
of the experience of Christine-protagonist by means of the "double
mimesis" construct (11.23277-300). Christine-protagonist therefore
appearsas a detached readereven of contemporaryEuropeanhistory,
which is represented in the text as part of the wall paintings in Fortune's Castle.
This extended use of inscribed ekphrasis to present and to authorize Christine-protagonist'srelation with history thus leads directly to
the Mutacion's final lines in which Christine concludes her monumental work by means of a self-presentation as author figure:
Or ay je deviseassez
De ce que tous mes jourspassez
Ay trouve,veu, et cogneu,
Ou lieu qui a pluseursa neu ...
Et,pource quepartoutMeseur
Frequante,pouravoirmoinsnoyse ...

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56

Yale French Studies

J'aychoisiepourtoute joye
(Quelqu'aultre
lait), telle est la moye,
Paix,solitudevolumtaire,
Et vie astractelet]solitaire.[LI.23595-98; 23630-31; 23633-361
I have thus describedenoughof what-during my past life-I have
found and seen and known in the place which has harmedmany
[=Fortune'sCastle].... And becauseMisfortuneis everywhere,in
orderto haveless trouble. .. I havechosenformy entirejoy(whatever
othersmayhave,this is mine):peace,voluntarysolitude,anda retiring,
solitarylife.
By way of conclusion, however,I would like to stress that the Mutacion's treatment both of authorial self-representationand of the imaging of history represent "provisional solutions" to problems that
Christine was to redefine in the Cite des Dames (completed two years
later, in 1405).In both books, works of art areused to representhistory.
The plot line of the Mutacion shows us the first-personwoman historian as a detached spectator who observes and records a past that, in
many important respects, is not her own. At the same time, the Mutacion's construct of historical ekphrasis presents the "book"of history
as antedating Christine's book-as an already "completed"painting.
At the beginning of the Cite des Dames, by contrast, the "book"of
history is represented as "incomplete," as a series of "beautiful
stones"-each the story of an exemplary woman-which must be put
together into a new building, an architectural metaphor that is used
throughout the work to figure the writing of the Cite des Dames itself.
Christine the first-personprotagonistis directly engaged,at the level of
plot, in the rereadingof history, as she builds the City of Ladies from
the ground up, stone by stone. At the level of composition, the Cite's
author is a first-personwoman historian who is directly engagedin the
rewriting of history, the composition of the book.
In the Cite des Dames, therefore, Christine de Pizan represents
herself as actively participatingboth as protagonistand as authorin the
construction-the reconstruction-of history as narrative.In the Cite
her identity as woman will provide her-not, as in the Mutacion de
Fortune,with a radical detachment from the historical mainstreambut ratherwith a privilegedlink to the history of women which it is her
calling to write into the canon-in the process, appropriatingthe status of a canonical author for herself.

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