English 5522 - Literary Theory and Criticism
Literature - Vehicle for Good and Evil?
As I read Christine's work, I could not help but sympathize with her-and all women's-psychological mindset in regard to their place in society. How terribly sad the brainwashing that women of so many centuries were to endure. Compounded by the physical strength of man and intellectual advantage (by reason of not allowing women proper opportunities to learn) over women, this mindset might be en vogue today if not for pioneers (and indeed pre-feminists) like Christine. I understand that she held conservative beliefs compared to Woolf and Chopin, but without her courage to pen her frustration during the Middle Ages, later feminists might not have been able to gain as much ground as they have today.
As much as she desired to trust man's assessment that women are evil beings and distrust her own judgments on the matter, she could not shake the fact that she was being misrepresented by the philosophers and poets. For her, literature propelled a falsehood of the nature and condition of women.
I want to explore the arsenal she chose to build her City of Ladies. Why did she choose those that she did (Reason, Rectitude, and Justice)? How did they help to build a City with "sturdy foundations" and "lofty walls" (267)?
In my assessment, the most worthy advocate she could have chosen was reason. Reason is the tool that men like to use against the intuition of women. But rather than build an argument based upon emotion and desire, Christine built an argument of "durable and pure mortar": REASON (267).
She dissected the reasons why men defame the name of all women and examined each with care. After all, nature intended that man and woman be connected by mutual love and respect. Out of the six reasons she gives (good intentions, vice, inferiority, jealousy, slander, and tradition), none are reasonable grounds for defaming woman. In fact, each of these seems so unmanly. There is no justifying them. If men are going to pride themselves in the ability to use their faculties of reason, you would think that they would use it in their assessment of women.
I guess I didn't realize how adamant I was against the idea that women should not be educated. My wife and I are conservative in our political and social views, but we both agree that if one of us wants to pursue education, she has just as much right-and more important to know, ability to do so-as I do. Lady Rectitude brings in the authority of outside examples like Hortensia and Novella to strengthen the argument.
For Christine, it seems that literature and the arts helped to grow the belief that women are inferior. But did she use the same vehicle, the method that caused the many years of oppression of women, to educate the masses that women can and should be educated about that which is good? Perhaps literature is an unbiased mode of communication. It has both the power to bind humanity in chains and to deliver the captive?