Claudia Jacobi
This contribution analyses the tension between imitatio and renovatio in Christine de Pizan’s Cent Ballades d’amant et de dame (1409–1410). It aims to show that Pizan intertwines traditional courtly discourse with fragments of Jean de Meun’s and Ovid’s writings, in order to denounce the courtly topos of worship of the lady as a manipulative strategy of seduction. In this way, she emphasizes the misogynistic conditions of the sublimated muteness and passivity of women in courtly discourse and engages in meta-reflections on her own role as a writer in the cultural context of the Querelle des femmes and on the historical decline of France during the reign of Charles VI.