Kimberly Koch
The Three Genders of Prophetic Authority in Christine de Pizan’s La Mutacion de Fortune”
In the Livre de la Mutacion de Fortune, Christine de Pizan tells her reader that Fortune transformed her into a man subsequent to her husband’s death. In strategically prefacing this transformation with three tales of transformation from Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Christine points to all three gender roles that she inhabits as a widow—man, “third sex,” and woman, and implies that each of these gendered identities imbues her with the gift of prophecy and a special relationship to fortune.
This presentation will discuss how Christine carefully edits each Ovidian tale to reflect her own story and to imply her own prophetic authority. For example, Christine represents Iphis’s father as similar to her own father, who had hoped for a son. Christine’s retelling of Iphis’s story diverges from her source of the Ovide Moralisé by excluding love and emphasizing inheritance, allowing Christine to imply that through her gender change, she can inherit the prophetic talents of Thomas de Pizan. Likewise, Christine prefaces her own gender change with the story of Tiresias’s gender change, drawing a connection between herself and the famous prophet. This comparison is especially powerful when considering medieval attitudes toward widows as possessors of intuition and foresight. This paper examines patristic writings ti shed light on these attitudes. Finally, Christine’s retelling of Circe’s decision to transform Odysseus and his men into swine ironically evokes a greater connection between Christine and the feminine transformer (Circe) than Christine and the transformed (Odysseus), also implying similarities between Christine and the prophetic and powerful figure of Fortune herself.