WIPpet for November 28

I have been MIA from this blog for far too long, having spent the last seven months on sabbatical. I will not promise to be back on a regular basis, but I promise that I will try to return more often.

I offer below a WIPpet based on my work these past several months. It is not fiction, nor even creative nonfiction, but a snippet of my dissertation, which is a critical edition of a 1530 Middle English translation of a French work written in 1400 by Christine de Pizan. The sentiments expressed by the translator will relate to many of us, I suspect.

My math is (1+1) x (2+8), minus 1 because it didn’t work to do twenty sentences or lines. Please go check out the other snippets that have been posted here:

In the twentieth century, many scholars, especially those studying Christine’s influence and relevance for contemporary times, have focussed on Christine’s works on women’s education and place in society. Moreau and Hicks, in their translation into modern French of Cité des dames, remark that the spirit of the work is “étonnament moderne” [stunningly modern]; they compare Christine’s views on women’s status to those of Simone de Beauvoir and Virginia Woolf (Moreau and Hicks, 14-16). At the same time, Moreau and Hicks insist that one must “non seulement prendre conscience de ce qui nous rapproche de celles et de ceux qui nous ont précédés, mais aussi de ce qui nous en sépare” [not only be aware of that which draws us closer to the women and men who have preceded us, but also of that which separates us] (Moreau and Hicks 22). In this manner, these scholars avoid the common critical blunder of “seeing in Christine de Pizan the apostle of modern female emancipation” (Kennedy 11). Some literary sociologists have measured Christine against their own standards, overlaying modern social structures upon Christine’s texts; in 1935, this conflation led to Howard Rollin Patch referring to Christine as “the militant suffragist” (Patch 25).

1. Boke of thy rudenesse by consyderacion
2. Plunged in the walowes of abasshement
3. For thy translatoure, make excusacion
4. To all to whom thou shalt thy selfe present
5. Besechynge them upon the sentement
6. In the composed to set theyr regarde
7. And not on the speeche cancred and frowar[de]
8. Shewe them that thy translatour hath the wryten
9. Not to obtayne thankes or remuneracions
10. But to the entent, to do the to be wryten
11. As well in Englande, as in other nacyons
12. And where mysor[dre, in t]hy translacion is
13. Unto the perceyver, with humble obeysaunce
14. Excuse thy reducer, blamyng his ygnoraunce.