Othea’s Letter to Hector

Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index Translation of the Month, September 2017

Othea’s Letter to Hector, one of Christine de Pizan’s most popular works, is at the same time one of her most complex creations. Combining a somewhat Sibylline verse text based on a mythological figure with extensive citation of pagan sapiential authorities, the Bible, and the Church Fathers, it showcases Christine’s extraordinary learning and her innovative approach to didacticism. An appendix provides new insights on her skillful use of patristic sources and creative command of Latin authors.

"Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Earl Jeffrey Richards provide in this volume a smooth and readable translation of Othea’s Letter to Hector by Christine de Pizan, accompanied by a well-written introduction at the right level and complexity for an audience of non-specialists."    

-Daisy Delogu, Chair, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, The University of Chicago             

RENATE BLUMENFELD-KOSINSKI is Distinguished Professor of French at the University of Pittsburgh. Her many publications include The Selected Writings of Christine de Pizan (1997), Reading Myth: Classical Mythology and Its Interpretations in Medieval French Literature (1997), Poets, Saints, and Visionaries of the Great Schism, 1378–1417 (2006), and The Strange Case of Ermine de Reims: A Medieval Woman between Demons and Saints (2015). With Bruce L. Venarde she published Two Women of the Great Schism in the present series (2010).

EARL JEFFREY RICHARDS is Professor of Romance Literatures at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal. He has written extensively on Christine de Pizan and translated her Book of the City of Ladies in 1982. In addition to his works on prominent German Romance scholars, he has published studies devoted to the creative interfaces between high and low culture in late medieval Marian devotion. He has recently co-edited a collection of essays on Relics, Identity, and Memory in Medieval Europe (2016).

REVIEWS
Medium Aevum 87.2 (2018): 412. Reviewed by Charlotte Cooper.
Parergon 35.2 (2018): 197–199. Reviewed by Glynnis M. Cropp. 
Renaissance & Reformation 41.4 (2018): 272–274. Reviewed by Teresa Russo.
Renaissance Quarterly 72.1 (2019): 232–234. Reviewed by Tracy Adams.
The Sixteenth Century Journal 49.3 (2018): 795–796. Reviewed by Albrecht Classen.
Speculum 94.2 (2019): 514–515. Reviewed by Nancy Freeman Regalado.