Table of Contents

List of Illustrations xiii
Introduction 1
The Ship of Virtuous Ladies 27
Title Page 29
Double Rondeau about The Ship of Ladies 29
Prologue of the Author in French in Rhetorical Style on The Ship of Ladies 30
Genealogy of the Noble and Excellent House of Bourbon 35
Poems Summarizing the First Book, in the Form of a Polemic against Defaming Ladies 37
Book 1 of The Ship of Virtuous Ladies: Praise, Flowers, and Defense of Women 39
Book 2 of The Ship of Virtuous Ladies: Rules for Marriage 95
Book 3 of The Ship of Virtuous Ladies: The Prophecies and Oracles of the Sibyls 120
Book 4 of The Ship of Virtuous Ladies: The Book of True Love 121
Bibliography 137
Index 149

About the Author

Todd W. Reeser is Director of the Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies Program and Professor of French at the University of Pittsburgh. His numerous publications include Moderating Masculinity in Early Modern Culture (2006); Masculinities in Theory (2010); and Setting Plato Straight: Translating Ancient Sexuality in the Renaissance (2016). Todd W. Reeser is Director of the Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies Program and Professor of French at the University of Pittsburgh. His numerous publications include Moderating Masculinity in Early Modern Culture (2006); Masculinities in Theory (2010); and Setting Plato Straight: Translating Ancient Sexuality in the Renaissance (2016).

Reviews

Symphorien Champier’s La nef des dames vertueuses (The Ship of Virtuous Ladies), a central text in the debates about women in early modern France, has at last been translated into English by Todd Reeser (following the first complete modern French edition by Judy Kem in 2007). Champier’s Ship explicitly sets out to defend women, although this professed aim is complicated in ways that the editor explains. Preceded by a first-rate introduction situating the work both historically and rhetorically, the volume demonstrates a version of Neoplatonism in which women can participate, offers advice to new wives, praises countless legendary and historical women, and proffers medical counsel. Students of early modern culture, women’s studies, and medical history will doubtless applaud Reeser’s meticulously researched and elegantly presented edition.
—Cathy Yandell
W. I. and Hulda F. Daniell Professor of French Literature, Language, and Culture, Carleton College

"Symphorien Champier’s La nef des dames vertueuses (The Ship of Virtuous Ladies), a central text in the debates about women in early modern France, has at last been translated into English by Todd Reeser (following the first complete modern French edition by Judy Kem in 2007). Champier’s Ship explicitly sets out to defend women, although this professed aim is complicated in ways that the editor explains. Preceded by a first-rate introduction situating the work both historically and rhetorically, the volume demonstrates a version of Neoplatonism in which women can participate, offers advice to new wives, praises countless legendary and historical women, and proffers medical counsel. Students of early modern culture, women’s studies, and medical history will doubtless applaud Reeser’s meticulously researched and elegantly presented edition."
 
*Cathy Yandell, Carleton College*