The Book of the City of Ladies makes use of allegory, or a literary device wherein symbols reveal a hidden meaning in a text. While allegories in contemporary literature are rare and often subtle, allegories from the medieval period in which Christine de Pizan was writing were not only popular but also generally quite obvious to readers.
The Middle Ages often used allegory as a way to tie together moral instruction with Christian themes. By far, the most popular form of allegory in the medieval period was related to the portrayal of Christian sins and virtues. Early medieval drama is usually recognizable through the genre of the morality play, or a play in which a character is tested by both God and Satan. In these portrayals, sins and virtues appear as personified versions of the things they represent. Christopher Marlowe's early modern tragedy Doctor Faustus is famous for resurrecting this theatrical mode in the play's depiction of a parade of the Seven Deadly Sins.
Within the context of de Pizan's text, allegory is an integral literary device for shaping the narrative. De Pizan not only presents the virtues of reason, rectitude, and justice as people (specifically women), but she also has her narrator construct an entire allegorical "city" – or argument about the worth and constancy of women. The choice to use allegory is significant for this text for many reasons. First, allegory allows an author to maintain some distance from their subject matter, as they are writing mostly in a figurative register rather than a literal one. This would have been crucial for de Pizan, whose text is certainly radical given the time period in which it was written. Second, the allegorical mode – most often used for Christian instruction – lends credence to de Pizan's arguments, suggesting that her laudatory portrayal of women is not simply one person's opinion but is, ultimately, endorsed by Christian teaching.
