Saint Joan of Arc (Jeanne la Pucelle): Difference between revisions
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=== Recollections of Joan of Arc by Mark Twain === | === Recollections of Joan of Arc by Mark Twain === | ||
Few people know that Twain wrote about Joan of Arc. There is a story that as a child he encountered a stray page with the story of her trial, and the young Samuel Clemens took great offense | Few people know that Twain wrote about Joan of Arc. There is a story that as a child he encountered a stray page with the story of her trial, and the young Samuel Clemens took great offense at her interrogators. Whether true or not, he became fascinated by her story and yearned to tell it: <blockquote>I like ''Joan of Arc'' best of all my books; and it is the best; I know it perfectly well. And besides, it furnished me seven times the pleasure afforded me by any of the others; twelve years of preparation, and two years of writing. The others needed no preparation and got none.<ref>[[wikipedia:Personal_Recollections_of_Joan_of_Arc#Writing_process|Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Wikipedia]] No source is given for the quotation, but it is undoubtedly Twain's words.</ref> </blockquote>Modern academics who study Twain consider it unworthy of his canon.<ref>See [[wikipedia:Personal_Recollections_of_Joan_of_Arc#20th-century_critics|Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Wikipedia]]</ref> They can't deny that he thought it was his greatest work, and also that it contains classic Twain wit, but they just can't stand that he was "infatuated" | ||
Those critics complain that in writing the book, Twain succumbed to Catholicism. I have no words to express how stupid that is. It's got to be their animosity for Christianity in general, and for Catholicism in particular, when expressed as profoundly by Saint Joan. | |||
A final note: Twain wrote the book before Joan was canonized, thus "Saint Joan" does not appear in the work. Twain does describe her as a saint: <blockquote>She was not solely a saint, an angel, she was a clay-made girl also — as human a girl as any in the world, and full of a human girl's sensitivenesses and tendernesses and delicacies.<ref>citation to do >> p. 369 of 1901 edition (not in Harpers)</ref> </blockquote> | |||
=== Saint Joan by George Bernard Shaw === | |||
Not much to say about this one. Shaw was early in adulthood an atheist and seems to have wanted into Deism and perhaps belief if not in Christ but in Jesus. The play is considered one of Shaw's greatest works, and it has been repeated on stage through the 2000s and in film. Shaw wrote it after Joan's canonization, thus the title. But he wasn't celebrating it. He rather sadly tried to humanize Saint Joan, whom he said was overly-romanticized and her accusers villainized. He presents her as a rebel against authority, along the lines of his ubermensch female character in ''Man and Superman''. Shaw presents her tormenters as motivated by the facts and situations before them, and thus, heh, it's all just a matter of perspective. | |||
Enough of that. | |||
== Jeanne D'Arc (1895) by Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel == | == Jeanne D'Arc (1895) by Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel == | ||