Saint Joan. A chronicle play in six scenes and an epilogue

Artikelnummer 10125139

THE BERNARD SHAW LIBRARY 'There are no villains in the piece . . . It is what men do at their best, with good intentions, and what normal men and women find that they must and will do in spite of their intentions, that really concern us.' With Saint Joan Bernard Shaw reached the height of his fame as a dramatist. As early as 1913 he had expressed a desire to write a play about Joan of Arc, but it was ten years before he began to write it. The first performance took place in New York in December 1923 and, from the outset, was a magnificent success. Saint Joan distils much of what Shaw had been trying to express in earlier works on the subjects of politics, religion and creative evolution, and is widely regarded as his greatest play. His Joan is forceful and vital — a rebel against the values that surround her. As Luigi Pirandello wrote after seeing the play, 'Joan, like Shaw, cannot exist without a life that is free and fruitful. When she tears up her recantation in the face of her deaf and blind accusers, she exemplifies the basic germ of Shaw's art, which is the germ of his spiritual life.' Cover illustration by Felicity Roma-Bowers A PENGUIN BOOK Drama/Theatre. Contents PREFACE Joan the Original and Presumptuous Joan and Socrates Contrast with Napoleon Was Joan Innocent or Guilty? Joan’s Good Looks Joan’s Social Position Joan’s Voices and Visions The Evolutionary Appetite The Mere Iconography does not Matter The Modern Education which Joan Escaped Failures of the Voices Joan a Galtonic Visualizer Joan’s Manliness and Militarism Was Joan Suicidal? Joan Summed Up Joan’s Immaturity and Ignorance The Maid in Literature Protestant Misunderstandings of the Middle Ages Comparative Fairness of Joan’s Trial Joan not Tried as a Political Offender The Church Uncompromised by its Amends Cruelty, Modern and Medieval Catholic Anti-Clericalism Catholicism not yet Catholic Enough The Law of Change is the Law of God Credulity, Modern and Medieval Toleration, Modern and Medieval Variability of Toleration The Conflict between Genius and Discipline Joan as Theocrat Unbroken Success essential in Theocracy Modern Distortions of Joan’s History History always Out of Date The Real Joan not Marvellous Enough for Us The Stage Limits of Historical Representation A Void in the Elizabethan Drama Tragedy, not Melodrama The Inevitable Flatteries of Tragedy Some Well-meant Proposals for the Improvement of the Play The Epilogue To the Critics, lest they should feel Ignored SAINT JOAN