Saint Joan

SAINT JOAN by BERNARD SHAWA. Contents . . : PREFACE: Joan the Original and Presumptuous . 7..loan and Socrates . . 8Contrast with Napoleon . 9Was Joan Innocent or Guilty ? . . IIJoans Good Looks . 13Joans Social Position . . 14Joans Voices and Visions 16The Evolutionary Appetite 19The Mere Iconography does not Matter 21The Modern Education which Joan Escaped 21Failures of the Voices 24Joan a Galtonic Visualize 25Joans Manliness and Militarism 25Was Joan Suicidal ? 28Joan Summed Up 29Joans Immaturity and Ignorance 30The Maid in Literature 31Protestant Misunderstandings of the Middle Ages 35Comparative Fairness of Joans Trial 36Joan not tried as a Political Offender 38The Church Uncompromised by its Amends 41Cruelty, Modern and Medieval 43Catholic AntiClericalism 45Catholicism not yet Catholic Enough 45The Law of Change is the Law of God 47Credulity, Modern and Medieval 49Toleration, Modern and Medieval 50Variability of Toleration 52The Conflict between Genius and Discipline 53Joan as Theocrat 55Unbroken Success essential in Theocracy 56Modem Distortions of Joans History 57History always Out of Date 58The Real Joan not Marvellous Enough for Us 58The Stage Limits of Historical Representation 60A Void in the Elizabethan Drama.. 61Tragedy, not Melodrama 62The Inevitable Flatteries of Tragedy 63Some Wellmeant Proposals for the Improvement of 65the Play . . The Epilogue . . 66To the Critics, lest they should feel Ignored . 67SAINT JOAN . . . 7. PREFACE: JOAN THE ORIGINAL AND PRESUMPTUOUS JOAN OF ARC, a village girl from the Vosges, was bomabout 1412 burnt for heresy, witchcraft, and sorcery in1431 rehabilitated after a fashion in 1456 designatedVenerable in 1904 declared Blessed in 1908 and finallycanonized in 1920, She is the most notable Warrior Saintin the Christian calendar, and the queerest fish among theeccentric worthies of the Middle Ages. Though a professedand most pious Catholic, and the projector of a Crusadeagainst the Husites, she was In fact one of the first Protestant martyrs. She was also one of the first apostles of Nationalism, and the first French practitioner of Napoleonic realismin warfare as distinguished from the sporting ransom gambling chivalry of her time. She was the pioneer ofrational dressing for women, and, like Queen Christina ofSweden two centuries later, to say nothing of Catalina deErauso and innumerable obscure heroines who have disguised themselves as men to serve as soldiers and sailors,she refused to accept the specific womans lot, and dressedand fought and lived as men did.