Saint Joan (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

George Bernard Shaw (Author), Dan H. Laurence (Editor), Imogen Stubbs (Introduction)

Book Description

Release date: May 1, 2001 | Series: Penguin Classics

With Saint Joan, Shaw reached the height of his fame as a dramatist. Fascinated by the story of Joan of Arc (canonized in 1920), but unhappy with "the whitewash which disfigures her beyond recognition," he presents a realistic Joan: proud, intolerant, naïve, foolhardy, always brave-a rebel who challenged the conventions and values of her day.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Joan of Arc, born in 1412, was burned at the stake in 1431, canonized by the Catholic Church in 1920, and, like most saints, whitewashed by history. Canonization tends to strip a saint of supposedly un-Christian attributes such as rebelliousness, pride, and intolerance. And Joan, despite having been a stubborn, haughty, naive, even foolish girl, has for much of history been remembered only as a pious martyr. However, George Bernard Shaw's play, Saint Joan, completed in 1925, began the modern rehabilitation of the icon as a fully human, fallible character--not to mention a poster girl for teenage rebellion and feminism. Shaw's Joan, like the real Maid of Orleans, leads the fight to drive the English out of her native France, insists on direct communication with her God instead of submitting to the mediation of Catholic priests, and refuses to dress, speak, or act according to traditional notions of how women were expected to behave. Until the closing scene of Shaw's play, however, neither Joan nor her foes are cast in neatly heroic terms. Both are earnestly pursuing their partial visions of the truth. In the play's famous epilogue, Shaw suggests that even 400 years later, most of us are so limited by our own perspectives that we are unable to tell the difference between a saint and a heretic. "O God that madest this beautiful earth, when will it be ready to receive Thy saints?" Joan asks, preparing for her death. "How long, O Lord, how long?" --Michael Joseph Gross

From School Library Journal

Grade 8 Up-By George Bernard Shaw. Narrated by Flo Gibson.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics; a edition (May 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140437916
• ISBN-13: 978-0140437911
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.4 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #335,945 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Drama Instead of History December 10, 2005

By Jeanette Romee

Format:Paperback

This is George Bernard Shaw's most important work. A successful drama that has enjoyed continuous popularity for nearly eighty years is worth a read. Most audiences find it very satisfying. Shaw has a gift for lucid dialogue that brings a centuries old story to life. This is one of the most approachable of the great English language plays.

Why then does "Saint Joan" fall short of five stars?

Fictional accounts of Joan of Arc's life are numerous and seldom accurate. Shakespeare makes her a witch. Voltaire makes her an idiot. Schiller makes her admirable - and gives her a magical helmet that protects her from harm until she falls in love.

In a rare exception to his usual satirical style, Mark Twain spent months in France researching her life and published a fictional biography. Readers who enjoy accurate historical fiction would do well with Twain's "Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc." Twain considered this - not "Huckleberry Finn" - to be his finest work.

Shaw pays far more attention to accuracy than most fictionalizations. Several lines in the play are Shaw's own translations from her trial transcript. Shaw's long introductory essay aspires to be history as well as drama. Most scholars agree with his assessment of Joan of Arc's socioeconomic background. Shaw acknowledges a few dramatic economies: he combines the historical Jean d'Orleans and Duke Jean d'Alencon into a single character. What causes problems are Shaw's unacknowledged deviations from the factual record.

Shaw argues that Joan of Arc was a forerunner of Protestantism who got a fair trial. Among serious scholars this argument gains no credibility.... A surviving letter from the English government that financed the trial guaranteed her execution even if the court found her not guilty. Joan of Arc never rejected the Roman Catholic Church: she rejected the authority of politically biased judges bent on discrediting her and, by inference, on discrediting the king she had crowned. Twenty-four years after her death the Pope reopened the case. The appeals court not only found her innocent but discovered such extensive violations of proper court procedure that it accused the late Bishop Cauchon of heresy.

Shaw's choice works as drama rather than as history yet he advocates it on historical grounds. He might be sincere but he is certainly not honest. To an academic scholar who has explained the facts to umpteen Shaw enthusiasts the difference can be infuriating. This is why "Saint Joan" collects a handful of scathing reviews.

A reader who understands this little shell game with history should have a lively time with the drama. If this is your first reading of "Saint Joan" then I envy you. Nothing quite equals the first encounter. Read more ›

20 of 28 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars A great disservice. February 17, 2000

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

While Shaw may have been a gifted playwright, his "Saint Joan" did an enormous disservice to the subject: the view it presents of Joan of Arc conflicts with the historical evidence on nearly every point, echoing instead the propaganda of her enemies. In truth, her trial was orchestrated by the English and their clerical allies (and even Shaw admits that the Inquisition overturned the verdict in 1456, shortly after the English were finally driven out of Rouen); nor was Joan a "rebel" except in the minds of her political opponents. By dredging up this fraudulent view of La Pucelle, Shaw's play was among the first popular works to undermine the efforts of countless scholars whose research had brought a more truthful view of the issue to light. For an historically accurate version, I would recommend any book by Regine Pernoud, many of which are offered here at Amazon.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Wisdom December 7, 2003

By MarianaP

Format:School & Library Binding

What has most stuck in my mind, many years after having read Shaw's book, is the fact that it's more logical to think of Joan as a protestant saint, instead of Catholic, when one considers how she rejected the Catholic Church's authority and was, naturally, rejected in turn.

He makes a very good point when he says that, right as that Church was to ban her on those grounds, nothing could give it the moral right (or any other right, for that matter) to condemn a woman who disagreed with it on matters of faith. In all fairness, they should have simply excommunicated her and said: "If you think you have a better idea, then you go ahead and create your own Church".

It may be a thoroughly idealistic point of view of course, too democratic for that age (perhaps any age), but nonetheless it strikes me as completely fair.
If you like a club but object to some of its rules, and that club isn't willing to change for your sake, they may have the right to throw you out, just as you may have the right to start a new one on your own - but they shouldn't be given the right to take away your life for having dared to challenge their concepts.

This lesson has stayed with me and I recommend this book for the wisdom it contains.

10 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Wit and Spirituality June 10, 2000

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Shaw was a close friend of a Benedictine Abbess, Dame Laurentia, who "vetted" his plays for fairness to the faith. This play is fun, takes lots of bites out of politicians and clergy, and says something beautiful about the imagination. This Joan is no dolt and had to be burnt at the stake. That is a complement to her faith.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Problem of Gender? No, a Problem of Genre! February 3, 2011

By Giordano Bruno

Format:Paperback

Radical feminism, to which I pledge complete allegiance, has put gender issues at the forefront of historical interest in Joan of Arc, but historiography is scarcely pertinent to the reading of George Bernard Shaw's play 'Saint Joan.' I'm told that this awkward play was a smash hit and held the stage for decades in Britain, but it's hard to imagine how or why. The first problem is not gender but 'genre.' Is it intended to play as a farce, before an audience that will chuckle genteelly at hearing Jehan d'Arc speak with a Yorkshire brogue? Or as a philosophical tragicomedy, preparing the stage of the future for Samuel Becket? The dialogue is half music-hall burlesque and half pompous twaddle. I'd have a hard time declaring which is more juvenile, the humor or the sententious lecturing.

If anyone who reads this review has seen a staged production of the play, I'd be interested in hearing whether it was 'played for laughs' or performed earnestly. Shaw is of course taken quite seriously in the world of anglophone theater, though actual productions of his works are rare in the USA. Shaw was not reticent about assuring "us" of his intelligence, and not particularly chary of condescension, but this play features some of the dumbest jokes and most preposterous dialogue I've ever read. Any audience that wasn't overawed by Shaw's elevated reputation would groan out loud at Joan's flippant folksiness.

There seems to be a "Joan-of-Arc" effect on the minds of writers, which disposes them to bizarre extravagance. I turned to Shaw's 'Saint Joan' as a follow-up to reading Mark Twain's romantic novel/ biography "Joan of Arc.' Both works are based on historical sources, chiefly the trial records, yet neither can be interpreted as 'history' in a modern sense.... Shaw was aware of Twain's book, and regarded it skeptically, yet the two works have more in common than not. Both are polemics against humanity's inability to comprehend sainthood. Read more ›