Saint Joan (Penguin Plays) - Softcover

Shaw, George B.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140480056 ISBN 13: 9780140480054

Publisher: Penguin, 1981

Synopsis

This volume contains Bernard Shaw’s 1924 play, "Saint Joan". It is a ‘chronicle play’ in six scenes, and an epilogue that revolves around Joan of Arc. It elucidates her immense personality, problems, and potential. As well as the play itself, Shaw also furnishes a number of chapters on Joan of Arc that offer interesting insights into her life and character. This interesting and thought-provoking play will appeal to fans and collectors of Shaw’s seminal work, and would make for a great addition to any collection. The chapters of this book include: “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”, etcetera. Many vintage texts such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive, and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this book now, in an affordable, high-quality, modern edition. It comes complete with a specially commissioned biography of the author.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

'Everything she did was thoroughly calculated; and though the process was so rapid that she was hardly conscious of it, and ascribed it all to her voices, she was a woman of policy and not of blind impulse'

With Saint Joan, Shaw reached the height of his fame as a dramatist. In this magnificent play he distilled many of the ideas he had been trying to express in earlier works on the subjects of politics, religion and creative evolution. Fascinated by the story of Joan of Arc, but unhappy with the way she had traditionally been depicted, Shaw wanted to remove 'the whitewash which disfigures her beyond recognition'. He presents a realistic Joan: proud, intolerant, naive, foolhardy, always brave -- a rebel who challenged the conventions and values of her day. As Imogen Stubbs writes, 'All Joans are relevant but some Joans are more relevant than others -- I think Shaw's Saint Joan is the right one to be received by the twenty-first century'.

The definitive text under the editorial supervision of Dan H. Laurence

About the Author:

The Editor, Jean Chothia, is a Fellow of Selwyn College and Reader in Drama and Theatre in the University of Cambridge. Her books include Forging a Language: A Study of the Plays of Eugene O'Neill; English Drama of the Early Modern Period, 1890-1940, and, as editor, 'The New Woman' and Other Emancipated Woman Plays.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1981
• ISBN 10: 0140480056
• ISBN 13: 9780140480054
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160