ST JOAN - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812419219 ISBN 13: 9780812419214

Synopsis

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, naive, foolhardy, always bravea rebel who challenged the conventions and values of her day.

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

• ISBN 10: 0812419219
• ISBN 13: 9780812419214
• Binding: Paperback