Saint Joan: A Play - Softcover

Shaw, George Bernard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1557421838 ISBN 13: 9781557421838

Publisher: GBS Books, 2010

Synopsis

Saint Joan is a play by George Bernard Shaw, based on the life and trial of Joan of Arc. Published not long after the canonization of Joan of Arc by the Roman Catholic Church, the play dramatises what is known of her life based on the substantial records of her trial. Shaw studied the transcripts and decided that the concerned people acted in good faith according to their beliefs. He wrote: "There are no villains in the piece. Crime, like disease, is not interesting: it is something to be done away with by general consent, and that is all [there is] about it. 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." Michael Holroyd has characterised the play as "a tragedy without villains" and also as Shaw's "only tragedy." John Fielden has discussed further the appropriateness of characterising Saint Joan as a tragedy.

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: GBS Books
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1557421838
• ISBN 13: 9781557421838
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 148