Stand Up the Real Maid: The St Joan Theme in Selected Modern English Language and European Authors

Abstract

This thesis is by its very nature a survey, not of a medieval problem, so much as of a legacy - of an enigma - Joan herself. The subject accords well with an earlier area, 'the mediaeval background' in which postgraduate studies had been taken, exploring problems of the medieval world, several of which, like the character of Haakon the Good, have lingered on to tease the imagination of subsequent centuries. Yet the Norse king's religious state, like his rallying of his country to expel the enemy, has neither appealed to, nor teased the minds of men far beyond his own land, even though there have been some Norwegian and other modern novels endeavouring to flesh out the spiritual complexities of the latter part of his life. The situation is quite other with Joan of Arc who has lived ever more vibrantly since her death in 1431 - in religion, in history, and, for those whose business is literature and historiography, in the arena of public theatre and even more popular (Australian produced) fiction.