Joan of Arc on the Stage and Her Sisters in Sublime Sanctity

This book examines the figure of Joan of Arc as depicted in stage works of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, especially those based on or related to Schiller’s 1801 romantic tragedy, __Die Jungfrau von Orleans__ (__The Maid of Orleans__). The author elucidates Schiller’s appropriation of themes from Euripides’s Iphigenia plays, chiefly the quality of “sublime sanctity,” which transforms Joan’s image from a victim of fate to a warrior-prophet who changes history through sheer force of will. Finding the best-known works of his time about her – Voltaire’s __La pucelle d’Orléans and Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part I__ – utterly dissatisfying, Schiller set out to replace them. __Die Jungfrau von Orleans__ was a smashing success and inspired various subsequent treatments, including Verdi’s opera __Giovanna d’Arco__ and a translation by the father of Russian Romanticism, Vasily Zhukovsky, on which Tchaikovsky based his opera __Orleanskaya deva__ (__The Maid of Orleans__). In turn, the book’s final chapter examines Shaw’s __Saint Joan__ and finds that the Irish playwright’s vociferous complaints about Schiller’s “romantic flapdoodle” belie a surprising affinity for Schiller’s approach. Acknowledgements 6 Contents 11 About the Author 12 Abbreviations 13 List of Musical Examples 14 Chapter 1 The Palimpsest of Euripides, Shakespeare, and Voltaire 15 Part I. Euripides and Iphigenia 21 Euripides’s Iphigeneia Among the Taurians (IT) 22 Euripides’s Iphigeneia in Aulis (IA) 24 Part II. Shakespeare and Joan 28 Part III. Voltaire and Jeanne 35 Bibliography 41 Chapter 2 Sublime Sanctity: Schiller’s New Tragic Joan 43 Bibliography 97 Chapter 3 Lacuna and Enigma: Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco in Light of Schiller’s Play 99 Bibliography 142 Chapter 4 Patriotic Elegy and Epic Illusion: Schiller’s Johanna in Russia 145 Part I. Zhukovsky’s Opлeaнcкaя дeвa (“Maid of Orleans”) 145 Part II. The Genesis of Tchaikovsky’s Orleanskaya Deva (“Maid of Orleans”) 179 Bibliography 244 Chapter 5 The Skeptic Doth Protest Too Much, Methinks: Shaw’s Saint Joan—Concluding Thoughts on Joan in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries 248 References 280 Appendix A: Table Comparing the Spelling of Names 282 Appendix B: Translations of Johanna’s Speech and Joan’s Letter to Henry VI, cited on p. 39 284 Appendix C: Translations of Texts cited in Chapter 4 286 Index 290 Front Matter ....Pages i-xvii The Palimpsest of Euripides, Shakespeare, and Voltaire (John Pendergast)....Pages 1-28 Sublime Sanctity: Schiller’s New Tragic Joan (John Pendergast)....Pages 29-84 Lacuna and Enigma: Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco in Light of Schiller’s Play (John Pendergast)....Pages 85-130 Patriotic Elegy and Epic Illusion: Schiller’s Johanna in Russia (John Pendergast)....Pages 131-233 The Skeptic Doth Protest Too Much, Methinks: Shaw’s Saint Joan—Concluding Thoughts on Joan in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries (John Pendergast)....Pages 235-268 Back Matter ....Pages 269-281