Comparing Shaw's St. Joan with Bolt's Thomas More

If you tear me limb from limb until you separate my soul from my body you will get nothing out of me beyond what I have told you. What more is there to tell that you could understand?

Besides, I cannot bear to be hurt; and if you hurt me I will say anything you like to stop the pain. But I will take it all back afterwards; so what is the use of that?

Sources

BBCi Thomas More
Purdue questions on Shaw's Preface to St Joan
ou phrontis Summary & Commentary:
G. B. Shaw Site
Saint Joan of Arc's trial transcripts:
 
Margaret Walsh 2001 talk: summary /commentary
 
Patriotism, politics and St. Joan
By John P. Fraunces (Review of film The Messenger)
 
http://www.feminista.com/v2n1/eaton.html
 

Item for comparison
Shaw
Bolt

Playrights' transformation of historical reality have on the audience?

Yes not historical, not

hagiographical?

Not historical

Non-Christian view

Secular virtue

How is their stand "a burning question"?

Forces a fusion of issues; does not deal well with

misunderstandings

Crux of historical, political, religious forces

Aftermath; History's judgement
  • According to Sackville-West, Joan of Arc "forces us to think. She makes us think, and she makes us question" (p. 326);
  • posthumous Trial of Rehabilitation in 1456;
  • Pope Benedict XV, who canonized Joan in 1920

Patriot

Genuine hero of individuality

Canonised 1936

Trial and execution scene

Reims

Westminster Hall and Tower of London 1535

long silence was diplomatic for survival

Joan's long silence about her revelations

self imposed long silence about his beliefs

character's own View of Destiny

"For this was I born," she 'd say

Sacrificed all for this event and its symbolic meaning

Naïve?

Possibly

Apparent only; a well constructed simplicity

relationship with God

intimate revleations Voices

Personal conscience

sincerity of belief.

absolute

absolute

"genius" and a "saint"

Yes

Yes

deals with "romanticism" and "scepticism"?

Yes

Yes

Ahead of the times; stands against "resistance to social change"

Yes

Yes

Suicidal?

possibly

No

Table © G B Smith November 2002
 
Discussion: Joan vs. More
 
Religious ideas
 
What struck me about reading Shaw's St Joan was the setting of the era:
the world had not yet been divided into Catholic and Protestant; it was
a generalized catholic Europe and the continuities across borders were
evoked in the duty of everyone to observe, maintain and owe allegiance
to the universal Catholic Church.
 
So Joan's major crime was heresy not horse stealing but her
individuality - her denial of the mediation of the Church between Man
and God. Her voices (immediate contact with the Divine Wisdom through
St Catherine and St Margaret) defied the built up traditional and
mandatory approval of the pope and Church on matters divine. To propose
crowning the Dauphin and then waging a campaign at Orleans was
foolhardy, intuitive, irresponsible, individualistic,
 
There is always a tension between prophet and church, between seer and
king, between mystic and hierarchy. Joan embodied many of these
tensions: not only did her divine mandates in her Voices come from
outside the structures of the Church, but her refusal to wear female
clothing was an affront to tradition and convention, as was her
intrusion into the male domain of fighting and strategy, but also her
refusal to go home and do the female things a refusal to carry out her
God deemed roles in life. This anachronistic feminism must have had a
tantalizing appeal to Shaw in the 20th century.
 
More on the other hand was a true son of the Church, a church that was
still medieval in tone too. He stressed more quietly his own contact
with divine wisdom in the privacy of his conscience, which was another
unconventional thing to do. Like Joan he believed this wisdom ahead of
the conventional one, the 'reasonable' thing to do. Like Joan his
motivation was religious, with a religiousness that others dared not
believe, accept or follow. As they would think: How can one be so sure
so certain without the comfort of social acceptance? More is implying
(saying through actions = his silence) that the whole society is in the
wrong according to some extra societal set of values. He sets his
insight above the collected wisdom of the age and for that he had to
die. Did not Jesus and Socrates do the same and suffer the same fate?
 
Political ideas
 
Both Joan and More interacted with the top levels of their societies,
with the Kings. They were both not born to this class and were seen as
above their station. More's rank in society was bestowed through
personality, learning, skill and diplomacy; Joan's was acquired through
sheer persistence, singularity, unnerving certainty, and 'guts.' Their
plans/projects differed one to be proactive in fighting the English, the
other to be passive not to fight his King but both nonetheless were
outstandingly successful in foregrounding their issues, causes and
provoking public respect.
 
G Smith 23/11/02

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