France celebrates Joan of Arc's 600th birthday

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr7gJfSUalqKK1wzKs4i2Z7Y-QoSO_g1yqH2vZ2w5QQCoTN8F1RNwD40kmNdhPnVeafCN6LfAdIR0N5nB9y85sZvcBLW6fwDNVJQ_hYV6nwmwPBy0a17-w1cdqFG4knVXHNDDBHhxTFjI/s1600/images10.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr7gJfSUalqKK1wzKs4i2Z7Y-QoSO_g1yqH2vZ2w5QQCoTN8F1RNwD40kmNdhPnVeafCN6LfAdIR0N5nB9y85sZvcBLW6fwDNVJQ_hYV6nwmwPBy0a17-w1cdqFG4knVXHNDDBHhxTFjI/s1600/images10.jpeg" /></a></div>The normally tranquil city of Orleans is buzzing with festivities over the next two weeks to mark the 600th birthday of one of France's best cultural exports: Joan of Arc.<br /><br />Looking appropriately cinematic, the Loire River swarmed with wooden boats carrying locals in medieval garb last week, re-enacting Joan of Arc's famous entry into the city in 1429.<br /><br />The day that saw Orleans liberated from English invaders has been dramatized in film the world over, most famously in 1948's Oscar-winning epic of the French martyr with Ingrid Bergman, and more recently, in Luc Besson's award-winning 1999 blockbuster with Milla Jovovich. <br /><br />Joan's place in the history books has not only been sealed through cinema, but also through myriad novels, poems, rock songs, operas and plays over the centuries — making her one of the most talked-about figures in history.<br /><br /><b><a href="http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20120505/entlife/705069983/" target="_blank">Click here to read this article from the Chicago Daily Herald</a></b><br /><br /><b><a href="http://www.medievalists.net/tag/joan-of-arc/" target="_blank">See more articles about Joan of Arc</a></b>

France celebrates Joan of Arc's 600th birthday

The normally tranquil city of Orleans is buzzing with festivities over the next two weeks to mark the 600th birthday of one of France's ...

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The Riddle Of Mark Twain's Passion For Joan Of Arc

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi02Ocs4AlsI3b0sFCsEWrfWwa89PlQ2dRKXZRrGaMAfkIAHS_81_64F8ATlJUG6_vDtlzokByS7Zt2keQWz0k_Be-7Ts-bN84zg8L7-9L5CkpjAaX-kJtTRPcBSj7ED9LtaTwtzSE64Nk/s1600/mark-twain.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi02Ocs4AlsI3b0sFCsEWrfWwa89PlQ2dRKXZRrGaMAfkIAHS_81_64F8ATlJUG6_vDtlzokByS7Zt2keQWz0k_Be-7Ts-bN84zg8L7-9L5CkpjAaX-kJtTRPcBSj7ED9LtaTwtzSE64Nk/s1600/mark-twain.jpeg" /></a></div>Mark Twain’s obsession with Joan of Arc has to rank among the most baffling and least talked about enigmas in American literature. Even for those entrenched within the competitive world of Twain scholarship, stories like the one above are usually treated as interesting, but ultimately trifling, anecdotes, illustrative of the eccentricities of a predictably unconventional man.<br /><br /> The same might also be said of his book about the French heroine. Published in 1896, when its author was 61, <i>Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc </i>has long been viewed as something of an aberration, a curio—the type of genre-bending work that a bored, established writer often undertakes in order to buck audience expectations. Narrated by a fictionalized version of Joan’s servant and scribe, Sieur Louis de Conte, the book spans the majority of Joan’s life, beginning with her childhood in eastern France and ending with her questionable trial and execution. While other Twain novels such as <i>A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court</i> and <i>The Prince and the Pauper</i> are also set in medieval Europe, far from the author’s more familiar milieu of mid-19th century Missouri, Recollections is unique in its somber tone. <br /><br /><b><a href="http://www.theawl.com/2012/04/the-riddle-of-mark-twains-passion-for-joan-of-arc" target="_blank">Click here to read this article from The Awl</a></b> <iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=medievalistsn-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=1619492792&ref=tf_til&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_top&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="width:120px;height:240px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=medievalistsn-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=1936041774&ref=tf_til&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_top&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="width:120px;height:240px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe>

The Riddle Of Mark Twain's Passion For Joan Of Arc

Mark Twain’s obsession with Joan of Arc has to rank among the most baffling and least talked about enigmas in American literature. Even for ...

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