« The first great warrior for the freedom of nations » : Jeanne d’Arc et l’imaginaire américain

Abstract

This article explores how the figure of Joan of Arc is revisited in John Daly Burk’s Female Patriotism; or, the Death of Joan d’Arc: An Historic Play in V Acts (1798) and Charles McClellan Stevens’ biography of the maid (1918). Although they were published in completely different contexts, both works are informed by a teleological vision of history in which Joan’s life both reenacts and foreshadows the advent of the American nation. They also respond to Shakespeare’s representation of the virgin warrior although their use of the Elizabethan playwright is part and parcel of a legitimizing strategy.