She has been specifically claimed, in other words, by both France and Rome, however much her general appeal might extend to other causes and denominations. In fact, along with her many iterations in art, literature, opera and film, I suspect there have been more pop songs written about Joan – Kate Bush, Madonna and Leonard Cohen are only the first few names on the list – than about any other individual in history.īut, in versions of her story that are not completely unmoored from the recorded details of her life, the central elements of her persona are her nationalism, in the positive sense of national self-determination, and her faith. ‘All things to all people’ still seems to me an appropriate way of describing a figure who has lent her name to everything from a North American brand of canned beans (under the slogan ‘JOAN of ARC ® – the Heroic Bean!’) to a recent track by British girl group Little Mix (‘Man, I feel like Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Queen of Hearts’). When I was writing this book, I was acutely aware that, over the centuries, Joan has become both instantly recognisable in image and almost infinitely malleable in meaning. FROM "JOAN OF ARC" (FOLIO SOCIETY EDITION)
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