Phillips in Emily Dickinson: Personae and Performance(University Park: Pennsyl-
vania State University Press, 1988 ), 171–72. For an interesting survey of nine-
teenth- and twentieth-century interpretations of Joan of Arc, see Joan Acocella,
“Burned Again,” The New Yorker,Nov. 15 , 1999 , 98–106.
Although Christine de Pizan’s contemporary depiction of Joan of Arc (“Le Di-
tié de Jeanne d’Arc,” dated 1429 , the year before Joan’s death) also portrayed her
positively, Joan’s achievements had a very different meaning for de Pizan than
for the Romantics. De Pizan celebrates Joan for defeating the English and for en-
abling Charles VII to be crowned but also expresses the hope that Joan will crush
the Hussites, reunite the church after the schism, and lead a crusade for the re-
capture of the Holy Land (The Writings of Christine de Pizan, ed. Charity Cannon
Willard [New York: Persea, 1994 ], 348–63).
Another very popular woman warrior of the time was Nadezhda Durova
(1783–1866), who, dressed as a man, fought against Napoleon and later became
a writer. Pushkin published Durova’s memoirs in his Sovremennik.On Durova,
see Mary Zirin, “Nadezhda Durova, Russia’s ‘Cavalry Maiden,’” in The Cavalry
Maiden,by Nadezhda Durova, trans. Mary Zirin (Bloomington: Indiana Uni-
versity Press, 1989 ), ix–xxxvii.
39 .William Shakespeare, The First Part of King Henry VI,ed. Michael Hatt-
away (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990 ), 93 , 94 , 129 , 130 , 159 , 167 ,
174 ; Voltaire, La Pucelle: Poème en vingt-un chants avec les notes par Voltaire (Paris:
Pierre Didot, 1801 ).
40 .Southey, Joan of Arc, 1 : 18. See Stuart Curran’s discussion of Southey’s Joan
of Arc,which he describes as “anti-war and anti-imperialistic” (Poetic Form and
British Romanticism,167–68).
41 .On the influence of Shakespeare’s depiction of Joan on Schiller, see
Heffner, preface to Die Jungfrau von Orleans,xiii. It is hard to believe that Schiller
would not also have known Southey’s epic, given its popularity at the time.
(Southey, Poetical Works, 1 : 19–20, describes the epic’s reception.) Heffner writes
that Schiller’s play is based on Kant’s idea that a moral act is one in which duty
and inclination collide (preface, xvii–xxi). In the play Joan, therefore, must be
shown to “fall” by experiencing sexual desire in order to triumph over this in-
clination and achieve moral freedom.
42 .In Voltaire’s mock epic, Saint Denis, patron saint of France and Joan’s pro-
tector, allows Joan almost to be seduced by her donkey because he feels that she
is becoming too self-sufficient:
Denis volut que son Jeanne, qu’il aime,
Connut enfin ce q’on est par soi-même,
Et qu’une femme en tout occasion
Pour se conduire a besoin d’un patron.
(canto 20 , 240 )h
(Denis wanted his Joan, whom he loves,
To know finally what she is by herself,Notes to Pages 150 –155 275