Joan of Arc, A Saint for All Reasons

The interaction of poetry and politics has shaped Joan into a transnational myth dedicated to the most contradictory causes. No other character has inspired a more impressive list of writers, but no other myth possesses the malleability required to serve rival camps. Whatever their distortions of fact for art's sake, these famed authors deployed an extensive knowledge of known records. The quality of the exchanges between the best creative and philosophical minds of preceding centuries, their ca