#joan of arc is my favorite french lesbian

[transwitchofthewilds]

Joan: *is at the museum for 0.5 seconds*

Sacagawea: I love you.

Amelia & Rebecca: *angrily shaking their heads*

[juniperusashei]

Saint Joan of Arc by Vita Sackville-West - 5/5

Happy 610th birthday Saint Jeanne!

Prior to reading this, I had only read Vita Sackville-West’s novel The Grand Canyon, which I was not terribly impressed by. Ironic that this work of non-fiction should read as smoothly as a novel! Joan of Arc, or Jeanne d’Arc, has long been one of my favorite historical figures, but before reading this the deepest I had dived into her life’s story was Andrea Dworkin’s essay “Virginity.” It’s not written for the scholar, but for the general reader, as is stated upfront and in Chapter 2 when Sackville-West refers to the complexities of the 100 years war. She explains the complex historical context easily for a reader with zero familiarity, with lots of 4th wall breaking.

This book chronicles Saint Jeanne’s brief life from birth to death. From the outset, the sections about her early life are charmingly written. In the middle when she’s traveling around and assembling the army was a bit boring, and a lot of the more political parts of the book were a drag, albeit necessary. By the time she got to the Siege of Orleans, it was as gripping as the best fantasy novels. Speculations about peoples’ characters (not just Joan’s) made it feel like it was about real people, and not just general groups moving about on a chessboard. For example, Sackville-West psychoanalyzes the Dauphin, King Charles VII who Joan would eventually win the throne. Such intimate personal detail escapes most historians. Her rise was cathartic, and I didn’t want it to end even though I knew what was coming. I was familiar with the details of her trial through Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, but the most heartbreaking part I didn’t know about was how all her allies including King Charles dropped her one by one.

Critics have smeared Vita Sackville-West’s account of Saint Jeanne d’Arc as inaccurate, perhaps because of a close relationship between biographer and subject. Some things may be invention, but she’s always clear about what’s her own speculation and what’s drawn from historical record. Sackville-West cites barely any other biographies, and the vast majority of the book is drawn from primary sources (left untranslated in the original French… she assumes you understand it, which I do, but even so the regional dialects and archaisms were difficult). How can you say it’s inaccurate when so much of it is Joan’s own words? 


I don’t see why people got so mad, though. The book doesn’t suggest Joan was a lesbian, like everyone claims. Perhaps if it was published under a different name they would not have such objections; if the author was not a queer woman it would not invite so much criticism. Perhaps it’s in the interest of the Catholic Church to claim this is an inaccurate depiction, because it doesn’t fully and unanimously suggest the divine— medical explanations are given when Jeanne jumps off a tower to escape the English for example, but Sackville-West also gives Jeanne the benefit of the doubt because it’s told from her perspective. Sackville-West does not fully share her own opinion until the last chapter, in which she gives both psychoanalytical and spiritual explanations for Jeanne’s miracles… but she does not outright reject either, letting the reader make their minds up. If that offends you, just skip the last chapter, but don’t discredit the rest of such a well-researched book because of it! This was genuinely one of the most inspirational books I’ve ever read, and it has something to say for everyone, whether you’re christian or atheist, feminist or otherwise.

My birthday was the day before Joan’s and just by coincidence two of my friends gave me illustrations of her! The first one is by @wonem​ the second by Jeremy Cripe!