ABSTRACT
At the end of Maxwell Anderson's play, Joan of Lorraine (1946), Mary, the actress who is to play Joan of Arc, declares with emotion that she has finally seized on how to interpret her character: 'I know now — and it's as if I knew it from Joan herself. It does not matter what we try to say about her. Nobody can use her for an alien purpose. Her own meaning will always come through, and all the rest will be forgotten'.1 However, nothing could be less true: few historical personages have been used for other than their 'own meaning' as much as Joan of Arc, as can be seen in the literature, art, films, and images of which she has been the subject over the centuries, serving purposes and causes quite foreign not only to France and the Middle Ages, but to herself. The ease with which her figure can be moulded and modulated — owing to its unusual and paradoxical association of femininity and warrior virtues, of naive ignorance and intelligence, of the spirit of revolt or loyalty to an ideal — has made her adaptable to innumerable purposes and in innumerable countries, including the United States.
