literature

The Vision of La Pucelle

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Published: Apr 24, 2012

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Literature Text

Three em-bloodied gold-gilt lions descend
on the silver lilies of far fair France—
grim and red-stained kings—while her sons defend
the broken land with shriven spear and lance.
The smoking reek of famine, war, and death,
plague, and wailing cries, and desolation:
sick land—poor and weary France!—gasps for breath
with the diseased and choking nation's desperation.
Drenched afresh in humiliations new:
of Agincourt, and bloody Henry's fame
where the proud many fell to England's few
and knighthood's flow'r perished in bitter shame.
The peasant maid sits in a sainted trance;
Arise O Joan! And save belovéd France!

The Vision of La Pucelle

"Joan of Arc and the Archangel Michael" by Eugene Thirion

So, for my Shakespeare class, I had to do a final project about one of the plays we read in class, and one of the choices was to write a Shakespearean sonnet (Hey! Beats writing a five page paper!). So you know, 14 lines, abab, 10 syllables each line with the rhyming couplet at the end and all that.

Anyway, the play I picked was the most awesome and epic Henry V, which I (obviously) loved.

But for my sonnet I added a little twist: it's the Hundred Years war and Agincourt from the French perspective. I actually wrote the rhyming couplet at the end first, and I imagined the above image by Eugene Thirion of Joan of Arc with that trance-like expression.

So I imagine her either recalling these events in her mind, or being reminded of them by the Archangel Michael and being told: Go and save France!

So Happy Birthday Shakespeare! (Even though he probably would not have a approved, hahah, thinking dear Jeanne la Pucelle to be a witch and all that. Well, we'll forgive him. He was slightly biased after all.

)