The Transformation Of Beauty:A Comparative Study Of The Images Of Joan D' Arc In Shakespeare,Twain And Shaw

As a national heroine in France,Joan d'Arc has been the focus of interest to numerous European historians and artists.From the perspective of imagology in comparative literature,this thesis is intended to analyze the images of Joan d'Arc in William Shakespeare's King Henry ?,Mark Twain's Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc and Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan.According to the theories of imagology,a foreign image is not a mere copy of reality,nor is it a representation of history,but a subjective construction of the creative subject,the product of collective imagination and an interaction between the subject and the "Other".By analyzing the images of Joan represented in the three works,this thesis aims to reveal how the historical image of a foreign country is creatively constructed by the subject,and to elaborate on the value of the beauty concerning Joan's image,which lies in the integration of collective imagination and personal value as well as the inheritance and transcendence of classics.This thesis consists of five parts.The first part mainly introduces the historical background of Joan,summarizes the research of previous contributors and the essence of imagology in comparative literature,and states the significance of this thesis.The second part presents the diversified images of Joan in the three texts concerned—the shameless slut with witchcraft in Shakespeare's writing,the indestructible goddess in Twain's novel,and the saint in Shaw's play.The third part explores how the three masters have dissolved,created,and constructed Joan's beauty in hope of illustrating that writers do not mean to reflect history but aim at creation and transcendence.The fourth part mainly discusses the reasons behind the foreign image construction:Shakespeare's Joan is ideological,reflecting the nationalist sentiment in the Victorian society and gender discrimination of the dramatist;Twain and Shaw,out of dissatisfaction with their own societies,have turned Joan's image into a Utopian pattern;however their emotional appeals are quite different with the former being driven by nostalgia and passion for nature and the latter aspiring for a new era and the future.The fifth part summarizes the main points of the previous parts and concludes that Joan's image has undergone a process of constant beautification from the witch to the goddess and to the new woman.With the change of time and space and the reinterpretation of classics,collective imagination will be updated,and cultural tolerance and female consciousness widely accepted;consequently,the image of Joan will increasingly conform to modern aesthetic notion.