| Popis: |
The Tudor chronicler Edward Hall describes the historical figure of Joan of Arc primarily as “this wytch or manly woman”, as if the two terms were interchangeable or as if one accounted for the other. Both Hall in his portrayal of Joan and Shakespeare in his adaptation of the same underline an intrinsic link in the minds of their contemporaries between witchcraft and female deviancy, frequently illustrated in Renaissance plays through a treatment of the hellish blood contract as a perverted and parodic equivalent of the maternal gesture of breastfeeding a baby. This assimilation is reflected in the carefully wrought food imagery of 1 Henry VI, which shows a gradual transformation of Joan, not only from a Faustian figure “exceeding her sex” into a vulgar village witch, but from a purveyor of the infernal cauldron into a devil's delicacy roasted at the stake. |
