Mark+Joan=Love?

I got Personal Recollection of Joan of Arc yesterday, and though I did not feel I could immediately apply myself to it because of other current reading, I read Mark Twain’s 1904 essay/appendix as an appetizer. I was suddenly confronted with the conundrum of Author’s Mystique, the Cult of Personality and whether Biography should be used to enlighten Literary Criticism, or Literary Criticism to enlighten Biography. Was Mark Twain ‘in love’ with Joan of Arc, and if so in what manner?

“Joan of Arc largely lacks the humor prevalent in Twain's other works, and it has a different tone and flow. He had a personal fascination with Joan of Arc which began in the early 1850s when he found a leaf from her biography and asked his brother Henry if she was a real person. Cultural historian Ted Gioia notes that Twain was "raised in a Southern culture that was deeply suspicious of – and sometimes openly hostile to – Roman Catholicism", but that in the novel Twain comes across as passionately Catholic.

“Twain based Joan of Arc's physical appearance on his daughter Suzy Clemens, as he remembered her at age 17. He began writing the novel late in 1892, then set it aside until 1894; he finished the manuscript in 1895. He serialized an abridged version for magazine publication, then published the full-length book in 1896.

“However, 20th-century critics have not favored Recollections, and it is hardly read or acknowledged in the mainstream today, especially compared to Twain's comedic works such as Huckleberry Finn, Pudd'n Head Wilson, and Tom Sawyer.

“In the preface to his play Saint Joan, G. B. Shaw accused Twain of being "infatuated" with Joan of Arc. Shaw says that Twain "romanticizes" the story of Joan, reproducing a legend that the English deliberately rigged the trial to find her guilty of witchcraft and heresy. Recent study of the trial transcripts, however, suggests that Twain's depiction may have been closer to the truth than Shaw was willing to accept.

“Susan Harris expresses befuddlement at this work's placement in Twain's body of works: "By the time Twain is writing Recollections, he's not a believer. He is anti-Catholic, and he doesn't like the French. So he writes a book about a French-Catholic-martyr? Ostensibly, it doesn't make a lot of sense." - Wikipedia

“Twain's "Angelfish":

• A Club for Girls: Near the end of his life, Twain formed a club for girls aged 10-16, whom he called his "angel-fish". He claimed this "Aquarium Club" was his "life's chief delight,".
• Nostalgia and Longing: Some speculate his interest stemmed from loneliness and a longing for grandchildren, as his own daughters were grown and his favorite, Suzy, had passed away.
• Idealized Innocence: Twain described the girls as "pretty and sweet and naive and innocent—dear young creatures to whom life is a perfect joy". 

“While Twain's book on Joan of Arc showcases his deep admiration for her, his relationship with his "angel-fish" has raised questions and discussions about the nature of his intentions and the historical context of his actions.” – AI summation.

So the academic (if gossipy) question remains. What was the relationship of Joan of Arc to Mark Twain’s ‘angel-fish’, and both to his deceased daughter Suzy? It is easy to see that an elderly, bleak, bitter man might well want to warm himself close to the fire of youth, beauty, innocence, even of faith. Boys were too mawkish to befriend, in a way rivals. Joan of Arc was historical, true, and safely dead, not likely to fade or disappoint, or become dangerously too real or too personal.

Mark Twain, when all is said and done, was a Victorian gentleman (if somewhat provincial), and the conventions of society sat uneasily upon him. But deeper than those were his convictions of morality, of human decency. If you had confronted him with the modern idea that his hero-worship (either of Joan of Arc or of his angel-fish) were just sublimations of his own sexual desires, he would no doubt be appalled – not by the notion that it might be true, but by the fact that you were so depraved as to make the suggestion.

His image of Joan might well be entangled with idealized memories of his dead daughter; after all, he used Suzy to ‘plug in the gaps in the DNA’ to recreate Joan. A fact that would add another layer of infamy (in his eyes) to the vile canard. Some might point out, whatever Mark Twain’s feelings about the matter, that down at the root of things ‘there must be something inside.’

All of which is neither here nor there as far as the actual book is concerned, an entanglement of ‘the personal heresy’ (the idea that a piece of imaginative writing is primarily a reflection of the author's personality, not a separate creation to be judged on its own merits). And this is an imaginative recreation of a historical personality and events. It should be judged according to its own literary merits, not on some pop-psychological analysis of its author and his supposed motives. Modern critics might well want to discredit Joan among his creations; it seems to have too much faith to fit in with their modern notions of Twain as an acerbic social commentator, so that Joan is a 12-year moment of weakness, an aberration that does not fit in with their image (idol?) of Twain. He might have - gasp! - actually believed in something ideal.

All of which is neither here nor there, as I say. But the idea of the personal heresy will color what I read, I’m afraid, whether I will or no. It has become the dominant tool of literary criticism in modern times, ubiquitous, made spicy by personal gossip and the inquisitorial nature of social criticism. Whose flag can we safely adhere to? Mark Twain found his in Joan of Arc.