Johanna d'Arc: Kertomus hänen elämästään ja marttyrikuolemastaan

Twain, Mark, 1835-1910Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.2

Word count: 380K words
Chapters: 38

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Johanna d'Arc: Kertomus hänen elämästään ja marttyrikuolemastaan by Mark TwainAuthor: Twain, Mark, 1835-1910,Language: Finnish, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Mar 5, 2015

Editor's review

Mark Twain's book on Joan of Arc appears here in Finnish, part of his historical writing that Chinese readers discuss less often. It is not cool-headed historical scholarship but a narrator's retelling of Joan's life and martyrdom, carrying Twain's characteristic blend of sympathy and irony: it depicts faith and courage as well as the coldness of institutions and trials. Its value lies in seeing how an American writer handles a medieval European subject across languages and cultures, and how the narrator shapes the image of the "saint" through literary means. The Finnish version works as long-form extensive reading for language learners and as comparative reading for those interested in how Joan's image evolves in literature. Note that the book contains the author's own understanding and literary embellishment and should not be treated as a direct source of historical fact; read it alongside concise historical materials, distinguishing narrative from history.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in how Joan of Arc's image is shaped in literature
Learners with Finnish reading ability who want extensive reading of a long narrative work
Those who like Mark Twain's narrative style and are willing to read his non-fiction subjects
Readers who need cross-language textual comparison or translation practice

Not a good fit for

General readers who only want Mark Twain's representative humorous novels
Those with no Finnish who hope to read the original directly
Researchers who need rigorous historical scholarship and a footnote apparatus

Reading tips

Read a concise timeline of Joan of Arc's life first, then enter the text, to distinguish fact from literary embellishment.
Keep a reading log by chapter, noting key sentences that show changes in the narrator's attitude toward Joan.
Finnish learners can read ten to fifteen pages a day, marking unfamiliar words first and looking them up after finishing the chapter.
For comparative reading, choose chapters on the trial and martyrdom and compare them with Joan's image in other literary works.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a historical work or a literary work?

It is closer to literary historical narrative. It follows the course of Joan's life but contains the narrator's imagination, judgments, and rhetorical arrangement; it is not strict historical scholarship. Readers can treat it as a text for understanding Twain's historical writing while keeping historical materials at hand to check facts.

Can I read it without knowing Finnish?

Reading the original requires some Finnish. Without Finnish, you can first learn the background from Chinese or English works by Twain and biographies of Joan, then use this book as language material or as an object of version study rather than reading it straight through.

What should I be most wary of while reading?

Be wary of taking the narrator's judgments as historical conclusions. The depictions of characters' motives, the trial process, and the atmosphere of the era involve literary choices; ask as you read: is this supported by historical sources, or arranged by the narrator for effect?

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About the author

Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 Author

Mark Twain (1835–1910), born Samuel Clemens, was an American writer known for his humorous, satirical style and colloquial narration. The library holds 161 of his works, including Roughing It, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. His fiction often draws on life along the Mississippi River, depicting boyhood adventures and travel experiences in lively language, frequently using characters' voices to satirize social customs and human weaknesses. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, noted for its use of dialect and everyday speech, has had a lasting influence on the language style of later American literature. Public information is limited, so his biographical details are not elaborated here; the focus is on the subjects and writing features of his works.