Erecting a Pyramid in France: Tomb Symbolism in 1 Henry VI

The article examines the unusual language the French nobility use to describe Joan la Pucelle in Shakespeare’s 1 Henry VI. Throughout the play, the French struggle to generate satisfactory expressions of gratitude towards their unconventional champion. Eventually, they settle on envisioning a future where Joan is commemorated with a splendid monument combining the secular magnificence of a pyramid and the religious glory of a saint’s shrine. In effect, the nobles regale the living Joan with elaborate promises about how they will honor her memory once she is dead. The French choose this peculiar brand of admiration because they fear that all of their conventional models of hero-worship cannot contain a figure as transgressive as Joan. Instead, they must leap forward imaginatively, to a point after she has finished leading France to glory and has died, a point where they can commemorate her without confronting the troublesome ways she disrupts their patriarchal authority. The article examines both the implications of the French nobles’ actions in the play and the reasons that this particular usage of tomb imagery does not appear elsewhere in early modern English drama.