Novel
Pope Joan
Η Πάπισσα Ιωάννα
Emmanuel Rhoides · 1866
Opening lines
Από του μέσου άρχονται πάντοτε οι επικοί ποιηταί.
Epic poets always begin in the middle.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
The daughter of an Irish monk who teaches her letters through relentless lessons, Joan takes on men's dress and leaves her convent with a companion. The roads of Europe, the monasteries and the schools lead her from England to Greece, where her learning makes her pass for a new Socrates, and then to Rome.
Context
The book presents itself as scholarly, with an apparatus of notes and sources that claims to prove that the female pope existed and that Rome erased her from its registers: the very form of erudition serves the satire. The Holy Synod condemned it at once and excommunicated the author, which made people read it. Three French translations have followed one another: that of Bezolle and Navidis in Athens in 1869, that of Émile Legrand in Paris in 1878, then that of Alfred Jarry and Jean Saltas in 1908, reissued by Actes Sud. German followed in 1904, English in 1935, and Lawrence Durrell produced an adaptation in 1954 which was itself retranslated into French.
Who it is for
A short narrative, very funny, in which the notes are as good as the text. It is better to know that the legend places the female pope between two vacancies of the see of Rome.
Prizes and reception
The Holy Synod of Athens excommunicated the author, and the scandal made the book a classic: it is the most widely read Greek prose of the nineteenth century outside Greece.