Wilde’s French Salomé
This paper focuses on Wilde’s use of French in his dramatization of the Biblical story, Salomé. It argues that Wilde adopted the foreign language as a strategy for representing the taboo of incestuous and homoerotic desire, murder and necrophilia. His aesthetic objective was to produce a work belong...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée
2010-12-01
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| Series: | Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/cve/2729 |
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| author | Emily Eells |
| author_facet | Emily Eells |
| author_sort | Emily Eells |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This paper focuses on Wilde’s use of French in his dramatization of the Biblical story, Salomé. It argues that Wilde adopted the foreign language as a strategy for representing the taboo of incestuous and homoerotic desire, murder and necrophilia. His aesthetic objective was to produce a work belonging to the school of French decadentism and adhering to its principles of symbolism. He uses the French language as if it were a system of signs divorced from their semantic meaning, creating as pure a musical notation as verbal language can allow. A study of the manuscript versions of his play reveals his limited knowledge of French, though this paper interprets the mistakes as key to his poetic achievement. Wilde’s play is untranslatable: both the illustrator Aubrey Beardsley and the composer Richard Strauss recognized the quintessential French quality of the script, and respected it in their creative translations into another artistic genre. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-292f5baa76a14112a110ae15b0f213db |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 0220-5610 2271-6149 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2010-12-01 |
| publisher | Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens |
| spelling | doaj-art-292f5baa76a14112a110ae15b0f213db2025-01-30T10:21:41ZengPresses Universitaires de la MéditerranéeCahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens0220-56102271-61492010-12-017211513010.4000/cve.2729Wilde’s French SaloméEmily EellsThis paper focuses on Wilde’s use of French in his dramatization of the Biblical story, Salomé. It argues that Wilde adopted the foreign language as a strategy for representing the taboo of incestuous and homoerotic desire, murder and necrophilia. His aesthetic objective was to produce a work belonging to the school of French decadentism and adhering to its principles of symbolism. He uses the French language as if it were a system of signs divorced from their semantic meaning, creating as pure a musical notation as verbal language can allow. A study of the manuscript versions of his play reveals his limited knowledge of French, though this paper interprets the mistakes as key to his poetic achievement. Wilde’s play is untranslatable: both the illustrator Aubrey Beardsley and the composer Richard Strauss recognized the quintessential French quality of the script, and respected it in their creative translations into another artistic genre.https://journals.openedition.org/cve/2729 |
| spellingShingle | Emily Eells Wilde’s French Salomé Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens |
| title | Wilde’s French Salomé |
| title_full | Wilde’s French Salomé |
| title_fullStr | Wilde’s French Salomé |
| title_full_unstemmed | Wilde’s French Salomé |
| title_short | Wilde’s French Salomé |
| title_sort | wilde s french salome |
| url | https://journals.openedition.org/cve/2729 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT emilyeells wildesfrenchsalome |