Myth and censorship. Oscar Wilde re-writing the French classics

Abstract

Together with The Importance of Being Earnest, Salomé stands as one of the most original plays in Oscar Wilde’s dramaturgy. A major part of this originality results from the play being primarily written and published for its first performance in French, and from its consequent interpretative opacity. The choice of language constitutes an evident francophile tribute to his inspirative sources as well as a subterfuge meant to elude censorship. This paper explores the reverential sense of the play towards the mythic French literary atmosphere, and consequently, its aim is to unearth several ulterior meanings derived from its peculiar genesis. These meanings will be construed as Wilde’s aim and intention to veil deeper and more hazardous interpretations inherent in the play, transmuting them into theatrical and semic artifices well known and accepted both by the London play-goer and the dramatic conventions of the last decade of the nineteenth century.