Product Description

Once banned, Salome is now rarely performed. Berkoff's new production has astonished audiences and this edition contains the original text together with Beardsley's fine illustrations and an introduction by Berkoff.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #388420 in Books
• Published on: 2002-08-14
• Original language: French
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 64 pages

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

About the Author
Oscar Wilde

Customer Reviews

A Simple Tale of Complex Pasison
This affordably-priced edition of Salome contains all the Aubrey Beardsley drawings and is the English translation undertaken by Lord Alfred Douglas of Wilde's most brilliant tale of passion, which was originally written in French to avoid (unsuccessfully) Victorian censorship. Salome is a simple tale of complex passion. Wilde's heroine bears no resemblance to her biblical origin. His Salome is no mere instrument of Herodias, but a dangerous and passionate young woman whose thwarted affections for John the Baptist lead to a disasterous climax for all persons involved. Wilde's script is a brilliant look at deep-rooted desires and the dangers of obsession. This edition of the play is a must for anyone building their own theatrical library.

Powerful
This play is based on the biblical story of the death of John the Baptist. Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Judea, is married to his brother's wife Herodias, but finds himself lusting after her daughter Salome. Overcome with wine and passion for Salome, he offers her anything to dance the dance of seven veils for him. Little does he know what price she will exact.

Oscar Wilde first published this book in Paris in 1891 in an attempt to bypass Victorian censorship. In 1894 it was translated into English, and published with a series of illustrations created by the incomparable Aubrey Beardsley. This book was quite shocking to Victorian Britain.

This book surprised me with its power. While not erotic in the modern, XXX sense, it is a compelling tale of decadence. The characters give no thought to anything but their own pleasure, and the worst of them all is the young (and far from innocent) Salome. Beardsley's stark, black-and-white pictures add to the tale, complementing Wilde's text with a disturbing, passionless sexuality. This is a fascinating story, and one that I recommend to any adult.

It could be a perfect opera
Oscar Wilde touches here a fundamental subject in Christian lore : Salome and John the Baptist, and through them Jesus and the prophesy that he is the Messiah. It would be a perfect subject for an opera because the events are contained in too short a time and the feelings and motivations are too simple and intensely concentrated for a dramaruc play. Salome asks for John's head out of spite because she could not possess him, because he refused to acknowledge her, and also because she knows this will mean the downfall of her step-father, the killer of her own father, and the incestuous husband of her mother. So vengeance is her second motivation. Those motivations are too simple to build up the tragical force of a play, but they are so intense that they could have inspired the most dramatic and powerful music. Oscar Wilde's language is beautiful in many ways but this beauty does not give any complexity to the simpleness of the emotions and motivations. This beautiful language could have become the carrier of a beautiful music. Actually we can hear the music of a Scarlatti, or of a Purcell behind the words, maybe even a Haendel. But as a play it is a little bit flat and without enough depth to build a beautiful performance. As a matter of fact the centrepiece of the play, the dance of the seven veils, is not a dramatic event but a visual and musical event. And we cannot in anyway escape the recollection of the fantastic little black and white film by Clive Barker on the subject. Salome is worth more than just a dramatic play. She can only find her full strength when music and dancing come into the picture, when it is fully visual and musical.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Perpignan