The Beheading: Salome’s Gesture in the Works of Wilde, Moreau and Beardsley

Abstract

The paper explores the problem of female subjectivity in nineteenth-century literature and visual art, focusing on the figure of Salome in the play by Oscar Wilde and the paintings of Gustave Moreau and Aubrey Beardsley. The biblical story of the Jewish princess Salome and John the Baptist, as well as the fascination with the severed head served on a silver platter, is of interest to Julia Kristeva in her book The Severed Head: Capital Visions. For Kristeva, John the Baptist can be thought of as “the figure of the figure,” he sets the course of the figure of “prophecy in actuality.” On the other hand, Kristeva sees Salome as the divine castrator who incorporates the powers of horror. She is the one who invites us to experience the figure of John the Baptist in its severing and its dance. By this manner, Salome is a singular figure who possesses the capacity of that which goes beyond representation.
In the nineteenth century, we can see a shift in the artistic perspective through which Salome’s story is introduced. Using Kristeva’s theory, this paper will propose the term “disfigure” to refer to Salome as one who disfigures the whole. Beyond the tragic delight for the audience that such a gesture of “disfiguring” brings, it is a site of a turning point in the history of the reception of Salome’s figure in art. She is not just the seductive dancer, the object of perverse male gaze, but also the subject, the doer, and agent of the “incision”.