Salome | Wilde's Salome

Kravec discusses the relationship between Wilde's play and the satiric illustrations that were created by Aubrey Beardsley for the published edition of Salome.

Ever since Oscar Wilde first saw them, Aubrey Beardsley's illustrations for Salomé have caused controversy. Wilde worried that the drawings, which he believed did not capture the spirit of the play, would reduce the text to the role of ‘‘illustrating Aubrey's illustrations.’’ Beardsley's audacious visual objectifications of depravity, looking even more "decadent" than his typical caricatures, may not match the deliberately crafted metaphors of remote, cold beauty that sustain Wilde's tragedy, yet the drawings transcend time and circumstance in much the same way that the...

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