The Shulamite of Sodom: Wilde’s Subversion of the Song of Songs and the Birth of the Monstrous-Feminine

• Main Author: Gerrard Carter
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès 2019-10-01
• Series: Miranda: Revue Pluridisciplinaire du Monde Anglophone
• Subjects: Oscar Wilde; Salomé; Song of Songs; Ernest Renan; the Bible; intertextuality
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/miranda/20560

Oscar Wilde’s symbolist tragedy Salomé (1891) possesses a rich and complex intertextual history incorporating a number of French literary sources and biblical influences. The two significant accounts in the Bible that deal with John the Baptist’s beheading at the request of Herod’s stepdaughter are Matthew 14:6-11 and Mark 6:14-29. However, Wilde was not only inspired by the New Testament, but also, by the Old Testament. In his reinterpretation of the biblical text, Wilde was influenced by one biblical book in particular, the Song of Songs, and most strikingly by Ernest Renan’s French translation from the original Hebrew, Le Cantique des Cantiques (1860). This study demonstrates the importance of the Song of Songs as a biblical hypotext that Wilde inverted to create a daring departure from his success as a renowned Victorian playwright of satirical humour. In rewriting the sensual poetics of the Song of Songs, Wilde was able to extract its raw sexual themes and expose them with a newfound reality. This study explores the subversion of the Song of Songs and the author’s motivating desire to represent the monstrous-feminine.