The Eighth Veil: the Poetics and Aesthetics of Ambiguity in Oscar Wilde’S Salomé
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The Eighth Veil: The Poetics and Aesthetics of Ambiguity in Oscar Wilde’s Salomé Gerrard Carter Supervisors: Dr Bertrand Bourgeois and Associate Professor Jacqueline Dutton Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of the degree Doctor of Philosophy March 2017 School of Languages and Linguistics, French Studies Program The University of Melbourne ABSTRACT Oscar Wilde’s 1891 radical tragedy Salomé is infused with symbolism, decadence and erotic transgression. Ambiguity is also a key characteristic that enhances and extends the aesthetic and textual analysis of Wilde’s rare French symbolist work, and yet it is often overlooked. Through a semiotic and transtextual analysis of the poetics and aesthetics in Salomé, this thesis examines the function of ambiguity in the play and how this notion creates an open work to be actively interpreted by readers. From the perspective of the present study, the decisive role of semiotics in relation to Wilde’s Salomé is that it promotes an interactive process between text and reader. Through the interpretation of signs, Salomé, as an ambiguous text, cries out for elaboration as it enticingly beckons the addressee to become its co-author. The dominant function of Wilde’s treatment of the Salomé myth is that of experimentation. It is the result of the author’s original and creative experimentation that presents the reader with a high degree of ambiguity. The innate ambiguity of the text engenders a literary response, as the reader engages in an intertextual pas de deux. This metaphorical dance enables the reader to unlock the text’s meaning while also permitting freedom for creative adaptions. The methodology employed in this thesis to demonstrate Salomé’s masked or ambiguous motives is a combination of Umberto Eco’s concept of the open work and French narratological theories of hypertextuality. Through an examination of the use of a foreign language and the transtextual mosaic of the Salomé myth, this thesis will demonstrate how generating interpretations becomes an essential element of Salomé’s poetics and aesthetics. This study reveals, for instance, that Wilde’s enigmatic Dance of the Seven Veils is now synonymous with the myth today and has fired the imagination of countless artists from a variety of media. By comparing the use of French as a veil to conceal the themes of decadence, necrophilia and erotic sensuality of the femme fatale, this thesis seeks to elucidate Oscar Wilde’s motivations to write a very implicit, allusive and ambiguous play in French. To discover such motives would be to lift the eighth veil, the veil of ambiguity. i This is to certify that (i) the thesis comprises only my original work towards the PhD except where indicated, (ii) due acknowledgment has been made in the text to all material used, (iii) the thesis is less than 100,000 words in length, exclusive of tables, maps, bibliographies and appendices. ii PREFACE One of my earliest memories I have as a child is seeing the film Jesus of Nazareth directed by Franco Zeffirelli. I must have been five years old but the image of the dancing Salomé surrounded by flames was indelibly etched in my mind and has remained so for a lifetime. What was it that captivated that young boy to engender a life long obsession with this biblical myth? Apart from being drawn in by the drama, the underlying theme of a desire so powerful that it can lead to death has perplexed me all my life. Another prominent childhood memory is the discovery of my eldest sister’s high school French book, a visually strange language coupled with unfamiliar accents that echoed from a world away. This early love of foreign languages, led me to an Irish author who had composed a play about Salomé in a language other than his own, French. It was this awareness that inspired my quest to discover what lies beneath the eighth veil. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are many influential forces that have guided me throughout this process. First and foremost, I would like to thank my principal supervisor Dr Bertrand Bourgeois whose positive feedback, meticulous corrections and recommended reading list widened my perspective. I would also like to thank my secondary supervisor Associate Professor Jacqueline Dutton whose timely feedback and insightful restructuring kept this project on track. Special thanks to the generous staff at Melbourne University Libraries, State Library of Victoria, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris-Sorbonne Libraries, National Library of Sweden: Kungliga Biblioteket, Stockholms Universitetsbibliotek and the personal library of Dr Sven-Johan Spånberg in Uppsala, who gave me upon departure my most cherished first edition of Oscar Wilde’s Complete Letters. My sincere gratitude to the Director of Columbia Global Centers in Paris, Dr Brunhilde Biebuyck, whose undergraduate Directed Research program was my initiation into academic scholarship. I want to thank her for providing me office space upon my return to Paris and for her passionate support that I carried with me throughout this study. Special thanks to her devoted staff at Reid Hall especially Christine Babef, Christine Valero, Laurence Gallu and professors Dr Camille Martin, Dr Olivier Sécardin and especially Dr Jean-Baptiste Amadieu who directed my undergraduate senior mémoire honors thesis on Salomé. Special thanks to Lindsay Kemp and Kelley Abbey for interviews. Lastly, my family: my sisters Deborah, Janine, Naomi, Simone, and Denise for unconditional love and support especially during the final stages of this thesis. To my father Colin and my mother Judith, who although they weren’t granted the opportunity to complete high school, valued education as life’s greatest gift. It was their sacrifice and undying devotion to their children that drove me to pursue a PhD. It is to my parents that I dedicate this work. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: From Mask to Truth, From Truth to Mask…..…………………................1 Salomé’s French Transparency…………………………………………………….........6 Ambiguity Embraced……………………………………………………………….…..11 Ambiguity Gone Wild/e………………………………………………………………..17 An Intertextual Invitation to Openly Dance with Ambiguity.……….………................21 Chapter 1: The Sulamite of Sodom: Wilde’s Tapestry of the Abject and the Subversion of the Biblical Myth……….…………………………………………………….……..27 Salomé’s Intertextual Mosaic of Desire………………………………………………..29 Renan’s Interpretation of the Erotic Song………………………………………….…..38 The Birth of the Monstrous-Feminine……………………………………….................47 The Song of Sexual Yearning….…………..…...……………………………………....50 Cloven Gender: Ambiguity and Nick Cave’s Decadent Aesthetics of Desire................64 Chapter 2: Salomé/Salome’s Outré Art: Sustaining the Fin-de-Siècle Attack…...…....83 Translation and the Diminishing Effect of the Symbolist Voice………………………87 Salomé and the Power of the Visual Paratext………………………………………...102 The Intertextual Dialogue Between the Perverse and the Obscure…………………...120 Chapter 3: The Dance of the Seven Veils: Elucidating Wilde’s Invisible Dance.........125 The Cryptic Seven and the Ambiguity of Naming………….………………………...127 Flaubert’s Dance of Amplification…………………………….……………………...131 Wilde’s Anticipatory Dance of Desire…………………………….………………….139 v Lindsay Kemp’s Appropriation of the Dance of the Seven Veils…………………….144 Kelley Abbey and the Dancing Sexualized Archetype.………………………….…...160 Conclusion: The Eighth Veil of Ambiguity…………………………………………..176 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………….187 vi LIST OF FIGURES 1. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898) The Beheading of St John the Baptist, (1869) The Henry Barber Trust, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham 2. Cheryl Barker and John Pickering in Richard Strauss’s Salomé, Opera Australia (2012) 3. Aubrey Beardsley: Title Page, Salomé (1894) 4.Aubrey Beardsley: The Woman in the Moon, Salomé (1894) 5. Frank Martin: Frontispiece, Salomé (1957) 6. Barry Moser: Frontispiece, Salomé (2011) 7. Aubrey Beardsley: The Stomach Dance, Salomé (1894) 8. Aubrey Beardsley: List of Pictures, Salomé (1894) 9. Alastair (Baron Hans Henning Voigt): Untitled illustration from Salomé (1925) 10. Marcus Behmer: Untitled illustration from Salomé (1903) 11. Barry Moser: The young Syrian & Herodias’s Page (Salomé, 2011) 12. Takato Yamamoto: J’ai Baisé Ta Bouche Jokanaan (2005) 13. Takato Yamamoto: Salomé (2005) 14. Lindsay Kemp as Salomé (1977) 15. Lindsay Kemp as Salomé (1977) 16. The Dance of the Seven Veils in Richard Strauss’s Salomé Opera Australia (2012) 17. The Dance of the Seven Veils in Richard Strauss’s Salomé Opera Australia (2012) 18. The Dance of the Seven Veils in Richard Strauss’s Salomé Opera Australia (2012) vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AN Against Nature (J.K. Huysmans, Translated by Brendan King). AR À Rebours (J.K. Huysmans). BLC The Letters of Aubrey Beardsley (Aubrey Beardsley). CC Le Cantique des cantiques (Traduit de l’hébreu et commenté par Ernest Renan) CL The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde (Oscar Wilde). CW Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Oscar Wilde). H Hérodias (Gustave Flaubert). He Herodias (Gustave Flaubert, Translated by A.J. Krailsheimer). S Salomé (Oscar Wilde)1. SD Salomé (Oscar Wilde, Translated by Joseph Donohue). SFP Salomé, Five Plays (Nick Cave). SH Salomé (Oscar Wilde, Translated by Vyvyan Holland). SS The Song of Songs (Translated from the Hebrew by Ernest Renan, Translated from the French by William M. Thomson). 1 Bilingual edition. viii INTRODUCTION FROM MASK TO TRUTH, FROM TRUTH TO MASK “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth”. Oscar Wilde, The Critic As Artist, 1891. Infused with symbolism, decadence and erotic transgression, Oscar Wilde’s 1891 radical tragedy Salomé allowed the author to attend his own unique masquerade ball. It was a ball of fantasy where the orchestral accompaniment was French symbolism and fellow attendees were the French literary elite he so admired. Wilde’s employment of a metaphorical mask in the composition of Salomé provided a forum, which offered the author the creative freedom to speak the unspeakable. Furthermore, Salomé became the catalyst for Wilde to realise his innermost ambition to be recognized and respected as a French author.