Salome Image Changes In 20th Century French Literature

As a secondary character from the Gospel story that recounts the martyrdom of John the Baptist, Salome became one of the favorite themes in art and literature of the second half of the nineteenth century. As one of the " femmes fatales ", this figure corresponds to the Fin de Siecle imagination:the man’s weakness, the women’s power, the refined aesthetic but morbid, the decadence mixed with an irremediable terror. The famous play of Oscar Wilde made her the subject of a philosophical reflection of the desire and the death.The end of the nineteenth century doesn’t mean the end of the evolution of this mythic figure. On the contrary, it becomes a new starting point. In the twentieth century, Salome’s story has been enriched not only at the structural level, but also by a formal diversification.Today, the writings about Salome form a system. The formation and transformation of this system requires an observation that pays particular attention to the continuity and rupture, to the inheritance and reversal. When the dancer is compared to the martyr, the Salome’s story has to face a series of contrast:man and woman, word and vision, asceticism and desire... The uncertainty and the diversity of interpretation allow the story of Salome to resist the passage of time. A multitude of texts on the same myth creates a space where the intertextual study is possible.