Portal:Oscar Wilde/Selected article/7

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Salome (or in French: Salomé ) is a tragedy by Oscar Wilde.

The original 1891 version of the play was in French. Three years later an English translation was published. The play tells in one act the Biblical story of Salome, stepdaughter of the tetrarch Herod Antipas, who, to her stepfather's dismay but to the delight of her mother Herodias, requests the head of Jokanaan (John the Baptist) on a silver platter as reward for dancing the Dance of the Seven Veils.

Rehearsals for the play's debut on the London stage were halted when the Lord Chamberlain's licensor of plays banned Salomé on the basis that it was illegal to depict Biblical characters on the stage. The play was first published in French in 1893, and an English translation, with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley, in 1894. On the Dedication page, Wilde indicates Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas as translator. In fact, Wilde had quarrelled about the translation with Lord Alfred because he thought his work unsatisfactory; the English text appears to be Wilde's own work, with Lord Alfred's as a basis. (more...)