| dc.description.abstract | The paper explores the problem of female subjectivity in nineteenthcentury literature and visual art, focusing on the figure of Salome in the play by
Oscar Wilde and the paintings of Gustave Moreau and Aubrey Beardsley. The
biblical story of the Jewish princess Salome and John the Baptist, as well as the
fascination with the severed head served on a silver platter, is of interest to Julia
Kristeva in her book The Severed Head: Capital Visions. For Kristeva, John the
Baptist can be thought of as “the figure of the Figure”, he sets the course of the
figure of “prophecy in actuality”. On the other hand, Kristeva sees Salome as the
divine castrator who incorporates the powers of horror. She is the one who
invites us to experience the figure of John the Baptist in its severing and its
dance. In this manner, Salome is a singular figure who possesses the capacity of
that which goes beyond representation.
In the nineteenth century, we can see a shift in the artistic perspective
through which Salome’s story is introduced. Using Kristeva’s theory, this paper
will propose the term “disfigure” to refer to Salome as the one who disfigures the
whole. Beyond the tragic delight for the audience that such a gesture of
“disfiguring” brings, this moment is a turning point in the history of the reception
of Salome’s figure in art. She is not just the seductive dancer, the object of perverse
male gaze but also the subject, the doer and agent of the “incision.” | en_US |
