ENGL 499: Arthur Machen Dashboard
Description
Collaborative workspace for students in ENGL 499: Arthur Machen
Galleries, Timelines, and Maps
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Individual Entries
Beardsley’s depiction of gender and sexuality is striking, and his illustrations of the nude human body is always tethering on a perceived recognizability that simultaneously undermines his readers knowingness. This is the title page of Salome from the 1907 edition. There are figures with the assumed female features (breasts, insinuated lips and eye liner, wide hips), but that possess the masculine features as well, mostly being the penis and an abundance of pubic hair surrounding the groin. There are figures that "that blur the gender binary" by having traditionally feminine features (breasts, insinuated lips and eye liner), and the masculine features as well...
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The first version of The Toilet of Salome was produced in 1894 (although an alternate version was featured in Salome). Notice the sharp black lines. Beardsley’s attempt to “violate arts grammar” in his depictions of Salome demonstrate how the form of his art (print illustrations) shaped how Beardsley would challenge conventional artistic practices (188). Beardsley "experimented enthusiastically with the properties of this new “line block” printing" of his era" (188). Through the limitations of print, Beardsley focused on mashing Japanese, Renaissance, and decadent styles (191). Machen also played around with the formal choices that contained his writing, and this in turn had a great impact of the type of writing produced by Machen. In his essay “The Literature of Occultism”, Machen claims that what makes good writing is when it “belongs to the region of things...
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