I was interested to learn about the scholarship on Salome that suggests that the woman's face in the moon is possibly Beardsley's depiction of Wilde. References of this kind seem to add another dimension of meaning-making beyond how illustrations interact with the texts to which they are set. Since the author-illustrator relationship is often collaboarative, it is natural that illustrations shuld sometimes contain signs of communication between the author and illustrator, over and above any relation to the text itself.

This week's seminar focused on Salome: A Tragedy in One Act, a play written by Oscar Wilde. The play was originally published in French in 1892, however, it was censored from being performed as it depicted Biblical figures. The English translation was published in 1894 with ten censored accompanying illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley. It was later republished in 1907 with all sixteen uncensored illustrations.

Out of all the readings I have done for this course, I found Oscar Wilde’s Salome to be the most difficult. I felt that the text, as well as the images were complicated and rooted in symbolism. I found the presentations today to be very helpful in understanding this symbolism. I saw a lot of gender representation throughout the illustrations, weather that be through non-conforming gender or a character very specifically being a man or a woman.