Salome

Salome is an opera libretto composed by Richard Strauss, which is based off a play written by Oscar Wilde. Strauss’s first two operas ridiculed Wagnerian ideas and themes, by choosing Salome, Strauss “broke his attempt to write mock-Wagnerian operas” (Gilman 37). This mock-Wagnerian break allowed Strauss to identify with the “moderns,” and Salome can be seen as Strauss’s first “modern” opera (37). Strauss, in his writings, acknowledges that Salome is a “Jewish” opera (39). Jewish people at the time

The original story of Midas is from a Greek Mythology. He makes a wish, which gives him the ability to be able to turn everything he touches into gold. However, he eventually dies of starvation as a result of his ‘vain prayer’ for the golden touch. This morality tale tells us to be careful about what we wish for. Mrs. Midas is a poem written from the point of view of the wife of the mythical King Midas. She speaks against her husband’s actions and slowly separates herself from him. This poem conveys

How are relationships presented in the poems you have studied? In ‘Havisham’, ‘Quickdraw’, ‘Salome’ – all by Carol Ann Duffy, the current poet laureate of Britain – and ‘The Farmer’s Bride’ by Charlotte Mew, relationships are presented as being constant power struggles between the two parties involved. These poems do not conform to traditional romantic poetry, but instead take a candid approach to the aspects of relationships that aren’t conventionally explored. All four of the poems I studied

For this project, I plan to focus on Gozzoli’s Feast of Herod and the Beheading of John the Baptist. I specifically want to look at the depiction of Salome and her dancing before Herod. Although there are three scenes included in the work, Salome’s dance is the compositional focus. Scholars have looked at similar works by Gozzoli’s contemporaries but have not given his depiction the same treatment. I plan to use their theories and approaches on it and see if there are similar meanings that can be

play have been posed for many reasons, in addition to the obvious issues of blatant depravity on stage. In Perverse Midrash: Oscar Wilde, André Gide, and Censorship of Biblical Drama, Katherine Brown Downey claims, ‘Much criticism of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, both contemporary with it and more recent, suggests that Wilde intended to create a stir with his play, to flout the censor’s rules, and had written

John the Baptist (Paris, 1869) by Pierre Puvis De Chavannes is an oil on canvas painting displayed in the Barber Institute in Birmingham. It depicts Saint John the Baptist (centre) who is about to be executed, witnessed by king Herod’s daughter Salome (left). She holds in her hand a gold platter to receive his head. The painting is symmetrical in its composition and simple in its form with Saint John in the centre in front of a fig tree and two figures either side of him. The main focus of

demonstrates a lack of appreciation for their service to her, as well as suggesting that she does not fully realize the privilege she holds in this world. Mariam reproduces classism by saying that in the hierarchical order of things, she is above Salome. Furthermore, Mariam was vengeful the last time she speaks for herself in the play. In Act 4, Scene 8, Mariam meets Doris, Herod’s first wife, who proceeds to cast a curse upon Mariam and her children. In response, Mariam chooses to cast the same

Toward a Definition of Modernism Lawrence B. Gamache’s article “Toward a Definition of Modernism” encapsulates in its title the challenges critics meet in their attempts to formulate a coherent theoretical modernist model, though the quintessential modernist works –even at the time of this 1987 article – are over sixty years old. Indeed, the sheer number of scholarly books and articles that discuss or contribute to the debate surrounding the definition of modernism indicates the extent to which

Compare the way in which poets create a threatening or menacing atmosphere in four poems. Write about Salome by Carol Ann Duffy and compare it with one poem from Simon Armitage and two from the pre 1914 bank. The poem ‘Salome’, by Carol Ann Duffy, is written in the first person, seemingly from the perspective of a woman given indicators such as the fact that the person has been involved intimately with a man; ‘the reddish beard’. The first three lines of the poem, all of which uses enjambment

image of Salomé before she receives the head of Jokanaan, her arms are tucked into her sides, and her head is made very large and round with her hair or some kind of ornamentation (for example, see Figures 1 and 2). Herod desires to possess her, probably as a substitute for his own sterile organ. Herod has the phallus – the throne, but also desires the phallus – Salomé, who is the phallus, potent sexuality. In this way the binary of gender is reinforced, Herod has the phallus, and Salomé is the phallus