I find it fascinating that the problem of the "lyric I" wound up as a
discussion of dramatic language. Genre may not be definitive, but it is a
map.

jd


On 6/7/07, Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Whatever a furphy is, it's no furphy that a soso
> play can be used as a scaffold for an interesting
> evening of theater. As to the rest, we can assert
> at each other with no end in sight.
>
> Beardsley's illustrations for Salome, about which
> Wilde was at best ambivalent, are a pretty good
> indication of how a rather smart and sympathetic
> contemporary reacted to the play.
>
> Mind you, I like the sexuality of it as much as
> Beardsley did. I just don't think it's a very
> good play. You do. You like the fairy tales. I
> think they're meretricious, and I'd rather read
> Perrault, Grimm or Lang. Neither of us speak from
> the throne, and neither of our opinions are demonstrably correct. Selah.
>
> Mark
>
> At 07:42 PM 6/7/2007, you wrote:
> >On 6/8/07, Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>I do get it that the words of a play are just a scaffold for
> >>performers and directors, and sometimes plays with a lot worse
> >>problems than Salome can be made electrifying. And vice versa,
> >>unfortunately. In the context of this poets' list it's the words
> >>which are finally at issue. And unlike a performance they have the
> >>advantage of being available.
> >
> >
> >It's a furphy that a great  production can "make up for" rotten words. It
> >doesn't, any more than good skin can conceal a broken femur.  Language is
> >absolutely crucial in theatre.  It always causes me pain to see actors
> >working their arses off trying to make a silk purse from a sow's ear, as
> >much as seeing a great text done badly.
> >
> >>Of course it's about chasteness, that's why it's filled with
> >>temptations. I bet you a nickle it's the temptations that bring the
> >>crowds in. And that Wilde was aware of this.
> >
> >I've never seen the opera, which would be an utterly different
> experience.
> >But this comment seems to me to suggest, with the censors, that Wilde was
> >just pushing soft porn, which is I think rather unfair on Wilde. I'll be
> >lazy and paste something I prepared earlier, which fwiw articulates
> clearly
> >my thoughts about this play:
> >
> >Oscar Wilde's enduring popularity is due, in part, to the fact that he is
> a
> >figure of unsettling modernity: the *fin de siècle* decor of his
> writings,
> >which otherwise might date him as badly as Swinburne, is underlaid by a
> >tough, unsparing intelligence. This is as true of his less well-known
> >writing as it is of the plays which established him as the greatest comic
> >playwright since his fellow Irishman, Sheridan.
> >
> >The fairy tales in the collection *The House of Pomegranates*
> ("intended,"
> >said Wilde, "neither for the British child nor the British public") rank
> >high in his achievement: they are not only enchanting, beautifully
> wrought
> >stories, but among his most serious meditations on (for example) the
> >relationship between art and feeling, or the place of love in religion,
> or
> >the ethics of public authority. And they also demonstrate his capacity -
> >more evident in his prose, in fact, than in his poetry - for sustaining
> >extremes of poetic language.
> >
> >Of Wilde's plays, the closest in both sensibility and diction to his
> fairy
> >tales is *Salome*. Perhaps the strangest of Wilde's plays, this one-acter
> >retells the Biblical story of Salome, step-daughter of the tetrarch Herod
> >Antipas, who requests the head of Jokaanan (John the Baptist) on a silver
> >platter as her reward for dancing the Dance of the Seven Veils.
> >
> >Originally written in French, its English premiere was cancelled when the
> >Lord Chamberlain refused it a license, deeming it illegal to represent
> >Biblical characters on stage. This ban held until 1931, but it did not
> stop
> >private performances of the play, including one that sparked a 1918 trial
> >for criminal libel which bore startling similarities to the trial that
> >brought about Wilde's own downfall. The suit was brought against Noel
> >Pemberton Billing, the properietor of a right wing journal called *The
> >Vigilante*, by the actress Maud
> >Allen<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:MaudeAllanSalomeHead.jpg>,
> >who, in an attack on a production of Salome in which she performed the
> title
> >role, was accused of being a member of the "Cult of the Clitoris" - a
> coded
> >accusation of homosexuality.
> >.......
> >
> >*Salome* is, in fact, about a woman savagely protecting her chasteness
> from
> >the lust projected onto her by nearly every man she encounters...Perhaps
> >what was most troubling to the censors was the beauty of Wilde's language
> >(described during the trial as a certain sign of the sodomite). This
> beauty
> >is felt as a moral affront; and in fact, the authorities were quite
> correct
> >to feel this. In Wilde's moral universe, sensuous beauty was a radical
> >imperative, a manifestation of love - even divine love - that struck
> >profoundly at the heart of political and moral authority. For example, in
> *The
> >Fisherman and his Soul*, the Priest, having cursed the lovers whose
> profane
> >corpses have been cast on the beach, prepares to preach a sermon of fire
> and
> >brimstone:
> >
> >"He began to speak to the people, desiring to speak to them of the wrath
> of
> >God. But the beauty of the white flowers troubled him, and their odour
> was
> >sweet in his nostrils, and there came another word into his lips, and he
> >spake not of the wrath of God, but of the God whose name is Love. And why
> he
> >so spake, he knew not..."
> >
> >The passions induced by Salome's beauty are much darker. For Salome, what
> >matters is her chasteness, her moon-like integrity, which are constantly
> >assailed by the lusts she unwittingly inspires in men, including in her
> >stepfather Herod. Her revenge is deadly, and most deadly against the one
> man
> >who inspires in her an answering desire, only to spurn her, Jokanaan.
> Salome
> >knowingly uses the lust she inspires to gain her own ends, finally
> acceding
> >to Herod's impassioned requests that she dance for him, and then refusing
> >all the riches he can offer her in favour of Jokanaan's head. "There are
> not
> >dead men enough!" she says, as she orders soldiers to bring it to her.
> >
> >When Herod witnesses the reality of Salome's desire, he is horrified,
> >calling her "monstrous", and orders her death. But it's clear that her
> >desire has been made monstrous by its constant erasure. She is only ever
> the
> >object of desire, her own wants ignored by the men who, blinded by their
> >lust, fail to perceive her at all. In this way they are no different from
> >Jokanaan, who will not even look at her.
> >
> >Stephen Berkoff brought his National Theatre production of *Salome* here
> >several years ago. Although widely disparaged by Melbourne critics, it
> left
> >me open-mouthed: aside from featuring one of the most sheerly beautiful
> >designs I have ever seen, the company's performances of Wilde's Solomonic
> >language was revelatory, showing me how powerful poetic language can be
> on
> >stage, if uttered with complete physical and emotional conviction.
> >
> >&c
> >--
> >Editor, Masthead:  http://www.masthead.net.au
> >Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
> >Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
>



-- 
Joseph Duemer
Professor of Humanities
Clarkson University
[sharpsand.net]