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Article

French

ID: <

10.3406/item.2001.1198

>

·

DOI: <

10.3406/item.2001.1198

>

Where these data come from
Genèse de Salomé

Abstract

Criticism devoted to Flaubert has wittingly underestimated the significance of the figure of Salome, such as she appears in Hérodias, one of the short stories comprising the Trois Contes. This article proposes an analysis of the work's genesis, showing that elaboration of the character Salome is based equally on artistic images (the Salome evoked in the paintings of Gustave Moreau ; the person depicted on the North portal of the cathedral in Rouen) and on images arising from autobiographical remembering (the Egyptian dancers). In addition to Flaubert's reading of the corresponding story in Saint Mark's Gospel, these visual «sources» nourish the author's writing process, and function as programmatic impulses for the implementation of the writing, giving the latter verbal substance. As the writing develops and takes form, it can be observed that the character Salome becomes increasingly complex, to the point of assuming paradoxical dimensions : is she a child given only to indolence, dancing to her mother's wish ? Or does she embody the femme fatale, a woman destined to seduction and desire ? The last phase of composition suspends the internal contradiction, displacing the character towards the extra-temporal dimension of myth.

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