About the work
Oscar Wilde wrote this one-act play in French in 1891/92, in Paris and Torquay — his only original work in that language — intending the title role for Sarah Bernhardt. It premiered in Paris on 11 February 1896, staged by Aurélien Lugné-Poe's Théâtre de l'Œuvre, while Wilde himself was in prison. In Britain, an old law banning the depiction of biblical figures on stage kept the play from public performance until 1931.
Plot
At a banquet given by Herod, the Judean princess Salome desires the imprisoned prophet Jokanaan, who rejects her advances. When Herod promises her anything she wishes for dancing before him, Salome demands his severed head on a silver platter and kisses its lips. Horrified by her obsession, Herod has his soldiers kill her.
Cultural significance
With its openly eroticised, power-driven heroine, Salome became a key text of fin-de-siècle decadence. Aubrey Beardsley's illustrations for the first edition shaped the visual language of the period and remain inseparable from the play. Richard Strauss set the text to music in 1905 as his opera of the same name.