Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002
Includes bibliographical references (pages 161-171) and index
Acknowledgments; Prologue: "Half Biblical, Half Pornographic"; Act I: Cultural Dialogues; Act II: Interpretive Monologues; Epilogue: "Perverse Midrashim"; Works Cited; Index
Oscar Wilde?s Salome and Andre Gide?s Saul have been considered critically in the traditional contexts of authorial oeuvre, biography, or?thought.? These plays have been treated with embarrassed respect, dealt with only because of the importance of their authors. That Wilde and Gide made use of biblical material seems to discomfit their critics; that they had done so at a time when biblical drama was prohibited has rarely been addressed. Traditional critical treatments seek to smooth over the plays? aberrant qualities. This study takes them seriously as aberrations and investigates Wilde?s an
