ABSTRACT
Wilde's Salome's dance of the seven veils is, notoriously, a major topos of fin de siecle European literature. Salome's dance brings action to its very climax, one which anybody with only a smattering of this story looks forward to watching; in other terms, it forms the core of this myth. She shows several instances of either direct or indirect self-reflexiveness. The former is symbolically associated with Herod's fear of the prophet imprisoned within the cistern. But it is also linked to the dance of Salome, and consequently to an equally symbolical victory of desire over parental and political law. Sight is of course one of the two main communicative channels of the theatrical event, but it is also one of the main themes of the text, being often associated with Salome. The first Salome in Lugne-Poe's Paris production seems to have been a wildy erotic Lina Munte, much less inhibited and controlled than her English colleagues in later performances.
