essay

When the play Salome written by Oscar Wilde came out in 1894, it faced an overwhelming amount of negative criticism for its unconventional character. Salome combines the Biblical story of John the Baptist and Wilde’s original and eccentric ideas. The feelings of disdain that the literary critiques placed on Salome were a response to its shallow unusual nature. The Censor of the Palace Theatre was so outraged that he prohibited its performance while it was still in mid-rehearsal. However unconventional, eccentric, and bizarre the play may be, it nevertheless adheres to the guidelines set forth in Aristotle’s Poetics and Horace’s Ars Poetica. By analyzing the play under the lenses of Aristotle and Horace, the brilliance of Wilde’s writing shines through. Not only does this discredit Wilde’s critiques, but also highlights the importance of Aristotle and Horace’s literary theories. The application of their criticism to a work written centuries later establishes the everlasting importance of their ideas. Wilde validates their literary philosophies by incorporating their elements into Salome. The germaneness that Poetics and Ars Poetica have on the play corroborates the ideas set forth in their analysis. Their theories are not only legitimate but also applicable to literary works outside of their era. Salome exemplifies Aristotle and Horace’s philosophies, where they present the features of a tragedy along with the role those features provide.

Aristotle’s Poetics reads more like a scientific procedure, or an outline that contains systematic steps towards obtaining a cathartic tragedy, than an in depth look at literature. It is through strict and rigid definitions that he expresses the components of great literature. Aristotle defines...

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...the quality of a literary work. By using a fragment of Aristotle’s theory a deeper and profound meaning is discovered in Salome, a work once “greeted by a chorus of ridicule.” (Ross, xiii)

Unlike Aristotle, whose style is reminiscent of an instructional manual, Horace approaches literary theory and criticism in a relaxed and almost colloquial manner. Ars Poetica is disorderly organized; Horace arranges his ideas by topic, but does not unite the topics together. Two of the themes, which are in accordance with Salome, are Unity and Consistency and Emotion and Characters. Through subcategories, Horace partitions his theory into small and simple paragraphs that are easier to comprehend and manage. The application of these two categories, as with Aristotle, will not only highlight Salome’s brilliance, but will also establish the importance of Horace’s analytical ideas.