The Religiousness of the Erotic: Oscar Wildes Salome and the Harlem Renaissance

• Grant number: 24/01760-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: July 01, 2024
• End date: June 30, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Comparative Literature
• Principal Investigator: Laura Patricia Zuntini de Izarra
• Grantee: Ana Carolina Vilalta Caetano
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

In view of the presence of proto-modernist ideas and themes in the work of the Irish author Oscar Wilde proposed by Petra Dierkes-Thrun (2011) and the convergences between Irish and African-American literature during the periods called Renaissances (Mishkin, 1998), this project intends to investigate the influence of the tragedy Salome (1891) on the art of the Harlem Renaissance by highlighting its modernist inclinations. Through the analysis of individuality, eroticism and sexuality in the play, the aim is to demonstrate that transgressive themes echo directly in the artistic production of the Harlemites of the 1920s, who saw Wilde and the character Salome as sources of inspiration (Poueymirou, 2011). This research is justified by the need for an in-depth critical analysis - thematic, formal and socio-historical - of Salome and the subsequent works created during the Harlem Renaissance that pay homage or reference it. In order to do so, the tragedy will be articulated with the short narrative "Smoke, Lilies and Jade" (1926) by Richard Bruce Nugent and the poem "For Salome" (1927) by Langston Hughes. The theoretical foundation, therefore, can be divided into four axes: literature and history (Neginsky, 2013; Roller, 2003; Evangelista, 2009), Irish theater from the fin de siècle period (Galery, 2015; Mutran, 2015; Maier, 2006; Szondi, 2001), notions about transgression (Bataille, 1962; Foucault, 1977; Kristeva, 1982) and art produced during the Harlem Renaissance (Poueymirou, 2011; Mishkin, 1998; McBreen, 1998).