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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Publishing History of Aubrey Beardsley's Compositions for Oscar Wilde's Salome

The Publishing History of Aubrey Beardsley's Compositions for Oscar Wilde's Salome

Navarre, Joan

Paperback

Art Criticism & TheoryBusiness of Writing

ISBN10: 1581120362
ISBN13: 9781581120363
Publisher: Dissertation.com
Published: Jan 1 1999
Pages: 236
Weight: 0.74
Height: 0.59 Width: 5.56 Depth: 8.54
Language: English

This study claims that scholars need to examine all twenty-seven English illustrated editions of Wilde's and Beardsley's Salomë to understand whether Beardsley's compositions do, or do not, illustrate Wilde's words. For the last one hundred years scholars have addressed the aesthetic function of Beardsley's compositions (whether or not Beardsley's compositions illustrate Wilde's words), and each scholar sees something different: Beardsley's compositions are irrelevant to Wilde's words; Beardsley's compositions are relevant to Wilde's words; Beardsley's compositions are both irrelevant and relevant. What is at issue here is that this traditional dance of signification (scholars' interpretations of the aesthetic function of Beardsley's compositions) relies upon an interpretive strategy that disavows the history of textual transmissions. To put this another way, what scholars see depends upon the particular English illustrated edition(s) they read. Beardsley's compositions are physical objects conditioned by a physical setting--i.e., the components of total book design. Yet, for many, the visible appears invisible.

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