Accounts of the writing process vary, but it is likely that the English writer was responding to at least some of the many visual and literary interpretations of the biblical story that abounded in the late 19th century. Wilde composed Salome while living in Paris during the fall of 1891. Written in French toward the end of Wilde's career, the ornate prose of Salome marks the play as a transition in Wilde's writing away from the epigrammatic, comic wit of Wildean aestheticism toward a dense, abstracted style most commonly associated with the French Symbolist poetry of Rimbaud, Mallarme, and Baudelaire. While the New Testament depicts Salome as a pawn of her mother's plan to eliminate the prophet, Wilde re-imagines John's execution as the direct and deliberate result of Salome's unrequited sexual desire for him. Wilde's treatment of Salome extends this focus, portraying the Judaic princess as the main reason for the beheading of John the Baptist. While Salome is in fact a minor character in the biblical tale, she was the focus of fascination for many late 19th-century artists, who found in her character a unique vehicle for exploring the shifting significance of female sexuality. as recorded in the New Testament (Gospel of Mark 6:15-29 and Gospel of Matthew 14:1-12).
Oscar Wilde's one-act play, Salome, is a loose interpretation of the account of the beheading of St.
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