A Modernist Desire
Oriental Signification in Salomé and Death in Venice
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36399/GroundingsUG.9.202Keywords:
Orientalism, Queerness, Salomé, Death in Venice, Oscar Wilde, Thomas Mann, Edward SaidAbstract
This article considers two emblematic texts in the modernist canon, Salomé by Oscar Wilde and Death in Venice by Thomas Mann, and the implications of their modernist aesthetics when writing queerness in the context of Edward Said’s Orientalism. As play and novella, the texts contrast the self-sufficiency of the realist narrative that Said argues is crucial for the establishment of the Orient in Western imagination. The signification of queer desire, through a language of Oriental tropes, introduces competing discourses in the texts that work to undermine the meaning and values of the imperial and Oriental framework in which they are written
References
T. Mann, Death in Venice (1912; trans. Michael Heim, New York: Ecco, 2004).
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N. Mirzoeff, ‘Disorientalism Minority and Visuality in Imperial London’ (2006) 50:2 TDR: The Drama Review 52-69.
E. Said, Culture and Imperialism, (London: Vintage, 1994).
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J.P. Wilper, ‘Wilde and the Model of Homosexuality in Mann's Tod in Venedig’ (2013) 15(4) CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.7771/1481-4374.2305 [Accessed 24.10.2015].
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