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Death by Unrequited Eros
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This chapter investigates Wilde’s response to classical tragedy by looking at Salome and comparing it with Euripides’ Hippolytus. It examines how Wilde inverts tragedy by hijacking Aristotelian conventions with the theme of suicide owing to unrequited love. It pays attention to Narraboth, the young Syrian captain, who dramatically kills himself in situ as a result of his frustrated desire and suffering. Narraboth pays the ultimate price for the slightest of reasons, infatuation or love that is not even returned. Wilde undermines tragedy from within by favouring character psychology over plot, and elevating frivolity, whim, and trifling jest to what Aristotle calls spoudaion (‘worthy’). Narraboth in his suffering and Salome in her lust share striking similarities with Phaedra, who also commits suicide as a victim of eros in the Hippolytus of Euripides, Wilde’s favourite tragedian. The chapter argues that Salome carries a Euripidean legacy, and also that Hippolytus anticipates Wilde’s decadence.
Title: Death by Unrequited Eros
Description:
This chapter investigates Wilde’s response to classical tragedy by looking at Salome and comparing it with Euripides’ Hippolytus.
It examines how Wilde inverts tragedy by hijacking Aristotelian conventions with the theme of suicide owing to unrequited love.
It pays attention to Narraboth, the young Syrian captain, who dramatically kills himself in situ as a result of his frustrated desire and suffering.
Narraboth pays the ultimate price for the slightest of reasons, infatuation or love that is not even returned.
Wilde undermines tragedy from within by favouring character psychology over plot, and elevating frivolity, whim, and trifling jest to what Aristotle calls spoudaion (‘worthy’).
Narraboth in his suffering and Salome in her lust share striking similarities with Phaedra, who also commits suicide as a victim of eros in the Hippolytus of Euripides, Wilde’s favourite tragedian.
The chapter argues that Salome carries a Euripidean legacy, and also that Hippolytus anticipates Wilde’s decadence.
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