SOURCE: Saunders, William. “Oscar Wilde's Salomé.” Drama Magazine 12, no. 10 (September 1922): 335.

In the following essay, Saunders considers Salomé as “essentially Greek in character” and “one of the greatest tragedies of recent times.”

About twenty years ago, after having completed the usual three years' course in French grammar and syntax, I devoted a year to reading practically nothing except modern novels and plays in the French language. The purpose I had in view in following out this self-imposed curriculum was the acquisition of as extensive a vocabulary as possible, and of such conversational fluency as an adequate study of contemporary dialogue in a foreign language alone can give. In making a choice of works for the purpose of this study, I adopted no system of purely scientific selection, beyond the fact that the periods of publication of the various works I made use of, had to be of comparatively recent...