Musicality of Language and “Corporeal Writing” in La Tragédie de Salomé (1907)

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article explores the seemingly paradoxical role of dance when the aesthetics of a literary movement such as Symbolism aspires to a wordless genre—a paradox articulated by Stéphane Mallarmé in his famous coinage “corporeal writing.” I propose a reevaluation of Symbolist thought on the musicality of language as a possible means of reconciling the disparity between pure words and pure movement. A Symbolist conception of the arts as analogous to one another allowed for poetic writing, through the intervening medium of sound, to approach dance through an integration of meaning and movement. Using the ballet-pantomime La Tragédie de Salomé (1907) as a case study, I argue that Florent Schmitt's score transfers the essence of language into music that, when accompanied by the synesthetic performance of Loïe Fuller, evoked the multisensory theatrical experience to which Symbolist dramaturgy aspired.