Date of Award
Fall 1-2-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
English
First Advisor
Richard Kaye
Second Advisor
Nico Israel
Academic Program Adviser
Mark Miller
Abstract
This paper argues that Gustave Flaubert’s Hérodias and Oscar Wilde’s Salomé incorporate biblical intertextuality throughout their work as a means to showcase Decadent technique and themes. Both authors weave direct quotations from biblical sources such as the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Revelation, and Acts into their texts, layering biblical passages with themes of excess, eroticism, and decay central to the Decadent movement. Drawing on Julia Kristeva’s theory of intertextuality, I show how these biblical fragments intersect with narrative voice to destabilize meaning and form a unique, new work of writing that intertwines their own words with biblical language. Influenced by Ernest Renan’s secular and sensual biblical scholarship, Flaubert and Wilde build on existing ideas that frame Salome and Herodias as femmes fatales while reconfiguring Christian tradition and literature through an aesthetic of artifice. Ultimately, the strategic incorporation of scripture becomes a vehicle for literary innovation and a way to link biblical themes of decadence with fin-de-siècle cultural critique.
Recommended Citation
Mintz, Shoshana, "The Decadent Bible: Biblical Intertextuality in Flaubert’s Herodias and Wilde’s Salome" (2026). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/hc_sas_etds/1434
