OOD SALOME, A sensual Temptress

First of all, the students discover the episode of the decollation of John the Baptist reading :

-extracts from biblical texts : Gospels of Luke, Mark and Matthew

-excerpts from historical texts : The Jewish Antiquities written by Flavius Josephus

-quotes from fathers of the church who made the character of Salome a weapon against the dangers of female seduction, creating the myth of the perverse dancer and the diabolical femme fatale

Then they confront the sources of this myth with two rewritings of a biblical myth from different genres, cultures and times :

a 19th century French tale : Hérodias written by Gustave Flaubert 

a play written in French in the 20th century by the Irish Oscar Wilde : Salomé

The students analyse in particular the female characters in both works : Herodias and Salome.

The students write an acrostic based on the first name « Salome » : each letter of this first name is associated with a character trait or object that they consider as fundamental in the myth.