Felix Cherniavsky - Contemporary Articles about Maud Allan

Added 19th Mar 2022 by Beth Dobson (Archives and Programming Assistant, DCD) / Last update 19th Mar 2022

Maud Allan 1329a 51 2008-2-74.jpg
Maud Allan 1329a 51 2008-2-74.jpg
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Felix Cherniavsky - Contemporary Articles about Maud Allan

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Maud Allan Research Collection
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Behind the Veil སང་ ལྟར་ ཏུ ། ཀར ཀན་ ལྟར་ ན་ རཀ རྒྱུདས་ དེར་ ག་ ཝཱན རྒྱུག་ འགའི་ འགྱུར་ ན་ ལྕགས་ ཡོས ། ཙ་ ཏོ ། A 1918 production of Wilde's ' Salome ' in London triggered suspicions of treason and another sensational libel trial . OSCAR WILDE'S LAST STAND Decadence , Conspiracy , and the Most Outrageous Trial of the Century . By Philip Hoare . Illustrated . 250 pp . New York : Arcade Publishing . $ 25.95 . By Mindy Aloff E ARLY in 1918 , when it looked as if Britain might lose World War I , a small right - wing Lon vations about the book concern the treat ment of Maud Allan . Hoare's presiding image of her , on stage and off , is of a high class sexpot , suited up for sin : a vamp so profoundly calculating as to be downright traitorous . ( More than once Hoare specu lates that Allan might have been a Ger man agent , a notion based entirely on the fact that for several years she had lived and enjoyed theatrical success in Berlin . ) For Hoare , as for the jury in 1918 , Allan is little more than her Salome persona , a type in the manner of Schiele's and Klimt's " stylized depiction of orgasmic women ” as well as “ the avenging , cas trating female and vagina dentata , " which is “ essential Freudian material . ” The record shows her to have been a lot more . Allan's career as a dancer con tinued into the 1930's , and the themes of her repertory were ranging . By all reli able eyewitness accounts , she was more mime than dancer ; however , Anna Pavlova , who had a track record for spot ting gifted performers , remarked on Al lan's talent as a stage artist . Hoare , though , has other fish to fry . Blurring the line between Allan's portrayal of Salome and her personal life , he retails as histor ical fact a fair amount of gossip about her love affairs with individuals of both sexes for most of which , no evidence exists . 2 - provided many moments of surreal levi ty . The nadir , perhaps , occurred during the testimony of a defense witness , Dr. Serell Cooke . After consultation with his colleagues on Harley Street , Cooke was prepared to offer a medical opinion about Allan , her theatrical producer Jacob Thomas Grein and Oscar Wilde , based on Cooke's own close reading of ( and opin ions about ) Krafft - Ebing's “ Psycho pathia Sexualis . ” Billing's interrogation began with the astounding question , " Have you had any experience of pervert ed moral or sexual acts being lighted up by reading immoral literature ? ” Cooke who was then testing out his own theo ries of perversion on his patients pro pounded that a literary text like “ Sa lome ” could be expected to stimulate spe cific thoughts of specific perversions in the mind of a receptive reader . By the time Billing and Cooke were through , Grein had been diagnosed as a homosexu al hiding as a family man and Allan as a prostitute with a penchant for sadism all based entirely on the fact that they in tended to put on a production of “ Sa lome . ” “ Have you any opinion where they ought to be ? ” the judge asked Cooke . The answer was , “ Locked up . ” Most of the original research of the case , as well as the historiography con cerning links between the case and World don journal , The Imperialist , - decided it was time to attack Lloyd George , who seemed to be running the war like an amateur . The Imperialist's weapon of choice was innuendo . It report ed that the enemy held a " black book ” listing 47,000 individuals in British gov ernment , arts and society who had been seduced by German agents into “ de bauchery ” and “ lasciviousness " - code words for male homosexuality and les bianism and were therefore vulnera ble to blackmail . According to The Impe rialist , these individuals were luring un suspecting members of the British mili tary into bed , then , during pillow talk , stripping them of state secrets . Cinh - hool was never discovered . - TERENCE PEPPER / FROM " OSCAR WILDE'S LAST STAND " Maud Allan costumed as Salome . An TUTT NDOC TACT