late Dr. C.D. af Wirsén, Strindberg had a persistent enemy. Wirsén
acted as Secretary to the Academy from 1884 to his death in 1912, and
exercised considerable influence over the selection of recipients
of the Nobel Prize in literature which is awarded by the Swedish
Academy. To Wirsén who wrote idyllic and elegiac poetry, and who held
everything that is old in reverence, Strindberg was incomprehensible.
By his attacks on Strindberg, and also by his derisive criticism of
another free-thinking Swedish writer, Ellen Key,[4] Wirsén shows a
close resemblance to the type of foolish biographer for which Mr.
A.C. Benson has found an admirable name: the eagle-eating monkey.
There is a pseudo-aristocracy of mind which receives not truth in its
house, unless she be arrayed in garments of classical cut, and has
not journeyed along the highways of humankind. Wirsén looked upon
Strindberg as a parvenu of intelligence, just as certain academicians
regarded Spencer as a parvenu of science. Wirsén's diligent criticisms
of Strindberg range over twenty years,[5] and may in some measure
explain Strindberg's delusions of persecution. In 1882 Wirsén gave
qualified praise to _Master Olof_, and took the opportunity of
reminding his readers that _The Red Room_ was pervaded by "evil but
empty wit." His virtuous indignation over "the blasphemous effusions"
and "ridiculous vanity" of Strindberg's autobiography was sustained
by the discovery that it contained much boastfulness, but no solid
thought, and he searched in vain for any proof that the unlucky author
was--what he might have been--a noble, though eccentric personality. He
received _The Father_ with feelings of pity for he could see nothing
in it, but the impotence of a diseased imagination and a mixture of
coarseness and paradoxicality. When Comrades was published Wirsén
expressed his astonishment that such a play had found a publisher.
He dismissed _The Stronger_, as giving "no evidence of strength
in the composition. Anything weaker has seldom been put together."
He could find no artistic merit in _At the Edge of the Sea_. In
1897 he condemned _The Link_ and _Playing with Fire_ by declaring
that both were equally "unpleasant and painful." He naturally found
Strindberg's verses bad, and shuddered over their invectives of
hatred and revenge. When _Inferno_ was published he derived comfort
from announcing that Strindberg's intellect "has now gone to pieces,"
but recorded mournfully that the pen that wrote _Legends_ was as
evil as ever. Wirsén did not believe in Strindberg's delusions; he
claimed to see through them: they were nothing but coquetry with
the public, sensational advertisement. _To Damascus_ was to him "a
horrid and depressing work--excessively loathsome." The most unjust
of all Wirsén's accusations against Strindberg is, perhaps, that of
dulness. The autopsychological quest for truth in Strindberg's writings
bored Wirsén, and he thought others must be bored too. Between the
chastisements Wirsén exhibited a truly Christian forbearance, and
graced a corner of his literary column by beseeching Strindberg and his
followers to return to the path of goodness. He assured the sinners
that their return to sounder ideas and purer production would be met
with a warm welcome and undisguised joy in spite of the past.
But the prodigal son of Swedish literature did not return to the house
of the Academy. He had been well castigated for his brilliant satire on
that somnolent institution in The _New Kingdom_, but he continued to
mock "the Gods of Time" until the end of his days. In 1910 he took the
Academy to task for its admiration of Baron Klinkowström, a poetaster,
whose puerile and pompous verses were free from any menace to the
existing order of things.
It is true that Wirsén did not represent the whole of literary
criticism in Sweden. It is also true that Strindberg always had a small
circle of faithful followers who admired him, believed in him--and
copied him. But during the many years when Strindberg was absent from
Sweden a new school of literature was formed which was equally out of
touch with his early realism and his late mysticism. Oscar Levertin,
Werner von Heidenstam, Gustaf af Geijerstam and Selma Lagerlöf are
the most prominent names of modern Swedish literature. Geijerstam's
Erik Grane is an offshoot of early Strindbergism, and Heidenstam's
brilliant stories of the soldiers of Charles XII, _Karolinerna_, are
not without traces of the influence of Strindberg's _Swedish Destinies
and Adventures_. But Strindberg was always too sceptical to stake his
fortune on any particular breed of Pegasus. In his last two "terrible"
novels, _The Gothic Rooms_ (1904) and _Black Flags_ (1907), he again
delivered himself of violent and personal attacks upon society in
general and the priests of literature and art in particular, thereby
widening the gulf that lay between him and them.
The many attacks made upon Strindberg in Sweden had one practical
effect which caused him bitter disappointment. Theatrical managers
fought shy of his plays. Fourteen years passed between the successful
production of _The Father_ in Paris and its performance in Stockholm.
_Lady Julie_ had to wait eighteen years before she was allowed to
appear in Stockholm. In 1906 the play had a run of several weeks at
"Folkteatern," in Stockholm, a playhouse for the working classes,
where the aristocratic lady's downfall was appreciated in a crude, but
wholehearted manner.
Whilst the theatrical managers of Sweden were hesitating as to the
expediency of allowing Strindberg to overshadow the stage, Herr
Lauthenburg gave popular performances at the "Residenz Theater" in
Berlin of _Creditors_, _Playing with Fire_ and _Facing Death_. Together
with Hauptmann and Ibsen, Strindberg now won theatrical triumphs all
over Germany.
The indifference shown in Sweden towards the performance of
Strindberg's plays led him to plan a Strindberg-Theatre to be run
on lines similar to those of the Théâtre Maeterlinck. After many
difficulties the plan was at last realised in the autumn of 1907, when
_The Intimate Theatre_ began its stormy career with _The Pelican, The
Burned Lot, Storm_, and the Hoffmanesque and elliptic _Spook Sonata_.
These plays were promptly attacked by critics who made little attempt
to understand them.
The efforts made in certain quarters to silence Strindberg could not
suppress the rising wave of admiration. When once the public had been
brought in touch with him, the anathema of the powerful literary
coterie was useless. In 1901 Herr Albert Ranft had courageously staged
_Gustavus Vasa_ and _Eric XIV_ at "Svenska Teatern" in Stockholm.
They became theatrical successes. "Dramatiska Teatern" followed suit
with _Charles XII_, _Easter_ and _There are Crimes and Crimes_. A
young Norwegian actress, Harriet Bosse, played the part of Eleonora
in _Easter_ with so much charm that she fascinated both audience and
author. She became a favourite actress and--Strindberg's third wife.
Several of Strindberg's great historical plays were performed before
the opening of his own Intimate Theatre. Though the change in public
opinion was making itself felt, Strindberg could not but resent the
tardy recognition of his works.
He was out of touch with the literary men of his own country. To them
he appeared as an outlander, and yet he was, withal, so intensely
Swedish. He sought in vain to denationalise himself. He was not
Swedish with the passionate, reverential love with which Dostoevsky
was Russian. Strindberg was Swedish in spite of his efforts to the
contrary; his country was in his blood and bones. When Herr A.
Babillotte,[6] a German writer, says of Strindberg: "He is without
roots ... though a Swede, he is certainly not Swedish," he shows scant
understanding of one of the mainsprings in Strindberg's character and
production. The statement is on a par with his contemptuous dismissal
of Strindberg's historical dramas.[7] These plays drew nourishment
from his love of his country, and derived actuality from his identity
with Sweden. His heart hankered after Sweden, and drove him home when
pride would have kept him away. In one of his first poems, entitled In
Paris, he sang wittily of his incorrigible heart's longing for Sweden,
despite the allurements of Montmartre. He felt lonely in Switzerland
because he had not spoken to a countryman for three months.
The difficulty in tracing Strindberg's literary ancestry in Sweden
is responsible for attempts to find his roots elsewhere. Thus Laura
Marholm elaborates a fantastic theory, according to which the mixture
of genius and nomadic barbarism in Strindberg is to be explained by
his "Mongolian blood." The union of mystic melancholy and exuberant
sensuousness in Strindberg caused close, but futile comparisons
to be made between him and E.J. Stagnelius, a Swedish poet of the
romantic school who died in 1823. But a greater number of points of
contact could be established between Strindberg and the "wizard" of
Swedish literature, K.J.L. Almqvist, who lived in open revolt against
authority and convention of all kinds, and whose prolific writings
showed a remarkable versatility of mind. Almqvist was a realist and
symbolist who loved to throw out paradoxical _bons-mots_ on current
morals with a generous hand. "Two things are white," he said, "...
innocence and arsenic." The amoral note of his writings and the general
bizarrerie of his metaphors may show a certain likeness to Strindberg,
but it vanishes upon closer comparison. Almqvist was not a dramatist.
Though without direct literary parentage in Sweden, Strindberg is the
most typical representative of his country's temperament and spiritual
struggles. His genius is indigenous in spite of its universality. His
is the race-consciousness which is enriched by contact with other
races, but which never loses its distinct quality.
He writes an idiomatic Swedish which, in a sense, is not reproducible
in another language. His sentences, whether in the dialogue of a drama,
or in the story of a novel, are wrought with a nervous force which
is untranslatable. His phrases seem to be innervated, warm-blooded
entities, and support the theory that the sentence preceded the word
in the evolution of speech. He is often ungrammatical; each sentence
is a living whole which cannot be divided. Analyse him with syntax and
dictionary, and you will find "mistakes" and startling neology. The
meaning will sometimes be obscure. But read him as you would listen
to a piece of music with your ear to the harmonics, and you will find
a consummate artist in words. Laura Marholm says that the sound of
Strindberg is like bell metal in Swedish, whilst it resembles tin in
German. There is much truth in the statement. Even the vigorous and
cogent translations into German by Herr Emil Schering cannot retain
the soul and magic of Strindberg's style. Translated from German into
English he is unrecognisable. The difficulty of fusing his meaning
and style in a new form is also apparent in the direct translations
into English which have been made. Some of his plays have been
sympathetically done into English by Herr Edwin Björkman. Mr. Björkman
quotes from an article in _The Drama_, in which the belief is expressed
that Strindberg's prose will be rendered better in "American" than in
English. Mr. Björkman's translations are certainly American rather
than English. The question whether this is an advantage to the style
and beauty of the translation is a matter of taste which it would be
invidious to discuss.
Strindberg never strove to build up a style, like Stevenson who "played
the sedulous ape" to Lamb, Wordsworth and Baudelaire. He knew nothing
of the terrible torture of style which made Flaubert's literary
labours a martyrdom. Ideas haunted Strindberg as they haunted Jules
de Goncourt, but he never experienced the slavery to literary form in
which the Goncourts lived. He did not live in order to write; he wrote
in order to live.
In an article of reminiscences by Madame Hélène Welinder,[8] who
spent the summer of 1884 with Strindberg and his family at Chexbres
in Switzerland, there is a vivid account of Strindberg's manner of
writing. He wrote with feverish restlessness, and tried to overcome
sleeplessness with large doses of bromide. She asked him if rest would
not be better than bromide. Strindberg put his hand to his forehead as
if in pain, and replied with a tone of despair: "I cannot rest, however
much I should like to. I must write for bread in order to maintain
wife and children, and, even apart from this, I cannot stop. Whether
I travel by train, or do anything else, my brain works incessantly,
it grinds and grinds like a mill, and I cannot make it stop. I get no
peace before I see my thoughts on paper, and then something new begins
immediately, and there is the same misery. I write and write, and do
not even read through what I have written."
This rapidity of composition was probably to some extent responsible
for the frequent repetitions of the same word within a short paragraph,
the careless tautology of ideas, situations and episodes in his
books. Many instances of such episode-repetition could be given. Thus
_Comrades_ and _Charles XII_ contain similar phrases about the woman
clipping the man's hair of strength, whilst his head rests in her lap.
_The Dream Play_ has several scenes which are "the doubles" of those
related in _Fairhaven and Foulstrand_. A certain event connected with
the tearing up of _The Swiss Family Robinson_ serves the author's
psychological purposes both in _To Damascus_ and in _The Dream Play_.
In _The Father_ Laura secretly abstracts the contents of her husband's
letter-bag, and in _To Damascus_ "The Lady" is guilty of the same
offence. Both in _Fairhaven and Foulstrand_ and in _To Damascus_ the
woman promises not to read a certain book by the man which deals with
his first marriage. She breaks the promise, and the disastrous effect
is related with emphasis in both books. In _The Dance of Death_ the
remorseless Captain calmly refers to his attempt to drown his wife by
pushing her into the water; the incident is more fully worked out in
_Fairhaven and Foulstrand_, and is the theme of a story in _Fisher
Folk_. Such repetitions cannot be attributed to poverty of imagination;
they are the outcome of a too retentive emotional memory and an
insistent need of expression, immediate expression.
It is curious to note that in spite of the richness and purity of his
Swedish, in which the living tongue of the people is heard as never
heretofore, there is not infrequently an admixture of foreign words and
expressions. That his early verse-play _In Rome_ should contain rhymes
on "jouissance" and "connaissance," coupled with Swedish words, and
that some of his early poems were adorned in the same manner is not
surprising. But when Göran Persson in _Eric XIV_ lightly throws out a
hybrid drawing-room phrase: "_Tant mieux_ for my enemies!" a jarring
note is introduced which is difficult to explain in a dialogue,
otherwise so carefully balanced. The habit of using root-words from
many languages, to which he gave Swedish shape, grew upon Strindberg
in later years. In the plays his characters suddenly begin to spout
Latin and Greek, like the philosophic beggar in _To Damascus_ and the
sergeant-major in _Gustavus Adolphus_. Such dramatic exercises in the
classics may have had a good and sufficient reason. The use of words of
foreign extraction was no doubt fostered by his familiarity with the
literature of many countries, and by the limitations of each language.
To this may be added his growing interest in philological research. A
short time before his death he was keenly at work on the etymology of
Finnish, Hebrew and Greek.
Uddgren's account of Strindberg's manner of working in 1907 shows that
the fever had not left him. "When I have finished my work for the day,"
Strindberg said, "I always note on a piece of paper what I shall begin
with the next day. The whole long afternoon and evening I collect
material for next day's work. During my morning walk my thoughts are
further condensed, and when I return from my wanderings I am charged
like an electric machine. I put on a dry vest, for after my walk I am
always very hot, and then I sit down at my writing-table. As soon as I
have paper and pen ready it bursts out. The words literally tumble over
me, and the pen works under high pressure in order to get everything
down on paper. When I have written for a while I have a feeling that I
am floating in space. Then it is as if a higher will than my own made
the pen glide over the paper, guide it to write down words which seem
to me entirely inspired."
The same ecstasy of writing is shown in _Alone_, where he says of his
life at the writing-table: "I live, and I live the manifold lives
of all the human beings I describe, happy with those who are happy,
evil with the evil ones, good with the good; I creep out of my own
personality, and speak out of the mouths of children, of women, of old
men; I am king and beggar, I have worldly power, I am the tyrant and
the most despised of all, the oppressed hater of the tyrant; I hold all
opinions and profess all religions; I live in all times and have myself
ceased to be. This is a state which brings indescribable happiness."
These words remind us of Flaubert who felt "in the space of a minute
a million thoughts, images and combinations of all kinds, throwing
themselves into my brain at once as it were the lighted squibs of
fire-works,"[9] and recall the plastic and yearning girl-soul of Marie
Bashkirtseff who, when walking in Rome, exclaimed: "I want to be Cæsar,
Augustus, Marcus Aurelius, Caracalla, the Devil, the Pope," and who
adds: "I love to weep, I love to be in despair. I love to be grieved
and sad ... and I love life in spite of everything."
Amiel, remembering a night when he lay stretched full length on the
sandy shore of the North Sea, cries: "Will they ever return to me,
those grandiose, immortal, cosmogonic dreams, in which one seems to
carry the world in one's breast, to touch the stars, to possess the
infinite?"[10] Amiel dreamt, Strindberg created; Amiel found literary
exultation in dreamy contemplation of the universe, Strindberg in the
spiral revolutions of humanity.
But sometimes the joy of literary creation gave way to profound
self-disgust. "What an occupation," he writes in _The Quarantine
Master's Tales_,[11] "to sit and flay one's fellow-humans, offer the
skins for sale, and expect people to buy them. It is like the famished
hunter who cuts off his dog's tail, eats the meat himself, and gives
the bones to the dog, the dog's own bones. To go about spying out
people's secrets, exposing the birthmark of one's best friend, using
one's wife as a vivisection rabbit, storming like a Croat, cutting
down, violating, burning and selling. The devil take it all."
[Illustration: Harriet Bosse, Strindberg's third wife as Biskra in
_Samum_ 1902.]
[Illustration: Anne-Marie Bosse-Strindberg, Strindberg's only child in
his third marriage. Born 1902.]
Strindberg's style expands to fit his wild excursions into the world
of ideas and his eccentricities of conception, such as the story of
when he tried to catch dead "souls" with a bottle containing sugar
of lead, on the Montparnasse cemetery,[12] or that of the madman's
microscopical studies of the genesis of humanity in _At the Edge
of the Sea_. His expressions and metaphors often bear the imprint
of overwrought feeling, as when he speaks of the "blood-poisoning
cares of the household," or when the impression produced by a visit
to parents-in-law is that "of a serpent's hole into which Satan had
enticed him." When he describes poor people asleep at night in
a railway carriage, as presenting the appearance of corpses on a
battlefield and scattered human limbs, we cannot but congratulate
ourselves on the dulness of our imagination.
Strindberg's "wildness" has been falsely attributed to the influence of
alcohol. His use of absinthe, and his habit of heaping all sins upon
himself--including that of drunkenness--account for the fable that
he was incapable of writing without the aid of alcoholic excesses.
He cannot even be placed in the long list of literary and artistic
"drunkards "--including the names of Bums, Byron, Charles Lamb,
Addison, Musset, Hoffmann, Poe and Baudelaire--to whom alcohol was a
means of attaining to inspiration. Strindberg did not seek cortical
excitation. He sought oblivion. In _The Great Highway_, "The Hunter"
says to "The Wanderer" (Strindberg): "Mr. Incognito, why do you
drink so much?" _The Wanderer_: "Because I am always lying on the
operating-table, and have to chloroform myself."
He was not a man who suffered from chronic congestion of the head
in consequence of indifference to all hygienic laws. Ever since the
early days when he used to throw himself headlong into the open sea
from a rock, he was devoted to cold-water ablutions. His morning
exercise, which sometimes was taken so vehemently as to tire him out
completely, was part of the routine of daily life. In his home-life he
was of methodical, orderly habits; he detested alike uncleanliness and
untidiness--in fact, precisely the opposite of what some people have
imagined him to be.
The roots of his "wildness" cannot be found in the fumes of alcohol.
There was a strain of the publicist and the agitator in Strindberg
which found but an insufficient outlet. His craving for social reform
was not satisfied by corresponding activity. He suffered from too much
happening within him, and too little without. His stored-up energy
caused a series of eruptions. Strindberg was an orator afflicted with
dumbness. His faults of style are those of the typical orator. The
splendour and vigour of his phrasing often hide blunders of logic
and hasty conclusions. If Strindberg had met audiences face to face,
like Björnson, and been in actual touch with the people, his tongue
would have lost its sting. Björnson's pulpit manner would have fitted
Strindberg badly, but it would have protected him against himself.
But Strindberg could not be a public speaker. Though he was essentially
a "Confessor" on paper of the race of St. Augustine and Chateaubriand,
he dreaded the personal jostling and exhibition which are inseparable
from political life. Loneliness was necessary to him. The emanations,
opinions and habits of others were apt to oppress him, if brought too
closely within his own circle. In Paris he fled from his friendship
with Jonas Lie; in _Inferno_ he shows this dread of paying the taxes
of friendship. He felt the identity of other people pressing on him
in much the same way as Keats did. In company he did not like to be
contradicted. Though a genial and generous host, he could turn friends
out of his house if they proved themselves possessed of too great
pugnacity of argument. "I have never hated human beings, rather the
reverse," he says, "but ever since I was born I fear them."
This fear of an alien invasion of the soul, of losing himself in
another, made him flee again and again from the prison-house of love.
In all his books the attraction between man and woman is a duel
between love and hatred. Sexual love is never spiritualised; it drags
man into the illusions of Maya, it robs him of strength of purpose,
of intellectual freedom. Hence Strindberg's men are ever struggling
to get out of the clutches of woman. When the ties are too strong
to be broken, when passion obscures reason, hatred is born. Anatole
France calls himself "a philosophical monk." The monk is always by
Strindberg's side, pointing out the degradation of carnal love, urging
him to seek liberation at all costs. But he is not yet ready. He wants
to go, and he wants to stay. And all his couples, autobiographical and
purely imaginative, bum in the fires of love-hatred. "I love her," he
writes in Inferno, "and she loves me, and we hate each other with a
wild hatred, born of love, which is intensified by the great distance."
In _Fairhaven and Foulstrand_ the lover says: "At bottom we hate
each other, because we love each other. We are afraid of losing our
personalities through the assimilating power of love, and therefore we
must break away sometimes so as to feel that I am not you...."
After some time love always becomes irksome to Strindberg. He longs for
male companionship. He experiences a sense of relief when he is free
from the woman, from the consciousness of always being watched. His
voice resumes its manly tones, his chest expands. This trait subsists
in his stories; it makes marital happiness impossible.
He can describe the marriage of souls with exquisite delicacy, the
first hours of newborn tenderness, the maiden's innocence, the youth's
wonder at the miracle which is taking place within his heart, the
chaste abandonment of reserve before the unifying power of love. But
when once love has descended from Heaven to Earth, Strindberg does
not leave the lovers in peace. From earth's paradise they are driven
to hell; they must hate each other, torment each other, devour each
other's substance with the cruelty of vampires. Even the first kiss is
fraught with untold dangers. In _Midsummer_--a sunny play emphasising
the worth of man and the dignity of work, remarkably free from
distressing problems--this pathological trait is introduced. Julius, a
healthy young gardener, kisses Louise, his sweetheart, on the mouth,
and the demoniacal depths of human nature are immediately revealed to
both. Julius begins to understand the meaning of hatred, and gives
utterance to startling thoughts. Louise no longer recognises his voice.
"Why did you kiss me?" says Julius, "we ought never to have done
that." "What happened?" says Louise. "I have just read in a book,"
answers Julius, "that when two innocent bodies, carbon and nitrogen,
unite a dreadful poison is formed. The poison has been born on our lips,
and hatred has been born out of our innocent love."
[Illustration: August Strindberg--Bust by Max Levi, 1893.]
[Illustration: August Strindberg--Bust by Agnes Kjellberg-Frumerie, 1896.]
Shakespeare married a shrew. She served as an excellent model for his
portraits of angry women. Led by a malignant fate Strindberg married
three women who had interests outside the home. He loved _the ideal_
of the womanly woman, the mother who lives for home and children. He
came to detest the intellectual woman; she was to him the man-woman, a
danger to the race, the enemy of man who steals his qualities because
she is bent on his destruction.
In _The Confession of a Fool_ his love for his first wife suffers at
an early stage through the necessary introduction of business into the
divorce arrangements. "Where is the charm of a woman who is always worn
out with contention, whose conversation bristles with legal terms?" he
asks plaintively. In _Fairhaven and Foulstrand_ the second story of the
Quarantine Master shows the same sad development: "... But this evening
he found her ugly, carelessly dressed, with ink on her fingers, and
her conversation was so business-like that she appeared to him in a
detestable light." "A lady," he says in one of his essays on the art
of the theatre, "must never be snappish or grumpy, even if her part is
one of opposition. A lady should always be graceful, even in moments of
anger."
Already as a youth he found it difficult to talk sense to girls.
He denied that friendship could exist between the two sexes. The
presence of emancipated and "free" women was sufficient completely
to disorganise his work and temper. He told Uddgren that he did not
feel happy in Switzerland, because he found women enjoying the same
freedom as men in marriage. "I experienced a sense of peace when I
came to Bavaria where the men are the rulers in marriage, and the
women are obedient and faithful. The mere fact of returning to these
old-fashioned, patriarchal conditions was sufficient to restore my
literary powers which, during the last time in Switzerland, had been in
abeyance."
In an essay entitled _Woman-Hatred and Woman-Worship_, published
in 1897, Strindberg wrote: "As I have the reputation of being a
woman-hater, and people amuse themselves by calling me one, I am
forced to ask myself if I really am one. On looking back at my past
life I discover that, ever since I became man, I have always lived
in regular relations with women, and that their presence has aroused
pleasant feelings in me, in so far as they have remained women towards
me. But when they have behaved as the rivals of man, neglected their
beauty and lost their charm, I have detested them by dint of a natural
and sound instinct, for in them I sensed something of man, and an
element of my own sex which I detest from the bottom of my heart....
Consequently, as I have been married twice and had five children, it is
not very likely that I should be a woman-hater."
"The most beautiful thing I know," says The Stranger to The Lady in _To
Damascus_, "is a woman bent over her needlework or her child." And The
Lady crochets. The good women in his plays are all fitted for "the most
beautiful thing": Gunlöd in _The Outlaw_, Margaretha in _The Secret of
the Guild_, Karin in _Eric XIV_.
The following passage throws light, not only on Strindberg's attitude
towards women, but on the attitude of women towards him: "To return
to woman was to me to come back to nature, and in a corner of my soul
I made myself unconscious, instinctive, a child, and thus renewed my
power to think, act and fight.... I have always worshipped women, these
enchanting, criminal minxes whose worst crimes are not registered in
criminal statistics. But I have had sufficiently bad--or good--taste
to tell them the troth, and they have revenged themselves by calling
me woman-hater. Just think, if these priestesses of revenge knew
how many successes with the fair sex their revenge has brought me!
Inquisitiveness, the original sin of Eve, drew the little ingénues
to the monster, and the monster put no obstacles in the way for even
the most inquisitive to satisfy their curiosity ... many thanks, my
charming enemies."
It is little wonder that a man so constituted should be appalled at
the prospect of the New Woman with her independence, her clubs, her
cigarettes, her politics, her sport. Monsieur Casimir Dudevant, the
husband of George Sand, who was "just an ordinary man" was at first
puzzled by his wife's extraordinary qualities, and then came to the
conclusion that she was "idiotic." Poor Monsieur Dudevant! He was the
forerunner of a long row of perplexed husbands, injured in their sense
of the fitness of things. Strindberg merely made himself a spokesman
for what the majority of masculine men feel in regard to intellectual
women, even though they may not be capable of expressing it. Since he
abandoned his early championship of woman's suffrage, he came to utter
much bad and ill-tempered abuse of woman. Some of the things which he
said of "lazy, stingy and cowardly woman," of her mental and physical
inferiority to man, might well be included in Flaubert's _Dossier de la
Sottise Humaine_. His arguments in favour of the theory that woman is
an intermediary biological form, whose development has been arrested
somewhere between man and youth, are interesting but unconvincing. The
evidence he offers in support of his views on the general incapacity
of woman--an incapacity which ranges from the handling of musical
instruments to making coffee--bears the imprint of petulance rather
than research. Sometimes there is a cross and quarrelsome tone in these
utterances which reflects personal irritation, something of Alfred de
Musset's words in _Nuit d'Octobre_:
Honte à toi, qui la première
M'a appris la trahison...!
But, after all, there is not much difference between the reasons
against woman's political emancipation put forward by Strindberg, and
those to which Mrs. Humphry Ward clings. And there is a close affinity
between the psychological and physiological arguments against woman's
suffrage, advanced in leading articles in _The Times_, and those on
which Strindberg based his objections to giving women greater freedom.
The dread of the subjection of man, of a general feminisation of the
world, and its effects on social life and politics, is the common
ground of opposition.[13]
Some people have found an appropriate analogy in the fact that
Strindberg "hated," not only women, but dogs. The hatred of dogs
pervades his books, and has a note of the same bitter unreasonableness
as his strictures on women. His first wife had a King Charles, "a
blear-eyed little monster," which apparently received more loving
attention than her husband. She even "prayed for dogs, fowls and
rabbits," whilst, presumably, she did not pray for him. This was
intolerable, and henceforth the dog became Strindberg's symbol of the
worthless recipients of the good things of this world, of sneaking
cupboard-love and uncleanliness. He has surpassed the Bible in
contemptuous references to the dog.
From this hatred the rest of the animal world was exempt. He cautions
the angler against inflicting unnecessary suffering on the worm. He
feeds the birds on his window-sill and the bear in the Zoo. He tells
a story of a certain island where all the people were abominable
drunkards, and where the only eyes which could still reflect
intelligence and the blue sky were those of animals. He is not in
sympathy with the aimless destruction of life. "Why must one always
have a gun when one sees an innocent creature in the forest?" he asks,
and adds: "There are other occasions in life when a gun would be of
better use." In _The Crown Bride_ the life of an ant is spared, and the
mystic "White Child" proclaims the love that is greatest of all, "love
for every living thing, great and small."
Strindberg's life in Stockholm during the last years of his great
dramatic production flowed in a calm stream, the surface of which
showed no signs of the storms within. He lived the life of a literary
hermit, wrapped up in his studies and his art. He took his morning
walks when the greater part of Stockholm was still asleep, and received
only a few privileged friends in his home. Solitude had become his best
friend. In the morning he made his own coffee, and partook of a light
repast before going out. As a rule he lived frugally, and his little
home was arranged with the greatest simplicity. "When I get out of bed
the morning after a sober evening and a restful night, life itself is
a distinct enjoyment. It is like rising from the dead," he says in
_Alone_.
Poverty, the faithful companion of his youth, dung to him to the end.
Even during the last years he was often in monetary difficulties; in
his attacks upon the powers of the day he had no thought of what the
morrow would bring to him. He had again and again to pay the penalty
of speaking unpopular truths. And when money came his way he did not
love it well enough to make it stay with him. He gave with a lavish,
careless hand, with a heart ever warm and bleeding for those who had
less than he. When, on his last birthday, a purse containing 50,000
kronor had been presented to him, as a token of the people's love and
admiration, he gave away large sums to the cause of peace, to the poor.
When, at last, a great publisher bought the rights of all his published
works in Sweden for some £11,000, the affluence came too late--for him.
In 1901 he married Harriet Bosse who had been the sympathetic
interpreter on the stage of the women in some of his plays. The
marriage was amicably dissolved in 1904. During his third marriage he
wrote _The Dance of Death_ and _Swanwhite_, and published a volume
of poems, in which his lyrical powers were perfected through greater
sensitiveness and restraint. Among these poems there is one, strange
and beautiful, spiritual and earthly, in which he sings of the glory of
the form of woman--the theme of artists and lovers since the beginning
of time--but here treated in a new manner. In her he sees the motion of
stars and planets, the lines of sphere, parabola and ellipse. He sees
the infinite possibilities of the Cosmic procession, of the creative,
ever-moving force, the highest and the lowest, in the symbol of the
eternally feminine.
The "music of the spheres" has been captured in this little poem. It
is strange how often one is constrained to use musical metaphors in
describing Strindberg's style. There is always music in his language.
He was conscious of this himself, for in his last plays he always chose
music to fit the mood of his dramatic movement. Thus the spiritual
peace of _Easter_, the change from fear of fate to certainty of God's
presence, is accompanied by Haydn's _Sieben Worte des Erlösers_, the
sinful thoughts of Maurice and Henriette in _There are Crimes and
Crimes_ are followed by the finale of Beethoven's Sonata in D minor.
_The Dream Play_ is interluded with Bach's Toccata con Fuga; the _Dance
of Death_ is trodden to the tune of the "Entry of the Boyars."
Over his piano there hung a death-mask of Beethoven. The final movement
of the "Moonlight Sonata" was to him the highest interpretation of
humanity's yearning for deliverance. Music brought him peace. It gave
him strength when words failed--even during the last days when he sat
at his piano, improvising variations on the Death hymn of the Titanic.
Strindberg's old friend Tor Aulin, the well-known Swedish composer,
received a characteristic message from Strindberg's deathbed: "A last
farewell from Saul to David."
[Illustration: Strindberg's Funeral, May 19th, 1912. Trades-Unions and
Undergraduates in Procession.]
The little Anne-Marie Bosse-Strindberg, his daughter in the last
marriage, was very dear to his heart. He had found her gifted with
something of the second sight which was his own, and his great
tenderness for children found response in her. Amongst his three
children by the first marriage his daughter Greta, married to Dr.
Henry von Philp in Stockholm, understood him best. She was an actress,
and took the part of Kerstin in _The Crown Bride_ during the national
festivities in his honour in January, 1912. Happily he did not live
to mourn over the tragic fate that overtook her. She was killed in
a terrible railway accident which took place a few weeks after her
father's death.
The illness which was to end his life had long been battling with his
wonderful vitality. He caught cold during the Christmas of 1911, when
he went to pay a visit to his daughter Greta. Pneumonia supervened and
laid him low for some time. He regained strength and once again put on
his warrior's armour. Of this illness he gave an account in Berliner
Tageblatt of February 4th, 1912. After describing an etymological
challenge which he had sent to three Finnish friends he writes:
"The challenge had hardly been accepted before I fell ill; I first
noticed it on the morning of Christmas Day, when I was so tired, so
tired, that I would neither get up, nor drink my coffee. I had no
pains, but experienced a great calm and an indifference towards the
outer world, and felt as if I had at last found peace. Usually I get
up punctually at seven, take a walk, and hurry home, driven by an
irresistible longing for work. Now this restlessness had left me; I
felt my life-work was completed. I had said all I wished to say, and my
unprinted manuscripts were put away in perfect order in boxes."
But the recovery was apparent only. The real trouble was cancer of the
stomach. An operation was performed, but could not check the advance of
the disease.
On January 22nd, 1912, the whole Swedish nation celebrated his
sixty-third birthday. It was nearly too late. The breath of death was
already upon him as he stood on his balcony, waving his hand to the
torchlight procession which passed his house, bending his head before
the deafening cheers which rose from the multitudes, from whose lips
the cry for August Strindberg rose in tones of jubilant hero-worship.
As he stood there, raised above the bands and banners of the festive
acclamation, it may be that the memories of past mistakes, past
humiliation, and past struggle for goodness, rose within that mighty
brow, and kept pace with the steps of the marching crowd below. For he
knew, as few have known, the comedy and the tragedy of life.
That night the theatres of Stockholm vied with each other in performing
his plays. Laurel-wreathed busts and portraits of Strindberg were
on view in the foyers and restaurants. The night came with public
festivities in his honour, music and speeches of approbation.
But the dramatist remained at home in his Blue Tower with a few
friends. The applause of the public touched his heart, but did not
deceive him. He knew that the curtain was about to fall on his part in
the perpetual performance in the Theatre of Life, and that new scenes
were to follow, to be hissed and applauded until Time puts its last
figure upon the stage.
[1] In 1658 the kingdom of Sweden included the whole of the present
Sweden and Finland, and in addition Esthonia, Livonia, part of
Ingermanland, Pomerania, Wismar, Bremen and Verden.
[2] _Play-Making. A Manual of Craftsmanship_, by William Archer.
[3] Idun, May, 1912.
[4] Ellen Key's _Lifsåskådning och Verksamhet som Författarinna_. En
undersökning af C.D. af Wirsén.
[5] Kritiker, af C.D. af Wirsén.
[6] August Strindberg. _Das Hohe Lied seines Lebens_, von Arthur
Babillotte.
7:
"Ich halte Strindberg's historische Dramen für das
Schwächste was er je geschrieben."
[8] _Ord och Bild_, No. IX, 1912.
[9] Correspondence.
[10] Amiel's Journal.
[11] _Fairhaven and Foulstrand_.
[12] _Fables and Other Stories_.
[13] The reader is referred to the following leading articles:
_Insurgent Hysteria_ (March 16th, 1912), _The Subjection of Man_ (July
31st, 1912), and _Militant Suffragism_ (September 24th, 1912).
LIST OF STRINDBERG'S CHIEF WRITINGS
A uniform edition of Strindberg's collected works is in course of
publication by Messrs. Albert Bonnier of Stockholm, who are the owners
of the copyright of Strindberg's writings. The following list includes
some unpublished works which will now be issued for the first time by
Messrs. Bonnier.
In a preface to _The Author_, one of the autobiographical volumes,
Strindberg gave a chronological list of his most important works,
and added explanatory remarks. The appended notes embody some of
Strindberg's views on his own writings:
The Freethinker 1869
Hermione 1869
In Rome 1870
The Outlaw 1871
Master Olof 1872
The Year 'Forty-Eight 1881
"In Rome," "The Outlaw," and "Hermione" are classified by Strindberg as
"studies."
From Fjärdingen and Svartbäcken 1877 Stories
The Red Room 1879 Novel
From the Sea 1880}
Here and There 1880} Stories
Old Stockholm 1880}
He and She....
(To be published for the first time in the posthumous edition of
Strindberg's Collected Works.)
The Secret of the Guild 1880}
Sir Bengt's Wife 1882} Plays
The Journey of Lucky Peter 1883}
Studies in the History of Culture 1881
The Swedish People 1881-82 History.
The New Kingdom 1882 Satirical sketches
Swedish Destinies and Adventures
(Two Volumes) 1883-92 Stories in Historical Setting.
Strindberg defines "The New Kingdom" as a criticism of "The Changeably
Permanent."
Poems in Verse and Prose 1883
Somnambulistic Nights after
Wakeful Days 1884
Miscellanea (Likt och Olikt) Essays: Society under Review.
From Italy 1884
Married (Two Volumes) 1884-86 Stories.
Strindberg points out that the first volume of "Married" is a defence
and glorification of marriage, of home, mother, and child, and that the
second part is a criticism.
The Impoundage Journey
An account of the prosecution following upon the publication of
"Married." It will now be issued in book-form.
Real Utopias 1885 Stories.
Described by Strindberg as positive suggestions in the spirit of
Saint-Simonism. REMORSE--"The Peace Story"--is included in this
collection.
The Bondswoman's Son}
Fermentation Time. }
In the Red Room } 1886-87 Autobiography
The Author }
The People of Hemsö 1887}
Fisher folk 1888} Novels
These novels represent the author's emancipation from the bondage of
"problems"; Strindberg points out that they are simply descriptions of
country life and scenery.
Sketches of Flowers and Animals 1888
The Father 1887}
Lady Julie 1888}
Comrades 1888}
Creditors 1890}
Pariah 1890}
Samum 1890}
The Stronger 1890}Plays
Facing Death 1893}
The First Warning 1893}
Debit and Credit 1893}
Mother-Love 1893}
Playing with Fire 1897}
The Link 1897}
Among French Peasants 1889
Tschandala 1889}
The Island of Bliss 1890}Stories
At the Edge of the Sea 1890 Novel
Strindberg remarks that "At the Edge of the Sea" was influenced by
Nietzsche, but "the individual succumbs in the struggle for absolute
individualism."
Things Printed and Unprinted
(Two Volumes) 1890-97 Essays
The Associations of France and Sweden
up to the Present Time 1891
(To be published for the first time in Swedish.)
Fables 1890-97
The Keys of Heaven 1892 Play
Strindberg's remark: "Darkness, sorrow, despair, absolute scepticism."
The Confession of a Fool 1893 Autobiographical Novel.
(A German edition was published in 1893; a French edition in 1894; it
will now be published in Swedish.)
Jardin des plantes
Antibarbarus 1892-98 Essays.
Types and Prototypes
Inferno 1897}
Legends 1898} Autobiography.
To Damascus. I and II 1898}
III 1904} Plays.
Advent. 1899}
"The great crisis at fifty," remarks Strindberg, "revolutions in my
mental life, wanderings in the desert, devastation, Hells and Heavens
of Swedenborg. Not influenced by Huysmans' "En Route," still less by
Peladan, who was then unknown to the author ... but based on personal
experiences."
There are Crimes and Crimes 1899}
The Saga of the Folkungs 1899}
Gustavus Vasa 1899} Plays.
Eric XIV 1899}
Gustavus Adolphus 1900}
"Light after darkness," writes Strindberg. "New production, with Faith,
Hope, and Charity regained--and absolute certainty."
Midsummer 1901}
Easter 1901}
"The school of suffering." }
The Dance of Death. I and II 1901} Plays.
Engelbrecht 1901}
Charles XII 1901}
The Crown Bride 1902
Swanwhite 1902
The Dream Play 1902
Christina 1903
Gustavus III 1903
The Nightingale in Wittenberg 1903
Fairhaven and Foulstrand 1902 Stories.
(Partly autobiographical.)
Sagas 1903
Alone 1903 Mediative Autobiography.
The Gothic Rooms 1904 Novel.
Word-Play and Handicraft Poems.
The Conscious Will in the History
of the World Historical.
A Free Norway[*]
(* To be published for the first time.)
Historical Miniatures 1905} Stories in
New Swedish Adventures. 1906} Historical Setting.
Black Flags 1907 Novel.
A Blue Book. I, II, III 1907-8
The Synthetic Philosophy of Strindberg's Life.
Storm 1907}
The Burned Lot 1907}
The Spook Sonata 1907} Chamber Plays.
The Pelican 1907}
The Black Glove 1909}
The Festival of the Finished
Building. 1907}
The Scapegoat 1907} Stories.
The Last Knight 1908}
The Slippers of Abu Casem 1908}
The Earl of Bjälbo 1909} Plays.
The National Director 1909}
The Great Highway 1909}
"The Great Highway" is a "farewell to life and a self-declaration."
Hamlet }
Julius Cæsar }
Memorandum to the Members of }
the Intimate Theatre. }
Macbeth and Other Plays by } 1908-9 Dramaturgy.
Shakespeare }
An Open Letter to the Intimate }
Theatre }
The Origins of our Mother Tongue 1910}
Biblical Proper Names 1910} Philology.
Roots of World-Languages 1910}
Speeches to the Swedish Nation 1910
The State of the People 1910
Religious Renaissance 1910
China and Japan[1] 1911
Dr. John Landquist, the editor of the posthumous edition of
Strindberg's collected works, has kindly placed the following note on
Strindberg's manuscripts at our disposal:
"The MSS., most of which are still in existence, are written with the
utmost care in Strindberg's clear and energetic hand, and are often
beautifully ornamented. They reflect the neatness and order with which
the author surrounded himself, and also the love with which he carried
out his work. When writing mediæval drama, Strindberg illuminated
his MSS. like a mediæval handwritten manuscript with artistically
designed and coloured initial letters, and with miniatures painted by
himself--the whole harmonising with the period and surroundings in
which the action takes place. On other pages there is interspersed
in the writing itself such ornamentation as would correspond to the
time and atmosphere of the written work. As a rule he used hand-made
Lessebo-paper, and generally made very few alterations. He hardly ever
copied out his MSS. In later years he seldom corrected anything when
once it had been written down. He did not like to read through his own
works after having completed them."
[1] All correspondence relating to the authorisation of translations
of Strindberg's works and the rights of performing his plays in England
and America should be addressed to Herr Albert Bonnier, of Stockholm.
He is now the sole representative of Strindberg's literary executors.
INDEX
A
Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 119
Addison, 338
Adelphi Players, The, 204
_Admirable Crichton, The_, 181
_Advent_, 304, 305, 306
Æschylus, 310
Ahasuerus, 16
Albericus, 89
Alembert, d', 209
Almqvist, K.J.L., 328, 329
_Alone_, 19, 284, 285, 335, 350
Amiel, _Journal_ of, 336
_Antibarbarus I, or the Psychology of Sulphur_,
_or All is in All_, 241, 242
Antoine, Monsieur André, 171
Aphrodite Pandemos, 128
Archer, Mr. William, _Play-Making. A Manual of Craftsmanship_ by, 303
Aristotle, 251
_Athenæum_, 320
Augier, 170
Augustine, St. 340
Augustus, 336
Aulin, Tor, 352
_Author, The_, 19, 122, 133, 134, 152, 284
_Autobiography_, 56, 86, 98, 169
B
Babillotte, Herr Arthur,_ August Strindberg_.
_Das Hohe Lied seines Lebens_ by, 327, 328
Bach, 352
Balfour, A.J. 256
Balzac, 159, 232; _Seraphita_ by, 260; 281
Bashkirtseff, Marie, 336
Baudelaire, 331, 338
Becque, Henry, _Les Corbeaux_ by, 205, 212; _Souvenirs_ by, 208
Beethoven, _Sonata in D minor_ by, 352;
_Moonlight Sonata_ by, 352
Benson, Mr. A.C., 321
Berliner Tageblatt, 353, 354
Bismarck, 313
Björkman, Herr Edwin, 330
Björnson, Björnstjerne,
_Mary Stuart_ by, 67, 75, 123, 152;
_The King_ by, 153, 154, 317;
_A Gauntlet_ by, 318, 339
_Black Flags_, 325
_Black Glove, The_, 316
_Blackwood's Magazine_, 320
Blake, 251, 255, 260
Blavatsky, Madame, _The Secret Doctrine_ by, 274, 275
_Blotsven_, 79
_Blue Bird, The_, 144
_Blue Book, A_, 282, 284, 286, 287
Boccaccio, 159
_Bok om Strindberg, En_, af Holger Drachmann, Knut Hamsun,
Justin Huntly McCarthy, Björnstjerne Björnson, Jonas Lie,
Georg Brandes, etc., 123, 152
_Bondswoman's Son, The_, 18, 19, 282, 283
Bonnier, Herr Albert, 123,161, 162
_Book of Job, The_, 260
Bosse, Harriet, 327, 351
Brandes, Georg, 123, 174, 175, 231
Brieux, Monsieur, _La Robe Rouge_ by, 225
Browning, Mrs., 281
Buckle, 97
_Burned Lot, The_, 316, 326
Burns, Robert, 121, 338
Byron, _Manfred_ by, 58, 338
C
Capus, 206
Caracalla, 336
Carlyle, 281
Carmontelle, _Proverbes Dramatiques_ by, 214
Céller, Monsieur Ludovic, _Les décors, les costumes_
_et la mise-en-scène au XVII siècle_ by, 215
Cellini, Benvenuto, 255
_Charles XII_, 299, 302, 303, 326, 332
Chateaubriand, 61, 340
Chemistry, 244, 245, 248, 251, 252, 253
Clairpsychism, 256, 276, 278, 285, 286, 287
Coleridge, 257
_Collected Works of August Strindberg, The_, 13, 123
Comédie rosse, 193
_Comrades_, 122, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192,
193, 194, 195, 225, 322, 332
Comte, 283
_Confession of a Fool, The_, 22, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126,
127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 223, 228, 237, 242, 343
_Confused Sensations_, 228
_Conscious Will in the History of the World, The_, 300
Corot, 96
_Creditors_, 172, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203,
204, 206, 244, 326
_Crimes and Crimes, There are_, 309, 310, 326, 352
Criticism, Literary, 77, 78, 84, 139, 148, 150, 233, 234, 235,
236, 319, 320, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325
_Crown Bride, The_, 304, 306, 349, 353
D
_Dagens Nyheter_, 115
_Damascus, To_, 256, 288, 297, 304, 311, 312, 313, 314, 315, 316,
323, 332, 334, 345
_Dance of Death, The_, 304, 310, 311, 316, 333, 351, 352
Dante, 83;
the _Commedia_ by, 89, 260
De Quincey, 151
Dickens, 47, 140
_Different Weapons_, 151
Dostoevsky, 232, 297, 327
Drachmann, Holger, 123, 240
_Drama, The_, 330
Drama, Naturalistic, 170, 171
"Dramatiska Teatern," 323
_Dream Play, The_, 256, 304, 314, 315, 332, 352
Dryden, 113
Dudevant, Monsieur Casimir, 346
Dumas fils, Alexandre, 170, 206;
_Le Fils Naturel_ by, 208
Dumas père, Alexandre, 47, 170
Duse, Eleonora, 208
E
_Earl of Bjälbo, The_, 299
_Easter_, 256, 296, 304, 306, 307,
308, 326, 327, 352
_Edge of the Sea, At the_, 230, 231, 297, 323, 337
Eliasson, Dr., 269
Emerson, 281
_Encyclopædia Britannica_, 143
_Engelbrecht_, 299
_Eric XIV_, 289, 295, 296, 297, 298, 301, 308, 309, 316,
326, 333
Essen, Siri von, 122;
divorce of, 130;
becomes an actress, 130;
marries August Strindberg, 132;
divorce of, from Strindberg, 237
Euripides, 310
F
_Fables_, 227, 228, 337
Fabre, Emile, _L'Argent_ by, 172
_Facing Death_, 326
_Fairhaven and Foulstrand_, 332, 333, 336, 337, 341, 343
_Father, The_, 22, 122, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 202, 203,
204, 210, 225, 235, 244, 297, 322, 325, 332
_Fermentation Time_, 19, 53, 69, 86, 87
Feuillet, 214
_First Warning, The_, 223
_Fisher Folk_, 226, 227, 333
_Fjärdingen and Svartbäcken, From_, 135, 136
Flaubert, 331;
_Correspondance_ of, 336;
_Dossier de la Sottise Humaine_ by, 347
"Folkteatern," 325
France, Anatole, 341
_Freethinker, The_, 78, 79
"Freie Bühne," 202
_French Peasants, Among_, 228, 229
G
Geijerstam, Gustaf af, _Erik Grane_ by, 324
_General Discontent, its Causes and Remedies, On the_, 229, 230
Geographical Society, The Imperial Russian, 119
Gissing, George, _New Grub Street_ by, 141
Goethe, _Faust_ by, 61, 62, 83
_Goetz von Berlichingen_ by, 102, 281, 313
Goncourt, the brothers de, _Sœur Philomène_ by, 172, 214, 331
Goncourt, Edmond de, 207
Goncourt, Jules de, 331
Gorki, Maxim, 17, 204
Gosse, Mr. Edmund, 231
_Gothic Rooms, The_, 297, 325
_Great Highway, The_, 256, 304, 313, 314, 338
Grein, Mr. J.T., 203, 204
Guiche, _Entre Frères_ by, 214
_Gustavus Adolphus_, 280, 299, 301, 302, 316, 334
_Gustavus III_, 299
_Gustavus Vasa_, 289, 290, 291, 292, 293, 294, 298, 316, 326
H
Hamsun, Knut, 123
Hansson, Ola, 220, 238
Hartmann, 232
Hauptmann, 204, 317;
_The Weavers_ by, 318; 326
Haydn, _Sieben Worte des Erlösers_ by, 352
Heiberg, Gunnar, 240
Heidenstam, Werner von, 324;
_Karolinerna_ by, 325
Heine, 239
Henry VII, 89
Hervieu, Paul, _Le Dédale_ by, 201, 204;
_L'Inconnu_ by, 297
Hirsch, Dr. W., 256
_Historical Miniatures_, 300
Hoffmann, E.T.A., 239
_Kreisler_ by, 257, 297, 338
Holbein, 310
Homer, 90
Horace, 90, 113
Hospital of Saint Louis, 247
Hugo, Victor, 271
Huysmans, _Là-Bas_ by, 274;
_En Route_ by, 274
Höffding, 93
I
Ibsen, 13;
_Brand_ by, 75, 166, 170;
_Ghosts_ by, 172, 317;
_Rosmersholm_ by, 172, 203, 326
Independent Theatre, The, 203, 204
_Inferno_, 15, 19, 243, 248, 256, 257, 274, 277, 279, 280, 285,
288, 313, 323, 340, 341
Internationalism, 155
Intimate Theatre, The, 326, 327
J
_Journey of Lucky Peter, The_, 143, 144, 146, 316
_Joy of Life, The_, 278
Julius Cæsar, 336
Jullien, Monsieur, 205
K
Keats, 340
Key, Ellen, 321
_Keys of Heaven, The_, 316
Kierkegaard, Sören, _Enten-Eller_ by, 79
Knox, John, _The First Blast of the Trumpet against_
_the Monstrous Regiment of Women_ by, 237
"Künstler Theater," 216
L
La Bruyère, 98
_Lady Julie_, 172, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184,
193, 202, 204, 206, 209, 210, 211, 214, 216, 217, 218, 225,
231, 236, 244, 284, 316, 325
Lagerlöf, Selma, 324
Lamb, Charles, 257, 331, 338
Landquist, Dr. John, Article in _Idun_ by, 315
_Last Knight, The_, 299
Latini, Brunetto, 89
Lauthenburg, Herr, 326
Lavedan, Entire Frères by, 214
Lee, Nathaniel, 257
_Legends_, 256, 277, 288, 313, 323
Lenan, _Traumgewalten_ by, 257
Lenngren, Anna Maria, _Fröken Juliana_ by, 176
Lessing, 61
Levertin, Oscar, 278, 324
Library of Stockholm, The Royal, 118
Lie, Jonas, 123, 340
_Link, The_, 122, 219, 224, 225, 323
_Loke's Blasphemies_, 151
Louis XIV, 295
Lucanus, 90
Lugné-Poë, Monsieur, 202
Lundin, Claes, 146
Luther, 313
M
Macaulay, 70
McCarthy, Justin Huntly, 123;
article in _The Fortnightly Review_ by, 183, 225
Macleod, Fiona, _Cathal of the Woods_ by, 228
Maeterlinck, 227, 305, 316
Marcus Aurelius, 336
Marholm, Laura, 238, 328, 330
_Married_, 123, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164,
165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 235, 236, 237
_Master Olof_, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 105, 136, 142, 289, 298, 322
Maupassant, Guy de, 159, 209;
_Le Horla_ by, 297
Michel-Angelo, 251
_Midsummer_, 316, 342, 343
Mill, John Stuart, 230
_Modern Drama and the Modern Theatre, On_, 211, 212
Moses, 260
Multiple personalities, 283, 284
Munch, Edvard, 240, 259, 263
Murray, Grenville, _Les Hommes du Second Empire_ by, 149
Musset, Alfred de, 214, 338;
_Nuit d'Octobre_ by, 347
N
Napoleon, 313
_National Director, The_, 299
Naturalism, 170, 204, 205, 212, 213
_New Kingdom, The_, 148, 149, 157, 230, 324
Newman, 51
Nietzsche, 13, 194, 231, 232, 284
_Nightingale of Wittenberg, The_, 299
Nobel Prize, The, 321
Nordau, Max, 149
O
Oehlenschläger, 79, 82
_Old Stockholm_, 146, 147
Orfila, 248, 260
_Outlaw, The_, 81, 84, 85, 86, 345
Ovid, 90
P
_Pariah_, 219, 220, 221, 222
_Paris, In_, 328
Patmore, Coventry, 281
Paul, Adolf, 240
Peace movement, The, 155, 156
Peladan, Sar, _Comment on devient Mage_ by, 280
_Pelican, The_, 316, 326
_People of Hemsö, The_, 226, 227, 235
Personne, John, _Strindberg-Literature and Immorality_
_amongst Schoolboys_ by, 165
_Peter Pan_, 144
Philp, Greta Strindberg von, 353
Pinero, Sir Arthur, 206
_Playing with Fire_, 219, 223, 323, 326
Poe, 255, 338
_Poems in Verse and Prose_, 150, 151
Przybyszewski, Stanislav, 240, 258, 259, 260, 262
Q
_Quarantine Master's Tales, The_, 336, 337, 343, 344
_Queen Christina_, 299
Quesnay, de, 230
R
Rahmer, Dr. S., Article in _Grenzfragen der Literatur_
_und Medizin_ by, 256
Ranft, Herr Albert, 326
Realism, 170, 183, 212
_Real Utopias_, 168
_Red Room, In the_, 19, 110, 111, 112, 113
_Red Room, The_, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 147, 148,
157, 230, 322
Reformation, the Protestant, 99, 291
Religion, 279
_Remorse_, 156, 297
Renan, _Souvenirs d'Enfance et de Jeunesse_ by, 255
"Residenz Theater," 203, 326
_Reward of Virtue, The_, 157
Rodin, _Le Penseur_ by, 16
_Rome, In_, 74, 76, 77, 78, 333
Rosen, George von, _Erik XIV and Karin Månsdotter_ by, 95
Rousseau, 19, 154, 209, 230, 234;
_Confessions_ by, 257;
_Dialogues_ by, 257;
_Rêveries_ by, 257, 260
"Rune," the formation of the, 73
Ruskin, 281;
_Modern Painters_ by, 320
S
_Saga of the Folkungs, The_, 289, 296, 297, 298, 316
Saint-Saëns, 310
_Samum_, 219, 220
Sand, George, 61, 346
Sardou, 170
_Scenery of Sweden, The_, 236
Schering, Herr Emil, 330
Schiller, _Die Räuber_ by, 58, 63;
_On the Theatre as an Institution for Moral Education_ by, 62
Schnitzler, 204;
_Reigen_ by, 206
Schopenhauer, 232, 237, 238
Schumann, _Aufschwung_ by, 258, 259
"Schwarzen Ferkel, Zum," 239, 240
Scott, Sir Walter, 47
Scribe, 170
_Secret of the Guild, The_, 142, 345
Shakespeare, 47, 82, 83, 101;
_Hamlet_ by, 106, 295, 301;
_Lear_ by, 295;
_Macbeth_ by, 295, 296, 343
Shaw, George Bernard, 206, 233, 234, 318
Sinology, 118
_Sir Bengt's Wife_, 144, 145, 146
_Sketches of Flowers and Animals_, 227
_Slippers of Abu Casem, The_, 316
Socialism, 167, 169, 229, 230
Socrates, 213
Sophocles, 82, 310
Sorbonne, La, 248
_Speeches to the Swedish Nation_, 279
Spencer, 106, 230, 283
_Spook Sonata, The_, 316, 326
Stage Society, The, 204
Stagnelius, E.J., 328
Stevenson, R.L., 331
Stockholm's Skärgård, 30, 83, 99, 226
_Storm_, 315, 326
Street riots in Stockholm, 66, 67, 126
Strindberg, Anne-Marie Bosse-, 316, 353
Strindberg, August,
death of, 11;
scientific studies of, 12, 37, 60, 83, 238, 239, 240, 241,
244,245;
diary of, 14;
faith in the Bible, 14;
love of the early morning, 15;
funeral of, 16;
birth of, 20;
parents of, 20;
ancestry of, 20;
poverty of, 21, 75, 83, 107, 117, 350;
views of, on the family as an institution, 22, 23;
misogyny of; 22, 124, 125, 171, 184, 194, 244, 344, 345;
attacks upon women, 23, 75, 76, 175, 237, 347;
early home of, 24, 29;
early religious doubts of, 25, 32, 33;
early school-days of, 27, 28;
love of nature, 29, 30, 31, 32, 53, 227, 228, 265;
independence of, at school 33, 34;
death of the mother of, 35, 36, 37;
interest of, in music, 38, 53, 352;
constructs machines, 39, 40;
as "gymnasist," 41;
becomes a pietist, 42, 43, 44, 45;
as private tutor, 46, 47, 48;
influence of literature on, 47;
becomes a freethinker, 47;
preaches a sermon, 49;
passes the "student--examen," 50;
enters the University of Upsala, 51;
criticism of academical routine, 51, 52, 53;
becomes a schoolmaster, 54;
studies social conditions, 54, 55, 103, 154, 155, 228, 229, 230;
sympathy of, with the people, 56, 64, 65;
contempt of current morals, 56, 120;
takes up the study of medicine, 59;
comes under the influence of art, 60;
decides to become an actor, 62;
makes his début at the Dramatic Theatre, 67;
tries to commit suicide, 69, 80, 129;
composes his first play, 69;
first attempts to write verse, 71;
first plays refused, 71, 72;
returns to the University, 73;
first performance of a play by, 76;
burns the MSS. of Blotsven, 80;
passes his Latin examination, 81;
presents his æsthetic thesis. 81;
performance of a Viking play by, 84;
King Charles XV sends for, 85;
as a painter, 90, 96, 103, 236, 240;
becomes a journalist, 92;
as an art critic, 95;
lack of self-confidence of, 107;
edits an insurance paper, 108;
financial crash, 109;
obtains a post as telegraph clerk, 114;
resumes journalistic work, 115;
becomes parliamentary reporter and dramatic critic, 116;
is nominated assistant librarian, 118;
class-consciousness of, 126, 127;
first marriage of, 132;
views of, on the sacredness of parenthood, 133, 134;
increasing literary activity of, 135;
first great dramatic success, 142, 143;
on the tragedy of fatherhood, 146, 175;
historical point of view of, 147, 148;
criticises poetry as a form of literary expression, 151;
leaves Sweden, 152;
is prosecuted for blasphemy, 157;
is cheered by the people in Stockholm, 162, 163, 164;
attacks of Conservative press 163;
is found "not guilty," 164;
is denounced by feminists, 165;
advocates rights of women and marriage reform, 167;
views of, on spiritual functions of motherhood, 168;
begins a series of naturalistic plays, 171;
on the educational value of the theatre, 206, 207;
views of, on theatre reform, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218;
obtains divorce from his first wife, 237;
second marriage of, 242;
becomes an alchemist, 251;
madness of, develops, 255;
persecutional mania of, becomes acute, 265;
prepares to die, 266;
fears detention in an asylum, 269;
love of, for his child, 271, 272;
is influenced by Roman Catholicism, 272, 280;
religious feeling of, 273, 279;
attitude of, towards theosophy, 274, 275;
recovery of, 275;
psychic development of, 276;
fiftieth birthday of, 288;
resumes the writing of drama, 288;
as an historical psychologist, 289, 301;
criticism of, as an historian, 301, 302, 303;
national celebration of, 319, 353, 354, 355;
tautology in the writings of, 332, 333;
philological studies of, 334;
attitude towards animals of, 348, 349;
third marriage of, 351;
last illness of, 353, 354;
_Stronger, The_, 204, 219, 222, 223, 322
_Studies in the History of Culture_, 300
Sudermann, 206
Sue, Eugène, _Le Juif Errant_ by, 47
"Svenska Teatern," 326
_Swanwhite_, 304, 305, 306, 351
Swedenborg, Emanuel, 260, 267, 272, 273, 277, 280, 281, 282, 283
Swedish Academy, The, 321, 324
_Swedish Destinies and Adventures_, 150, 300, 325
_Swedish People, The_, 148, 300
Swift, Dean, 234
_Sylva Sylvarum_, 241
Symons, Arthur, _Studies in Seven Arts_ by, 208
T
Tasso, 255, 273
Tchekhov, Anton, 204; _The Seagull_ by, 208