Chapter VIII: The Theatre of Life (2)

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."

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."

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."

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