AUGUST STRINDBERG (1849-1912)
http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc8.htm
Plays http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/litlinks/drama/strindberg.htm (good one)
http://www.extrapris.com/astrindberg.html (Strindberg Website)
http://www.extrapris.com/painter2.html (See Strindberg’s painting)
http://www.littlebluelight.com/lblphp/intro.php?name=Strindberg (good/more )
http://www.gradesaver.com/ClassicNotes/Titles/julie/essays/essay1.html (S and
Naturalism)
Plays:
1871
1878
1881
1887
1888
1888
1888
1889
1898-1904
1899
1899
1899
1901
1901
1902
1902
1907
1907
1909
The Outlaw
Master Olof
Lucky Peter's Travels
The Father
Comrades
Miss Julie
Creditors
Pariah
To Damascus (3 parts)
The Saga of the Folkungs
Gustav Vasa
Erik XIV
Easter
The Dance of Death
Kronbruden
A Dream Play
After the Fire
The Ghost Sonata
The Great Highway
Autobiography
The Confessions of a Fool. 1888; 1912.
Inferno. 1898; 1912.
Translations
Two recommended translations:
Sprigge, Elizabeth, trans. Twelve Plays. 1963.
Meyer, Michael, trans. The Plays of Strindberg. 1964--.
Criticism
Bellquist, John E. Strindberg As a Modern Poet: A Critical and Comparative Study.
Rept ed. U of California P, 1986.
Bulman, Joan. Strindberg and Shakespeare. 1971.
Dahlstrom, Carl E. Strindberg's Dramatic Expressionism. 2nd ed. Ayer, 1972.
Johnson, Walter. Strindberg and the Historical Drama. 1963.
Lamm, Martin. August Strindberg. 2 vols. 1971.
Lucas, F.L. The Drama of Ibsen and Strindberg. 1962.
Mortensen, B.M. and B.W. Downs. Strindberg: An Introduction to His Life and Works.
1949.
Robinson, Michael. August Strindberg: His True Life? Norwich: Nrvik, 1986.
Smedmark, C.R., ed. Essays on Strindberg. 1966.
Sprigge, Elizabeth. The Strange Life of August Strindberg. 1949.
Stockwnstrom, Boran. Strindberg's Dramaturgy. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P,
1988.
Waal, Carla. Harriet Bosse: Strindberg's Muse and Interpreter. Southern Illinois UP,
1990.
Bibliography On Miss Julie and Ghost Sonata
Hayes, Stephen and Jules Zentner. "Stindberg’s Miss Julie: Lilacs and Beer."
Scandinavian Studies 45 (1973): 59-64.
Jarvi, Raymond. "Strindberg’s The Ghost Sonata and Sonata Form." Mosaic 5.4
(1972): 69-84.
Meyer, Michael. Strindberg: A Biography. London: Secker & Warburg, 1985.
Mays, Milton. "Stindberg’s Ghost Sonata: Parodied Fairy Tale on Original Sin."
Modern Drama 10 (1967): 189-194.
Napieralski, Edmund. "Miss Julie: Stindberg’s Tragic Fairy Tale." Modern Drama 26
(1983): 282-289.
Parker, Brian. "Strindberg’s Miss Julie and the Legend of Salome." Modern Drama 32
(1989): 469-484.
Parker, Gerald. "The Spectator Seized by the Theatre: Strindberg’s The Ghost
Sonata." Modern Drama 14 (1972): 373-386.
Templeton, Alice. "Miss Julie as ‘A Naturalistic Tragedy’." Theatre Journal 42 (1990):
468-480.
Young, Vernon. "The History of Miss Julie." Hudson Review 8 (1955): 123-130
A short biography: August Strindberg
See http://www.extrapris.com/bio2.html
A short biography
"this long and boring walk trough the shadow land of memory"
August Strindberg was born in Stockholm in 1849.
Strindberg was the third child of the shipping
merchant Carl Oscar Strindberg and his former
domestic servant Ulrika Eleonora Norling. Before he
became a writer he studied at Uppsala university and
worked as a librarian and journalist.
He was a very productive author. He wrote novels,
plays, poetry and over 7,000 letters! The collected
works consists of 55 volumes. August Strindberg was
also a very good painter. But he failed to make gold in
spite of hard efforts.
1874 Strindberg is appointed assistant librarian at the Royal Library in Stockholm.
His first major work, the play Master Olof, was written in 1877, but was not
recognized until 1881. Strindberg’s breakthrough as a writer came with the novel
The Red Room (1879).
In 1886 Strindberg completes the biografical novel The Son of a Servant , "this
long and boring walk through the shadow land of memory" as Strindberg wrote.
Marriages
Siri von Essen
In 1877 he marries Baroness Siri von Essen . Siri was
seven months pregnant at the time of the marriage, the
child died and they later had three children, Karin, Greta
and the son Hans. 1888, living in Denmark, Strindberg
writes the play Miss Julie, which is staged 1889 with his
wife Siri von Essen in the title role. In "A Madman's
Defense" Strindberg wrote about his first marriage, torn
between adoration and contempt. After twelve years they
divorce and Strindberg, not feeling appreciated in Sweden,
"Siri I loved the
most"
moves to central Europe. After a couple of years of "artist
life" with people like Edvard Munch and Gaughin he
marries the young Austrian Frieda Uhl. After a stormy year
travelling in Europe they divorce.
Tears of Joy
In 1895 the Inferno period starts. Strindberg gets interested in occultism and
alchemy. He reads the Swedish philosopher Swedenborg. These years are described
in, or rather are the base for the novels Inferno and Legends.
1897 he moves back to Sweden, his recovery from the Inferno crisis is quick.
After intensive work a few days in the spring of 1898 the first part of the play To
Damascus is finished.
"Burst into tears several times today, wrote the end of Act 3", Stindberg notes
in his diary. He was satisfied, the scenes and words came together brilliantly.
"I got her with child immediately."
In the Occult Diary, which Strindberg kept between 1896 and 1908, he summarizes his
relation with his third wife Harriet Bosse.
When I married Bosse I got her with child immediately. But she grudged me that great
honour, and out of spite she went off with her unborn child. She alleged that I had deserted our
bedroom, but the truth was that she had begged me to move, as pregnancy had given her a
dislike for my person. She returned and the child was born. The next thing was that she did not
want to have more children, but did want to continue "married life". This resulted in distaste and
disgust. First we separated, then we got a divorce. After that we came together again and I
became her lover, and still am. This then is the question, in what way have I failed? My
reputation was restored, but is so no long, for her lies are enduring, in spite of all there is to
confute them! At 50 I was no good as a husband, but at 58 I am good enough to be a lover! It is
sublime! Sublime !!!"
From the "Occult Diary"
Strindberg kept his "Occult Diary" for more than ten years. The extract
below is from 1908. He has divorced Harriet Bosse and she is planning to
remarry with another man. But in Strindberg´s fantasy she still visits him, mostly
at nighttime .
April 20th.
This evening she came again, like roses, loving and full of longing.
Night came; she slept on my arm, but did not desire me until towards
morning, then ...
April 21st.
The whole morning, solely as roses. Later she disappeared! In the evening she returned, but
went again. At night apathetic and calm until the morning, when she sought me ...
April 23rd.
A heavy day, spent in idleness. Slept much. Harriet away, but towards evening could feel her
stretching for me below the chest.
!!Went to bed, grew calmer. No contact with Harriet during the night. I sought her but did not
find her until 5 o´clock, ...
April 24th.
A glorius morning. Harriet was with me all forenoon, gentle, loving, like flowers in my mouth!
Is she literally two persons? And do I possess one? The better one?
That would seem to be the case, for when we meet or write we hate
each other. Is this possible?
Death
Finally Strindberg released
himself from Bosse, quit the
Occult Diary and moved to a
new apartment. Now
followed some very
productive years with
highlights such as the plays
Easter and The Dance of
Death.
Strindberg died in May,
1912. His modest grave
with just a wooden cross
bears the Latin inscription:
O Crux Ave Spes Unica!
(O Cross, Be Greeted, Our Only Hope)
August Strindberg’s drawings
A new book on Strindberg as a painter and photographer at amazon.com
Strindberg: Painter and Photographer
See http://www.extrapris.com/bio2.html
A few drawings made by August Strindberg
This drawing is from a letter to the Swedish painter
Carl Larsson.
On the drawing Strindberg
has written:
"There was a damned lot
of fucking among the
hay-cocks"
Strindberg often was a bit
frivolous in his language
when writing to Larsson.
When the book Married was
published Strindberg wrote to
C. Larsson:
"Against my usual habits I
have read my book in print.
I find it "seminal", it is like
an honest and good
copulation compared with
Ibsen´s hysterical jerking
off".
The authorities did not like
this copulative style of prose and the book was prosecuted for violating paragraph three
in the press-law, blasphemy against God or mockery of God´s word and the sacraments.
But Strindberg won the trial.
Strindberg´s newspaper layout
Kymmendö
Strindberg liked to spend the summer on this island in the Stockholm
Archipelago.
"My flowerbasket in the sea" he called it. Strindberg had a lifelong passion
for this blissed island
Taurus
From the Occult Diary
Interview
August Strindberg asks himself
1. What is the main trait in your character?
This strange blending of the deepest melancholy and the most astonishing
light heartedness.
2 Which characteristic do you prize most highly in a man?
Absence of narrow mindedness.
3. Which characteristic do you prize most highly in a woman?
Motherliness.
4. Which talent would you most like to possess?
To find the key to the world's mystery and the meaning of life.
5. Which fault would you least like to possess?
Narrow mindedness.
6. What is your favorite occupation?
To write dramas.
7. What would be the greatest happiness you could imagine?
To be nobody's enemy and to have no enemies.
8. What position would you most have liked to have?
To be a dramatist whose dramas were always being played.
9. What would you regard as the greatest misfortune?
To be without peace of mind and conscience.
10. Where would you most like to live?
In the Stockholm skerries.
11.Your favorite colour?
Zinc yellow and amethyst violet.
12.Your favorite flower?
Cyclamen.
13.Your favorite creature?
The butterfly.
14.Which books do you like most?
The Bible; Chateaubriand's Genie du Christianisme; Swedenborg's Arcana
Coelestia; Victor Hugo's Les Mise'rables; Dickens's Little Dorrit; Andersen's
Fairy Tales; Bernardin de SaintPierre's Harmoni de la Nature. Kipling: various.
15.Which paintings do you like most?
Theodore Rousseau's "Paysages Intimes." Various.
16.Which musical compositions do you like most?
Beethoven's Sonatas.
17. Which English writer do you admire most?
Charles Dickens.
18. Which English painter do you admire most?
Turner.
19. Which male historical personages do you admire most?
Henri IV of France and Bernard of Clairvaux.
20. Which female historical personages do you admire most?
P;Elizabeth of I hŸringen and Marguerite de Provence (consort of Louis i.e.
Holy).
21. Which historical personage do you most despise?
One has no right to despise anybody.
22. Which fictitious male characters most attract you?
Balzacs Louis Lambert: and the Bishop in Les Miserables by Victor
Hugo.
23. Which fictitious female characters most attract you?
Margaretha in Faust and Florence in Dombey and Son.
24. Which name do you like best?
Margaretha.
25. Which fault in others do you find it easiest to forgive?
Extravagance.
26. Which social reform would you most like to see accomplished?
Disarmament.
27. Your favorite drink and your favorite food?
Beer and fish dishes.
28. Which season and which weather do you like best?
The height of summer after warm rain.
29. Your motto?
Speravit infestis.
Strindberg
Strindberg was the complete artist who struggled for the form for his self-expression.
He changed throughout his life, his views of life changed, and he had to find new
forms to match these changes
Strindberg was anti-realism; he found realism prosaic, dull. He was influenced
by Zola, Darwin, Nietzsche.
Strindberg: restless & experimental
--Transmutation: lit. into music
--alienated modern man
--Dream play: fantasy, delusion, nightmare; existential revolt
--Romantic rebel; psy. dualism
--Dionysian vitality
Naturalism:
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/glossary/Naturalism.html
A term used by Emile Zola to describe the application of the clinical method of
empirical science to all of life. According to naturalistic philosophy, heredity and
environment influence and determine human motivation and behavior. Thus, if a
writer wishes to depict life as it really is, he or she must be rigorously deterministic in
the representation of the characters' thoughts and actions in order to show forth the
causal factors that have made the characters inevitably what they are. Substituting the
scientific idea of determinism for the classical idea of fate, Zola argues for a
literature of observation rather than one of fabrication. Although not all the early
naturalistic works are harsh, many of them portray the experiences of impoverished
and uneducated people, imprisoned perforce in a milieu of filth, squalor, and
corruption. As a result, naturalism is often equated with the depressingly dreary
slice-of-life documentation of irredeemable and brutal realities. Unlike realism, which
also seeks to represent human life as it is actually lived, naturalism specifically
connects itself to the philosophical doctrine of biological and social determinism,
according to which human beings are devoid of free will. (Please see Realism.)
Realism:
A literary movement of the nineteenth century which sought to represent human
experience and society in a way that seems true to life. The term may be extended to
refer to any literature that aims for verisimilitude.
Realism and Naturalism (Please Consult
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/hum_303/naturalism.html)
Study Questions on Miss Julie
1. How does the story of Saint John the Baptist function in the play?
2. At the end of the play, Julie asks Jean to pretend he is the Count. What is the significance
of this request in terms of the power relations in the play?
3. Strindberg is known as a father of naturalism. Choose one formal element of Miss
Julie (action, character, setting, etc.) and discuss how it might relate to Strindberg's
understanding of the naturalistic theater and the subtitle of the play, “A Naturalistic
Tragedy.”
4. Miss Julie is designed with one single act without intermission and curtains. How
does the play differ from Ibsen’s well-made plays in terms of the arrangement of
climax, exposition and denouement?
5. In his preface to the play, Strindberg describes Miss Julie as obsessed with animals.
Discuss the functions of animals in the play.
6. What kind of factors/ personality causes Miss Julie (and Jean) to the tragic end?
Does Miss Julie lose for suicide and Jean win for survival in the end or vice versa?
7. In what ways Julie and Jean compete and battle against each other over the issues
of class and sexism? How does the battle associate with Darwin’s theory?
Naturalism: struggle between natural forces
quest for sig. heroine--polarilization of essential conflicts--life/death
Zola: French Naturalism--inner life; Strindberg: Psychologist & craftsman
Miss Julie(1889): closest to Naturalism Strindberg gets. The Ballet, mime, musical
interlude, not Naturalistic. Neither is the compactness of the play.
--theme from a true story
--tragic
pity for Julie's weakness
fear-- us
"That my tragedy depresses people is their own fault."
--A Naturalistic tragedy ag. trad. morality & rel.
“survival of the fittest”
ballet, mime, musical interlude/ not Naturalistic/ not so impartial
--anti-emancipated women
--split sympathies-- pro aristocratic superman
servant/aristocrat [changing social processes]
Jean: sexual aristocrat / social slave
up
rising
cleanliness
superior
life
sex act
falling
dirt
inferior
death
down
recurring dreams
idealist
Julie:
aristocrat father; common mother
unconscious impulses to dirt
Spirit to flesh
Materialist Jean: flesh to spirit
two views toward the sex act and honor
Act of expiation: Jean--judge & executioner
Julie, redeemed / last: degradation & her family
aristocrat, but dead
Jean: lived, but a servant
Strindberg: artistic, sexual, rel. conversion
Search for absolutes--back to relatives
Humanity, resignation, & understanding of conflicting positions
The Road to Damascus correspondences, not causes
1898-1909 2nd phase of career
Indra & Milkmaid--surrogates for Strindberg
technique: compact form & psy. detail gone
chamber play: a short episodic work--& an approximate music
Expressionism: expressions of Strindberg's unconscious
Dream plays: free form--like a dream
locations, vague; time, broken; allegorical names
*The change is in emphases
body/spirit
lust/love
Strindberg to understanding
dirt/flowers
Miss Julie: Compressing Naturalistic form
http://www.gradesaver.com/ClassicNotes/Titles/julie/essays/essay1.html
Naturalism in 'Miss Julie'
by Alison Smith Sept. 30, 1999
Writers involved in the naturalist movement believed that actors' lines should be spoken
naturally, and that mechanical movements, vocal effects, and irrational gestures should be
banished. A return to reality was proposed, with the old theatrical attitudes replaced with
effects produced solely by the voice. There was a call to individualise characters, instead of
generalising them, to produce characters whose minds and bodies would function as they
would in real life. Strindberg's 'Miss Julie' has been said to be an excellent example of this
movement, as it involves stress on multiple motivation of action; a departure from the
stereotypical depictions of character; and random, illogical dialogue. Strindberg's naturalistic
conception of theatre also extends to non-literary aspects of staging such as stage décor,
lighting, and make-up.
Strindberg avoids the regularity of mechanical question and answer dialogue, instead
allowing his dialogue to meander, encouraging themes to be repeated and developed over the
course of the play. In the preface to the play, Strindberg explains that he has broken with
tradition by avoiding "symmetrical, mathematically constructed dialogue." The sexual tension
and hidden aggression in the first scene of 'Miss Julie' could be said to be an example of this,
especially while the cook Christine is present with Julie and Jean to inhibit the expression of
what they really mean. However, it is noticeable that Strindberg's sub-textual dialogue at the
start of the play radically changes once the seduction is completed and there is no more to
hide. It is then that the dialogue becomes explicit and ceases to meander. An excessively
theatrical scene occurs at the point where Julie grows conscious of her humiliation, falls to her
knees, clasps her hands, and cringes before Jean, who rises to stand triumphantly, and
symbolically, over her. There is also the bluntly overt exchange of lines such as, 'Beast!'
'Menial! Lackey!' 'Menial's whore, lackey's harlot!' It has been proposed that this retreat to the
characteristics of old theatricality is perhaps only redeemed in the last minutes, when the stage
action becomes solemnly symbolic. The end of the relationship is represented by the
decapitation of Julie's songbird; the sudden ring of the Count's bell introduces a character that
has been silent throughout, present only in spirit. Jean places a razor in Julie's hand, and she
walks out to her death in silence, as if in a hypnotic trance. Her death is not as melodramatic or
theatrical as her previous behaviour, so this goes some way to compensate for earlier lapses.
Strindberg expressed an aversion to dividing his play into acts, as he believed that, "the
declining capacity for illusion is possibly affected by intervals, which give spectators the time to
reflect and thereby withdraw from the suggestive influence of the author hypnotist." His theory
centres on the assumption that by eliminating intervals, which act as breaks from the action,
continuity would improve, thereby increasing the intense nature of the plays action and
creating a claustrophobic environment. In order not to break the illusion, he also wanted to be
rid of any musicians that the audience could see, and would not tolerate supper-parties, or
other such distracting elements common in the Victorian theatre, and demanded total blackout
in the auditorium to make sure.
Strindberg wanted his plays to be viewed with thought and intellect, therefore he strove to
eliminate all possibility of detached enjoyment, as he did not believe that the theatre should be
used as a form of light entertainment, "popular enough for the middle classes...to be able to
grasp without too much effort, what the minority is arguing about." All of Strindberg's
requirements for the intense concentration of the audience during the performance clearly
indicate his ideas of dramatic illusion. His audience was to be completely convinced of the
reality of the world on the stage, and transported wholly into it.
As for the stage setting for 'Miss Julie', Strindberg decided to show only part of the
kitchen in which the action was to take place, and requested that what was seen should be
arranged diagonally, in order that the audience should complete what was not seen by
visualising it in their imagination. He echoed a common cry when he asked for the kitchen
shelves and utensils to be real props, not just painted on a canvas backdrop. He wanted all
barriers between the audience and the stage removed, such as the orchestra and side boxes.
The seats were to be raised to bring the audience at an equal level to the actors, and he
suggested that auditoriums should be smaller, and more intimate, to have the desired effect of
involving the audience, rather than distancing them from the action.
Strindberg was not a playwright associated solely with naturalism, since plays such as
'The Ghost Sonata' were known as examples of subjective drama, the very opposite of
naturalism. The critic Styan has also stated, "By the fall of the curtain, the dialogue has entirely
ceased to meander realistically, and it is hard to recognise the play itself as a cornerstone of
the naturalistic movement." However, Strindberg's preface to 'Miss Julie' has been heralded as
the best manifesto of naturalism written, and the techniques that he advocated such as the
removal of intervals and orchestras, the use of real props, and a reduction in theatre size, have
come to have strong repercussions in modern theatre.
Expressionism:
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Expressionism deliberately set out the change the rules which governed the way
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that drama could be written, encoded, and staged.
The aim of EXPRESSIONISM is to express emotional experience instead of
impressions of the physical world.
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Designed to make the wishes, fears, and obsessions of the human psyche
both visible and audible.
The word was used to describe a form of theatre which emerged by the
early 1900s which featured distortion, repetition, symbolism, and
nightmarish fantasy.
A basic definition might be that in tone, look, and feeling, Expressionism is
a symbolist world.
Expressionist writers tried to find a way to make their own visions and thoughts
radiate throughout their plays.
Non-realism.
There is no one form of expressionism—it manifests itself in a variety of forms.
Expressionism embraced all of the arts but had its strongest theatrical appeal in
Germany—here it attracted set designers and leftist ideologues.
Two of the main playwrights experimenting with Expressionism were Frank
Wedekind and August Strindberg.
The focus was on the spiritual, including the regeneration of a corrupted humanity.
They wanted to move beyond objective ‘reality’ and start to explore the
subconscious.
They wanted to break away from the rational view of reality.
Expressionist plays tend to verbalize emotions rather than dramatize conflicts.
Often there is a sense that despite the fact that the characters are speaking to each
other there is no communication taking place.
The leaders in the Expressionist movement were artists (the most famous being Van
Gogh).
The visual arts were very important in the theatrical manifestations of
expressionism.
Set designs incorporated vivid colour schemes and distorted architecture to create
atmosphere.
A manifesto to the Expressionist actor appear in May 1916 in Paul Kornfeld’s
"Epilogue to the Actor". In this work Kornfeld insisted that Expressionist actors
should not behave:
As though the thoughts and words he has to express have only arisen in him at
the very moment in which he recites them If he has to die on the stage, let him
not pay a visit to the hospital beforehand in order to learn how to die;…Let him
dare to stretch his arms out wide and with a sense of soaring speak as he has
never spoken in life; let him not be an imitator or seek his models alien to the
actor. In short, let him not be ashamed of the fact that he is acting.

According to Kornfeld, only this sort of non-reality actor could embody the
emotional essence of expressionism.
A Dream Play (1902)
http://www.extrapris.com/astrindberg.html
http://www.extrapris.com/dream2.html
http://www.extrapris.com/bio2.html
1. Characterize the change in Strindberg's style.
2. What is the general message of the play?
3. Who are the right-thinkers?
4. What is the significance of the four faculties?
5. Which scene did you find most striking?
6. Describe the flower imagery in "A Dreamplay."
7. Discuss the color imagery of a dreamplay.
8. What role do the four elements play?
9. Have Strindberg's views about women changed any since "The Father"
Life is a dream: Tempest
Dreamer: Strindberg--officer, lawyer, poet & perhaps Indra's daughter
"Single consciousness holds sway over the split, doubled, & multiplied
characters." --Strindberg's preface to the play
--unraveling of the painful enigma of existence: purpose of the play
--Work structured on contrasts, conflicts, contradictions: descent/ascent
body/spirit; fair haven/foulstrand; winter/summer; north/south
beauty/ugliness; fortune/misfortune; love/hate; dream/reality
--sounds sugg. the dissonance of life
--Life: a struggle between opposites Existential nausea
--movement of play towards explaining the causes of these divisions
Hercules figure officer: Daughter is Agnes
Castle: image of life, itself /Phallic symbol
--Daughter still believes in worldly redemption
--stage door: officer again; shawl again
motif: waiting
twin tragedies of getting & not getting
--cupboard--door explanation of misery; secret of life;
(closet)
Law forbids the opening
scenes dissolve
--Lawyer's office
Lawyer, like the Daughter, some qualities of Christ
--Daughter explains the reasons for injustice.
Life--upside-down copy of the original
Daughter marries lawyer in her theory of redemption
--Officer takes the Daughter to Fairhaven (youthful summer love)
Foulstrand--hell: Quarantine station
Life: a quarantine
3rd surrogate
Poet--alternating between ecstasy and cynicism
--Contradictions also in Fairhaven
Alice--- Edith
sustain pleasure: death
--Not mankind, but the system is evil
--Schoolmaster scene: Officer--child
Life: cycle of return--defeats all efforts for progress
Strindberg's mankind: repeat mistakes, despite conscious of error
compulsion
Door open--secret, nothing
Daughter of Indra condemned
Purifying fire: Indra's earthly bonds & man's misery
--Brahma seduced by Maya
--The Dreamer awakes: 'the dream is the orgiastic vision of the poet.'
Redemption only in death
Strindberg's struggle with God to discontent with life
A Dream Play (1901): dream structure for a subjective organic form
--Dream: psychical phenomenon art form
Technique & events of a dream sans the necessary corresponding form
--No governing single dreaming
Consciousness; fails
--Daughter---both outside & inside; objective & subjective
--Her refrain: "Life is pitiable." "People are to be pitied."
Not organic
Vision----> Dialogue
Fairy Tale, anxiety dream, nightmare
Officer/ Maid
Logic of poetry & dreams
|
|
Total drama
Lawyer Woman
End: throwing illusions into fire
|
|
Poet
Mother
Structure:
I
castle---Fingal's Cave
Sc. 1- 7
II
home of Indra & Lawyer (descent) 8-12
III
Fingal's cave--- ascent
13-15
Secondary elaboration
dreamer/Poet--- Indra
Man & poet
woman sinks, rises
Castle, theatre door, door, cave
The world is an illusion, dream
organ--cave--sexual union
kitchen/ bedroom
cyclical structure
Foulstrand/fairhaven
< small to large
Fingal's Cave
to Cave
| |
| |
repetition of miseries
birth of goddess
Castle--Phallus sex
Id to home
door--anus
Eros
Death instinct
temptress
redeemer
Daughter/lawyer
Daughter/ Poet
World riddle& riddle of life
organ & cave
fire
Don Juan
Christina
Strindberg: bringing together
the physical & spiritual
"Montage" imagery
Mother & Spirit
Dream Play--gateway to the 20th Century
Study Questions on A Dream Play
1. Some Critics compare Strindberg’s A Dream Play with Freud’s An Interpretation of
Dream and assert that the two works contain something alike. In what ways can the
stage tricks of the play remind of Freud’s theory? How can Freud’s psychoanalysis
of dream help to understand the play?
2. The dream technique of condensation of the main characters (Officer, Lawyer, Poet
and Daughter) coalesces all men into one male and all women into one female. The
three male characters are the aspects of one person. How do the male characters
differ with each other and what aspects of human life do them play for? How do
you interpret Daughter in different roles as a mother, portress and goddess?
3. The scenes of castle, theatre, cave, linden tree and door are the dominant symbols
in the play. Discuss their significances.
4. What is the significance beyond the door of secret? How can it be related to the
theme of this “dream play?”
5. This play has a cyclical structure of the dream world. The play that begins in the
scene of castle ends with castle burning. What else tactics does Strindberg apply to
designate the illusionary stage that presents the repetition of human suffering?
6. How does the Vedic mythology of Braham and Maja relate to the themes of human
suffering and illusionary earth in the play?
7. Does Agnes’ ascension represent the escape from human suffering into a higher life?
How do the scenes of castle, lawyer’s office, kitchen-bedroom, church, Foulstrand,
Fairhaven and theatre represent different crisis in human lives?
8. Discuss the significances of the other minor characters, for example, Christine,
Mother or Billposter.
9. Describe the flower imagery and the color imagery in A Dream Play.
The Ghost Sonata (1907) See http://www.mcauley.acu.edu.au/staff/delyse/ghost.htm
Study Questions on The Ghost Sonata (1907)
1. Pay attention to the title of the play. Why is it called “sonata?” Does Strindberg
apply musical elements in the play? What effects and impression do the elements
make to the audience?
2. Who is the “Ghost” in the play? What impressions do you get from Student, Old
Man, Mummy, the Dead Man, the Girl, Cook the ogre and other characters?
3. The Old Man is depicted as a sucker that steals human souls. How do you describe
his characteristics? How are his images presented in the play? (e.g., in the play he is
recognized by his servant as the god Thor on the chariot) And how do you describe
Student’s personality? How are his images presented in the play?
4. Discuss the design of the play. Although the play is made up within three scenes, it
does not fit the tacit of conventional well-made plays because the climax of Old
Man’s past being unmasked takes place in the scene two that seems to make the
scene three an anti-climax. What is the significance of each scene? Why is the
scene three added since the “ghosts” have been settled in the scene two?
5. The Ghost Sonata, like Miss Julie and A Dream Play, ends with strong image of
death. Does the author imply that death is the only way of escaping from human
suffering? What do you think about the ending?
About Arnold Bocklin’s “Isle of the Dead” (1880)
http://digilander.libero.it/webpainter2/bocklin.htm
http://art.gothic.ru/paint/bocklin/index_e.htm
Read Death and Dying in Art:
http://www.faculty.de.gcsu.edu/~rviau/deathart.html