: August Strindberg
: Plays: The Dream Play - The Link - The Dance of Death Part I and II
: anboco
: 9783736414099
: 1
: CHF 0.40
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: Lyrik, Dramatik
: English
: 380
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Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over sixty plays and more than thirty works of fiction, autobiography, history, cultural analysis, and politics. A bold experimenter and iconoclast throughout, he explored a wide range of dramatic methods and purposes, from naturalistic tragedy, monodrama, and history plays, to his anticipations of expressionist and surrealist dramatic techniques. From his earliest work, Strindberg developed innovative forms of dramatic action, language, and visual composition. He is considered the 'father' of modern Swedish literature and his The Red Room has frequently been described as the first modern Swedish novel. This work contains: A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF AUGUST STRINDBERG'S MAIN WORKS THE DREAM PLAY THE LINK THE DANCE of DEATH, PART I THE DANCE of DEATH, PART II

AUGUST STRINDBERG


THE DREAM PLAY
THE LINK
THE DANCE OF DEATH, Part I
THE DANCE OF DEATH, Part II

TRANSLATED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY


EDWIN BJÖRKMAN


This translation is authorised by Mr. Strindberg,
and he has also approved the selection
of the plays included in this volume.

 

INTRODUCTION


To the first volume of his remarkable series of autobiographical novels, August Strindberg gave the name of"The Bondwoman's Son." The allusion was twofold—to his birth and to the position which fate, in his own eyes, seemed to have assigned him both as man and artist.

If we pass on to the third part of his big trilogy,"To Damascus," also an autobiographical work, but written nearly twenty years later, we findThe Stranger, who is none but the author, saying:"I was the Bondwoman's Son, concerning whom it was writ—Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the free woman's son.'"

AndThe Lady, back of whom we glimpse Strindberg's second wife, replies:"Do you know why Ishmael was cast out? It is to be read a little further back—because he was a scoffer! And then it is also said: 'He will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in opposition to all his brethren.'"

These quotations should be read in conjunction with still another, taken from Strindberg's latest play,"The Great Highway," which, while being a sort of symbolical summary of his life experience, yet pierces the magic circle of self-concern within which too often he has remained a captive. ThereThe Hermitasks:"You do not love your fellow-men?" And Strindberg, masquerading asThe Hunter, cries in answer:"Yes, far too much, and fear them for that reason, too."

August Strindberg was born at Stockholm, Sweden, on January 22, 1849. His father was a small tradesman, who had lost his business just before August was born, but who had the energy and ability to start all over again as a steam-ship agent, making a decided success of his second venture. The success, however, was slow in coming, and the boy's earliest years were spent in the worst kind of poverty—that poverty which has to keep up outward appearances.

The mother had been a barmaid in one of the numerous inns forming one of the Swedish capital's most characteristic features. There the elder Strindberg had met her and fallen deeply in love with her. August was their third child, born a couple of months after their relationship had become legalized in spite of bitter opposition from the husband's family. Other children followed, many of them dying early, so that August could write in later years that one of his first concrete recollections was of the black-jacketed candy which used to be passed around at every Swedish funeral.

Though the parents were always tired