August Strindberg(1849 — 1912)
August Strindberg
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Swedish writer, playwright and painter (1849-1912), a major figure of Scandinavian literature. A pioneer of naturalism and later a forerunner of expressionism and modern theatre, he profoundly renewed European dramatic art.
Frequently asked questions
Key Facts
- Born in 1849 in Stockholm, died in 1912 in the same city.
- Published in 1879 the novel 'The Red Room', regarded as the first modern Swedish realist novel.
- Wrote the naturalist play 'Miss Julie' in 1888, accompanied by a manifesto-like preface on naturalist theatre.
- Took a mystical and experimental turn after his so-called 'Inferno' crisis (around 1894-1897), recounted in 'Inferno' (1897).
- Late works such as 'A Dream Play' (1902) foreshadowing the expressionist and symbolist theatre of the 20th century.
Works & Achievements
A satirical novel about Stockholm society that made him famous and marked a milestone in modern Swedish literature.
An autobiographical account in which he analyzes his childhood and upbringing without indulgence, in a naturalist vein.
A taut naturalist drama about marital conflict and the battle of the sexes, hailed by champions of modern theatre.
A major work of theatrical naturalism, accompanied by a preface that became a manifesto on drama and the actor's craft.
An autobiographical account of his spiritual crisis in Paris, caught between science, mysticism and anguish.
An innovative dramatic trilogy blending dream and reality, regarded as a source of expressionist theatre.
A dreamlike play in which time and space distort as in a dream, highly influential on twentieth-century theatre.
An enigmatic chamber play premiered at the Intima Teatern, foreshadowing the theatre of the absurd and expressionism.
Anecdotes
In the mid-1890s, in Paris, Strindberg went through what he called his “Inferno crisis”: convinced he could manufacture gold, he turned his hotel room into an alchemy laboratory and burned his hands from constantly handling chemicals. He also believed he was the target of invisible, persecuting forces.
Strindberg was a self-taught painter who mostly painted seascapes and storms, often using a palette knife rather than a brush, spreading the paint in thick layers. Long scorned, his canvases are today considered remarkably ahead of their time and are exhibited in major museums.
Passionate about science, he made “celestographs”: he placed photographic plates directly under the night sky, without any camera or lens, convinced he was thereby photographing the stars. The spots he obtained were in reality only dust and chemical flaws, but the experiment shows his overflowing scientific curiosity.
His play *Miss Julie* (1888) caused a scandal with its rawness and was banned or censored in several countries. Strindberg added a famous preface to it that became a true manifesto of European naturalist theatre.
In 1907, in Stockholm, he founded the *Intima Teatern* (Intimate Theatre) with the director August Falck, a tiny hall of barely 160 seats designed to perform his own plays as close to the audience as possible, like an experiment in chamber theatre.
Primary Sources
My souls (my characters) are conglomerations of past and present, scraps of books and newspapers, fragments of humanity, shreds torn from Sunday clothes turned to rags.
With a feeling of savage joy I leave Paris, as if I were tearing myself away from a cross of torture, for I have suffered in this Babel as much as a man can suffer without dying of it.
He was always afraid. Afraid of being beaten, afraid of displeasing, afraid of being in the way, afraid of existing.
He gazed at Stockholm spreading out at his feet in the smoke and fog, and he felt that everything in this city was nothing but appearance and pretense.
Key Places
Strindberg's native city, the setting of many works such as The Red Room, and the place of his death in 1912. It is also where he founded the Intima Teatern.
Strindberg pursued irregular studies here from 1867, never obtaining a degree. The university town marks the start of his intellectual life.
Site of the “Inferno crisis” in the 1890s, a period of alchemy, occultism and anguish. Paris was then the capital of the naturalist theatre that fascinated him.
Strindberg stayed here from 1892 and frequented the tavern “Zum schwarzen Ferkel”, a gathering place for avant-garde Scandinavian and German artists and writers.
A small theatre founded in 1907 to perform his chamber plays before a limited audience. Here he premiered, among others, The Ghost Sonata.