August Strindberg

(January 22, 1849 – May 14, 1912) was a Swedish writer, playwright, and painter. He is ranked among Sweden's most important authors. Strindberg is known as one of the fathers of modern theater. His work falls into two major literary movements, Naturalism and Expressionism.

Life

Early years

Born in Stockholm, Strindberg was the fourth son of Carl Oscar Strindberg, a shipping agent from a bourgeois family, and Ulrika Eleonora (Nora) Norling, a twelve years younger woman of simpler origin, called a "servant woman" in the title of the son's autobiographical novel, Tjänstekvinnans son (The Son of a Servant). His paternal grandfather Zacharias was born 1758 as the son of a clergyman in Jämtland and had settled in Stockholm, becoming a well-to-do spice tradesman and a major in the Burghers' Military Corps. Strindberg's aunt Lisette was married to the English-born inventor and industrialist Samuel Owen. Carl Oscar Strindberg's older brother Johan Ludvig Strindberg was a successful businessman, and has been seen as the model for the main protagonist Arvid Falk's wealthy and socially ambitious uncle in August Strindberg's novel Röda rummet (The Red Room).

Strindberg's own version of his childhood, as he wanted it to be perceived by others, is available to his readers in his novel The Son of a Servant, but at least one of his biographers, Olof Lagercrantz, warns against using it uncritically as a biographical source. Much of what Strindberg wrote has an autobiographical character, but Lagercrantz points out Strindberg's "talent to make us believe what he wants us to believe" and his unwillingness, already in his own lifetime, to accept any other characterization of his person than the one for which he had himself set the agenda.

From the age of seven, Strindberg grew up in the Norrtull area on the northern, still almost rural, periphery of Stockholm, not far from the park where Carl Eldh's Strindberg statue was later placed (Tegnérlunden). He went to the elementary schools of Klara and Jakob parishes, continuing to the Stockholms Lyceum, a progressive private school populated by boys from upper and upper middle class families. He completed his studentexamen, his graduation examination giving access to university, on May 25 1867, and matriculated at the University of Uppsala in the fall of the same year.

Adult years

He would, on and off for several years, spend time in Uppsala or at home reading for examinations to be taken in Uppsala, meanwhile trying other things. He first left Uppsala in 1868 to work as a schoolteacher, studied chemistry for some time at the Institute of Technology in Stockholm in preparation for medical studies, worked as a private tutor, and was an extra at the Royal Theatre in Stockholm. He returned to Uppsala in January 1870, meanwhile working on a set of plays, of which the first, on the Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen, opened at the Royal Theatre in September 1870. In Uppsala, he started a small literary club, Runa, with some friends, all taking pseudonyms from Nordic mythology; Strindberg called himself Frö after the god of fertility. He spent a few more semesters in Uppsala, finally leaving in March 1872, never graduating. He would often hold Uppsala and its professors up to ridicule, and a few years later published Från Fjerdingen och Svartbäcken ("From Fjerdingen and Svartbäcken", 1877), a set of short stories depicting Uppsala student life.

After leaving university for the last time, he started a career as a journalist and critic for newspapers in Stockholm.

Strindberg was married three times, to Siri von Essen (1850-1912), Frida Uhl (1872-1943), and lastly Harriet Bosse (1878-1961). Though he had children with all of them, his hypersensitive, neurotic character led to bitter divorces. Late in his life he met the young actress and painter Fanny Falkner (1890-1963), who later wrote a book about his last years, but the exact nature of their relationship is debated. He had a brief affair in Berlin with Dagny Juel before his marriage to Frida; and it has been suggested that the shocking news of her murder might have been the reason for his cancelling the already postponed honeymoon with his third wife, Harriet.

Strindberg's relationships with women were troubled, and his legacy of words and deeds has often been interpreted as misogynist by both his contemporaries as well as modern readers. However, most acknowledge that he had uncommon insight into the hypocrisy of his society's gender expectations, sexual behavior and morality. Marriage and the family were under stress in Strindberg's lifetime as Sweden industrialized and urbanized at a rapid pace. Problems of prostitution and morality were debated heatedly amongst writers and critics as well as politicians. His early writing often dealt with the traditional roles of the sexes imposed by society, which he criticized as unjust.

Strindberg was admired by the working classes as a radical writer. He was a Socialist (or maybe more of an Anarchist) and his daughter Karin Strindberg married Vladimir Smirnov, one of the leading Russian Bolsheviks. As for his political standpoints, Strindberg has been heavily promoted in socialist countries, such as the Soviet Union, Central and Eastern Europe and in Cuba.

He was a multi-faceted author; often extreme. After his death, some psychoanalysts have speculated that his contradictory and difficult character was due to his fear of his own latent homosexuality. Others invoke his early family life. His father, Oskar, was a small-time merchant. His mother, whom he called the servant, was originally his father's housekeeper before their marriage.

His novel The Red Room (Röda rummet) (1879) brought him fame. His early plays were written in the Naturalistic style, and his works from this time are often compared with the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. Strindberg's best-known play from this period is Miss Julie (Fröken Julie).

Later, he underwent a time of inner turmoil known as the Inferno Period, which culminated in the production of a book written in French, Inferno.

Afterwards he broke with Naturalism and began to produce works informed by Symbolism. He is considered one of the pioneers of the Modern European stage and Expressionism. The Dance of Death (Dödsdansen), A Dream Play (Ett drömspel) and The Ghost Sonata (Spöksonaten) are well-known plays from this period.

It is not so widely known that he also was a telegrapher, painter, photographer and alchemist.

As a young student, before he became a writer, he worked for a while as an assistant in a chemist's shop in the university town of Lund in southern Sweden.

On his death in 1912 from cancer at the age of 63, August Strindberg was interred in the Norra begravningsplatsen in Stockholm. There are several statues and busts erected of him in Stockholm, most prominently one by Carl Eldh.

Quotes

"When is revolution legal? When it succeeds!"

"What is economics? A science invented by the upper class in order to acquire the fruits of the labor of the underclass."

"I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves."

"When they say Christ descended into Hell, they mean that he descended to earth, this penitentiary, this madhouse and morgue of a world."

Trivia

In Woody Allen's 1979 film Academy Award nominated film Manhattan, the protagonist (played by Allen) says to a friend, "...You shouldn't ask me for advice. When it comes to relationships with women, I'm the winner of the August Strindberg Award."

Partial bibliography

He wrote 58 plays, an autobiography (9 volumes, A Soul's Advance, 1886-1903)

The Outlaw, 1871
From Fjerdingen and Svartbäcken, short stories, 1877
Master Olof, drama, 1872
The Red Room, novel, 1879
Swedish People at Work and Play, social history, 1881-1882
The New Country, novel, 1882
Lucky Pehr, drama, 1883
Swedish Destiny and Adventure, I-IV, short stories, 1882-1891
Poetry in Verse and Prose, 1883
Sleepwalker Awakens to the Day, fiction, 1884
Married I-II, short stories, 1884-1886
Utopian on Reality, short stories, 1885
Son of a Servant, I-V, autobiography, 1886-1909
Natives of Hemsö, novel, 1887
The Defense's Speech of a Fool, 1887-1895
The Father, drama, 1887
Miss Julie, drama, 1888
Life of an Island Lad, short story, 1888
Pariah, 1889
Among French Peasants, 1889
Creditors, drama, 1888-1889
The Way to Damascus, dramatic trilogy, 1898-1902
Gustavus Vasa, drama, 1899
Erik XIV, drama, 1899
The Dance of Death, 1900
Easter, drama, 1900
Engelbrekt, drama, 1901
A Dream Play, drama, 1902
Swan Blood, drama, 1902
The Camara Plays: The Storm, The Burned House, The Pelican, The Ghost Sonata, 1907
Merry Christmas!, a verse drama, 1909
''The great Landway, drama, 1909

External links

Works by August Strindberg at Projekt Runeberg (in Swedish)
The "national edition" of Strindberg's collected works, published by an editorial committee at Stockholm University (pages in Swedish)
Concordance of Strindberg's works, based on the so far completed parts of the "national edition", hosted by Språkbanken at Gothenburg University
The Strindberg museum
Strindberg & Helium, a comedic multimedia interpretation of Strindberg's Inferno
August Strindberg Society of Los Angeles, Learn about the great Swedish dramatist at the TASSLA site; plays, discussions, photos, drawings, quotes and reviews.
Absinthe & Alchemy Fortean Times on Strindberg's visonary experiences