Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger | Page 5

He joined a group of painters and writers of all nationalities in it little village in France. There he wrote "La France," setting forth the relations between France and Sweden in olden times. This was published in Paris and the French government, tendered him the decoration of the legion of honor which, however, he refused very politely, explaining that he never wore a frock coat! The episode ends amusingly with the publisher, a Swede, receiving the decoration instead. In 1884 the first volume of his famous short stories, called "Marriages" appeared. It was aimed at the cult that had sprung up from Ibsen's "A Doll's House," which was threatening the peace of all households. A few days after the publication of "Marriages" the first edition was literally swallowed up. As the book dealt frankly with the physical facts of sex relations, it was confiscated by the Swedish government a month after its publication, and Strindberg was obliged to go to Stockholm to defend his cause in the courts, which he won, and in another month "Marriages" was again on the market.
The next year, 1885, his "Real Utopias" was written in Switzerland, an attack, in the form of four short stories, on over-civilization, which won him much applause in Germany. He went to Italy as a special correspondent for the "Daily News" of Stockholm.
In 1886 the much anticipated second volume of "Marriages" appeared. These were the short stories, satisfying to the simplest as well as to the most discriminating minds, that attracted Nietzsche's attention to Strindberg. A correspondence sprung up between the two men, referring to which in a letter to Peter Gast, Nietzsche said, "Strindberg has written to me, and for the first time I sense an answering note of universality." The mutual admiration and intellectual sympathies of these two conspicuous creative geniuses has led a number of critics, including Edmund Gosse, into the error of attributing to Nietzsche a dominating influence over Strindberg. It should be remembered, however, the "Countess Julie" and "The Father," which are cited its the most obvious examples of that supposed influence, were completed before Strindberg's acquaintance with Nietzsche's philosophy, and that among others, the late John Davidson, is also charged with having drawn largely from Nietzsche. The fact is, that, during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the most original thinkers of many countries were quite independently, though less clearly, evolving the same philosophic principals that the master mind of Nietzsche was radiating in the almost blinding flashes of his genius.
Then came the period during which Strindberg attained the highest peaks of his work, the years 1886-90, with his autobiography, "The Servant Woman's Son," the tragedies, "The Father," and "Countess Julie," the comedies, "Comrades," and "The Stronger," and the tragi-comedies, "The Creditors" and "Simoon." Of these, "The Father" and "Countess Julie" soon made Strindberg's name known and honored throughout Europe, except in his home country.
In "The Father" perhaps his biggest vision is felt. It was published in French soon after it appeared in Sweden, with an introduction by Zola in which he says, "To be brief, you have written a mighty and capitvating work. It is one of the few dramas that have had the power to stir me to the depths."
Of his choice of theme in "Countess Julie," Strindberg says: "When I took this motive from life, as it was related to me a few years ago, it made a strong impression on me. I found it suitable for tragedy, and it still makes a sorrowful impression on me to see an individual to whom happiness has been allotted go under, much more, to see a line become extinct." And in defence of his realism he has said further in his preface to "Countess Julie": "The theatre has for a long time seemed to me the Biblia pauperum in the fine arts, a bible with pictures for those who can neither read nor write, and the dramatist is the revivalist, and the revivalist dishes tap the ideas of the day in popular form, so popular that the middle class, of whom the bulk of theatre-goers is comprised, can without burdening their brains understand what it is all about. The theatre therefore has always been a grammar school for the young, the half-educated, and women, who still possess the primitive power of being able to delude themselves and of allowing themselves to be deluded, that is to say, receive illusions and accept suggestions from the dramatist. *** Some people have accused my tragedy, 'The Father' of being too sad, as though one desired a merry tragedy. People call authoritatively for the 'Joy of Life' and theatrical managers call for farces, as though the Joy of Life lay in being foolish, and in describing people who each and every one are suffering from St.