The Road to Damascus

The Road to Damascus, by
August Strindberg

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Title: The Road to Damascus
Author: August Strindberg

Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8875] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on August 18,
2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROAD
TO DAMASCUS ***

Produced by Nicole Apostola

AUGUST STRINDBERG
THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS
A TRILOGY
ENGLISH VERSION BY GRAHAM RAWSON
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY GUNNAR OLLÉN
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION PART ONE PART TWO PART THREE

INTRODUCTION
Strindberg's great trilogy The Road to Damascus presents many
mysteries to the uninitiated. Its peculiar changes of mood, its gallery of
half unreal characters, its bizarre episodes combine to make it a
bewilderingly rich but rather 'difficult' work. It cannot be recommended

to the lover of light drama or the seeker of momentary distraction. The
Road to Damascus does not deal with the superficial strata of human
life, but probes into those depths where the problems of God, and death,
and eternity become terrifying realities.
Many authors have, of course, dealt with the profoundest problems of
humanity without, on that account, having been able to evoke our
interest. There may have been too much philosophy and too little art in
the presentation of the subject, too little reality and too much soaring
into the heights. That is not so with Strindberg's drama. It is a trenchant
settling of accounts between a complex and fascinating individual--the
author--and his past, and the realistic scenes have often been
transplanted in detail from his own changeful life.
In order fully to understand The Road to Damascus it is therefore
essential to know at least the most important features of that
background of real life, out of which the drama has grown.
Parts I and II of the trilogy were written in 1898, while
Part III was added somewhat later, in the
years 1900-1901. In 1898
Strindberg had only half emerged from what was by far the severest of
the many crises through which in his troubled life he had to pass. He
had overcome the worst period of terror, which had brought him
dangerously near the borders of sanity, and he felt as if he could again
open his eyes and breathe freely. He was not free from that nervous
pressure under which he had been working, but the worst of the inner
tension had relaxed and he felt the need of taking a survey of what had
happened, of summarising and trying to fathom what could have been
underlying his apparently unaccountable experiences. The literary
outcome of this settling of accounts with the past was The Road to
Damascus.
The Road to Damascus might be termed a marriage drama, a mystery
drama, or a drama of penance and conversion, according as

preponderance is given to one or other of its characteristics. The
question then arises: what was it in the drama which was of deepest
significance to the author himself? The answer is to be found in the title,
with its allusion to the narrative in the Acts of the Apostles of the
journey of Saul, the persecutor, the scoffer, who, on his way to
Damascus, had an awe-inspiring vision, which converted Saul, the
hater of Christ, into Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles. Strindberg's
drama describes the progress of the author right up to his conversion,
shows how stage by stage he relinquishes worldly things, scientific
renown, and above all woman, and finally, when nothing more binds
him to this world, takes the vows of a monk and enters a monastery
where no dogmas or theology, but only broadminded humanity and
resignation hold sway. What, however, in an inner sense, distinguishes
Strindberg's drama from the Bible narrative is that the conversion
itself--although what leads up to it