Editing August Strindberg (section)

{{Short description|Swedish writer and painter (1849–1912)}}
{{redirect|Strindberg}}
{{redirect-distinguish|Black Banners|Black Banner (disambiguation){{!}}Black Banner}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2021}}
{{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
| image = AugustStrindberg.jpg
| caption = August Strindberg
| birth_name = Johan August Strindberg
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1849|01|22|df=yes}}
| birth_place = Stockholm, Sweden<!--Do not link per MOS:GEOLINK-->
| death_date = {{death date and age|1912|05|14|1849|01|22|df=yes}}
| death_place = Stockholm, Sweden
| resting_place = [[Norra begravningsplatsen]]
| occupation = {{Flatlist}}
* Playwright
* Novelist
* Essayist
* Poet
* Painter
{{Endflatlist}}
| nationality = [[Swedes|Swedish]]
| period = [[Modernism]]
| movement = {{Plainlist}}
* [[Naturalism (theatre)|Naturalism]]
* [[Expressionism (theatre)|Expressionism]]
* [[Chamber play]]
{{Endplainlist}}
| notableworks = {{Plainlist}}
* ''[[The Red Room (Strindberg novel)|The Red Room]]'' (1879)
* ''[[The Father (Strindberg play)|The Father]]'' (1887)
* ''[[Miss Julie]]'' (1888)
* ''[[Creditors (play)|Creditors]]'' (1889)
* ''[[Inferno (Strindberg novel)|Inferno]]'' (1897)
* ''[[To Damascus]]'' (1898)
* ''[[The Dance of Death (Strindberg play)|The Dance of Death]]'' (1900)
* ''[[A Dream Play]]'' (1902)
* ''[[The Ghost Sonata]]'' (1908)
{{Endplainlist}}
| spouse = {{Plainlist}}
* [[Siri von Essen]] (1877–1891)
* [[Frida Uhl]] (1893–1895)
* [[Harriet Bosse]] (1901–1904)
{{Endplainlist}}
| children = 7, including [[Friedrich Strindberg]] and [[Karin Smirnov]]
| signature = Strindberg namnteckning 1898.svg
}}
'''Johan August Strindberg''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|s|t|r|ɪ|n|(|d|)|b|ɜːr|ɡ}};<ref>[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/strindberg "Strindberg"]. ''[[Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary]]''.</ref> {{IPA|sv|ˈǒːɡɵst ˈstrɪ̂nːdbærj|lang|sv-August Strindberg.ogg}}; 22 January 1849{{spaced ndash}}14 May 1912) was a Swedish [[playwright]], [[novelist]], [[poet]], [[essayist]], and [[painter]].<ref name="Lane 1998, 1040">Lane (1998), 1040.</ref><ref>Meyer (1985), 3, 567.</ref><ref>Williams (1952), 75.</ref> A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg wrote more than 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, [[autobiography]], history, [[cultural analysis]], and [[politics]] during his career, which spanned four decades.<ref>Williams (1952, 75).</ref> A bold experimenter and [[iconoclast]] throughout his life, he explored a wide range of dramatic methods and purposes, from naturalistic [[tragedy]], [[monodrama]], and historical plays to his anticipations of [[expressionism (theatre)|expressionist]] and [[surrealism|surrealist]] dramatic techniques.<ref>Lane (1998), 1040–41.</ref><ref>Williams (1952), 75–6, 100.</ref> From his earliest work, Strindberg developed innovative forms of dramatic action, language, and visual composition.<ref>{{Cite book|title=August Strindberg and visual culture : the emergence of optical modernity in image, text, and theatre|publisher=Bloomsbury|others=Schroeder, Jonathan E., Stenport, Anna Westerståhl,, Szalczer, Eszter, editors|year=2018|isbn=9781501338007|location=New York|oclc=1043147459}}</ref> He is considered the "father" of modern [[Swedish literature]] and his ''[[The Red Room (Strindberg novel)|The Red Room]]'' (1879) has frequently been described as the first modern Swedish novel.<ref>Adams (2002).</ref><ref>Meˈyer (1985), 79.</ref> In Sweden, Strindberg is known as an essayist, painter, poet, and especially novelist and playwright, but in other countries he is known mostly as a playwright.

The [[Royal Dramatic Theatre|Royal Theatre]] rejected his first major play, ''[[Master Olof]]'', in 1872; it was not until 1881, when he was thirty-two, that its première at the [[Swedish Theatre (Stockholm)|New Theatre]] gave him his theatrical breakthrough.<ref name="Lane 1998, 1040"/><ref>Meyer (1985), 49, 95.</ref> In his plays ''[[The Father (Strindberg play)|The Father]]'' (1887), ''[[Miss Julie]]'' (1888), and ''[[Creditors (play)|Creditors]]'' (1889), he created naturalistic dramas that – building on the established accomplishments of [[Henrik Ibsen]]'s prose [[problem play]]s while rejecting their use of the structure of the [[well-made play]] – responded to the call-to-arms of [[Émile Zola]]'s manifesto "Naturalism in the Theatre" (1881) and the example set by [[André Antoine]]'s newly established {{lang|fr|[[Théâtre Libre]]}} (opened 1887).<ref>Carlson (1993, 280), Innes (2000, 22), Lane (1998, 1040), and Williams (1952, 77–80).</ref> In ''Miss Julie'', characterisation replaces plot as the predominant dramatic element (in contrast to [[melodrama]] and the well-made play) and the determining role of [[heredity]] and the [[Social environment|environment]] on the "vacillating, disintegrated" characters is emphasized.<ref>Quoting from Strindberg's Preface to ''Miss Julie''; see Carlson (1993, 281), Innes (2000, 12–13), and Lane (1998, 1040).</ref> Strindberg modeled his short-lived Scandinavian Experimental Theatre (1889) in [[Copenhagen]] on Antoine's theatre and he explored the theory of Naturalism in his essays "On Psychic Murder" (1887), "On Modern Drama and the Modern Theatre" (1889), and a preface to ''Miss Julie'', the last of which is probably the best-known statement of the principles of the theatrical movement.<ref>Carlson (1993, 280) and Lane (1998, 1040).</ref>

During the 1890s he spent significant time abroad engaged in scientific experiments and studies of the occult.<ref name="cgt0">Lane (1998, 1040).</ref> A series of apparent psychotic attacks between 1894 and 1896 (referred to as his "''Inferno'' crisis") led to his hospitalization and return to Sweden.<ref name=cgt0/> Under the influence of the ideas of [[Emanuel Swedenborg]], he resolved after his recovery to become "the Zola of the Occult".<ref>Lane (1998, 1040) and Meyer (1985, 350); on 23 August 1896 he wrote in a letter to Torsten Hedlund: "You said recently that people are looking for the Zola of occultism. That I feel is my vocation."</ref> In 1898 he returned to play-writing with ''[[To Damascus]]'', which, like ''[[The Great Highway]]'' (1909), is a dream-play of spiritual pilgrimage.<ref>Lane (1998, 1041), Meyer (1985, 374), and Williams (1952, 86–93).</ref> His ''[[A Dream Play]]'' (1902) – with its radical attempt to dramatize the workings of the [[unconscious mind|unconscious]] by means of an abolition of conventional dramatic time and space and the splitting, doubling, merging, and multiplication of its characters – was an important precursor to both expressionism and surrealism.<ref>Carlson (1993, 346–347) and Lane (1998, 1041).</ref> He also returned to writing historical drama, the genre with which he had begun his play-writing career.<ref>Lane (1998, 1041).</ref> He helped to run the [[Strindbergs Intima Teater|Intimate Theatre]] from 1907, a small-scale theatre in Stockholm, modeled on [[Max Reinhardt]]'s {{lang|de|Kammerspielhaus}}, that staged his [[chamber play]]s (such as ''[[The Ghost Sonata]]'').<ref>Lane (1998, 1041) and Williams (1952, 96–99).</ref>