Strindberg : a life / Sue Prideaux.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Prideaux, Sue.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Strindberg, August, 1849-1912.

Strindberg, August.

Authors, Swedish--19th century--Biography.

Authors, Swedish.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (359 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, 2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Novelist, satirist, poet, photographer, painter, alchemist, and hellraiser-August Strindberg was all these, and yet he is principally known, in Arthur Miller's words, as "the mad inventor of modern theater" who led playwriting out of the polite drawing room into the snakepit of psychological warfare. This biography, supported by extensive new research, describes the eventful and complicated life of one of the great literary figures in world literature. Sue Prideaux organizes Strindberg's story into a gripping and highly readable narrative that both illuminates his work and restores humor and humanity to a man often shrugged off as too difficult. Best known for his play Miss Julie, Strindberg wrote sixty other plays, three books of poetry, eighteen novels, and nine autobiographies. Even more than most, Strindberg is a writer whose life sheds invaluable light on his work. Prideaux explores Strindberg's many art-life connections, revealing for the first time the originals who inspired the characters of Miss Julie and her servant Jean, the bizarre circumstances in which the play was written, and the real suicide that inspired the shattering ending of the play. Recounting the playwright's journey through the "real" world as well as the world of belief and ideas, Prideaux marks the centenary of Strindberg's death in 1912 with a biography worthy of the man who laid the foundation for Western drama through the twentieth century and even into the twenty-first.

Contents:

Front matter

CONTENTS

Preface

1. MISS JULIE'S KITCHEN

2. THE SON OF A SERVANT

3. BASIC TRAINING

4. THE FREETHINKER

5. PLAYING WITH FIRE

6. A SHORT SWEDISH HONEYMOON

7. RABBLE ROUSER

8. UNDER THE ICE

9. MADNESS AND MODERNITY

10. EXPERIMENTAL THEATRE

11. THE BLACK PIGLET

12. FRIDA, NO STRANGER TO DRAMA

13. FRENCH VIVISECTIONS

14. INFERNO

15. OUT OF INFERNO

16. HARRIET BOSSE

17. THE INTIMATE THEATRE

18. The Blue Tower

NOTES

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

STRINDBERG'S PRINCIPAL LITERARY WORKS

CHRONOLOGY

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 335-337) and index.

ISBN:

1-283-70006-9

0-300-19419-6

OCLC:

815380442