Volume 29, Number 21 & 22 · January 20, 1983
Castles in the Mud
By Robert Brustein
Strindberg as Dramatist
by Evert Sprinchorn
Yale University Press, 332 pp., $30.00
Strindberg and the Poetry of Myth
by Harry G. Carlson
University of California Press, 240 pp., $22.50
With the publication of two excellent books, the tortured Swedish dramatist is at last becoming the subject of thoughtful, comprehensive attention. Encouraged by Strindberg himself, who called his work an exorcistic 'poem of desperation,' previous critics (myself included) have been more inclined to describe his fascinating pathology than to admire his art, as if the plays were important largely as a chapter in a psychic biography. But if Strindberg is such an aberration, how do we explain his impact on modern drama, which now exceeds even that of his arch-rival, Henrik Ibsen? He was the cherished literary father of Sean O'Casey and Eugene O'Neill. He has stamped his imprint on Tennessee Williams and Edward Albee. And he is commonly identified as crucial to the development of modern expressionism and symbolism, an artist who helped to nurture Artaud's theories of cruelty, Genet's extravagant fantasies, the surrealism of Cocteau, indeed the whole of postmodern experimental theater.
Review, 2844 words
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