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This is a book about Strindberg and about the nature of autobiographical writing. In this sensitive and discerning study, Michael Robinson has turned aside from the more traditional biographical approach to Strindberg. Instead he sets out to explore the highly idiosyncratic way in which Strindberg projected himself in language, looking at the problems which this brought in its trail, and laying bare the subterfuges it engendered. He has not limited himself to those works explicitly designated by Strindberg as autobiographical, but ranges widely over the dramas, the narratives and other prose works.
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In a celebratory moment of the Paradiso, Dante has Thomas go round the circle of sage spirits identifying each in turn in point of proper calling and confirming how it is that self is everywhere present to the other-than-self as a co-efficient of being in the endless and endlessly varied instantiation of that being. The image, at once perfectly Dantean and perfectly resplendent, underlies and informs these conversations of mine with Kenelm; for if in reading and rereading the cherished text, I have from time to time felt the need to enter a qualification, it is a matter here, as in the high consistory of paradise, of otherness as both contained and as authorized by sameness, as conditioned and set free by it for a life of its own. Never, in other words, is it a question in what follows of the stark alternativism of the sed contra, but instead a matter of formed friendship, of the kind of friendship which, conceived in love, makes for a sweet choreography of the spirit.
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In this volume Strindbergs accomplishments as a dramatist are set against his achievements in other fields, as an autobiographer, painter, letter writer and theatre director.There are studies of individual plays, in which Strindbergs theatre is related both to naturalism and the theatre of the absurd, and of the role played by his life-long interest in historical drama. Other essays range from studies of the problems posed by Strindbergs preoccupation with converting his own life into literature to a consideration of the importance he placed on letterwriting as a model for writing of all kinds. His letters are also used to explore his ideas about the theatre. A recurring concern is with the period of turmoil known as the Inferno Crisis, in which Strindberg refashioned himself as a writer. Robinson examines the importance of Strindbergs painting for his renewal as a writer and situates the achievement of his later works in relation to Symbolism and to Musical Expressionism.
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