PLAYS

BY

AUGUST STRINDBERG

THIRD SERIES

SWANWHITE
SIMOOM
DEBIT AND CREDIT
ADVENT
THE THUNDERSTORM
AFTER THE FIRE

TRANSLATED FROM THE SWEDISH WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

EDWIN BJÖRKMAN

AUTHORIZED EDITION

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1921

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
SWANWHITE
SIMOOM
DEBIT AND CREDIT
ADVENT
ACT I
ACT II
ACT III
ACT IV
ACT V
THE THUNDERSTORM
AFTER THE FIRE

INTRODUCTION

The collection of plays contained in this volume is unusually representative, giving what might be called a cross-section of Strindberg's development as a dramatist from his naturalistic revolt in the middle eighties, to his final arrival at resigned mysticism and Swedenborgian symbolism.

"Swanwhite" was written in the spring of 1901, about the time when Strindberg was courting and marrying his third wife, the gifted Swedish actress Harriet Bosse. In the fall of 1902 the play appeared in book form, together with "The Crown Bride" and "The Dream Play," all of them being issued simultaneously, at Berlin, in a German translation made by Emil Schering.

Schering, who at that time was in close correspondence with Strindberg, says that the figure of Swanwhite had been drawn with direct reference to Miss Bosse, who had first attracted the attention of Strindberg by her spirited interpretation of Biskra in "Simoom." And Schering adds that it was Strindberg's bride who had a little previously introduced him to the work of Maeterlinck, thereby furnishing one more of the factors determining the play.

Concerning the influence exerted upon him by the Belgian playwright-philosopher, Strindberg himself wrote in a pamphlet named "Open Letters to the Intimate Theatre" (Stockholm, 1909):

"I had long had in mind skimming the cream of our most beautiful folk-ballads in order to turn them into a picture for the stage. Then Maeterlinck came across my path, and under the influence of his puppet-plays, which are not meant for the regular stage, I wrote my Swedish scenic spectacle, 'Swanwhite.' It is impossible either to steal or to borrow from Maeterlinck. It is even difficult to become his pupil, for there are no free passes that give entrance to his world of beauty. But one may be urged by his example into searching one's own dross-heaps for gold—and it is in that sense I acknowledge my debt to the master.

"Pushed ahead by the impression made on me by Maeterlinck, and borrowing his divining-rod for my purposes, I turned to such sources [i.e., of Swedish folk-lore] as the works of Geijer, Afzelius, and Dybeck. There I found a superabundance of princes and princesses. The stepmother theme I had discovered on my own hook as a constant—it figures in twenty-six different Swedish folk-tales. In the same place I found the resurrection theme, as, for instance, it appears in the story of Queen Dagmar. Then I poured it all into my separator, together with the Maids, the Green Gardener and the Young King, and in a short while the cream began to flow—and for that reason the story is my own. But it has also been made so by the fact that I have lived through that tale in my own fancy—a Spring in time of Winter!"

Swedish critics have been unanimous in their praise of this play. John Landquist, who has since become Strindberg's literary executor, spoke of it once as "perhaps the most beautiful and most genuine fairy tale for old or young ever written in the Swedish language." Tor Hedberg has marvelled at the charm with which Swanwhite herself has been endowed—"half child, half maid; knowing nothing, yet guessing all; playing with love as a while ago she was playing with her dolls." On the stage, too—in Germany as well as in Sweden—little Swanwhite has celebrated great triumphs. Whether that figure, and the play surrounding it, will also triumph in English-speaking countries, remains still to be seen. But if, contrary to my hopes, it should fail to do so, I want, in advance, to shift the blame from the shoulders of the author to my own. In hardly any other work by Strindberg do form and style count for so much. The play is, in its original shape, as poetical in form as in spirit—even to the extent of being strongly rhythmical in its prose, and containing many of the inversions which are so characteristic of Swedish verse.

It is not impossible to transfer these qualities into English, but my efforts to do so have had to be influenced by certain differences in the very grain of the two languages involved. Like all other languages, each possesses a natural basic rhythm. This rhythm varies frequently and easily in Swedish, so that you may pass from iambic to trochaic metre without giving offence to the ear—or to that subtle rhythmical susceptibility that seems to be inherent in our very pulses. But the rhythm dearest and most natural to the genius of the Swedish language seems to be the falling pulse-beat manifested in the true trochee. The swing and motion of English, on the other hand, is almost exclusively, commandingly iambic. And it was not until I made the iambic rising movement prevail in my translation, that I felt myself approaching the impression made on me by the original. But for that very reason—because the genius of the new medium has forced me into making the movement of my style more monotonous—it is to be feared that the rhythmical quality of that movement may seem overemphasised. Should such a criticism be advanced, I can only answer: I have tried several ways, and this is the only one that will work.

"Simoom" seems to have been written in 1888, in close connection with "Creditors" and "Pariah." And, like these, it shows the unmistakable