STRINDBERG, strindUrig, August, Swedish novelist, dramatist and publicist: b. Stockholm, 22 Jan. 1849; d. Stockholm, 14 May 1912. In his autobiographical novel 'The Son of a Servant' he emphasizes the dual social na ture of his origin and attempts to derive his con flicting and unstable position on many ques tions from it. His mother (d. 1862) was of the poorest classes, his father of middle-class business position (steamship agent, d. 1883). From earliest childhood his life was one long struggle with his •associates, teachers, parents, friends and rivals, differing, however, from that of other persons in that the consciousness of struggle is always present in his work; he never for a moment pretends that life is any thing else. After passing through a number of parochial and preparatory schools, the tor tures of which he has described in 'The Son of a Servant,' he went to the University of Upsala in 1870, where his experiences were not less unpleasant. (English trans., New York 1915), a prose drama of the Swedish Reforma tion (a version in verse was written 1878), full of youthful rebellion and pessimism. The play was written in the skerries of the Swedish Bal tic, which were to remain for many years a source of stimulus and inspiration to Strind berg. A collection of sketches of student life at the university
vetskval)
of Conscience' ; two trans lations, Chicago 1915, and New York, in The Call, 1916) is the best of the latter; it is a powerful anti-militaristic tale of the Franco Prussian War of 1870. His writings after that period display a growing conservative, even, on occasion, fanatically reactionary tendency. This evinced itself in his violent hatred of women, in general, although he was by no means inac cessible to their charms, and, toward the end of his life, in a predilection for mystical and occult study, and for mystic and supernatural elements in his later plays. In 1885, when he published the 30 short stories known as (Mar ried' (English trans., New York 1912), his attitude toward women was not that of the misogynist, although his introduction to the collection indicated his belief that the economic and social conditions of the age were constantly driving women into a more and more selfish and immoral position. His most delicate and human touches are to be found in this collec tion. In the dramas written about 1890, mi sogynpp is already a dangerous obsession with Strindberg, leading him to produce such im pressive perversions as the dramas
Father,' (Countess Julia,'
By 1890, Strindberg had completely passed out of his socialistic stage and into that of anarchic in dividualism, strongly influenced by Nietzsche. In that year appeared his novel of fishermen's life: