Foreword

FOREWORD August Strindberg is the first continental dramatist honored by a special issue of Modem Drama. There is, in fact, mild irony in the fact that, during a year which marks the centenary of the births of Hauptmann, Maeterlinck, and Schnitzler, we should commemorate the half-century of Strindberg's death. However, substantial and significant as the achievement of Hauptmann, Maeterlinck, and Schnitzler has been in the shaping of modern drama, it is the work and personality of the great Swedish playwright which continues to command the attention of students of modern drama. In recent years we have been given more and better translations of Strindberg's works, and there has been an important shift of interest away from the "naturalistic" plays and to the later works which frightened off an earlier generation of scholars and critics. The articles included in this special issue reflect both of these developments. It is easy to connect the current interest in Strindberg's later plays with our present fascination with the emergent Theater of the Absurd, but we must avoid confusing causes and effects in making this connection . In any examination of new tendencies in Strindberg studies, we must recall the import of "new criticism" (already an old-fashioned term) and the development of fruitful critical techniques for analysis of the separate work of art. The later plays of Strindberg have begun to come more clearly into focus as students of modern drama have abandoned the once dominant biographical approach to his dramatic art. That Strindberg's involvement in his plays is so deeply personal (or "romantic" in one of that slippery term's more general senses) will always commit us to some analysis of his works as chapters in his life. This issue shows, however, that more critics now address themselves to one of Strindberg's works without losing sight of the work's artistic integrity. Among the many whose assistance has made this issue possible, I would call attention to Mr. Arvid Paulson, Mr. Leif Sjoberg, and Professor Richard Vowles. Mr. Paulson directed me to Hans Alin, whose reminiscences of Strindberg provide a wholesome new insight into a personality too often regarded merely as a sick soul. Mr. Sjoberg was responsible for the suggestion that the Royal Swedish Embassy would be interested in circulating copies of this issue throughout the world as part of its information service. Professor Vowles' contributions open and close this issue: every scholar will value his expansion of materials originally prepared for the 1961 Modern Drama Conference in Chicago , and all Strindberg enthusiasts will be grateful that the muchdiscussed fragment, Isle of the Dead, has at last been made available in English. ROBERT G. SHEDD ...