Strindberg and the Symbolist Drama

STRINDBERG AND THE SYMBOLIST DRAMA THE EFFORT of the symbolist poets and dramatists of the 1890's to create a drama in accord with their poetics of suggestiveness, mystery, and occult correspondences, was a major impulse shaping the development of the modem theater. While the leading symbolist playwrights were French and Belgian writers who had come under the direct influence of Villiers de l'Isle-Adam and Mallarme, the new movement rapidly spread throughout Europe, affecting the work of dramatists who were not symbolists in any strict sense, but who responded to the new emphasis on dream, magic, and atmospheric evocation perhaps best exemplified in the early plays of Maeterlinck. Such varie:! writers as Hofmannsthal, Hauptmann, Yeats, and Strindberg drew upon the experiments and innovations of the symbolists and.contributed to their effort to bring about a theater of fantasy, musicality, and poetry. By the closing years of the last century, Strindberg had already written many of his best plays and had come to be recognized widely as one of the foremost literary figures of the day. A mature man in full command of his creative powers, Strindberg could hardly be considered a disciple of any playwright or group. Nevertheless, Strindberg was not the isolated, solitary genius that has sometimes been depicted. To the very end of his life, he was keenly aware of the vital developments in the contemporary theater and followed them not merely as an onlooker, but with a direct view to his own dramatic efforts. The youthfulness and energy which animates the work of Strindberg in middle and old age unquestionably owes much to his deep involvement in the literary and theatrical currents of his time. Strindberg's deliberate preoccupation with the aims and values of symbolist drama is limited to a relatively brief span of time, approximately from 1898 to 1904, but these years saw the creation of some of his "greatest plays. Strindberg emerged from the dark crisis of the "Inferno" period with a burst of creativity perhaps unparalleled in literature. More than half of his 58 plays were written in his last decades. Between the ages of 50 and 60, beginning with The Road to Damascus and extending through such masterpieces as Easter, A Dream Play, the Chamber Plays, and The Great Highway, Strindberg revolutionized the character of modern drama. It is important to see his brief concern with symbolist drama as part of this massive imaginative effort. 314 1962 STRINDBERG AND SYMBOLIST DRAMA 315 The young Strindberg thought of himself as a naturalistic playwright, reshaping Scandinavian drama in accord with the aims and values of Zola, Antoine, and their followers as he re-defined them. At the same time, however, he was aware of efforts of symbolist poets and playwrights to create a symbolist drama. Stellan Ahlstrom has suggested that it was part of Strindberg's strategy to make Swedish circles believe that naturalism dominated the French literary scene, while in Paris he maintained a guarded neutrality amid the literary quarrels of the day. He hoped to gain access to the Parisian stage not only through Antoine but through Lugne-Poe, and it is significant that both The Father and Creditors were produced in Paris at the Theatre de rCEuvre in 1894. It is by no means certain that Strindberg attended performances of symbolist drama during his stay in Paris from 1894 to 1896; preoccupied with alchemy and spiritualism, he seldom and perhaps never went to the theater during the "Inferno" years. It is clear, however , that he followed new developments on the theatrical scene closely. In an essay of 1894 he ridiculed the early plays of Maeterlinck with their simple diction and studied repetitions and refrains, which the Swedish playwright parodied with ease. In a letter of autumn 1894 he called Maeterlinck "still-born," "a plaything who might amuse in a moment of fatigue," totally lacking in originality. Later, Strindberg was to reverse his judgment as he came to discern a deep affinity between his mystical preoccupations and those of the Belgian symbolist . Strindberg's earlier dislike of the symbolists may also be seen in his famous letter to Gauguin of February, 1895, wherein the Swedish writer declares, recalling his interest...