Strindberg and the Poetry of Myth by Harry G. Carlson (review)

572 Book Reviews ambivalence. Ibsen, that most radical skeptic among playwrights, has turned into a riddlemonger, and we are back with the Great Sphinx. Secrets that are not there have transfixed the dedicated champion ofIbsen's "open vision" at a respectful distance from the secrets of Ibsen's dramatic art. The irony is obvious and rather sad. OTTO REINERT, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON HARRY G. CARLSON. Strindberg and the Poetry of Myth. Berkeley: University of California Press 1982. Pp. xi, 240. $22.50. Strindberg is the only modem Swedish writer to date to win genuine worldwide fame and respect during his lifetime. This fame has not only endured but continued to grow: he is probably better known and his influence is certainly more widely felt today than at the time of his death. What is particularly striking about Strindberg's reputation, though, is the fact that as an individual- an eccentric, a visionary, a misogynist, and much more he is as well known as his works. Strindberg productions, research, and criticism have frequently been informed, therefore, if not dominated, by biographical considerations. Approaches to his works that draw on or emphasize aspects of his own life are so prevalent that they tend at times to obscure the works themselves. Although many ofhis dramas grew out of his experiences with himself and others - he called them, after all, vivisections - they are not autobiography in the narrow sense of the word, and autobiographical considerations cannot account for their enduring power. In the foreword to the Swedish version of this study, Olof Lagercrantz, a prominent Strindberg biographer, expresses his great satisfaction at finding a critic who has not been drawn into the debates surrounding Strindberg's character, his development, his relationships with his wives, or his madness, but rather concentrates on his works. It may well be that there are biographical questions that remain to be solved, but in light of the impact that the plays still have on audiences around the world who may know little if anything of Strindberg's life, the texts deserve critical attention as works of art in their own rights. It is with admirable success that Harry G. Carlson has risen to this challenge. His many years ofexperience as a translator, commentator, and critic have prepared him well for this undertaking. The analysis of Strindberg's dramas in terms of mythic structures is not entirely without precedence, but the breadth and consistency of this study are original and noteworthy. The procedure was first suggested by the realization that Strindberg himself had been deeply interested in a wide range of mythological topics throughout his life. Even though the idea emerged from the biography, the study that resulted goes far beyond the simple chronicling of the development of this interest. Professor Carlson's view of mythology is not that ofthe biographer or the mythographer, and he assiduously avoids aligning himself with anyone of the well-known contemporary approaches to myth suggested by Frye, Campbell, Cassirer, Eliade, Freud, or Jung, for example. His approach is broad, to an extent eclectic, and often popular in both the positive and negative senses. For him, mythic denotes any of Strindberg's "direct references to specific myths, sagas, legends, or fairy tales - in The Ghost Sonata, for example, Hummel is likened to the Norse god Thor - as well as the evocative qualities possessed Book Reviews 573 by figures like the Mummy or the Milkmaid in the same play" (p. 217). For some readers, this definition may be rather superficial, and perhaps even somewhat na¥ve. But it is used to good advantage throughout the study, in part because Carlson is willing to stretch it when necessary and go beyond it in some situations. The individual plays selected for study are, with the possible exception of Master Olof, dramas of interest to an international audience: The Father, Miss Julie, Creditors, To Damascus I, Easter, A Dream Play, and The Ghost Sonata. Even though not as well known as these, Master Olof affords an appropriate point of departure in that it was Strindberg's first dramatic success and as such allows the reader to see how Strindberg's sense of myth grew and developed from the beginning...