Out of Inferno: Strindberg's Reawakening as an Artist by Harry G. Carlson (review)

Book Reviews HARRY G. CARLSON. Out of Inferno: Strindberg's Reawakening as an Artist. Seattle and London: University .of Washington Press 1996. Pp. xii, 390. $45·00; $24·95, paperback. We have come to expect sound Strindberg scholarship from Harry G. Carlson . We also expect a man sensitive to Strindberg's complex theatrical language and imagery, a man well acquainted, too, with "the valuable forge of live rehearsals" (p. 15 of Carlson's translation of Strindberg's Five Plays). We are not disappointed in these expectations. Reading Out of Inferno opens to us the inultilayered world of Strindberg"s thought. This background is seen through his close attention to the serious intellectual movements of his time. Like a good teacher, Carlson not only shows the background but also brings it to bear on the topic at hand. What better way to display Stringberg's synthesizing powers! Everywhere, especially in his later writings, there is "evidence of the artistic, spiritual, and cultural movements that fuelled the neo-romantic revival in the arts in Berlin and Paris in the 18905, a revival which did much to shape the evolution of modern drama and modern art in general" (ix). In Fingal's Cave, for example, Strindberg sees visions and hears voices "outside ordinary time and space .... [These] visions and voices can criss-cross without need of satisfying the demands of space, time, causality , and reality" (314). One mark of a good teacher is the ability to organize his material well. Carlson does this beautifully in his book. The most comprehensive way to see this is simply to list the "Contents" in the order Carlson establishes: Two Parts, eight sub-parts, and sixty-five sub-sub-parts, plus an "Introduction" and "Postscript." Each sub-part is a short essay standing by itself but also related to what has gone before and what will come after. Here, then, is the "Table of Contents": Modern Drama, 41 (1998) 157 Book Reviews Part Irrhe Making and Unmaking of the Artist II The Nature ofthe Artist: Romantic Legacies and Archetypal Images "Pangs of Conscience": Precursor of The Father Rousseau, "Natural Man," and the Doppelganger Mal de sieele and Weltschmerz Nature and the Naturalizing of Christ Christian Imagery versus Indic Imagery: Transformation, Metamorphosis, and Mythopoesis History and Christian Typology Nature and the Grotesque 21lrnitation and Imaginatiqn The Aristotelian versus the Platonist Brandes and the Realist Revolution Wirsen and the Moralist Counterrevolution Association Psychology and the Imagination The Obstinate Metaphor: "Above the Clouds" and the Literal versus the Figurative The Spiritual versus the Carnal: Development Strindberg's Christian Iconography 31 Masters, Servants, and the Drama ofHistory The Inveterate HistOl;an History and the Promise of Revolution Carnivals and Revolutions Camivalization and Drama History and the Bible in Master Olaf loachism in Strindberg and Ibsen: The Promise of a Third Age Coram Populo: Medieval Pastiche Byron and the Promethean Example Rectilinear History versus Cyclical History 41 Naturalism: Evolution and Devolution Science and the Artist's Struggle for Survival Ovid, Nature, and the Dream of the Golden Age Schopenhauer and the Fall of Man Strindberg and Zola: Miss Julie and The Sin ofFather Mourel The Psychopathology of the Imagination: "The Payment," "A Witch," and The Romantic Organist on Rand Part IIrrhe Remaking of the Artist 51The Visual Imagination and Ihe Challenge ofNature Dead End in Sweden Book Reviews Heidenstam and Anti-Naturalism Exile in Berlin: Return to Painting Paris and the Appeal of Decadentism "Woodnymphism" and "The New Arts" Experiments at the Hotel Orfila: Woodnymphism and Frottage 61The Romance ofthe Occult Mysticism in Fin de Siecle Paris The Worlds of the Occult Rendering Visible the Invisible World: The "Magic Wand of Analogy" Astral Bodies in the Astral Plane 159 "Thought-Forms" and Correspondences in Legends, To Damascus, and The Ghost Sonata Alchemy, Monism, and Metamorphosis New Beginnings: Inferno 71Oriental Renaissance and Medieval Nostalgia Fresh Water from Old Springs Orientalism versus Hellenism Indic Revelations: Chevrillon and the Benares Vase The Artist as "Second Jove" Asian Images and Western Words Medievalism in Fin de Siecle Paris Mysteries, Moralities, and the Topological Dimensions Return to a Medieval Stage The Search for New Dramatic Forms: The Renewal of Allegory 81 The New Seer: Putting It All...