1907-1912
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 January 2021
Summary
To Adolf Paul.
Stockholm, January 6, 1907. [-] If you write anything new, then get in touch, but seek the intimate in form, a restricted subject treated in depth, few characters, large points of view, free imagination, but based on observation, experience, carefully studied; simple, but not too simple; no great apparatus, no superfluous minor roles, no regular five-acters [-], no long drawn-out evenings.
Here Miss Julie (without an intermission) has stood the test of fire140 and proved to be the form demanded by today's impatient people. Thorough but brief. [-]
To Emil Schering.
March 27, 1907. [-] By today's post I am sending you a second chamber play (Opus III), called A Ghost Sonata (with the subtitle Kama Loka, which should not be included). It is schauderhaft [dreadful], as in life when the scales fall from our eyes and we see Das Ding an Sich.
It has form and content, the wisdom that comes with the years when our knowledge of life has accumulated and we have acquired the ability to survey. That is how the World Weaver weaves men's destinies. Secrets like these exist in every home. People are too proud to admit it; most of them boast about their imaginary happiness, and generally hide their misery. The Colonel plays his auto-comedy to the end; illusion (Maya) has become reality to him; the Mummy wakes up first, but cannot awaken others [-]
I have suffered as though in Kama Loka (Scheol)while writing it, and my hands have bled (literally).
What has saved my soul from darkness during this work is my Religion (= Anschluss mit Jenseits). The hope of a better life to come, and the firm conviction that we live in a world of folly and delusion (illusion), out of which we must struggle to free ourselves.
For me, however, things have grown brighter, and I have been writing with the feeling that these are my ‘last sonatas.’
When you’ve given me your impression of The Ghost Sonata, I’ll send you Opus I of the chamber plays [Thunder in the Air], which is total (lower) reality or an excellent piece for philistines, which might ‘work.’ [-]
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- Information
- Strindberg on Drama and TheatreA Source Book, pp. 107 - 173Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2007