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Miss Julie and Other Plays
This edition embraces Strindberg's crucial transition from Naturalism to Modernism, from his two finest achievements as a psychological realist, The Father and Miss Julie , to the three plays in which he redefined the possibilities of European drama following his return to the theatre in 1898, A Dream Play, The Ghost Sonata, and The Dance of Death. Michael Robinson's highly performable translations are based on the authoritative texts of the new edition of Strindberg's collected works in Sweden and include the Preface to Miss Julie , Strindberg's manifesto of theatrical naturalism.
313 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1957
About the author
August Strindberg
1,624 books716 followersJohan August Strindberg, a Swede, wrote psychological realism of noted novels and plays, including
Miss Julie
(1888) and
The Dance of Death
(1901).
Johan August Strindberg painted. He alongside Henrik Ibsen, Søren Kierkegaard, Selma Lagerlöf, Hans Christian Andersen, and Snorri Sturluson arguably most influenced of all famous Scandinavian authors. People know this father of modern theatre. His work falls into major literary movements of naturalism and expressionism. People widely read him internationally to this day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_...
Johan August Strindberg painted. He alongside Henrik Ibsen, Søren Kierkegaard, Selma Lagerlöf, Hans Christian Andersen, and Snorri Sturluson arguably most influenced of all famous Scandinavian authors. People know this father of modern theatre. His work falls into major literary movements of naturalism and expressionism. People widely read him internationally to this day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
September 9, 2022
A one-of-a kind of his kind**
(the most wonderful thing about Tiggers, natch).
((Individual reviews/rambling "thoughts" in reverse reading order as Igo went...))
Ghost Sonata (1907)
Brilliant stuff, and to my mind what happened when S. imposed a bit more...structure, shall we say (or apparent structure at least), on the possibilities opened up by the genius-level-cray-cray of A Dream Play six years earlier. Would LOVE to see this one staged, along with The Father
A Dream Play (1901)
WT unholy F was that?!
—Random snippets of dialogue from the sanitorium restaurant of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain shouted out while "The Blue Danube Waltz" played in the background?
—An Oxford Union debate between the faculties of Law, Theology, Philosophy and Medicineheld in the common room of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?
—Some automatic writing passed back-and-forth between of W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory whilst Mme. Blavatsky held a séance & channeling the battling spirits of a Stockholm borgmästare, Emile Zola, and the Krishna of the Mahabarata?
—The source documents for T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land sung to the tune of "Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite"?
—A good/bad acid trip (assuming there is a difference) taken while a comunity theatre stages Bulwer Lytton in your mother's pristine, antimaccassar- and plastic-seat-cover-bedecked, unlivable living room and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome plays on the 70" TV mounted above the electric "fireplace" behind them?
Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
5*/0*/No Rating
The Dance Of Death (1900)
Precisely like Bergman's "newly dead dancing across the hills" (as Bruce Cockburn once sang) in The Seventh Seal, except minus all traces of love or humanity, i.e. minus the Knight and the Squire and the martyred girl and the fortunate circus family. Only the murderous, avaricious defrocked priest remains, except he's also the lifeless, life-denying pastor from Fanny and Alexander who's now married not to F&A's widowed actress-mother, but a female version of himself (also an actress), who when you so much as blink is now the antimatter version of the superannuated hero of Wild Strawberries after he and all the berries are long, long dead. It's the six-hour-longScenes from a Marriage though the clock sez less than two, and where what's done is done and cannot be undone, to bed, to bed, to bed, but the dream contains just another couple of bad actors in a musical medley of Beckett's Happy Daze/Endgame, except both trashcan Sinatras hum the "March of the Boyars" as they go to war with each other, animus vs anima, except this psychomachia is just all to the tune of me me me me me, maestro.
4*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFXUw...
Miss Julie (1888)
You've seen this all before (these class and gender wars) ((though to be fair late 19C Europe hadn't, or overmuch))...a ho-hum, journeyman
3*
The Father (1887)
Connubial contraflow mendacity + misogyny + misandry = a clearly masterful, near miraculous miasma of misanthropy from which there can be no escape. Strindberg needed just the right amount of insanity to imagineer this out of nada-ville, and achieves a perfect balancing act here.
6 gobsmacked stars out of 5.
**You really, really might not want to click on this spoiler of an explanation to the above:
(the most wonderful thing about Tiggers, natch).
((Individual reviews/rambling "thoughts" in reverse reading order as I
Ghost Sonata (1907)
Brilliant stuff, and to my mind what happened when S. imposed a bit more...structure, shall we say (or apparent structure at least), on the possibilities opened up by the genius-level-cray-cray of A Dream Play six years earlier. Would LOVE to see this one staged, along with The Father
A Dream Play (1901)
WT unholy F was that?!
—Random snippets of dialogue from the sanitorium restaurant of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain shouted out while "The Blue Danube Waltz" played in the background?
—An Oxford Union debate between the faculties of Law, Theology, Philosophy and Medicineheld in the common room of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?
—Some automatic writing passed back-and-forth between of W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory whilst Mme. Blavatsky held a séance & channeling the battling spirits of a Stockholm borgmästare, Emile Zola, and the Krishna of the Mahabarata?
—The source documents for T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land sung to the tune of "Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite"?
—A good/bad acid trip (assuming there is a difference) taken while a comunity theatre stages Bulwer Lytton in your mother's pristine, antimaccassar- and plastic-seat-cover-bedecked, unlivable living room and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome plays on the 70" TV mounted above the electric "fireplace" behind them?
Exhibit A:
OFFICER. Oh, this is dreadful, really dreadful!
SCHOOLMASTER. Yes, dreadful, that’s precisely what it is when a big boy like you has no ambition…
OFFICER. [pained]. A big boy, yes, I am big, much bigger than them; I’m grown up. I’ve finished school… [as if waking up] but I’ve a doctorate… What am I doing sitting here? Haven’t I got my doctorate?
SCHOOLMASTER. Yes, of course, but you’ll sit here and mature, you see, mature… Isn’t that it?
[Redacted, to spare your sanity]
SCHOOLMASTER. No, you are still far from mature…
OFFICER. But how long will I have to sit here, then?
SCHOOLMASTER. How long? Do you think that time and space exist?… Suppose that time exists, you ought to be able to say what time is. What is time?
OFFICER. Time?… [Considers] I can’t say, but I know what it is. Ergo* I know what two times
two is, without being able to say it.—Can you tell me what time is, sir?
SCHOOLMASTER. [...] Time?— — —Let me see! [Remains standing motionless with his finger to his nose] While we are talking, time flies. Therefore time is something that flies while I talk!
A BOY [getting up]. You are talking now, and while you are talking, I’m flying, therefore I am time! [Flees]
SCHOOLMASTER. According to the laws of logic that is perfectly correct!
OFFICER. But in that case the laws of logic are absurd, because Nils can’t be time just because he flew away!
SCHOOLMASTER. That is also perfectly correct according to the laws of logic, although it remains quite absurd.
OFFICER. Then logic is absurd!
SCHOOLMASTER. It really looks that way. But if logic is absurd, then so is the whole world too… and in that case why the hell should I sit here teaching all of you such absurdities!—If someone will stand us a drink, we’ll go for a swim!
Exhibit B:
LORD CHANCELLOR. What was hidden behind the door?And so by all the powers which the heyday of European imperialism and the approaching assasination of Franz Ferdinand have invested in me, I hereby appoint myself to bestow upon this...this "play"...
GLAZIER. I can’t see anything.
LORD CHANCELLOR. He can’t see anything! No, I can believe it!— — —Deans! What was hidden behind the door?
DEAN OF THEOLOGY. Nothing! That is the solution to the riddle of the universe!— — —In the beginning God created heaven and earth out of nothing.
DEAN OF PHILOSOPHY. Nothing will come of nothing.
DEAN OF MEDICINE. Rubbish! That’s all nothing!
DEAN OF LAW. I have my doubts!… There is a fraud here somewhere. I appeal to all right-thinking people!
DAUGHTER [to the POET ]. Who are these right-thinking people?
POET. If only one could say! It usually means just the one person. Today it’s I and mine, tomorrow it’s you and yours.—You are appointed to the post, or rather, you appoint yourself.
5*/0*/No Rating
The Dance Of Death (1900)
Precisely like Bergman's "newly dead dancing across the hills" (as Bruce Cockburn once sang) in The Seventh Seal, except minus all traces of love or humanity, i.e. minus the Knight and the Squire and the martyred girl and the fortunate circus family. Only the murderous, avaricious defrocked priest remains, except he's also the lifeless, life-denying pastor from Fanny and Alexander who's now married not to F&A's widowed actress-mother, but a female version of himself (also an actress), who when you so much as blink is now the antimatter version of the superannuated hero of Wild Strawberries after he and all the berries are long, long dead. It's the six-hour-longScenes from a Marriage though the clock sez less than two, and where what's done is done and cannot be undone, to bed, to bed, to bed, but the dream contains just another couple of bad actors in a musical medley of Beckett's Happy Daze/Endgame, except both trashcan Sinatras hum the "March of the Boyars" as they go to war with each other, animus vs anima, except this psychomachia is just all to the tune of me me me me me, maestro.
4*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFXUw...
Miss Julie (1888)
You've seen this all before (these class and gender wars) ((though to be fair late 19C Europe hadn't, or overmuch))...a ho-hum, journeyman
3*
The Father (1887)
Connubial contraflow mendacity + misogyny + misandry = a clearly masterful, near miraculous miasma of misanthropy from which there can be no escape. Strindberg needed just the right amount of insanity to imagineer this out of nada-ville, and achieves a perfect balancing act here.
6 gobsmacked stars out of 5.
**You really, really might not want to click on this spoiler of an explanation to the above:
December 9, 2014
Troubled by feelings of excessive cheerfulness? Worried that you're treading a little to closely to the edge of hope? Have no fear! The bleak works of Strindberg are guaranteed to slather a new coat of tarry blackness across the bare cinder-block walls of your soul. Enjoy!
May 15, 2017
In this compilation, I enjoyed “The Father,” “Miss Julie,” and “The Dance of Death,” most.
When Strindberg is good, he is great.
Lot’s going on in the spaces between the written lines.
The problem with these cleverly packaged compendiums of an author’s oeuvre of works is that the quality of the finished product will vary.
When Strindberg is good, he is great.
Lot’s going on in the spaces between the written lines.
The problem with these cleverly packaged compendiums of an author’s oeuvre of works is that the quality of the finished product will vary.
January 8, 2020
The Father 7/10
Reading the ‘battle of the sexes’ play The Father in the 21st century is somewhat challenging given Strindberg's misogynistic gender politics, but it is still an impressively written play and informative about the political and social debates occurring during the first wave of feminism. Ibsen wrote A Doll’s House eight years before which unflinchingly discussed the kind of oppression women faced in the world and particularly in marriage, scandalizing the public. Strindberg and Ibsen were intense rivals, and The Father is Strindberg’s response to A Doll’s House. While Strindberg felt A Doll’s House created a straw man for the husband’s role, The Father contains a large number of easily identifiable sexist generalizations: The Captain is a man of science, rationality, and the military. Laura, in contrast, is devious, instinctive, and superstitious.
Yet, despite these characterizations the play is more complex than a simple misogynistic reply to Ibsen and as Laura and The Captain fight over their child’s future we learn about the various powers and types of manipulation each uses to dominate one another and exploit each other’s psychological dispositions. Laura’s lack of formal, economic, and legal power, particularly over her child, is acknowledged as the primary motivation for her fighting with her husband.
Similarly, while Strindberg undoubtedly develops a sympathetic characterization of The Captain, for example establishing the daughter’s initial agreement with The Captain regarding her future, we eventually find that his motives are self-interested and not as altruistic as they are first characterized. For example, he only cares about his daughter if she is biologically his, providing him some kind of secular afterlife. His desperate attempts to continue his domination in to future generations is made explicit when at the end he says to his daughter: “I may see my soul in your eyes… But you must love only me! … You must have only one thought, which flows from mine and only one will which is only mine” to which she replies “No, no! I want to be myself!” In an instant whatever sympathy we might have had shrivels and we see the bigger picture: it has all been about power – a Darwinian competition of strength and domination.
Strindberg’s play is undoubtedly a sexist and misogynistic reply to Ibsen, but it is also more: the psychological complexity of the characters and the sheer force of his writing is impressive resulting in something richer than a facile, outdated polemic and makes it well worth reading. Nonetheless, it still requires some contextualization and critical reading, and is likely best read after Ibsen’s A Doll’s House.
----
Miss Julie 5/10
Miss Julie is apparently Strindberg's most famous play. It follows a woman "fighting against her feminine nature" and the havoc that is wreaked as a consequence. In particular, as she falls socially and spiritually, a calculating servant she sleeps with has been rising and their lives are contrasted.
Beyond the fact that the play puts on display Strindberg's wide array of prejudices and misogynistic tendencies, the play also feels more rushed and chaotic than the nice structured preceding play, The Father, dispensing with many standard features such as breaking the action up into acts or having a host of minor characters. Instead, we really only have 2 characters in one long act. While this organization gives the play a whirlwind feel - one of an impulsive love affair racing through the night - it also makes it hard to follow at times. Think the movie Breathless. Perhaps this lends itself to a more life-like representation of events, but either way it is a major stylistic change from the previous play.
However, perhaps for the same reason it feels hard to be invested in the characters. Both are detestable in their own ways (though particularly Jean), but I also had difficulty understanding their motivations which are frequently alluded to but rarely shown. An exception is Jean's "refinement" which he demonstrates with things like his use of french. Otherwise the rest feels like reporting - Jean's love for the master, Julie's "boyish ways" and so on are told, but not seen and thus not believed as strongly as their simple actions. Thus the characters often feel reduced to things like Jean's cruel treatment of a lover and Julie's foolish choices.
Ultimately the play is interesting to read both because of its historical importance and because of innovative style and structure, but, for me, Miss Julie is a less compelling play than The Father.
----
Dance of Death I 8/10
Dance of Death I is a strange turn in this collection of Strindberg’s plays. While the psychological motivations of each character are still treated with nuanced care, this play is as interested in relationships as individual identity. It also differs from the preceding plays by not solely focusing on a “battle of the sexes.” This may seem strange, given that the play is still a battle between a married couple and Strindberg’s characterization continue to often carry sexist features, but compared to the previous plays the main characters’ defining characteristics are more personal features than ones of gender stereotypes – e.g. the Captain’s capricious and malevolent ways, Alice’s long suffering and its resulting hatred.
Perhaps one of the more startingly features about the play is the change in attitude roughly half way through. The Captain’s terrible behavior and Alice’s retelling of his past actions give the readers reason to be on “her side.” But as the play continues our sympathies shift at first back towards the Captain, with resentment toward Alice, and then finally at the end, with desperate exhaustion, a strange mix of both sympathy and anger towards both. This blend of “love” and “hatred ” is a delicate and subtle emotion that one who has been angry with a family member or friend can relate, hopefully in a less extreme fashion. I found this emotional complexity and moral ambiguity at the end of the play decidedly unexpected and now it is clearer to me why commentary points to this as Strindberg’s turn from naturalism to modernism. More diabolically, the play ends in an emotional and moral ambiguity and evenness that recalls the start of the play and suggests a never ending cycle of self-destructive marriage – recall one of the Captain’s final lines: “So you didn’t escape this time,” suggesting this episode is just one of the many in the past we have learned of and of the many in the future to come.
Another strange feature of the play is an increasingly mystical, occult, and superstitious environment. Previously, Strindberg has glorified science, rationality, and degenerated religion and superstition. However now spirits and vampires are circling the castle as the wind whispers like ghosts coming through the tower windows. Strindberg has moved from the dawrinian competition of individual rational intellects to an emotional and ethical tension arises from the tie between people that is more than just the sum of each individual.
----
A Dream Play 5/10
A Dream Play is something genuinely compared to the previous plays - a marked break from the past. The bits of magic one finds lurking in the corners of Dance of Death have completely taken over now. I suspect that this play is better seen performed than read. The play uses chaotic dream associations to jump from one episode to the next. In the preface Strindberg says "The characters split, double, multiply, evaporate, condense, dissolve and merge. " In reading, this makes it nearly impossible to follow and deeply challenges our ability to build a visual image of the scenes. The first half of the play I found slow and bewildering, but as the play progressed and some themes began to accrue more weight through multiple visitations, it improved. Despite some of these challenges there are some parts that even then still stick out especially in terms of theater: sudden changes in scenery like being transported into a cave or castles in the background growing like flowers are as audacious stage directions as I have ever read. I'm not sure what to think of the play. Reading it was at times a brutally unpleasant experience, and yet it offered so much strange and new that I want to give it the benefit of doubt. Perhaps seeing it performed or rereading it would help.
----
The Ghost Sonata 8/10
The Ghost Sonata has many of the trappings of Strindberg's others plays - for example it spends much time dwelling on poisoned family and marital life, though thankfully less misogynistically. Instead the emphasis is on other dichotomies of private lives than just the 'battle of the sexes' of his previous work: outer-opulence vs inner-poverty, masters vs servants, revenge vs salvation. The play begins on the outside, looking into the home of a wealthy family and as it progresses the audience moves from their doorstep, to their reception hall, to the dining table and eventually in to the depths of their lives. As the audience is brought closer, the house hold is found to be haunted by monsters, curses and ghosts whose existence are not metaphysical but rather symbolic, manifest in cruelty, vengeance, and visitations of the past upon the present. Interestingly, the play culminates in a theme developed by Strindberg's rival Ibsen in "Ghosts" that children are haunted by their parents' "ghosts" ranging from revenge on their family's fortunes due to their parents actions to biological diseases passed down to the new generation. Well written and thought provoking, it is one of my favorites in this collection.
Reading the ‘battle of the sexes’ play The Father in the 21st century is somewhat challenging given Strindberg's misogynistic gender politics, but it is still an impressively written play and informative about the political and social debates occurring during the first wave of feminism. Ibsen wrote A Doll’s House eight years before which unflinchingly discussed the kind of oppression women faced in the world and particularly in marriage, scandalizing the public. Strindberg and Ibsen were intense rivals, and The Father is Strindberg’s response to A Doll’s House. While Strindberg felt A Doll’s House created a straw man for the husband’s role, The Father contains a large number of easily identifiable sexist generalizations: The Captain is a man of science, rationality, and the military. Laura, in contrast, is devious, instinctive, and superstitious.
Yet, despite these characterizations the play is more complex than a simple misogynistic reply to Ibsen and as Laura and The Captain fight over their child’s future we learn about the various powers and types of manipulation each uses to dominate one another and exploit each other’s psychological dispositions. Laura’s lack of formal, economic, and legal power, particularly over her child, is acknowledged as the primary motivation for her fighting with her husband.
Similarly, while Strindberg undoubtedly develops a sympathetic characterization of The Captain, for example establishing the daughter’s initial agreement with The Captain regarding her future, we eventually find that his motives are self-interested and not as altruistic as they are first characterized. For example, he only cares about his daughter if she is biologically his, providing him some kind of secular afterlife. His desperate attempts to continue his domination in to future generations is made explicit when at the end he says to his daughter: “I may see my soul in your eyes… But you must love only me! … You must have only one thought, which flows from mine and only one will which is only mine” to which she replies “No, no! I want to be myself!” In an instant whatever sympathy we might have had shrivels and we see the bigger picture: it has all been about power – a Darwinian competition of strength and domination.
Strindberg’s play is undoubtedly a sexist and misogynistic reply to Ibsen, but it is also more: the psychological complexity of the characters and the sheer force of his writing is impressive resulting in something richer than a facile, outdated polemic and makes it well worth reading. Nonetheless, it still requires some contextualization and critical reading, and is likely best read after Ibsen’s A Doll’s House.
----
Miss Julie 5/10
Miss Julie is apparently Strindberg's most famous play. It follows a woman "fighting against her feminine nature" and the havoc that is wreaked as a consequence. In particular, as she falls socially and spiritually, a calculating servant she sleeps with has been rising and their lives are contrasted.
Beyond the fact that the play puts on display Strindberg's wide array of prejudices and misogynistic tendencies, the play also feels more rushed and chaotic than the nice structured preceding play, The Father, dispensing with many standard features such as breaking the action up into acts or having a host of minor characters. Instead, we really only have 2 characters in one long act. While this organization gives the play a whirlwind feel - one of an impulsive love affair racing through the night - it also makes it hard to follow at times. Think the movie Breathless. Perhaps this lends itself to a more life-like representation of events, but either way it is a major stylistic change from the previous play.
However, perhaps for the same reason it feels hard to be invested in the characters. Both are detestable in their own ways (though particularly Jean), but I also had difficulty understanding their motivations which are frequently alluded to but rarely shown. An exception is Jean's "refinement" which he demonstrates with things like his use of french. Otherwise the rest feels like reporting - Jean's love for the master, Julie's "boyish ways" and so on are told, but not seen and thus not believed as strongly as their simple actions. Thus the characters often feel reduced to things like Jean's cruel treatment of a lover and Julie's foolish choices.
Ultimately the play is interesting to read both because of its historical importance and because of innovative style and structure, but, for me, Miss Julie is a less compelling play than The Father.
----
Dance of Death I 8/10
Dance of Death I is a strange turn in this collection of Strindberg’s plays. While the psychological motivations of each character are still treated with nuanced care, this play is as interested in relationships as individual identity. It also differs from the preceding plays by not solely focusing on a “battle of the sexes.” This may seem strange, given that the play is still a battle between a married couple and Strindberg’s characterization continue to often carry sexist features, but compared to the previous plays the main characters’ defining characteristics are more personal features than ones of gender stereotypes – e.g. the Captain’s capricious and malevolent ways, Alice’s long suffering and its resulting hatred.
Perhaps one of the more startingly features about the play is the change in attitude roughly half way through. The Captain’s terrible behavior and Alice’s retelling of his past actions give the readers reason to be on “her side.” But as the play continues our sympathies shift at first back towards the Captain, with resentment toward Alice, and then finally at the end, with desperate exhaustion, a strange mix of both sympathy and anger towards both. This blend of “love” and “hatred ” is a delicate and subtle emotion that one who has been angry with a family member or friend can relate, hopefully in a less extreme fashion. I found this emotional complexity and moral ambiguity at the end of the play decidedly unexpected and now it is clearer to me why commentary points to this as Strindberg’s turn from naturalism to modernism. More diabolically, the play ends in an emotional and moral ambiguity and evenness that recalls the start of the play and suggests a never ending cycle of self-destructive marriage – recall one of the Captain’s final lines: “So you didn’t escape this time,” suggesting this episode is just one of the many in the past we have learned of and of the many in the future to come.
Another strange feature of the play is an increasingly mystical, occult, and superstitious environment. Previously, Strindberg has glorified science, rationality, and degenerated religion and superstition. However now spirits and vampires are circling the castle as the wind whispers like ghosts coming through the tower windows. Strindberg has moved from the dawrinian competition of individual rational intellects to an emotional and ethical tension arises from the tie between people that is more than just the sum of each individual.
----
A Dream Play 5/10
A Dream Play is something genuinely compared to the previous plays - a marked break from the past. The bits of magic one finds lurking in the corners of Dance of Death have completely taken over now. I suspect that this play is better seen performed than read. The play uses chaotic dream associations to jump from one episode to the next. In the preface Strindberg says "The characters split, double, multiply, evaporate, condense, dissolve and merge. " In reading, this makes it nearly impossible to follow and deeply challenges our ability to build a visual image of the scenes. The first half of the play I found slow and bewildering, but as the play progressed and some themes began to accrue more weight through multiple visitations, it improved. Despite some of these challenges there are some parts that even then still stick out especially in terms of theater: sudden changes in scenery like being transported into a cave or castles in the background growing like flowers are as audacious stage directions as I have ever read. I'm not sure what to think of the play. Reading it was at times a brutally unpleasant experience, and yet it offered so much strange and new that I want to give it the benefit of doubt. Perhaps seeing it performed or rereading it would help.
----
The Ghost Sonata 8/10
The Ghost Sonata has many of the trappings of Strindberg's others plays - for example it spends much time dwelling on poisoned family and marital life, though thankfully less misogynistically. Instead the emphasis is on other dichotomies of private lives than just the 'battle of the sexes' of his previous work: outer-opulence vs inner-poverty, masters vs servants, revenge vs salvation. The play begins on the outside, looking into the home of a wealthy family and as it progresses the audience moves from their doorstep, to their reception hall, to the dining table and eventually in to the depths of their lives. As the audience is brought closer, the house hold is found to be haunted by monsters, curses and ghosts whose existence are not metaphysical but rather symbolic, manifest in cruelty, vengeance, and visitations of the past upon the present. Interestingly, the play culminates in a theme developed by Strindberg's rival Ibsen in "Ghosts" that children are haunted by their parents' "ghosts" ranging from revenge on their family's fortunes due to their parents actions to biological diseases passed down to the new generation. Well written and thought provoking, it is one of my favorites in this collection.
March 24, 2016
At times very strange as it pushes the bounds of realism well into the modern era, but dang is this a good play.
December 11, 2020
Quite the Soap Opera, yet I had to read to the end to find out what was to become of the headstrong and immoral Julie.
Good commentary on the caste system between the Title Aristocracy and their servants.
Good commentary on the caste system between the Title Aristocracy and their servants.
January 22, 2009
Inbetween a 2 and a 3, really... good stuff, but not always to my taste. Reality doesn't always have to be dismal, I feel. Interesting commentaries on society. Strindberg really hated women in his plays, though.
September 12, 2020
One of the best books of literary art I have read in last few years.
October 14, 2024
Probably the worst thing I have ever read in this department. The worst thing I have ever read in my whole life. I f I could rate this zero stars, I would. I hated each and every line of Miss Julie.
April 20, 2020
Life is like that, even in books
November 30, 2020
Review on my blog: https://classicsconsidered.com/2020/1...
May 9, 2014
A very uneven collection of plays, which I read in a 1917 translation available on the Internet Archive.
Miss Julie(1888) clearly towers over the rest of the plays in this collection. Claustrophobic and fascinating in its penetrating depiction of some very dark and morbid places in the psyche, it compresses gender and social conflict and alienation and has become a key modern play. The language is deceptively simple but it is a hard play to read and appreciate. I would recommend complementing its reading by watching a good theatre or film version such as the 1987 BBC television production directed by Michael Simpson, in which Janet McTeer plays the title role.
The Creditor(1889) is the only other play comparable in length to Miss Julie in this collection, and has some excellent moments about what could be termed the Pygmalion power play between the sexes and psychic "cannibalism", in which the woman becomes a kind of succubus, draining the man of his (apparent) energy and initiative and showing the petty, feeble and childish creature within. It was originally written as a substitute for Miss Julie when this play was banned by the censor.
The rest of the plays are much shorter. In The Stronger Woman(1888-1889), an older, married actress ultimately triumphs over her younger colleague who has been having an affair with her husband. It is a well written monologue (the younger actress never actually speaks) and should work well on the stage.
Motherly Love(1892)is a short study in the smothering power of a mother who uses her daughter as a pawn in her struggle against her daughter´s father. It has too many twists and turns to be credible and winds up as a sort of dark melodrama.
The last two plays, both written in 1889 are influenced by Edgar Allen Poe´s Tales of Mystery and Imagination, Paria(1889) and particularly Simoon, are weak and very unconvincing; the first is a sort of psychological thriller in which what turn out to be two criminals are pitted against each other while the second is an orientalist nightmare, a terribly unrealistic delirium of a french soldier dying of thirst as part of some dark, magical revenge by another of Strindberg´s demon female lover, a desert native, who mocks and betrays him.
Miss Julie(1888) clearly towers over the rest of the plays in this collection. Claustrophobic and fascinating in its penetrating depiction of some very dark and morbid places in the psyche, it compresses gender and social conflict and alienation and has become a key modern play. The language is deceptively simple but it is a hard play to read and appreciate. I would recommend complementing its reading by watching a good theatre or film version such as the 1987 BBC television production directed by Michael Simpson, in which Janet McTeer plays the title role.
The Creditor(1889) is the only other play comparable in length to Miss Julie in this collection, and has some excellent moments about what could be termed the Pygmalion power play between the sexes and psychic "cannibalism", in which the woman becomes a kind of succubus, draining the man of his (apparent) energy and initiative and showing the petty, feeble and childish creature within. It was originally written as a substitute for Miss Julie when this play was banned by the censor.
The rest of the plays are much shorter. In The Stronger Woman(1888-1889), an older, married actress ultimately triumphs over her younger colleague who has been having an affair with her husband. It is a well written monologue (the younger actress never actually speaks) and should work well on the stage.
Motherly Love(1892)is a short study in the smothering power of a mother who uses her daughter as a pawn in her struggle against her daughter´s father. It has too many twists and turns to be credible and winds up as a sort of dark melodrama.
The last two plays, both written in 1889 are influenced by Edgar Allen Poe´s Tales of Mystery and Imagination, Paria(1889) and particularly Simoon, are weak and very unconvincing; the first is a sort of psychological thriller in which what turn out to be two criminals are pitted against each other while the second is an orientalist nightmare, a terribly unrealistic delirium of a french soldier dying of thirst as part of some dark, magical revenge by another of Strindberg´s demon female lover, a desert native, who mocks and betrays him.
February 21, 2016
"Human beings are to be pitied!" (196)That human beings are to be pitied is the thread that runs through this collection of five of Strindberg's plays: The Father, Miss Julie, The Dance of Death I, A Dream Play, and The Ghost Sonata. I have reviewed the plays individually, so I will not go into detail again here. This edition included a great introduction (to each play and to Strindberg and his art more generally, including his relation to others like Ibsen, Freud, etc.) as well as elaborate notes which were very helpful. My favorite among the plays was definitely A Dream Play. I think that the challenge with Strindberg is (or at least, I found that it was for me) to see the beauty, complexity, creativity, allusiveness, and conviction of his plays, without being too viscerally affected by their contents.
Links to reviews:
The Father
Miss Julie
The Dance of Death I
A Dream Play
The Ghost Sonata
May 25, 2017
Miss Julie was excellent, a bit better than Doll House. The Father was also good, but it had a bit of Strindberg's misogyny. I liked Dance of Death, it was kind of absurd. I gave up with Dream Play however, too much meaningless abstraction.
Strindberg is difficult, he's a bit of an odd duck, the Scandinavian artists of all sorts are a little bit off, I think it's the incredibly short days in the winter.
Strindberg is difficult, he's a bit of an odd duck, the Scandinavian artists of all sorts are a little bit off, I think it's the incredibly short days in the winter.
February 19, 2016
Crisp translations, but this volume is let down by the editor's decision to leave out 'Dance of Death' part II.
November 21, 2023
As Strindberg wrote “in a frequently quoted letter addressed as a kind of testament to the young Swedish writer, Axel Lundegård:
‘It seems to me as if I am walking in my sleep; as if my life and my writing have got all jumbled up. I don’t know if The Father is a work of literature or if my life has been; but I feel as if, probably quite soon, at any given moment, it will suddenly break upon me, and then I shall collapse either into madness and remorse, or suicide. Through much writing, my life has become a shadow life; I no longer feel as if I am walking the earth but floating weightless in an atmosphere not of air but darkness.’
This is the danger of Strindberg’s method - as of any actor who loses himself too deeply in a role….
Strindberg’s ‘greater naturalism’ is therefore not a slice of life nor even the carefully crafted expository method of Ibsen, in which the long reach of the past is uncovered in a present crisis; but instead the intense, immediate drama associated with what he called ‘the battle of the brains…this is fought, not with the theatrical swords or daggers, but with the equally lethal mental cut and thrust of two implacably hostile minds, bound to each other by desire and hatred. It is a battle in which one of them ultimately destroys the other’s will and commits what Strindberg, in writing about Ibsen’s Rosmersholm, called ‘soul murder,’ by which he meant the kind of semi-conscious, self-preserving destruction of the hated other…” - Michael Robinson, Introduction
From the Preface:
“Miss Julie is a modern character which does not mean that the man-hating half-woman has not existed in every age, just that she has now been discovered, has come out into the open and made herself heard. Victim of a superstition (one that has seized even stronger minds) that woman, this stunted form of human being who stands between man, the lord of creation, the creator of culture [and the child], is meant to be the equal of man or ever could be, she involves herself in an absurd struggle in which she falls. Absurd because a stunted form, governed by the laws of propagation, will always be born stunted and can never catch up with one in the lead…the question is, when will B (the woman) catch up with A (the man) - Answer: Never!. Neither with the help of equal education, equal voting rights, disarmament, or temperance - no more than two parallel lines can ever meet and cross.”
+
“It is the nobleman’s harakiri, the inner law of conscience which makes a Japanese slit open his own stomach when someone insults him, and which survives in modified form in that privilege of nobility, the duel. That is why Jean, the servant, lives, but Miss Julie, who cannot live without honour, does not.”
+
“She [Kristin] goes to church to unload her household thefts onto Jesus casually and deftly, and to recharge herself with a new dose of innocence.”
+
“And if some people have found my minor characters abstract, that is because ordinary people are to some extent abstract when working; which is to say, they lack individuality and show only one side of themselves while performing their tasks…”
Julie: born into Wealth but mother was a commoner; raised her as a boy.
And plenty of foreshadowing
Eschewed the “well made play” and disliked Ibsen
‘It seems to me as if I am walking in my sleep; as if my life and my writing have got all jumbled up. I don’t know if The Father is a work of literature or if my life has been; but I feel as if, probably quite soon, at any given moment, it will suddenly break upon me, and then I shall collapse either into madness and remorse, or suicide. Through much writing, my life has become a shadow life; I no longer feel as if I am walking the earth but floating weightless in an atmosphere not of air but darkness.’
This is the danger of Strindberg’s method - as of any actor who loses himself too deeply in a role….
Strindberg’s ‘greater naturalism’ is therefore not a slice of life nor even the carefully crafted expository method of Ibsen, in which the long reach of the past is uncovered in a present crisis; but instead the intense, immediate drama associated with what he called ‘the battle of the brains…this is fought, not with the theatrical swords or daggers, but with the equally lethal mental cut and thrust of two implacably hostile minds, bound to each other by desire and hatred. It is a battle in which one of them ultimately destroys the other’s will and commits what Strindberg, in writing about Ibsen’s Rosmersholm, called ‘soul murder,’ by which he meant the kind of semi-conscious, self-preserving destruction of the hated other…” - Michael Robinson, Introduction
From the Preface:
“Miss Julie is a modern character which does not mean that the man-hating half-woman has not existed in every age, just that she has now been discovered, has come out into the open and made herself heard. Victim of a superstition (one that has seized even stronger minds) that woman, this stunted form of human being who stands between man, the lord of creation, the creator of culture [and the child], is meant to be the equal of man or ever could be, she involves herself in an absurd struggle in which she falls. Absurd because a stunted form, governed by the laws of propagation, will always be born stunted and can never catch up with one in the lead…the question is, when will B (the woman) catch up with A (the man) - Answer: Never!. Neither with the help of equal education, equal voting rights, disarmament, or temperance - no more than two parallel lines can ever meet and cross.”
+
“It is the nobleman’s harakiri, the inner law of conscience which makes a Japanese slit open his own stomach when someone insults him, and which survives in modified form in that privilege of nobility, the duel. That is why Jean, the servant, lives, but Miss Julie, who cannot live without honour, does not.”
+
“She [Kristin] goes to church to unload her household thefts onto Jesus casually and deftly, and to recharge herself with a new dose of innocence.”
+
“And if some people have found my minor characters abstract, that is because ordinary people are to some extent abstract when working; which is to say, they lack individuality and show only one side of themselves while performing their tasks…”
Julie: born into Wealth but mother was a commoner; raised her as a boy.
And plenty of foreshadowing
Eschewed the “well made play” and disliked Ibsen
February 16, 2023
Miss Julie seemed like a very werid play in the beginning. I did not quite understand it first since everything felt scattered. But gradually, the plot began to take shape especially when Jean talked about his struggles of coming from a lower class. I think this play is based around class divide and social norms. Jean feels like a charcater who is constantly scared of being caught and word of their affair getting spread but on the other hand he is also determined to change his stautus from a commoner to an elite. Jean looks down on Miss Julie as he coniders her to be 'spolilt' or 'immature' who has not seen any struggles that he has been through in his life. He is right to an extent where Miss Julie starts talking about running somehwere to Switzerland and starting a new life and expecting everything to work out in her favour. Miss Julie's character is portrayed as a priviledged one when she says 'we can always come back home' which is unrealistic in a situation where she runs away with her servants. The ending of the play felt unecessary because Miss Julie did not necessarily have to die but I think I can understand why she did so. Persoanlly, I see that Jean wanted to get rid of Miss Julie because his Lord being back home he no longer wanted to risk anything even if it meant Miss Julie has to die. The ending is only logical in Jean's perspective as his burden of Miss Julienis now wiped off and he can continue with his life as he had planned by marrying Kristin of moving somehwere new once he gathers enough money. For Miss Julie, it cost her life to liberate her from her constant feeling of confinement and her ideal ideas of liberty and love which could never be achieved by her in any sense.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 7, 2022
Full-length drama in one act by August Strindberg, published in Swedish as Fröken Julie in 1888 and performed in 1889. The play substitutes such interludes as a peasant dance and a pantomime for the conventional divisions of acts, scenes, and intermissions.
Julie, an aristocratic young woman, has a brief affair with Jean, her father’s valet. After the sexual thrill has dissipated, they realize that they have little or nothing in common. Heredity, combined with social and psychological factors, has determined their futures. Strindberg portrays Julie as an aristocrat whose era has passed and Jean as an opportunistic social climber to whom the future beckons.
Julie, an aristocratic young woman, has a brief affair with Jean, her father’s valet. After the sexual thrill has dissipated, they realize that they have little or nothing in common. Heredity, combined with social and psychological factors, has determined their futures. Strindberg portrays Julie as an aristocrat whose era has passed and Jean as an opportunistic social climber to whom the future beckons.
August 20, 2023
I don’t think I’ve hated a play more.
I had to read this like 3x to just understand this and I originally gave it a 1-star.
I only read it because it was a part of my course and I wouldn’t have ever read it otherwise. But because I studied it in depth and learnt to dissect and understand this a little better in terms of symbolism and representations, I gave it 2 stars but still, defs wasn’t an interesting read.
If you understand Malayalam, I’d recommend the Malayalam summary of this (by Upakar English literature explanations) because that helped me understand this a lot.
I had to read this like 3x to just understand this and I originally gave it a 1-star.
I only read it because it was a part of my course and I wouldn’t have ever read it otherwise. But because I studied it in depth and learnt to dissect and understand this a little better in terms of symbolism and representations, I gave it 2 stars but still, defs wasn’t an interesting read.
If you understand Malayalam, I’d recommend the Malayalam summary of this (by Upakar English literature explanations) because that helped me understand this a lot.
January 9, 2019
I dunno...interesting from a historical perspective, but what a misogynistic jerk this guy was! The marital disputes in Father and Dance of Death, for example...I seriously wasn't sure at first if it was supposed to be played for laughs. Been doing a deep dive into Ingmar Bergman's oeuvre (hardly a saint himself), which led me here, and so also interesting from that perspective. Also worthwhile in that it pointed me towards other things I want to read, Zola and Kierkegaard (on repetition).
March 23, 2023
The stage and prop notes are very interesting and creative. Lots of ingenuity there. The plays are full of crazy turns and twists. Very whimsical and abstract. The only downside is that some of the work is so overly pesamitic it becomes one note. Would have also preferred the explanatory notes be written as foot notes. I wasn't willing to flip through the back of the book every astrix, it would sacrifice being emersed in the stories.
December 5, 2023
As part of my quest to read Yann Martel’s 101 letters to a prime minister.
I only read Miss Julie in this compilation.
I am on this reading journey because of Yann Martel’s brilliant motivation of why he recommended every book to Steven Harper. And this justification of his choices is why I am reading the books.
Miss Julia makes one want to pull your hair out of your head in frustration and I guess that means the author succeeds in what he wanted to achieve.
I only read Miss Julie in this compilation.
I am on this reading journey because of Yann Martel’s brilliant motivation of why he recommended every book to Steven Harper. And this justification of his choices is why I am reading the books.
Miss Julia makes one want to pull your hair out of your head in frustration and I guess that means the author succeeds in what he wanted to achieve.
May 27, 2019
Excellent collection of Strindberg's plays. Naturalist in presenting psychologically realistic characters, depicting the dream state. Married couples locked together in conflict; misery, cruelty, death. Generally, a justified depiction of how horrible people are, and how backwards society is. Strindberg also doesn't seem to like women very much, so be prepared for some misogyny.
August 17, 2019
Swedish CYNICISM! -& an ACID TONGUE as well. this grim Humanity proceeds "mind games;" & they're plenty of gaslighting & mental TRAP here! WATCH OUT for British translators who will fill these charming (horrific) Swedish hamlets into LOT, CHEEKY, BLOKE & allthat: all part of the British Empire, i'm sure ..
April 10, 2018
I loved reading Strindberg. One of the very few theater authors I like. I enjoyed the way his sadistic and gullible characters fall with each other, if you do not mind a few little deviations.
Read
March 29, 2020read all but one of these (the dance of death) for class so am logging this bc it’s easier than logging them individually. really enjoyed the father and miss julie
January 6, 2022
It was unfortunate that they placed The Father at the start, it was all downhill from there.
March 23, 2022
Just read Miss Julie and I loved it ♥️
November 8, 2022
Not really my cup of tea but insightful
January 23, 2024
weird play fs; cool, but not that much of a fan. strindberg is fs big into misogyny so there u go.
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