August Strindberg, the Spirit of Revolt: Studies and Impressions

by L. Lind-af-Hageby

In 1877 a collection of short stories appeared, entitled From Fjärdingen and Svartbäcken, which described the undergraduates' life at Upsala and caused annoyance by its disclosure of the swamps and pitfalls in the academical training-ground. These twelve sketches, written with directness of phrase and a vividness of description which show keen powers of observation, were met with charges of exaggeration. The superannuated student who spins out a worthless existence in gasconade and song, supplementing the weakness of his mind by a few high-sounding philosophical catch-words; the popular poet who wins applause and friends by impromptu doggerel, stupid and coarse; the refined and sensitive youth who is hated because he is a devotee of outer and inner cleanliness and decorum; the wild spendthrift who smashes windows and extinguishes street-lamps as a pastime worthy of his caste—these and others are drawn against a background of traditional cant, humbug and soul-destroying lies. Several of the stories have autobiographical patches. There is withal a good-humoured satire, not free from youthful pathos, permeated by sympathy and a personal note of an experience acutely felt. The book is interesting as the first specimen of Strindberg's realistic style as a prosaist. The reviews of the book expressed divergent opinions; Strindberg read them with the composure of one who knows how such views are manufactured.

Rebuffed by the refusal of theatrical managers to accept Master Olof, he had re-written it in verse. The new edition was published in 1877, and the reception brought its author bitter disappointment, and fuller experience of the indifference which kills. The critics were silent. They ignored the masterpiece of his youth, and presented a deaf ear to the poetry of the heretic. One paper declared the play to be humbug. His old colleagues of the press-table saw no reason for acclamation.

The satire which had shone with a mellow light in the sketches of Upsala life was fanned into hot flame through contact with the world of Philistines. Determined to speak his mind untrammelled by accepted standards of literary form, whether poetic or prosaic, historical or modern, he now wrote a novel which he called The Red Room. The book was published in 1879, and produced an outburst of anger and admiration. Voltaire's words, "Rien n'est si désagréable que d'être pendu obscurément," had been chosen by Strindberg as a motto for the book and in protest against the treatment he had received. The force and style of The Red Room effectively protected its author from continued obscurity. Strindberg's name was made by this book; henceforth it was the war-cry of opposing factions. As a novel the book fails through lack of cohesive development of character-study and events. As a series of sketches of the follies and vanities which permeate the social hierarchy it compels attention by its direct, speaking style, and the singular freshness and spontaneity of its satire. The central figure of the book is Arvid Falk—Strindberg the idealist—a journalist whose contact with the world results in a series of disillusionments. Everything that is dishonest, cruel, banal, hypocritical and vile in the social system is exposed to view in the pages of The Red Room, which still, after thirty years, retain their freshness and the warmth of the burning moral indignation which caused them to be written.

He had found in the depth of the human heart the seven deadly sins, and he traced their poison in every human relationship, under the cloak of respectability, in the qualities which lead to worldly success and honour. Oblique finance, dishonest company-promoting, show philanthropy, unctuous religiosity, servile journalism, create characters which are drawn in bold and dark outline with strongly concentrated colours, but without the exaggeration of which he was accused. The characters are so typical of human weakness and wickedness, the psychological analysis of motives and acts so accurate, that the indictment of the book remains true in spite of changes in social form and personal types. The pompous publisher who grows fat on the brains of young authors, whilst he intimidates them by depreciation; the editor who finds favour with his party and his employers by suppressing every unwelcome truth and spreading every useful party lie; the moneylender who builds up a banking business through exploitation of the financial ruin of others, are contrasted with the unsuccessful and the unworldly.

Amongst the artists and intellectual dilettanti who assembled in the Red Room of Berns Restaurant in the evening, and whose hard struggle for bread in the day formed such a sharp contrast to the comfort of the time-servers, Strindberg found the Dionysian madness, without which the sanity of the rest of the world would have been unbearable. There is still life in the making, goodness inviolable, a brotherhood that woos the joy and beauty of life, contemptuous of the badges and labels of Society! But the majority who writhed under his satirical portraiture did not find compensation in his exceptions. For the lightning of his satire had not only played upon the time-worn objects of ridicule—those from which they dissociated themselves with a smile of tolerant amusement—it had illuminated and rent the pillars of Society to which they clung with superstitious respect. Had he not shown how literary and dramatic reputations were made and unmade by the personal ill-will or good-humour of self-constituted critics? Had he not handled the activities of the ancient art-critic, who bestowed automatic praise on all his old friends, and chilly silence on all new painters with merciless severity? Did not his unseemly badinage with the civil service, and with the well-established routine in governmental departments, stamp him as an enemy of Society? Some method of silencing him had to be found.

The manner in which the book was written was provocative by its idiomatic phrasing and the naturalness of its scenes—every sentence was charged with revolt against the ultra-academical style which had been the accepted standard of good writing. This was a realism in fiction which was dangerous alike to morals and literary comportment, introduced by a man who proved himself to be master of a new art in words. The anxiety was abated, when some outraged critic hit upon the idea that Strindberg was but an imitator of Zola. This was not true; the author of The Red Room had not read any of Zola's writings, but he had read Dickens—thoroughly—and admired the gentle humour with which the great English novelist unmasked social injustices and their complacent representatives. He had felt a desire to be able to clothe his indictment of Society in similar form. There is little similarity between the writings of Dickens and those of Strindberg; the latter lacked altogether the child-like and detached interest with which Dickens watched and chronicled the doings of the amazing people around him.

In Dickens's books there is a distinct line of cleavage between the good and the bad characters. The Red Room contains well-marked specimens of both, but most of Strindberg's writings depict the hybrids of good and evil, the psychological complexity in the human struggle for knowledge. As a novelist Strindberg shows some affinity with George Gissing. Strindberg's descriptions of the squalid tragedy of poverty—honest, hopeless, heaven-forsaken poverty—have the same power of spoiling the enjoyment of a good dinner as those of Gissing. In New Grub Street Gissing lets Biffen say, "Show the numberless repulsive features of common decent life." The repulsive features of human life generally met with protesting resonance in Strindberg's poignant sensibility; he described them and the result is "unpleasant."

The publication of The Red Room was followed by an intense literary activity on the part of its restless author. He had found his tongue, and he had found an audience.

The versatility of mind and production which was the despair of his critics became apparent. In 1880 The Secret of the Guild, a comedy in four acts, was published. The theme of the play is the unsuccessful attempt to complete a church by a guild of masons in Upsala in 1402. For fifty years the work has proceeded, but envy, dishonesty and pride of trade have stood in the way of its completion. The old alderman is deposed and his son becomes master of the work. Jacques, the son, is a man of action, ambitious and unscrupulous, who urges on the work without the cautiousness of old age. The roof is laid, the tower is built, but the secret of success has eluded Jacques. The tower falls as a result of ignorance of the spiritual secret which would have preserved it. "The church was built in sin and therefore it lies in ruins," says the old alderman. The play faithfully reflects the Middle-Age atmosphere, and harmonises with Strindberg's earlier plays in its vivid presentation of the struggle between two generations.