After the Fire - v. 3 Author:August Strindberg Volume: v. 3 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1914 Original Publisher: C. Scribner's sons Subjects: Drama / General Drama / Continental European Literary Criticism / European / Scandinavian Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or mis... more »sing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: INTRODUCTION The collection of plays contained in this volume is unusually representative, giving what might be called a cross- section of Strindberg's development as a dramatist from his naturalistic revolt in the middle eighties, to his final arrival at resigned mysticism and Swedenborgian symbolism. "Swanwhite" was written in the spring of 1901, about the time when Strindberg was courting and marrying his third wife, the gifted Swedish actress Harriet Bosse. In the fall of 1902 the play appeared in book form, together with "The Crown Bride" and "The Dream Play," all of them being issued simultaneously, at Berlin, in a German translation made by Emil Schering. Sobering, who at that time was in close correspondence with Strindberg, says that the figure of Swanwhite had been drawn with direct reference to Miss Bosse, who had first attracted the attention of Strindberg by her spirited interpretation of Biskra in "Simoom." And Schering adds that it was Strindberg's. bride who had a little previously introduced him to the work of Maeterlinck, thereby furnishing one more of the factors determining the play. Concerning the influence exerted upon him by the Belgian playwright-philosopher, Strindberg himself wrote in a pamphlet named "Open Letters to the Intimate Theatre" (Stockholm, 1909): "I had long had in mind skimming the cream of our most beautiful folk-ballads in order to turn them into a picture for the stage. Then Maeterlinck came across my pat...« less