August Strindberg, the Spirit of Revolt: Studies and ImpressionsLind-af-Hageby, L. (Lizzy)
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August Strindberg, the Spirit of Revolt: Studies and Impressions
Lind-af-Hageby, L. (Lizzy)
Strindberg, August, 1849-1912
Uddgren's account of Strindberg's manner of working in 1907 shows that
the fever had not left him. "When I have finished my work for the day,"
Strindberg said, "I always note on a piece of paper what I shall begin
with the next day. The whole long afternoon and evening I collect
material for next day's work. During my morning walk my thoughts are
further condensed, and when I return from my wanderings I am charged
like an electric machine. I put on a dry vest, for after my walk I am
always very hot, and then I sit down at my writing-table. As soon as I
have paper and pen ready it bursts out. The words literally tumble over
me, and the pen works under high pressure in order to get everything
down on paper. When I have written for a while I have a feeling that I
am floating in space. Then it is as if a higher will than my own made
the pen glide over the paper, guide it to write down words which seem
to me entirely inspired."
The same ecstasy of writing is shown in _Alone_, where he says of his
life at the writing-table: "I live, and I live the manifold lives
of all the human beings I describe, happy with those who are happy,
evil with the evil ones, good with the good; I creep out of my own
personality, and speak out of the mouths of children, of women, of old
men; I am king and beggar, I have worldly power, I am the tyrant and
the most despised of all, the oppressed hater of the tyrant; I hold all
opinions and profess all religions; I live in all times and have myself
ceased to be. This is a state which brings indescribable happiness."
These words remind us of Flaubert who felt "in the space of a minute
a million thoughts, images and combinations of all kinds, throwing
themselves into my brain at once as it were the lighted squibs of
fire-works,"[9] and recall the plastic and yearning girl-soul of Marie
Bashkirtseff who, when walking in Rome, exclaimed: "I want to be Cæsar,
Augustus, Marcus Aurelius, Caracalla, the Devil, the Pope," and who
adds: "I love to weep, I love to be in despair. I love to be grieved
and sad ... and I love life in spite of everything."
Amiel, remembering a night when he lay stretched full length on the
sandy shore of the North Sea, cries: "Will they ever return to me,
those grandiose, immortal, cosmogonic dreams, in which one seems to
carry the world in one's breast, to touch the stars, to possess the
infinite?"[10] Amiel dreamt, Strindberg created; Amiel found literary
exultation in dreamy contemplation of the universe, Strindberg in the
spiral revolutions of humanity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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