August Strindberg

This Introduction presents the European literary and historical context of Swedish author and artist August Strindberg's novel _Le Plaidoyer d'un fou_, first published in 1893. Known in Swedish as _En dåres försvarstal_, the Introduction complements a new translation by Sarah Death and Rochelle Wright.

El presente artículo estudia las relaciones entre los géneros literarios (drama y novela) en la obra de August Strindberg. Se analiza cómo los componentes fundamentales de la novela (el narrador, el enfrentamiento del sujeto con el mundo y la ironía formal) penetran en el drama de Strindberg, logrando su novelización; y, como contrapartida, se explicita de qué manera los componentes fundamentales del drama moderno (la densificación del Yo-narrador, el surgimiento del impersonaje y la configuración del diálogo sin revelación aunado a la proliferación de didascalias) irrumpen en la novela del autor para dramatizarla.

Stenport, Anna Westerstahl, Eszter Szalczer, and Jonathan Schroder. (2018). “Introduction: Visual Culture, August Strindberg, and The Double Image of Modernity.” In August Strindberg and Visual Culture: The Emergence of Optical Modernity in Theater, Text, and Image. Ed. Anna Westerstahl Stenport, Eszter Szalczer, and Jonathan Schroeder. London: Bloomsbury Academic. 1-18.

di Giuliano D'Amico Volda «Perché occuparsi seriamente di uno strambo personaggio come Aleister Crowley?» si chiedeva nel 1999 lo storico delle religioni Marco Pasi, nell'introduzione a uno dei primi testi accademici dedicati allo scrittore e occultista inglese morto nel 1947 a 72 anni 2 . Spesso etichettato come satanista, guru, debosciato, genio visionario, assunto a icona pop fin dal suo cameo sulla copertina dei Beatles di Sergent Pepper, ma spesso e volentieri ritenuto solamente un ciarlatano, Crowley ha lasciato la sua impronta nella cultura Occidentale del ventesimo secolo, e la sua figura continua ad ispirare, nel bene o nel male, una nutrita serie di artisti ed occultisti.

Il presente lavoro è incentrato sulla figura del dio nordico Loki e il suo scopo è quello di fornire una panoramica generale sulle sue alterne vicissitudini letterarie.
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Diverse considerazioni hanno portato alla decisione di limitare l'ambito della ricerca allo studio della figura di Loki così come appare agli albori della sua nascita letteraria e seguendone lo sviluppo diacronico.
Il problema sostanziale che si pone, all’inizio di uno studio su tale personaggio, è se si debba tenere conto della sua componente religiosa. Bisogna chiedersi, dunque, se sia utile allo scopo prefissato partire dal presupposto che per un periodo di tempo (presumibilmente lungo) Loki sia stato considerato un dio – seppur privo di culto – o se la presente analisi debba limitarsi alla forma puramente letteraria che egli ha assunto nel tempo. Indubbiamente non sarebbe possibile prescindere totalmente dalla prima, poiché ad imprimersi nei carmi è la memoria di un culto scandinavo ormai scomparso, sia esso celato e/o stemperato; allo stesso tempo, un'analisi che abbracci sia l'ambito religioso che quello letterario, alla ricerca di un connubio quanto più possibile fedele ad entrambi, rischierebbe di risultare dispersiva.

Nell’ottica della catalogazione dei fondi Egidio Pani e Pasquale Bellini è stato inquadrato il percorso di studio sviluppatosi presso la Biblioteca Multimediale e Centro di Documentazione del Consiglio Regionale della Puglia Teca del Mediterraneo. Un lavoro d’archivio che ci ha permesso di cogliere l’importanza della conservazione di una memoria storica, strettamente legata al territorio pugliese, in grado di stupire per la propria grandezza e complessità. In particolare, sarà oggetto di analisi il primo quinquennio degli anni 80, in cui l’autore svedese August Strindberg ha raggiunto la massima fama nel contesto teatrale italiano.

O presente trabalho é uma análise da obra autobiográfica Inferno escrita por August Strindberg, orientada pelo referencial teórico da Psicologia Analítica desenvolvida por Carl Jung, naquilo que se relaciona com o simbolismo da alquimia e suas operações. Esse romance foi escolhido pelo minucioso retrato dos subterrâneos da vida psíquica do autor, terreno este muito fértil para o campo da Psicologia Analítica. A preferência pela alquimia como forma de interpretação, advém da constante narrativa de Strindberg e sua busca pela criação do ouro à maneira dos antigos alquimistas. Compreendemos essa busca como um retrato do processo de individuação do personagem. Para a realização da análise, foi utilizado o livro Anatomia da Psique de Edward Edinger, assim como outros autores pertences à temática proposta. A metodologia empregada foi de cunho qualitativo, especificamente o processamento simbólico arquetípico, que visa ampliar os símbolos como elementos constituintes de conhecimento. A partir disso, tornou-se possível a construção de uma síntese entre as etapas alquímicas e as imagens procedentes do texto, permitindo o desdobramento de um diálogo imagético que contribuiu para a interpretação simbólica e plural da obra. Por fim, destacamos também semelhanças entre as ideias de Strindberg e Jung, como sugestões para trabalhos futuros. Alguns paralelos identificados foram: a necessidade dos autores em estabelecer uma comunicação com seus aspectos internos, a personificação do Self enquanto uma imagem dialética e a importância do Livro de Jó na edificação de suas respectivas obras.

From Diagnosis to Intersectionality: Strindberg Research from 1963–2011

This article was written as a sequel to Göran Lindström’s article in Svensk litteraturtidskrift (Swedish Literature Magazine) in 1962, and consists of a qualitative, evaluative survey of research on the Swedish author August Strindberg (1849–1912) during the period 1963–2011. A selection of more or less new sub-fields (such as music, TV, radio, film, prose and poetry) arise within the larger field of research on Strindberg’s life and works during this time. Simultaneously, research on drama, modernity, history and mysticism continues to develop. The field of psychological studies underwent major transformations during this period, as tendencies to diagnose the author shifts to a discussion of the historical production of concepts such as “madness”. This tendency is also visible in the field of biographical research, where the intention to reveal the “truth” about the author gives way to investigations of the “author” as a literary function. Furthermore, the same development could be seen in the field that went through the most rapid and thorough change and expansion, gender studies, where attention shifts from investigating Strindberg’s relationship to women to a discussion of the historical production of norms concerning gender and sexuality. My conclusion was, however, that gender studies as well as the discussion of Strindberg as a national author need to employ a more intersectional approach in the future to further deepen and develop these fields. In 1962, Lindström called for additional pieces to add to the Strindberg-puzzle. In 2011, I ask for further development of the critical meta-perspectives on the great cultural construct known as “Strindberg”.

By the beginning of modernity, a new horizon was composed by the middle class who abrogated hierarchy and monarchy by viewing social identity through the lens of the economy, hence capitalism emerged and social identity became vitally dependent on economic power. Traumatic effects of social stratification and social conflicts leading to tremendous endeavor to bridge a gap between high and lower classes of  society were of the most important purposes of Marxist writers. It should be mentioned that Carl Marx defined the scaffolds of the society in relation to struggle between high and lower strata of the society. Marxism is defined during the history as a plethora of conflicts between major classes of the society who are suppressing majority and suppressed minority to at conflict leads to a social change. Strindberg's play “Miss Julie” is a naturalistic tragedy but it also includes social stratification and social conflicts between two classes of the society with symbolic characters in a symbolic setting. Court's house, the setting of the play, symbolizes a capitalist society in which Miss Julie and John belong to different classes of the society. John is a waiter and Miss Julie is the mistress of the house and symbol of a high-class person. What is outstanding in this play is the hidden structure of the play, emerging through detail and tone, is based on the special relationship between class and sex. Strindberg juxtaposes these two characters who are the symbol of different classes by strings of Marxism in the play. Strindberg also put strings of the idea that if a person from aristocrat family makes a relationship with a lower class one, it would be taken as her fall down and if a person makes relation with a higher class of the society it works as a ladder to better his position in society. As in the play, John who is aware of his position always warned Julie about the dangers of their relation and always care about his position when he refused to call Julie ''Dear''. As John used this relation as a mean to improve his status in society he symbolically rebelled against the capitalist society which led to another capitalism at the end of the play. This paper respectively is going to delve into the Marxism, social stratification and shed light on the social conflicts in Strindberg's play “Miss Julie”.

1. Although the study of Strindberg's reading of esoteric texts and their influence of these on his work has a long and flourishing tradition (see Lamm; Brandell, Strindbergs Infernokris; Stockenström; Gavel-Adams, The Generic Ambiguity; and Szalczer, only to cite the major ones), the way esotericists looked at his texts is still an underexplored matter.

To have a power [potenza], to have a faculty means to have a privation. That is why the sensation does not sense itself, as the combustible does not burn itself" 1 . With this sentence taken from a conference by Agamben, the Italian philosopher wishes to state an apparently contradictory concept: to be powerful means to have a deprivation, ergo, not to have something. How could someone be powerful in his powerlessness? By analysing the figure of Strindberg and by relating it to what has just been said, it will be easier to understand Agamben's thought.

The objective of this work is to discuss a thematic and critical issue that runs through Pasolini's dramaturgy: the representation of the pathetic body within the semantic field of sexuality. The approach is a blend of two methodological perspectives – one derived from the textual analysis of the dramaturgy and one from the “stage writing” of contemporary postdramatic performance.
As part of that perspective, a range of dramatic texts from Pasolini's theatrical production were selected as specific examples which verify the problem. First, we see the body in the grip of the masochistic desire (Orgies). Second, we have the body  that paroxysmally exhibits its organs during the experience of "cannibalism" (Pigsty). Finally, we observe the body "confined in bed", between division and the visionary dimension (Calderón). In these three plays the rituals of sadistic cruelty (hanging, devouring, imprisonment) take place in order to emphasise the body and sexuality as an ontologically privileged and prelinguistic source.
In the first chapter, I tried to identify  an evident Sadian matrix in the sadomasochistic motif of torture associated with eroticism. Eroticism in Sadian forms (pain/pleasure, profanation/imagination, animalization, death/voluptuousness) is examined starting from a reading of Sade's Philosophie dans le boudoir. The second chapter is focused on Julian's character as a figure of otherness in Porcile. This description focuses on the semiotics of the verbal and visual theme of the "pigsty" and "pigs" as a critical response to a consumerist culture West in general. Particular attention is given to the peculiar performative scenes of the film: Julian's death alternating with the complementary one of the savage anthropophagous, within the Artaudian perspective of the body without organs. The third chapter aims to analyze the prison semiosis of the body in the dream by comparing three plays, such as Calderón, La vida es sueño by Calderón de la Barca, and Ett drömspel (The dream) by Strindberg. A comparative analysis suggests some analogies and references in the development of the dream, in the events of oneiric representation, and in the transformation of the body in the course of the dramatic action. Although starting from different perspectives, the three plays share a structural element: the dream is constructed and oriented along the lines of the "dream-prison", as a dramatic stage mechanism.
Many studies tend to juxtapose the theme of power in Calderón of Pasolini with Foucault’s; on the contrary, my approach draws a connection with Erving Goffman, which is illustrated by the discussion of a few specific passages from Asylums in comparison to Pasolini’s Calderón. In this sense, the link between Goffman's  research and Pasolini's theatrical metaphor is based on the rituals of "internment", the physiognomy of which this thesis tries to identify. Finally, the theoretical reflection of my research benefits from a series of interviews given by artists and directors- actors who have worked on stage with these plays by Pasolini.

Literary transformations from human to animal have occurred in myths, folklore, fairy tales and narratives from all over the world since ancient times, and have always provided a narrative space for depictions of power, agency, and the radical nature of change. In Following the Animal, these transformations are analysed with regards to their use in modern literature from northern-most Europe, with specific attention being paid to the insights they provide regarding the human-animal relationship, both generally in the industrialized West, and against the background of more specific circumstances in the Nordic area. In three analytic chapters, focusing respectively on Swedish author August Strindberg’s novel Tschandala (1887), Finnish author Aino Kallas’s novel The Wolf’s Bride (1928), and Danish author Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen’s short story “The Monkey” (1934), along with discussions of a range of other authors and texts, the reader is introduced to several traditions of literary production that both connect to, and differ from, Anglophone and other literature in fascinating ways. In addition to the insights it provides concerning the uses of human-animal transformations in modern Nordic literature, and their significance in relation to “the question of the animal”, Following the Animal also offers literary scholars and students alike a series of useable and transferable strategies for approaching texts from a “more-than-anthropocentric”, human-animal studies perspective. In phrasing and employing the interpretational method of “following the animal” over the text’s surface, up metaphorical elevations, down material wormholes, and in constant dialogue with previous research, this book contributes greatly to both human-animal literary studies specifically, and to the field of literary scholarship generally, in both an international and northern-European context.

"Avere una potenza, avere una facoltà significa: avere una privazione. Per questo la sensazione non sente se stessa, come il combustibile non brucia se stesso" 1 . Con questa frase tratta da una conferenza inedita di Agamben, il filosofo italiano vuole enunciare un concetto apparentemente contraddittorio: essere potente significa possedere una privazione, ergo, non possedere qualcosa. In che modo un uomo può essere potente nella sua impotenza? Analizzando la figura di Strindberg e ponendola in relazione con quanto detto, si potrà meglio comprendere il pensiero di Agamben.

Part of a longer project focusing on the metaphors of text as child and child as text in late nineteenth century writing.
This study examines the anxiety of influence experienced by August Strindberg in relation to his dramatic ‘father’, Henrik Ibsen. Starting from Strindberg’s conviction that artistic creativity was essentially sexual in nature and operation, the paper recognizes the importance to both writers of the metaphor of text-as-child and, drawing largely upon Strindberg’s letters, argues that his anxious relation to Ibsen as precursor is projected through scenarios adopted from the older playwright’s drama. Against a background provided by Ibsen’s recurrent preoccupation with Kindermord [child-murder], the paper demonstrates that Strindberg’s turbulent response to Ibsen’s creative presence is to reinscribe their relationship (as he perceives it) into a key moment of the plot of HEDDA GABLER, a play which uncannily ‘reads’ Strindberg even as he is reading it.

La manera en que se construye el espacio escénico es un aspecto fundamental en la producción de sentido de un determinado espectáculo: no solo es un elemento que enmarca la acción del drama, sino que también permite el desarrollo de una serie de significados que entran en diálogo con aquellos generados por el discurso de los personajes (Fischer-Litche, 1999). En ese sentido, en este trabajo nos proponemos analizar el diseño escénico propuesto por Cristina Banegas en su montaje de Señorita Julia de Strindberg poniendo el foco en la manera en que las decisiones espaciales reconfiguran la imagen que se presenta de los personajes en relación a la dramaturgia. En particular, observaremos cómo el espectáculo construye una representación diferencial del personaje de Cristina a partir de la elección de que la actriz que la encarna esté en escena durante toda la pieza. En efecto, el hecho de que ella se presente como un testigo directo de lo que acontece entre su novio Juan y la señora de la casa producirá cambios significativos en el posicionamiento enunciativo adoptado por el personaje. En consecuencia, Cristina ya no quedará configurada como alguien sin conocimiento directo de lo ocurrido, sino como un ser que pretende ubicarse en un espacio de no-saber para que el resto de los personajes confiesen la falta que cometieron. Para probar nuestra hipótesis, nos enmarcaremos en el Enfoque dialógico de la argumentación y la polifonía enunciativa (Bajtín, 1985; Ducrot, 1984; García Negroni, 2009, 2015), teoría no referencialista del significado y no unicista del sujeto discursivo.

Αλεξία Αλτουβά (επιμ.), "Πηγές της έρευνας στη σύγχρονη ελληνική θεατρολογία", Πρακτικά Επετειακού Συνεδρίου για τα 20 χρόνια του Προγράμματος Μεταπτυχιακών Σπουδών του Τμήματος Θεατρικών Σπουδών Αθηνών (Αθήνα, 27-29 Απριλίου 2017), Αθήνα 2021, σ. 439-446.

August STRİNDBERG'in BABA adlı oyunun dramaturji raporu.

Oyuna bakıldığında; Konu: Albay Adolf eşi Laura ile sürekli bir çatışma içerisindedir. Bu çatışma kızları Bertha'nın hayatına dair kimin kara vereceği boyutuna evrilir. Adolf’un eşi Laura bu sırada eşinin mal varlığını eline geçirmek için bazı planlar yapar. Onun bir akıl hastası olduğunu herkese ikna etmeye çalışır. Bir kavga sırasında Laura çocuğunun Adolf'tan olmadığını ima eder. Bu iddia ile daha da şaşkına uğrayan Adolf öfke nöbetleri geçirir ve Laura'nın üstüne bir lamba fırlatır. Diğer karakterlerde onun akıl sağlığının bozuk olduğuna ikna olur. Doktor Östermak onu akıl hastanesine yatırmak için eve gelir. Göleği giymesi dadı, Adolf'u ikna eder. Konuşma sırasında dadısı Adolf'a deli gömleğini giydirir. Bu sırada Adolf bir kriz geçirir ve dadının kucağına yığılır.

Composta nel 1887,nella pazzia del protagonista la tragedia "Il Padre" riflette le ossessioni di un Amleto avvelenato da un retro pensiero: la libertà della madre coinciderà con l'asservimento del padre?  Con Strindberg l'inferno si riaffaccia alle soglie del moderno e in controluce si legge il rapporto dell'Autore con Siri von Essen.

I en performativitetsanalys av August Strindbergs drama Brott och brott (1892) identifieras heteronormativa föreställningar om kön och sexualitet som ett av dramats bärande teman. Denna artikel omarbetades senare för publicering som ett kapitel i Ann-Sofie Lönngrens avhandling Att röra en värld. En queer analys av erotiska trianglar i sex verk av August Strindberg (2007).

This paper discusses Roger Callois' The Necessity of the Mind, a book written while Callois was a member of the surrealist group in Paris but never published during the author's lifetime. It was the original destination for Callois' famous essay on the praying mantis, published in the periodical Minotaure in 1934, and reveals the development of author's early interests in the concept of what he calls the 'objective lyrical ideogram' and the idea that the imagination is an objective phenomenon as apparent in the external world as in the human mind.

Callois' highly idiosyncratic text utilises his readings of as diverse figures as Freud, Leibniz, Strindberg, and Enlightenment materialist philosophers in order to construct the argument that poetic correspondences, chains of associative thought, and ideogrammatic motifs recurrent throughout dreams, poetry and folklore have nothing to do with chance but, rather, are highly determined by the fact that the structure of the human imagination is continuous with the structure of the natural world at large.

En este trabajo nos centraremos en su obra La danza macabra para analizar qué particularidades presentan dos procedimientos del drama moderno como son el realismo referencial y el semántico y en qué medida la articulación de elementos de otra archipoética resultan cruciales para la formulación de la tesis propuesta por el texto. Tomaremos como hipótesis que la posibilidad de una adecuada explicitación de la tesis está sustentada en la alteración de los procedimientos del realismo referencial por medio de la fusión con otra archipoética, de modo que el mundo poético sea objeto de una cierta desviación con respecto al mundo empírico para hacer visible una determinada representación del mundo.