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E-book August Strindberg: The Occult Diary Paris 1896 – Stockholm 1908

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Penilaian

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August Strindberg (1849–1912) was an extraordinarily prolific writer whose col-lected works encompass no fewer than 72 volumes of drama, prose and poetry as well as 22 volumes of letters.1 In this extensive literary production, The Occult Diary occupies a unique and central position. Strindberg kept the diary from February 1896, when he moved into the Hotel Orfila in Paris, until the summer of 1908 in Stockholm, when he definitively broke off contact with his third wife, Harriet Bosse, and moved into a new apart-ment at Drottninggatan 85. He himself referred to his diary from this period as his Occult Diary and used it to help him decipher the world as he experienced it. He read and reread his own notations, adding new interpretations and deleting others. He also drew on the diary as material for creative expression, transfor-ming isolated events and observations into groundbreaking works of literature. Although it is a deeply personal document, Strindberg considered publishing the diary as part of his autobiographical writings. It is published here in its entirety in English translation for the first time. The Occult Diary is a key resource for international Strindberg scholars and theater professionals and more broadly for scholars focusing on drama, thea-ter history, stage performance, and literary currents at the turn of the previous century. Readers will find several different ways to approach the text. The diary initiates the reader into the writer’s inner world during a crucial transitional pe-riod in his personal and literary life. It documents his readings and observations and gives important clues and information about an ongoing process of artistic reorientation. Strindberg was exploring new ways of looking at, interpreting and writing about nature, science, art, the occult, and his fellow human beings. Diary entries reveal in detail his increasing focus on introspection and subjectivity and his proclivity for abstracting his personal experiences into universal symbols. In keeping with this tendency, his literary works became more reflective and asso-ciative. His post-1896 dramas broke with the conventions of realism and tradi-tional dramatic structure dating back to Aristotle; instead Strindberg focused on finding ways to portray complex inner struggles in dramatic form. In doing so, he opened up new possibilities for what could be portrayed on stage, making him a precursor of theatrical expressionism and a seminal figure in the evolution of modern drama. The notations in the diary recorded both the ordinary and the strange and provided material for creative works like Inferno (1897)and Legends (1898). Strindberg also commented on when, how and why he wrote these novels, the drama A Dream Play (1902), and other works. The diary gives a deeper under-standing of Strindberg’s œuvre, biography and psychology, although the reader must tread cautiously in these last matters. When Strindberg played with the idea of publishing the diary, it was planned to supplement his autobiographical novels and his letters, but the diary is also a work of art. It can be read as an experimen-tal montage of press clippings, drawings, photographs, objects from nature and text. The diary was published in the original language in 2012 in a three-volume critical edition in August Strindbergs Samlade Verk (‘The Collected Works of August Strindberg’) (SV 59:1, typeset text; SV 59:2, facsimile of the original; SV 60, commentary).2 An open access digital edition also became available the same year.3 This English translation follows the text and layout of the Swedish edition.4The original diary consists of 282 loose folio pages that Strindberg, somewhat inconsistently, paginated 1–302, as well as a red outer cover, an inner cover, a parchment cover and a title page. Most of the text appears on one side of the page, written in black ink, but the author has also used a lead pencil and colored pencils. About 80 pages have explanatory material on the reverse side; the remai-ning reverse sides are blank. Taken together, the diary encompasses 578 pages. A first draft of the English translation was made by Karin Petherick (1929–2009), University College London, who together with Göran Stockenström (1936–2020), University of Minnesota, edited the Swedish critical edition. Anders Hallengren, Stockholm University, in consultation with Michael Stevens, revised and edited the translation in 2007–2008. A thorough critical revision was under-taken by Ann-Charlotte Gavel Adams in 2016.


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PQyQxg3wy0epKfAY4cx_bQVx8G035T7v/view?usp=drive_link

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

133 STA a

Penerbit

London : Stockholm University Press., 2022

Deskripsi Fisik

653 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9789176351970

Klasifikasi

133

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Parapsychology and Occultism

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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