August Strindberg

Name: Plays by August Strindberg, Fourth Series
Author: August Strindberg

Biographical details

August Strindberg (1849–1912), a Swedish playwright, novelist, and painter, is celebrated as the father of modern Swedish literature. His work spans naturalism, symbolism, and avant-garde experimentation, exploring themes of heredity, psychological conflict, and societal hypocrisy.

Notable texts include The Red Room (1879), The Father (1887), and A Dream Play (1902), which pioneered expressionist techniques. Strindberg’s fusion of scientific inquiry, occultism, and dramatic innovation left an indelible mark on 20th-century theatre and literature.

Quotes by August Strindberg

August Strindberg, Plays by August Strindberg, Second series

“ ADOLPHE. Those are not detectives. That's only your imagination. I recognise both of them. [Goes toward the door.]
MAURICE. Don't leave us alone, Adolphe. I fear that Henriette and
I may come to open explanations.
ADOLPHE. Oh, be sensible, Maurice, and think of your future. Try to keep him quiet, Henriette. I'll be back in a moment. [Goes out.]
HENRIETTE. Well, Maurice, what do you think now of our guilt or guiltlessness?
MAURICE. I have killed nobody. All I did was to talk a lot of nonsense while I was drunk. But it is your crime that comes back, and that crime you have grafted on to me. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

August Strindberg, Lucky Pehr

“ PEHR. Why do you talk so fast? Let me continue—
OLD MAN. No! Away with you and obey, boy!
PEHR. Yes, away from here! I want to go out and see the world. I want to see child-faces—even if they can be clouded by envy's cankerworm! I want to taste the fruit of the tropics even if it is worm-eaten! I would drink the wine though it were gall, and I want to put my arm around a maid's waist, even if a bankrupt father does sit at the hearth stone! I want silver and gold—if in the end it is nothing but dross!
OLD MAN. Hell-fire! who's been here?
A VOICE. Curse not Christmas! ”

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Source: Gutenberg

August Strindberg, Plays by August Strindberg, Third Series

“ BISKRA. Lie down on the floor.
GUIMARD lies down unwillingly.
BISKRA. What do you hear?
GUIMARD. I hear the murmuring of a spring.
BISKRA. There you see! God is one, and there is no other God but He, the Merciful and Compassionate One!—What do you see?
GUIMARD. I can hear a spring murmur—I can see the light of a lamp—in a window with green shutters—on a white street——
BISKRA. Who is sitting at the window?
GUIMARD. My wife—Elise!
BISKRA. Who is standing behind the curtain with his arm around her neck?
GUIMARD. That's my son, George.
BISKRA. How old is your son? ”

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Source: Gutenberg

August Strindberg, The Road to Damascus, a Trilogy

“ LADY. God is with me; so what have I to fear from human beings?
STRANGER. Aren't you tormented by those people at the pool?
LADY (turning towards them) . I can't see them. I can't see anything horrible now.
STRANGER. Ingeborg! I have made you evil, yet you're on the way to make me good! It was my dream, you know, to seek redemption through a woman. You don't believe it! But it's true. In the old days nothing was of value to me if I couldn't lay it at a woman's feet. Not as a tribute to an overbearing mistress,... but as a sacrifice to the beautiful and good. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

August Strindberg, Plays: the Father; Countess Julie…

“ LAURA. What, are you annoyed?
CAPTAIN. No, but I am not hungry.
LAURA. Come, or they will ask unnecessary questions—be good now. You won't? Stay there then. [Goes.]
NURSE. Mr. Adolf! What is this all about?
CAPTAIN. I don't know what it is. Can you explain to me why you women treat an old man as if he were a child?
NURSE. I don't understand it, but it must be because all you men, great and small, are women's children, every man of you.
CAPTAIN. But no women are born of men. Yes, but I am Bertha's father. Tell me, Margret, don't you believe it? Don't you? ”

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Source: Gutenberg

August Strindberg, Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah…

“ ABEL. Why not? Can you deny yourself such a triumph? If it's war, one must kill one's enemies, not just wound them. And now it is war. Am I right?
BERTHA. Yes, but a father, and his wife and daughters whom he has not seen for eighteen years!
ABEL. Well, he'll have a chance to see them now.
BERTHA. You're terrible, Abel!
ABEL. I'm a little stronger than you, that's all. Marriage must have softened you. Do you live as married people, h'm?
BERTHA. How foolish you are!
ABEL. You have irritated Axel; you have trampled on him. But he can yet bite your heel. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

August Strindberg, There Are Crimes and Crimes

“ MAURICE. It is the child.
HENRIETTE. The child! Another woman's child! And for the sake of it I am to suffer. Why must that child block the way where I want to pass, and must pass?
MAURICE. Yes, why? It would be better if it had never existed.
HENRIETTE. [Walks excitedly back and forth] Indeed! But now it does exist. Like a rock on the road, a rock set firmly in the ground, immovable, so that it upsets the carriage.
MAURICE. The triumphal chariot!—The ass is driven to death, but the rock remains. Curse it! [Pause.]
HENRIETTE. There is nothing to do. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

August Strindberg, Plays by August Strindberg, First Series

“ THE LAWYER. Woe to us then!—But let us forestall hatred. I promise never again to speak of any untidiness—although it is torture to me!
THE DAUGHTER. And I shall eat cabbage though it means agony to me.
THE LAWYER. A life of common suffering, then! One's pleasure, the other one's pain!
THE DAUGHTER. Men are to be pitied!
THE LAWYER. You see that?
THE DAUGHTER. Yes, but for heaven's sake, let us avoid the rocks, now when we know them so well.
THE LAWYER. Let us try! Are we not decent and intelligent persons? Able to forbear and forgive? ”

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Source: Gutenberg

August Strindberg, Plays by August Strindberg, Fourth Series

“ ERIC. Heavier than it was the day before yesterday.
QUEEN. What happened yesterday?
ERIC. What happens to a human being only once in a lifetime.—Are you much wiser now?
QUEEN. [To her mother] How childlike he has grown! [To Eric] Have you heard anything of your friend Jacob?
ERIC. Yes, he was my real friend, and so they took his head.
QUEEN. Now you are unjust. There has been no attempt to take the head of Jorghen....
ERIC. He is no longer my friend. [Peevishly] But now I don't want to be questioned any longer, least of all about my secrets—that is, about the secrets of my heart. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

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Strindberg's psychological arena: the theater of merciless intellectual combat

August Strindberg transformed the stage into a crucible of intellectual warfare, utilizing suggestion and analysis to achieve profound psychological domination. His plays, exemplified by Creditors, reveal human relationships as cruel transactions where characters are driven toward mutual destruction and despair.

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August Strindberg

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Quotes by August Strindberg

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Strindberg's psychological arena: the theater of merciless intellectual combat

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