File:Auguststrindberg00lind (14755672706).jpg

Identifier: auguststrindberg00lind (find matches)
Title: August Strindberg : the spirit of revolt : studies and impressions
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors: Lind-af-Hageby, L. (Lizzy), 1878-1963
Subjects: Strindberg, August, 1849-1912
Publisher: London : Stanley Paul
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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ordinary alienistspoint of view, and concluded that he sufferedfrom paranoia simplex chronica—a diagnosiswhich is empty of meaning when appliedto such a mind. Dr. S. Rahmer * madeStrindberg the subject of a more compre-hensive psychopathic study, and defined hiscase as one of melancholia daemomaniaca. Theinadequacy of such diagnoses will be apparentto every serious student of Inferno andLegends—the books which are mostly extractsfrom the diary in which he recorded hismadness—and of plays like To Damascus,Advent, Easter, The Dream Play, and TheGreat Highway, which give evidence of hislucidity, and of the mysticism which he dis-tilled from mental torture. There is nothing original in the factthat a man describes his own madnessin prose or verse. Such descriptions mayeven be regarded as a distinct genre ofliterary activity, perverse and detestableto those who, like Mr. Balfour, want onlythe cheerful note in literature, but of * Grenzfragen der Literatur iind Medizin, Munich, 1907.
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SELF-TORMENTOR AND VISIONARY 257 infinite interest to those who place a truthfulaccount of the human soul above one whichis pleasing. Nathaniel Lees poems, LenansTraumgewalten, Hoffmanns Kreisler possessa psychological interest which no clamourfor literary cradle-songs can remove. Strind-bergs self-revelations have a touch of thatexultation which, through a dominantcuriosity, survives the most complete cheer-j lessness, horror, and pain—that joy of whichCharles Lamb wrote to Coleridge ; Dreamnot, Coleridge, of having tasted all thegrandeur and wildness of fancy till you havegone mad, and which made him look backupon his lunacy with a gloomy kind ofenvy. Comparisons between Rousseaus Con-fessions, Dialogues, and Reveries, and Strind-bergs Inferno readily suggest themselves.Both writers reveal, by their minute analysisof sick thoughts, the consciousness of alunacy which is a necessary experience onthe road to spiritual health, and, therefore,shameless. There is much similarity in thes

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