Part III

and are among the most poetically moving that Strindberg has ever written.

Besides having his belief in the rapture of love shattered, THE STRANGER also suffers disappointment at seeing his child fall short of expectations. The meeting between the daughter Sylvia and THE STRANGER probably refers to an episode from the summer of 1899, when Strindberg, after long years of suffering in foreign countries, saw his beloved Swedish skerries again, and also his favourite daughter Greta, who had come over from Finland to meet him. Contrary to the version given in the drama, the reunion of father and daughter seems to have been very happy and cordial. However, it is typical of the fate-oppressed Strindberg that in his work even the happiest summer memories become tinged with black. Once and for all the dark colours on his palette were the most intense.

The final entry into the monastery was more a symbol for the struggling author's dream of peace and atonement than a real thing in his life. It is true he visited the Benedictine monastery, Maredsous, in Belgium in 1898, and its well stocked library came to play a certain part In the drama, but already he realised, after one night's sojourn there, that he had no call for the monastic life.

Seen as a whole the trilogy marks a turning point in Strindberg's dramatic production. The logical, calculated concentration of his naturalistic work of the 1880's has given way to a freer form of composition, in which the atmosphere has come to mean more than the dialogue, the musical and dreamlike qualities more than conciseness. _The Road to Damascus_ abounds with details from real life, reproduced in sharply naturalistic manner, but these are not, as things were in his earlier works viewed by the author _a priori_ as reality but become wrapped in dreamlike mystery. Just as with _Lady Julia_ and _The Father_ Strindberg ushered in the naturalistic drama of the 1880's, so in the years around the turn of the century he was, with his symbolist cycle _The Road to Damascus_, to break new ground for European drama which had gradually become stuck in fixed formulas. _The Road to Damascus_ became a landmark in world literature both as a brilliant work of art and as bearer of new stage technique.

GUNNAR OLLEN

Translated by ESTHER JOHANSON

THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS

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