resting_place movement death_date death_place influenced birth_place influences imagesize nationality notableworks birth_date period spouse signature image article_title birth_name occupation
norra begravningsplatsen naturalism expressionism 14 may 1912 stockholm , sweden hamsun myrdal , norén , o'neill , schönherr , sorge , , toller , williams ibsen , krleža , h. miller , stockholm , sweden brandes , swedenborg , ibsen , kierkegaard , nietzsche , shakespeare 220px swedish '' the father '' -lrb- 1887 -rrb- '' miss julie '' the -lrb- 1888 -rrb- '' inferno '' -lrb- 1897 -rrb- '' red to damascus '' -lrb- 1898 -rrb- '' a dream play room '' -lrb- 1902 -rrb- '' the ghost sonata '' -lrb- '' 1908 -rrb- -lrb- 1879 -rrb- '' 22 january 1849 modernism siri uhl -lrb- 1893 -- 95 -rrb- harriet bosse -lrb- 1901 von -- 04 -rrb- essen -lrb- 1877 -- 91 -rrb- frida strindberg namnteckning 1898 . svg auguststrindberg.jpg august strindberg
 johan august strindberg playwright • novelist • essayist • poet • painter
august strindberg

johan august strindberg -lrb- ; 22 january 1849 -- 14 may 1912 -rrb- was a swedish playwright , novelist , poet , essayist and painter .
a prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience , strindberg 's career spanned four decades , during which time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction , autobiography , history , cultural analysis , and politics .
a bold experimenter and iconoclast throughout , he explored a wide range of dramatic methods and purposes , from naturalistic tragedy , monodrama , and history plays , to his anticipations of expressionist and surrealist dramatic techniques .
from his earliest work , strindberg developed innovative forms of dramatic action , language , and visual composition .
he is considered the `` father '' of modern swedish literature and his `` the red room '' -lrb- 1879 -rrb- has frequently been described as the first modern swedish novel .
in sweden strindberg is known as an essayist , painter , poet , and especially as a novelist and playwright , but in other countries his renown is mostly as a playwright .
the royal theatre rejected his first major play , `` master olof '' , in 1872 ; it was not until 1881 , at the age of 32 , that its première at the new theatre gave him his theatrical breakthrough .
in his plays `` the father '' -lrb- 1887 -rrb- , `` miss julie '' -lrb- 1888 -rrb- , and `` creditors '' -lrb- 1889 -rrb- , he created naturalistic dramas that -- building on the established accomplishments of henrik ibsen 's prose problem plays while rejecting their use of the structure of the well-made play -- responded to the call-to-arms of Émile zola 's manifesto `` naturalism in the theatre '' -lrb- 1881 -rrb- and the example set by andré antoine 's newly established théâtre libre -lrb- opened 1887 -rrb- .
in `` miss julie '' , characterisation replaces plot as the predominant dramatic element -lrb- in contrast to melodrama and the well-made play -rrb- and the determining role of heredity and the environment on the `` vacillating , disintegrated '' characters is emphasized .
strindberg modelled his short-lived scandinavian experimental theatre -lrb- 1889 -rrb- in copenhagen on antoine 's theatre and he explored the theory of naturalism in his essays `` on psychic murder '' -lrb- 1887 -rrb- , `` on modern drama and the modern theatre '' -lrb- 1889 -rrb- , and a preface to `` miss julie '' , the last of which is probably the best-known statement of the principles of the theatrical movement .
during the 1890s he spent significant time abroad engaged in scientific experiments and studies of the occult .
a series of psychotic attacks between 1894 to 1896 -lrb- referred to as his `` inferno crisis '' -rrb- led to his hospitalisation and return to sweden .
under the influence of the ideas of emanuel swedenborg , he resolved after his recovery to become `` the zola of the occult '' .
in 1898 he returned to playwriting with `` to damascus '' , which , like `` the great highway '' -lrb- 1909 -rrb- , is a dream-play of spiritual pilgrimage .
his `` a dream play '' -lrb- 1902 -rrb- -- with its radical attempt to dramatise the workings of the unconscious by means of an abolition of conventional dramatic time and space and the splitting , doubling , merging , and multiplication of its characters -- was an important precursor to both expressionism and surrealism .
he also returned to writing historical drama , the genre with which he had begun his playwriting career .
he helped to run the intimate theatre from 1907 , a small-scale theatre , modelled on max reinhardt 's kammerspielhaus , that staged his chamber plays -lrb- such as `` the ghost sonata '' -rrb- .
