Miss Julie E-Book

August Strindberg

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

The NHB Drama Classics series presents the world's greatest plays in affordable, highly readable editions for students, actors and theatregoers. The hallmarks of the series are accessible introductions (focussing on the play's theatrical and historical background, together with an author biography, key dates and suggestions for further reading) and the complete text, uncluttered with footnotes. The translations, by leading experts in the field, are accurate and above all actable. The editions of English-language plays include a glossary of unusual words and phrases to aid understanding. Strindberg's Miss Julie is perhaps his most famous play. Bored with her sheltered existence, Miss Julie attempts to seduce the footman, but gets far more than she bargained for. This Drama Classics edition is translated and introduced by Kenneth McLeish, and also includes the author's Preface to the play.

Leseprobe

DRAMA CLASSICS

MISS JULIE

byAugust Strindberg

translated and introduced byKenneth McLeish

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Introduction

For Further Reading and Note on the Text

Strindberg: Key Dates

Strindberg’s Preface

Characters

Miss Julie

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Introduction

Johan August Strindberg (1849-1912)

As well as a writer, Strindberg was a linguist, musician, photographer and painter. He earned his living first as librarian and schoolmaster, then – from 1879 onwards, and precariously – by journalism and literature. In his lifetime, his greatest successes were novels, notably the autobiographical The Red Room and the lyrical Hemsö Folk. Throughout his life his plays were controversial: critics and public alike refused to warm to his revisionist historical dramas, his savage Naturalistic tragedies (such as The Father and Miss Julie) and his late, Expressionist allegories.

Part of the reason for public hostility was Strindberg’s own character. He was a man of strong opinions, assertive, quarrel some and woundingly witty both in person and in print. He claimed to see visions, and to have occult experiences. He said, often, that nothing was more important in human character than intellect, but thrashed around in a desperate search for emotional fulfilment which expressed itself in baby-talk and a longing for ‘cuddles’ and was rarely satisfied for long because of his violent mood-swings and acid temper. He was married three times, to Siri von Essen (1877-91), Frida Uhl (1893-94) and Harriet Bosse (1901-04), and railed at his first two wives, and the institution of marriage generally, in private and in public to the point where committal to a mental hospital was seriously contemplated. These marriages – or at least Strindberg’s own heightened view of them – provided the source-material for his most notorious dramatic work, half a dozen plays about the battle of the sexes and the viciousness of women which found no parallels until the wasted emotional landscapes of Tennessee Williams or Eugene O’Neill.