[Gutenberg 44025] • August Strindberg, the Spirit of Revolt: Studies and Impressions

August Strindberg, the Spirit of Revolt - Studies and Impressions by L. Lind-af-Hageby

Emilie Augusta Louise "Lizzy" Lind af Hageby (20 September 1878 – 26 December 1963) was a Swedish feminist and animal rights advocate. She moved to England in 1902, where she became one of the country's most prominent anti-vivisection activists. She was the co-author with Leisa Schartau of The Shambles of Science: Extracts from the Diary of Two Students of Physiology (1903), co-founded the Animal Defence and Anti-Vivisection Society (ADAVS), and ran an animal sanctuary at Ferne House in Dorset with the Duchess of Hamilton. She also founded The Anti-Vivisection Review in 1909, a journal she edited for 40 years.

There have been few dispassionate attempts to discern August Strindberg's place in contemporary literature. His writings and his personality defied ordinary criticism.

He took upon himself the rôle of destroyer, he mocked men's religion and men's morality, he ridiculed propriety and poured bitter scorn on the social order. There was something cometic in the swiftness and intensity with which he appeared, disturbing the well-ordered orbits of traditions and conventions. The erratic course of his voyage through humanity caused alarm. No sooner had people congratulated themselves that his terrific lust for destruction had passed by their favourite systems and their cherished ideals, than his ruthless force was upon them, exposing ugliness and scattering treasures.

He passed on, making enemies, breaking idols, desecrating temples. He sowed reality and he reaped hatred.

His titanic spirit worked through a brain charged with explosive mentality. He poured out dramas, novels, stories, with a versatility and an accumulating energy which in themselves were offensive to the mediocre and to those who sought to place him within literary shackles. He discoursed on history, science and statecraft with the calm assurance of omniscience.