The Ghost Sonata | Influences of Emanuel Swedenborg
Lane A. Glenn is a Ph.D. specializing in theatre history and literature. In this essay he discusses the influence of Emanuel Swedenborg on August Strindberg’s life and work, and analyzes The Ghost Sonata in light of Swedenborg’s notions of life, death and the afterlife.
August Strindberg spent much of his life on a quest for psychological and spiritual fulfillment. Contemporary accounts written by friends, family and colleagues, as well as the playwright's own journals and letters, describe Strindberg as a man who was eccentric, almost always unhappy, and constantly battling mental illness.
Over the course of his lifetime, his madness took many forms. As a boy, he resented his mother for her lower class background, yet still fought for her attention among seven brothers and sisters. She died when he was only thirteen, and his father married...
[The entire page is 2684 words long]
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