Plays by August Strindberg, Fourth Series

Plays by August Strindberg, Fourth Series

The province of Dalecarlia has often been called the heart of Sweden. It is a centrally located inland province, said to contain a sample of everything the country can offer in the way of natural beauty. For centuries it played a remarkable part in Swedish history, taking the leadership time and again in the long struggle to rid the nation of a perverted and abused union with Denmark and Norway. It has preserved the original stock, the original language, and the original customs of the race as no other province. The dialects used in Dalecarlia are among the most difficult to understand for outsiders and have an air of antiquity that irresistibly leads the thought back to old Norse. The picturesque costumes characteristic of the different parishes are still in use, and one of thesethat of Rttvikhas almost become the national costume of Sweden. The people are simple and shrewd, stem and kindly, energetic and obstinate, loyal and independent. They have much in common with the old New England stock, but possess, in spite of their unmistakably Puritanical outlook, a great store of spontaneous and pleasant joy in life. They are thinkers in their own humble way, but not morbid. In their attitude toward each other and toward the family they are distinctly and quaintly patriarchal, and in this respect, too, they preserve a quality that used to be characteristic of the whole Scandinavian north. It is impossible to read "The Bridal Crown," with its typical Dalecarlian atmosphere and setting, without being struck at once by the extent to which the individual plays the part of a link in the unbroken chain of generations rather than of an isolated, all-important point of personality. And the same impression is obtained from Selma Lagerlf's contemporaneous novel, "Jerusalem." ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 44302
Author: Strindberg, August
Release Date: Nov 27, 2013
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Translator: Björkman, Edwin, 1866-1951