NP Re: The Nordic Mentality (Was: stan da man)

[Heikki Raudaskoski]

Ok, cfa, I will not beat about the Bush: I just got Gunnar Brandell's
book _Strindberg in Inferno_. (Harvard University Press 1974, tr. Barry
Jacobs. _Inferno_, written orig. in French, is available in English, 
too.)

"During the days when Strindberg frequented the Zum Schwarzen Ferkel
cafe in Berlin in 1892-93, Przybyszewski was a member of the triumvirate
of gifted young men who were closest to him. P. ran errands for S. and
respectfully listened to his pronouncements. The other two disciples were
Bengt Lidforss and Adolf Paul. All three (--) broke with S. In the case 
of L. and P., S. took the initiative and precipitated the break. (--) The
circle had been broken by the entrance of a young woman, Dagny Juel, who
in S's correspondence is called "Aspasia", and in "Quarantine Mater's
Second Tale" is called Lais. It is difficult to determine the exact nature
of her relations with S. (--) during March 1893, because the episode
generated so much emotion in all the people involved in the intrigues that
issued from the liaison that no one's account of it seems trustworthy.
          One thing is clear: S. withdrew from the game immediately and 
thereafter regarded "Aspasia" with (surprise, HR) hatred. (snip; Dagny
had first an affair with Lidforss, S. schemed against both. Then she)
married Prz--ski. As a result of this marriage, Strindberg focused his
hatred on the Pole, who formerly had been his favorite disciple. (--) 
S. thought P. hated him because, like Munch and Lidforss, he had been 
"Aspasia's" lover before her marriage. But when (--) the Pole showed
exaggerated tolerance for his wife's former friends (even allowing one 
of her admirers to be a regular visitor in their house), (it is 
probable) that this enmity was largely the product of S's own attempts 
to rationalize his situation. (--)
          In May 1896, P's common law wife committed suicide and, in 
a paroxysm of guilt, P. turned himself over to the Berlin police, who
released him after two weeks. In June, Munch showed up in Paris with
reports of P's desperate situation in Berlin, and S. apparently thought 
that P. had murdered not only the woman he had abandoned for Dagny Juel
but their children and might next come to Paris to settle their old 
Aspasia  account. (By murdering S: long analysis by Brandell follows 
how the paranoid psychosis which P. prompted in S. in summer 1896 was
basically a projection of S's own guilt and related feelings. In August 
1896 the psychosis started resolving little by little.)" (Brandell 84-90).

In the footnote section Brandell sez that the best account of these
affairs and the Zum Schwarzen Ferkel circle as a whole in English 
is Evert Sprinchorn's extensive introduction to his translations of
_Inferno, Alone, and Other Writings_. (New York, 1968.)

In _Inferno_ your indirect relative is metamorphosed into "Popoffsky"
of Russian origin. Munch is called "a Danish painter". Awaiting the 
devilish Popoffsky to arrive in Paris, the narrator sees omens 
everywhere: "On the ground I found two dry twigs, broken off by the wind.
They were shaped like the Greek letters for P and y. I picked them up and
it struck me that these two letters P-y must be an abbreviation of the
name Popoffsky. Now I was sure that it was he who was persecuting me, and
that the Powers wanted to open my eyes to my danger." Etc. Then the 
hysteric situation starts to ease off.

Brandell also points out later in the study how Stan P's views on
"absolute literary idealism" and "unrestrained subjectivism" made an 
impact on August S. (ibid., 225-27). P. was in his turn strongly 
influenced by the French symbolists.


Hope this helps,

Heikki


P.S. To my horror I noticed too late that I had gotten the opening line of
an early 20th century French masterpiece all wrong, stupid me. Of course, 
it should run as: "For a long time I went under the bed early."