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70 pages, Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1901
So this is what it means to be mortal---In A Dream Play, Agnes, daughter of the Vedic god Indra, descends to Earth to discover whether the complaints and lamentations of its inhabitants are well-founded. What she finds is a tapestry of human misery in all (or at least in many) of its forms. With its fluid and shifting characters and scenes, the many allusions to mythology, religion, and philosophy, and the numerous variations upon a theme ("humans are to be pitied!") that take on a musical quality, A Dream Play is my favorite among plays by Strindberg that I have so far read. Someday, I want to see it performed – what an experience that would be.
One misses even what one has not valued,
One regrets even misdeeds never done…
One yearns to go, and yet one longs to stay…
So the heart's two halves are rent asunder,
As if wild horses were pulling it apart, torn to pieces
By contradiction, indecision, disharmony…