Three Plays About Ibsen and Strindberg

by Michael Meyer

The three plays in this volume provide intriguing insights into the personalities and often contrasting views of two of the most formidable and influential playwrights in theatre history. Lunatic and Lover explores the roots of Strindberg's creativity from childhood to maturity, in his obsessive personality and relationships with women. A Meeting in Rome records a meeting between Ibsen and Strindberg that did not take place, and demonstrates how much the two artists had in common as well as their differences. The Summer in Gossensass tells of Ibsen's reciprocated infatuation at the age of 61 with an 18 year old girl, and of its effect on his most famous plays.

Genres: Drama

136 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2001

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Michael Leverson Meyer (11 June 1921 – 3 August 2000) was an English translator, biographer, journalist and dramatist.

Meyer was born in London into a timber merchant family of Jewish origin, and studied English at Christ Church College, Oxford. His first translation of a Swedish book was the novel The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson, published by Collins in 1954. He is best known for his translations of the works of two Scandinavian playwrights, Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg. Braham Murray wrote of Meyer in his obituary published by The Guardian that Meyer was "the greatest translator of Ibsen and Strindberg into English there has ever been" even superior to William Archer, but Inga-Stina Ewbank and especially Jan Myrdal has criticizes the mistranslations, where Myrdal tries to prove that they are made deliberately. Myrdal also strongly criticizes Meyer's biography of Strindberg.

Meyer's journalism appeared in the New York Review of Books. He also wrote acclaimed biographies of both these playwrights; the three volume work on Ibsen (1967–71) won the 1971 Whitbread Award for Biography and the work on Strindberg appeared in 1985. His autobiography Not Prince Hamlet was published in 1989.

Reviews

[Matīss Gricmanis · Rating 3 out of 5]

the last geniuses, men raised and upheld by their women.