onal example, but he is
doomed to perish;" opposite that of Bishop Brask: "There is movement in
whatever exists--whatever stands still must be crushed;" and opposite
that of Gert: "He who wills more than his reason can grasp must go mad."

Such was the play with which the young Strindberg returned to the
Swedish capital in the fall of 1872; and let us remember in this
connection, that up to the time in question no dramatic work of similar
importance had ever been produced in Sweden. Its completion was more
epoch-making for Sweden than that of Brand was for Norway in 1865--since
the coming of Ibsen's first really great play was heralded by earlier
works leading up to it, while Master Olof appeared where nobody had any
reason to expect it. This very fact militated against its success, of
course; it was too unexpected, and also too startlingly original, both
in spirit and in form.

At the time there was only one stage in Sweden where such a work could
be produced--the Royal Theatre at Stockholm. To the officials of this
state--supported institution Strindberg submitted his work--hopefully,
as we know from his own statement. It was scornfully and ignominiously
rejected, the main criticism being that a serious historical drama
in prose was unthinkable. I shall make no comment whatever on that
judgment, having in mind how several years later Edmund Gosse bewailed
the failure of Ibsen to give a metrical form to his Emperor and
Galilean.

Strindberg's next effort concerned publication. In this respect he
was equally unsuccessful, although as a rule it has never been very
difficult in Sweden to find a publisher for any work of reasonable
merit. But the play was not only too original, it was too dangerously
radical for a country where a truly modern form of representative
government had not been achieved until seven years earlier. Strindberg
was at first stunned by this failure. He seriously contemplated
giving up writing altogether. When he had recovered somewhat, he seems
reluctantly to have faced the possibility that the fault might be found
in the play and not in the public.

So he set about to re-write it--and he did so not only once but
repeatedly, producing in all six versions that differ more or less from
one another. At first he clung to the prose form. Gradually he began to
introduce verse, until finally, in 1877 or 1878, he completed an almost
new play, where the metrical form predominated without being used
exclu