Not until we reach the first metrical version (of 1876) does the full
power of the playwright begin to reassert itself in such fashion that
out of his untiring labors at last springs a new work, the mood of which
differs essentially from that of the first prose version. These two
versions--the first and the final--are the results of diametrically
opposed methods of work. The first was written with a certainty and
swiftness of inspiration that raised the young poet far above the
productive powers generally characteristic of his years. The subsequent
modifications prove merely how futile are the efforts of reason to
improve what intuition has inspired. But gradually it seems to have
dawned on the poet that he was about to evolve a wholly new work--that
what he had come to aim at was quite distinct from what he had been
aiming at in the beginning, and from that moment his artistic reasoning
carried him onward until at last a new inspiration brought the work to
its completion."

Concerning the final metrical version, I can give only a few outstanding
and rather superficial facts, hoping that I may some time have the
opportunity of presenting it entire to the American public. Like the
prose version, it has five acts, but these are not subdivided into
scenes. It is briefer, more concentrated both in spirit and in form,
and may be said to display a greater unity of purpose. It is more human,
too, and less titanic. The change shows itself strikingly in a figure
like that of Marten, who in the metrical version has become softened
into an unconscionable but rather lovable rapscallion. The last remark
but one made by Marten when driven from Dame Christine's deathbed by
Olof is: "Talk to your mother, son--the two of you have so much to
forgive each other."

In strength and passion and daring, on the other hand, the final version
falls far short of the original one, and the very fact that it is more
logical, more carefully reasoned, tends at times to render it less
psychologically true. Each version has its own merits and its own
faults, and in their appeal they are so radically different that
a choice between them must always remain meaningless except on
temperamental grounds. At one point, however--and an important one at
that--the metrical version seems to me the happier by far.

That cry of "renegade," which, echoing from the dim recesses of the
church, makes the prose version end on a note of perplexing irony, may
be theatri