August Strindberg

Biography by Pericles Lewis The Swedish playwright August Strindberg (1849-1912) was the great rival of Henrik Ibsen in the Scandinavian theater. Their enmity began with Strindberg’s negative reaction to A Doll’s House, which he, disapprovingly, considered feminist. A noted misogynist, Strindberg wrote two highly accomplished naturalist plays, The Father (1887) and Miss Julie (1888), about… Continue Reading August Strindberg

Death in Venice

By Elizabeth Freund Death in Venice is Thomas Mann’s most famous and widely read literary work. This semiautobiographical short story about a writer’s trip to the city of Venice, which uses symbolism and employs Mann’s meticulously written prose, also presents themes relating to modernity. Plot Summary The protagonist of Death in Venice is the reputable,… Continue Reading Death in Venice

Kermesse

Wyndham Lewis’s painting Kermesse (1912) exemplifies the patterns of lines, arcs, and other geometric shapes of Vorticist art, which sometimes seem purely non-representational but often suggest the rapid movement of bodies or machines. The painting, named after a Flemish peasant dance, represents a radically mechanized alternative to Matisse’s graceful, flowing paintings of dancers. The huge… Continue Reading Kermesse