Inferno (novel by Strindberg)

For other uses of this term, see Inferno.

Inferno An autobiographical novel by August Strindberg. Written in French in 1896-97 at the height of the author's problems with censorship and women, the book deals with Strindberg's life during and after his stay in Paris, and explores his many obsessions: alchemy, occultism, and swedeborgism , showing signs of paranoia and neurosis. Inferno has been habitually cited as evidence of the personal neuroses that afflicted Strindberg, as the persecutory mania. But, the truth is that although the author suffered a soft neurosis, the book is fictional; Strindberg exaggerated and invented most of such symptoms for greater drama of the work. plot

The narrator, apparently, is Strindberg himself, although the narrative is sometimes coherent and others not with his own experiences, he develops most of the novel in Paris. Isolated from his wife, Frida Uhl, children and friends. It relates to a group of artists and writers, such as Edvard Munch or Paul Gauguin, but often believes to be ridiculed and persecuted by them. In his isolation, Strindberg performs successful alchemical experiments, and manages to publish his works in important periodicals. However, he fears that his secrets will be stolen, and his persecutory mania is aggravated and worsened, believing that his enemies attack him with "infernal machines." He is also interested in the occult, arriving to project a spell of black magic on his daughter, estranged in space.

Throughout all his studies and adventures, Strindberg believes himself to be guided by mysterious forces, coming from God, fate or more vague origins. When he returns to Sweden to see his daughter, Strindberg begins in Germanic mythology and in the teachings of Swedenborg, which influenced his fatalistic beliefs and vain illusions. Through this new imagery newly discovered, Strindberg understands his life as a living hell, hence the title of the work. Structure

The work is broken in hundreds of small sections, which are grouped in chapters titled with names that make divine allusions: Purgatory or Hell. It has been cataloged as lyrical prose.

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