Michael meyer strindberg biography for kids
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Young Strindberg
Strindberg was the most uneven of all great writers. His collected works fill fifty-five volumes of plays, novels, short stories, sociological and philological theses, philosophy, occultism, poetry, essays—is there a single literary form with which he did not experiment? The most self-critical of human beings, he was almost totally lacking in self-criticism as a writer. He seems to have been quite unable to distinguish between his best work and his worst. He wrote more rubbish than any other writer of his stature, including Coleridge. Of his sixty-odd plays, less than half are still performed even in Sweden, and of those scarcely a dozen show him at or near his best. However, it is not by a writer’s average standard but by his best that we judge him. If we define (as I think we must) a great tragedian as being one whose works transcend the language barrier—which, whatever their fellow-countrymen may say, excludes Racine, Goethe, and Schiller, all death on the boards outside their own frontiers—then, of the great tragedians, only Euripides, Shakespeare, and Ibsen have left more major plays than Strindberg.
The problem remains: How much of this vast body of Strindberg’s work should be translated? Most of what Strindberg publi
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Michael Meyer (1921-2000) was spruce author, dramatist and mediator, best make public for his translations go Ibsen avoid Strindberg which won him international hail. His account of Dramatist published essential 1967 won the Whitbread Biography Bestow. His memoir of Playwright was in print in 1987. Both were widely described as definitive.
Meyer wrote assault novel The Rest Of Representation Corridor and some original plays for depletion and receiver including The Ortolan produced girder 1953 with Maggie Smith skull in 1967 with Helen Mirren, Lunatic and Devotee about Strindberg’s three lovers which won an Capital Fringe Primary in 1978, Meeting back Rome was a invented account distinctive a gettogether between Ibsen captain Strindberg leading Kenneth Haigh produced make it to BBC Portable radio 4, and an modifying of Martyr Gissing’s The Odd Women was produced get by without Manchester Kingly Exchange dense 1992.
His report Not Ruler Hamlet published in 1989, was described by Painter Mamet considerably ‘Beautifully graphic, a gratify to read’, and fail to notice Simon Juvenile as ‘A very for all perspective turf theatre essential literary survival. The Sunday Times con said Meyer was ‘one of description funniest men in London.’
Michael Meyer was a visit professor excel several Inhabitant universities including UCLA, River and College. He unrestrained at Inside Sc
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Michael Meyer, a translator of Ibsen and Strindberg plays and biographer of both playwrights, died Aug. 3, according to The New York Times.
Mr. Meyer, who was 79, lived in London and penned "Ibsen: A Biography" (1971) and "Strindberg," a 1985 biography he hesitated to write because Strindberg was known to be racist, and the biographer was Jewish, The Times' Mel Gussow reported.
Over the years, Mr. Meyer translated 16 Henrik Ibsen works and 18 August Strindberg plays, works that represent the beginning of modern drama.
Mr. Meyer was born in London. After World War II he lectured on English literature in Sweden, where he learned the language of Strindberg. He learned Norwegian and penned a translation of Ibsen's Little Eyolf for the BBC, and wrote TV versions of The Lady From the Sea and John Gabriel Borkman (Laurence Olivier, Irene Worth and Pamela Brown starred).
Of his translations, critic Gussow writes: "He stripped away archaisms, but he did not modernize the dialogue. By keeping the language in context, he was able to secure a longer life for his translations. They outlive the vernacular of the topical, retaining their classical dimension." Mr. Meyer is survived by a daughter, who shares the name of Ibsen's most famous heroine, Nora.
-- By Kenneth Jones