The article examines how August Strindberg’s scientific interest feeds into his literary work. The analysis focuses on the autobiographically inspired novel Le Plaidoyer d’un fou, which Strindberg wrote directly in French, and compares it to the first German translation, which was the first ever publication of this novel. The analysis reveals that readers of the translation did not get a faithful picture of the function Strindberg ascribes to psychology in the novel. This was not without consequence for the Swedish reception of Le Plaidoyer. In fact, the first two Swedish translations of the novel were not based on Strindberg’s original French manuscript, but on the first German translation. Further studies will look at how various translators of Le Plaidoyer d’un fou dealt with the challenges of reproducing Strindberg’s French style in their respective target languages, with a particular focus on Swedish.

L’essai d’August Strindberg intitulé « De l’Infériorité de la femme et comme corollaire de la justification de sa situation subordonnée selon les données dernières de la science » fait scandale lorsqu’il apparaît dans la Revue blanche en 1895. Ce discours est surprenant pour diverses raisons. Que recherchait Strindberg en écrivant un article aussi provocateur ? En resituant ce texte dans la production littéraire de l’écrivain, en étudiant sa genèse et sa réception dans les journaux français de l’époque, nous proposons de traiter la question suivante  : Strindberg voudrait-il se profiler comme écrivain nordique aux allures scientifiques dans le champ français, en publiant en langue française, un texte « scientifique » anticonformiste sur la femme ? À la lumière des travaux portant sur le boréalisme, la paratopie et la réception, nous nous interrogeons pour savoir si ce discours ne serait pas une stratégie pour conquérir le public parisien et européen. Les résultats de cette contribution tendent, en effet, à montrer comment Strindberg a cherché à se positionner en rupture et en continuité, à la manière d’un écrivain « scandinave méridional ». L’écrivain suédois joue sur les représentations du Nord et intègre le discours exogène français tout en le dépassant. En adoptant un contre-discours boréal où Strindberg s’affiche à la fois épigone et pionnier, l’auteur suédois ajuste adroitement son discours.

In 1895, the Swedish author August Strindberg created a scandal by publishing the essay “De l’Infériorité de la femme et comme corollaire de la justification de sa situation subordonnée selon les données dernières de la science” in the French journal Revue blanche. Our paper probes Strindberg’s motivations for writing this provocative article. We begin by contextualizing the text in relation to the writer’s complete literary production and also examine the genesis of the essay and its reception in the French newspapers of the time. This allows us to suggest that, in publishing such a nonconformist «scientific» text on women in French, Strindberg wanted to enter into the French field as a Nordic writer with a scientific appearance. Drawing on reception studies, as well as the notions of borealism, and paratopia, we argue that this was an attempt on the part of Strindberg to gain recognition amongst Parisian and European audiences. In conclusion, our study demonstrates how Strindberg sought out a position of both rupture and continuity as a “Scandinavian southern” author. We show how he plays with representations of the North, embracing French exogenous discourse and even surpassing it. In addition, we note that Strindberg adjusts his discourse skilfully by adopting a counter-borelian discourse, where he portrays himself at once as epigone and pioneer.

In the 1990s a new interest for research on emotions and affectivity in the humanities and the social sciences began to develop. This movement, later referred to as “the affective turn”, has been a most productive and vigorous field of research in the past decades, as it opens up for new interpretations of historical source materials and enables studies of the relationship between states of mind and materiality. In addition, it prompts questions of, for example, gender, power and religiosity, thus being conducive to a fuller understanding of historical events, places and persons. This anthology is the result of the Marcus Wallenberg symposium at the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities in early spring 2014. All studies included concern the interpretation of emotional expression in medieval art and literature written by scholars representing a wide variety of disciplines.

The present study deals with August Strindberg as a francophone writer. Our aim is to investigate how his French reviser handled the peculiarities of his French and how they were rendered in translation. The analysis is conducted on three excerpts from four different versions of the novel Le Plaidoyer d’un fou: Strindberg’s original French manuscript, the first French edition from 1895, the latest Swedish translation from 1976 and the latest Italian translation from 1991. The study reveals a great deal of deviations from the source text that are not dictated by target-language norms, particularly in the first revised French edition, but also in the latest Swedish and Italian translations. Moreover, close textual analyses indicate that not only Strindberg’s original manuscript, but also earlier translations in the respective language have inspired the translators. The observations suggest that there is potential for retranslating the Plaidoyer into a more experimental language.