"Marie Grubbe var en vision, men Nils Lyhne var söndrig." Strindberg and J.P. Jacobsen

Both in Scandinavian and in world literature, the names of Strindberg and Jens Peter Jacobsen (1847-1885) often occur together – among several others – under the label of “Men of the modern breakthrough”, according to the famous definition by Georg Brandes in 1883. Strindberg became early aware of Jacobsen’s works: his two novels – which most stirred the attention of Swedish intellectuals – were published in Denmark in 1876 (Marie Grubbe) and 1880 (Niels Lyhne), and we find the first references to him in Strindberg’s letters already in 1878. Anyway, his engagement in the Danish author was first intensive in the period 1881-1885, when taking a peculiar form: Strindberg expressed more than once his ambition to make a play out of Marie Grubbe and asked the critic Edvard Brandes (Georg’s brother and Jacobsen’s friend) to talk with him about this plan. Eventually, Strindberg retreated and justified his giving up with the consideration that only Jacobsen himself could stage his own novel; however, his interest in the Dane’s art lead him to read both the second novel and the tales. Spurs of Jacobsen’s literature might be found in Strindberg’s Naturalistic works: scholarship has suggested, for instance, that Miss Julie could be partly seen as the dramatic transfiguration of Marie Grubbe’s story, or that a possible influence by Jacobsen’s style could be traced both in Getting married and in Mr. Bengt’s wife. In his reception of Jacobsen’s literature, Strindberg places himself in an articulated net of contacts among Scandinavian authors, but experiencing it in a very personal way, which includes very critical reliefs: in my paper, I intend to examine the premises, the developing and the effects of Strindberg’s brief but intense relationship with Jacobsen’s work, starting from Louise Vinge’s study on Jacobsen’s presence in Swedish literature (1985).