„DRAMATY WĘDRÓWKI” IBSENA I STRINDBERGA: PEER GYNT – DO DAMASZKU – WIELKI GOŚCINIEC
„DRAMATY WĘDRÓWKI” IBSENA I STRINDBERGA: PEER GYNT – DO DAMASZKU – WIELKI GOŚCINIEC

Summary/Abstract: I have worked on Ibsen’s and Strindberg’s “Dramas of wandering” for years now and I have written about them on several occasions. The present version is the final one. The reason why I have compared Part I of To Damascus with Peer Gynt is that my primary goal was to shed some light on the question of religion, or more precisely the attitude that the Stranger had to religion while struggling with the Invisible (den Osynlige) on his long road to disbelief, a road that led through protest and blasphemy to the brink of conversion; his attitude is compared with that of Peer Gynt, who got into endless disputes with the Button Moulder. He was trying to befool his interlocutor in order to avoid the shameful fate of being melted from a button without a shank into a usable button. When he realizes his misery, what saves him is Solvejg’s song, resembling a mermaid’s song. However, it does not save him from his doom, it only makes him fall asleep. In this sense it turns out to be the contradiction of the redeeming womanhood; it is a sinister embodiment of womanlike features.

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