Semiconducting Dictionary (Our Strindberg), The

?The Semiconducting Dictionary: Our Strindberg is a playful original re-
visioning of the life of notorious misogynist and modern drama master August
Strindberg, mixing prose and poetry of various forms from different historical
periods including straightforward lyric, found poetry, haibun, list poems,
magic spells, and alchemical recipes to construct a portrait and to tell a
story. August Strindberg is a hotly debated figure, a master of the Modern
theatre and a contemporary of Ibsen; the influence of Strindberg's work
continues to this day. However, in contemporary times his often outrageous
misanthropy and misogyny (he claimed that women were demons) have been
variously apologized for as poetic licence, self-portrait, critical posture,
or simply mistaken (how could he be a misogynist when there were so many women
in his life?). Caple contributes to the apologist literature surrounding him
by pretending that he was actually a woman playwright living as a man and his
supposed hatred either part of the disguise or else self-loathing. By
embracing Strindberg, Caple is able to highlight the excessive beauty of human
complications and to represent a world at the end of the enlightenment, as the
magic of the church gave way to the magic of the sciences.