Harriet Bosse
Encyclopedia
Harriet Sofie Bosse was a Swedish
–Norwegian
actress. A celebrity in her own day, Bosse is today most commonly remembered as the third wife of August Strindberg
, an influential playwright. Bosse began her career in a minor company run by her forceful older sister Alma Fahlstrøm in Kristiania (now Oslo
, the capital of Norway). Having secured an engagement at the Royal Dramatic Theatre
("Dramaten"), the main drama venue of Sweden's capital Stockholm
, Bosse caught the attention of Strindberg with her intelligent acting and exotic "oriental" appearance.
After a whirlwind courtship, which unfolds in detail in Strindberg's letters and diary, Strindberg and Bosse were married in 1901, when he was 51 and she 22. Strindberg wrote a number of major roles for Bosse during their short and stormy relationship, especially in 1900–01, a period of great creativity and productivity for him. Like his previous two marriages, the relationship failed as a result of Strindberg's jealousy, which some biographers have characterized as paranoid
. The spectrum of Strindberg's feelings about Bosse, ranging from worship to rage, is reflected in the roles he wrote for her to play, or as portraits of her. Despite her real-life role as muse
to Strindberg, she remained an independent artist.
Bosse married Swedish actor Anders Gunnar Wingard in 1908, and Swedish screen actor, director, and matinee idol Edvin Adolphson
in 1927. All three of her marriages ended in divorce after a few years, leaving her with a daughter by Strindberg and a son by Wingård. On retiring after a high-profile acting career based in Stockholm, she returned to her roots in Oslo.
, as the thirteenth of fourteen children of Anne-Marie and Johann Heinrich Bosse. Her German father was a publisher and bookseller, and his business led to the family's alternating residence in Kristiania and Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. Bosse was to experience some confusion of national identity throughout her life, and to take the 512 kilometres (318.1 mi) rail trip between the cities many times. A bold, independent child, she first made the journey alone when she was only six years old.
Two of Bosse's older sisters, Alma
(1863–1947) and Dagmar
(1866–1954), were already successful performers when Harriet was a small child. Inspired by these role models, Harriet began her acting career in a Norwegian touring company run by her sister Alma and Alma's husband Johan Fahlstrøm
(1867–1938). Invited to play Juliet in Romeo and Juliet
, the eighteen-year-old Harriet reported in a letter to her sister Inez that she had been paralysed by stage-fright before the premiere, but had then taken delight in the performance, the curtain-calls, and the way people stared at her in the street the next day. Alma was Harriet's first and only—rather authoritarian—acting teacher. Their harmonious and sisterly teacher–pupil relationship became strained when Alma discovered that her husband Johan and Harriet were having an affair. Both Bosse parents were now dead, and Harriet, ordered by Alma to leave, used a modest legacy from her father to finance studies in Stockholm, Copenhagen
, and Paris.
The Paris stage—at that time in dynamic conflict between traditional and experimental production styles—was inspirational for Bosse and convinced her that the low-key realistic acting style in which she was training herself was the right choice. Returning to Scandinavia
, she was hesitant as to whether she should carve out a career in Stockholm, with its greater opportunities, or in Kristiania, to which she had closer emotional ties. In spite of the disadvantage of speaking Swedish with a Norwegian accent, Bosse let herself be persuaded by her opera-singer sister Dagmar to try her luck in Stockholm. She applied for a place at the Royal Dramatic Theatre
("Dramaten"), the main drama venue of Stockholm, governed by the conservative tastes of King Oscar II and his personal advisors. After working hard at elocution
lessons to improve her Swedish, which was Dramaten's condition for employing her, Bosse was eventually to become famous on the Swedish stage for her beautiful speaking voice and precise articulation. Having trained her Swedish to a high level, she was engaged by Dramaten in 1899, where the sensation of the day was the innovative play Gustaf Vasa by August Strindberg.
(1849–1912). Strindberg, an important influence on the development of modern drama, had become nationally known in the 1870s as an angry young socialist muckraker
and had risen to fame with his satire on the Swedish establishment
, The Red Room
(1879). In the 1890s, he had suffered a long and miserable psychotic interlude, known as the "Inferno
Crisis", and, emerging from this ordeal, he remained marked by it. He turned from naturalism
to symbolism
in his prolific literary output, and his convictions and interests at the turn of the 20th century focused less on politics and more on theosophy
, mysticism
, and the occult
. When Bosse met him in 1899–1900, he was, at age 51, at the height of his creative powers, his name "red-hot" on the stage.
Strindberg had the reputation of a misogynist
, something which all of his wives stoutly denied. Bosse wrote in an unpublished statement which she left to her daughter with Strindberg, Anne-Marie: "During the years I knew and was married to Strindberg I saw only a completely natural, kind, honorable, faithful man—a 'gentleman'". However, all of Strindberg's marriages were blighted by his jealousy and a sensitivity which has sometimes been considered paranoid
and delusional.
and radical
with two turbulent marriages already behind him presented an intriguing and irresistible mix to her.
Strindberg was susceptible to strong, independent career women, as well as to dainty, delicate-looking young girls; like his first and second wives—Siri von Essen
and Frida Uhl
—Bosse combined these qualities. He was entranced when he saw the dark, exotic-looking, petite 22-year-old Bosse (who was often cast in sprite
roles or what were conceptualized as "Oriental" roles) play her first major part, an impish Puck
in A Midsummer Night's Dream
. He immediately picked her out as a suitable actress for the part of The Lady in his coming play To Damascus
, and invited her to his bachelor establishment to discuss the role. At this famous first meeting, Strindberg, according to Bosse's narrative of the event, met her at the door all smiles and charm. Offering her wine, flowers, and beautifully arranged fruit, he shared with her his fascination with alchemy
, showing her a golden brown mixture he told her was gold he had made. When she got up to leave, Bosse claims Strindberg asked for the feather in her hat to use for writing his plays. Bosse gave it to him, and he used this feather, with a steel nib insert, to write all his dramas during their marriage. It is now in the Strindberg Museum
in Stockholm.
Strindberg wooed Bosse by sending her books about theosophy and the occult, by attempting to mould her mind, and by furthering her career. Throwing himself into writing plays with central parts he considered suitable for her, he tried to persuade her to act them, and the Dramaten management to cast her in them. Bosse asserts in her edition of the Letters that she tended to hang back, as did the management, being in agreement that she lacked the experience for major and complex roles. Strindberg, a power in the theatre, nevertheless often prevailed. The role of Eleonora in Easter (1901), which intimidated Bosse by its sensitivity and delicacy, but which she finally undertook to play, turned out to be Bosse's most successful and beloved role, and a turning-point in Bosse's and Strindberg's relationship. They became engaged in March 1901, during the rehearsals of Easter, in what in Bosse's narrative may be the best-known incident of the Strindberg legend. Bosse relates how she went to see Strindberg to ask him to give the part to a more experienced actress, but he assured her she would be perfect for it. "Then he placed his hands on my shoulders, looked at me long and ardently, and asked: 'Would you like to have a little child with me, Miss Bosse?' I made a curtsey and answered, as though hypnotized: 'Yes, thank you!'—and we were engaged."
Striving towards the life beyond, Strindberg explained, he could permit nothing in the apartment that would lead the thoughts towards the earthly and material. In her comments in the Letters, Bosse described with loyalty and affection Strindberg's protectiveness and his efforts to bring his young wife with him along his own spiritual paths; nevertheless, she chafed under these efforts, pointing out that she herself, at 22, was not even remotely finished with this world. Increasingly agoraphobic
, Strindberg attempted to overcome his anxieties and allow his young wife the summer excursions she longed for. He planned sunny drives in hired victorias
, but often the mystical "Powers" which governed him intervened. A crisis came as early as June 1901, when Strindberg arranged, and then at the last moment called off, a honeymoon trip to Germany and Switzerland. Bosse wrote in the Letters that she had nothing to do but stay at home and choke down the tears while Strindberg attempted consolation by giving her a Baedeker
"to read a trip in".
The cancelled journey was the beginning of the end. A crying, defiant Bosse went off by herself to the seaside resort Hornbæk
in Denmark
, a much shorter trip, but to her senses, a delightfully refreshing one. There, she was soon followed by Strindberg's letters, full of agonized remorse at having given her pain, and then by Strindberg himself, steeling himself to bear the social life Bosse relished. However, the relationship quickly foundered on jealousy and suspicion, as when Strindberg struck a photographer over the head with his stick, unable to endure any attention to Bosse. In August, when Bosse discovered that she was pregnant, even Strindberg's delight (he was a fond parent of the four children of his previous marriages) could not save a marriage full of distrust and accusation. This was illustrated in Strindberg's increasingly frantic letters to Bosse When their daughter Anne-Marie was born on 25 March 1902, they were already living apart. "For the sake of us both it is best that I do not return", wrote Bosse in a letter to Strindberg. "A continuation of life together with suspicion of every word, every act of mine, would be the end of me." At her insistence, Strindberg began divorce proceedings.
(1900; mainly already written when Bosse and Strindberg met, but used between them to enhance their intimacy); Eleonora in Easter (1901; modelled on Strindberg's sister Elisabeth, but intended for Bosse to star in); Henriette in Crimes and Crimes (1901); Swan White in Swan White (1901); Christina in Queen Christina (1901); and Indra's daughter in A Dream Play
(1902). The years refer to dates of publication; Bosse never played in Swan White, even though Strindberg kept proposing it, and though she was many years later to describe this play as Strindberg's wedding present to her.
Strindberg claimed that Queen Christina was an "explanation" of Bosse's character as being that of an actress in real life, flirtatious and deceitful. In his influential Strindberg biography, Lagercrantz describes this play as a synopsis of the entire course of the Bosse–Strindberg marriage. He sees the courtiers as representing various stages of Strindberg's own emotions: Tott, in the first glow of love; de la Gardie, betrayed but loyal; Oxenstierna, who has rejected her. Each of the three men has words to speak which Strindberg himself had spoken to Bosse.
A Dream Play is positioned at the median
of Strindberg's series of portrayals of his own marriage, the Bosse role imbued with both light and darkness. With its associative dream structure, this play is a milestone of modernist drama, described by Strindberg as a lawless reflection of The Dreamer's (Strindberg's) consciousness, limited only by his imagination which "spins and weaves new patterns… on an insignificant basis of reality". Agnes, played by and representing Bosse, is the daughter of the Vedic
god Indra
, descending to earth to observe human life and bring its disappointments to the attention of her divine father. The "Oriental" aspect of the play is based on Bosse's dark, exotic looks. Yet she is also drawn into mere humanity and into a claustrophobic marriage to The Lawyer, one of the versions of The Dreamer and, thereby, of Strindberg. Shut up indoors by a possessive husband, Agnes can not breathe; she despondently watches the servant working to exclude light and air from the house by pasting insulating strips of paper along the windows' edges. Recognizably, the "insignificant basis of reality" of Agnes' marriage to The Lawyer is the frustration of the newly married Bosse, yearning for fresh air, sunshine, and travel but fobbed off with a Baedeker.
celebrity in her own right. Her independence and self-supporting status gained her a reputation for being strong-willed and opinionated, insisting on, and receiving, high pay and significant roles. She left Dramaten with its conventional repertoire and began working at Albert Ranft
's Swedish Theatre
, where she and the skilful but more modest actor (Anders) Gunnar Wingård (1878–1912) formed a popular co-star team. She travelled frequently, particularly for guest performances in Helsinki
, leaving little Anne-Marie with Strindberg, a competent and affectionate father. In 1907, Bosse made theatrical history as Indra's daughter in Strindberg's epoch-making Dream Play. She and Strindberg met weekly for dinner at his house, and remained lovers until she severed connections in preparation for her marriage with Gunnar Wingård in 1908. In 1909 the Wingårds had a son, Bo. This marriage was also brief, ending in divorce in 1912. According to rumour, the cause of the divorce was Wingård's infidelity. However, Strindberg also heard gossip that Wingård's large debts threatened Bosse's finances.
In 1911, a divorced woman with two children to care for and support, Bosse returned to Dramaten. Strindberg was at that time fatally ill with cancer; he died on 14 May 1912. 1912 was altogether a year of death and disaster for the Bosse and Strindberg families: Alma Fahlstrøm's son Arne went down with the Titanic on 15 April; Strindberg's first wife Siri von Essen died later the same month; von Essen's and Strindberg's daughter Greta, a promising young actress, was killed in a train crash in June; and Bosse's divorced husband Gunnar Wingård shot himself on 7 October. Strindberg's funeral was a national event. Gunnar Wingård, a popular and charming actor, was also the subject of public grief. Throughout these shattering events, which left both her children fatherless, Bosse kept up her busy schedule, apart from a few days off, distraught and grief-stricken, after Wingård's suicide. For months after it, she received anonymous letters and threatening phone-calls, blaming her for Wingård's depression and death.
Bosse's third marriage, 1927–32, was to Edvin Adolphson
(1893–1979), fifteen years her junior. Adolphson had abandoned his stage career in order to become instead a film director and one of the best-known Swedish film actors, a ruggedly handsome matinée idol whose screen persona Nils Beyer referred to as a combination of "apache, gangster
and gigolo
".
Bosse made two films, ambitiously shot and directed and based on novels by well-known writers. The artistic achievement of Sons of Ingmar
(1919) has been highly praised. Directed by and co-starring Victor Sjöström
, it was based on a novel by Swedish Nobel Prize
winner Selma Lagerlöf
; many years later, Ingmar Bergman
referred to Sons of Ingmar as a "magnificent, remarkable film" and acknowledged his own debt to Sjöström. Bosse, who played the female lead Brita, called Sons of Ingmar "the only worthwhile Swedish film I was involved in." However, the film failed to give her career the kind of fresh start that the Swedish film industry had given Edvin Adolphson, and it was seventeen years before she made another film. This was Bombi Bitt and I (1936), her only talkie, based on Fritiof Nilsson Piraten
's popular first novel with the same title and directed by Gösta Rodin. Bombi Bitt was a successful though more lightweight production, with a smaller Bosse role ("Franskan").
brought her economic hardship, and, even though she looked younger than her age, most important women's roles were out of her age range. Her technique was still often praised, but also sometimes perceived as old-fashioned and mannered, in comparison with the more ensemble-oriented style of the times. Finding herself unneeded by any Swedish repertory theatre, she only managed to return as a member of Dramaten by means of skilful persuasion and pointed reminders of her long history there. A humble employee at a humble salary, she played only fifteen roles, all minor, during her last ten years at Dramaten, 1933–43.
Retiring from the stage during World War II, Bosse considered moving back to Norway's capital Oslo, the home of her childhood and youth. Both her children had settled there. The move was delayed for ten years, during which she travelled whenever possible, and when it took place in 1955, she perceived it to be a mistake. Her brother Ewald
's death in 1956 left her the only survivor of the fourteen children of Anne-Marie and Johann Heinrich Bosse. "How I long desperately for Stockholm", she wrote to a friend in 1958. "My whole life is there." She became chronically melancholy, enduring failing health and bitter memories of the final phase of her career at Dramaten.
Bosse always guarded her privacy, so much so that the memoir she wrote of her life with Strindberg was deemed to be too uninterestingly discreet to be publishable.
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
–Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
actress. A celebrity in her own day, Bosse is today most commonly remembered as the third wife of August Strindberg
August Strindberg
Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography,...
, an influential playwright. Bosse began her career in a minor company run by her forceful older sister Alma Fahlstrøm in Kristiania (now Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
, the capital of Norway). Having secured an engagement at the Royal Dramatic Theatre
Royal Dramatic Theatre
The Royal Dramatic Theatre is Sweden's national stage for "spoken drama", founded in 1788. Around one thousand shows are put on annually on the theatre's eight running stages....
("Dramaten"), the main drama venue of Sweden's capital Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, Bosse caught the attention of Strindberg with her intelligent acting and exotic "oriental" appearance.
After a whirlwind courtship, which unfolds in detail in Strindberg's letters and diary, Strindberg and Bosse were married in 1901, when he was 51 and she 22. Strindberg wrote a number of major roles for Bosse during their short and stormy relationship, especially in 1900–01, a period of great creativity and productivity for him. Like his previous two marriages, the relationship failed as a result of Strindberg's jealousy, which some biographers have characterized as paranoid
Paranoia
Paranoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...
. The spectrum of Strindberg's feelings about Bosse, ranging from worship to rage, is reflected in the roles he wrote for her to play, or as portraits of her. Despite her real-life role as muse
Muse
The Muses in Greek mythology, poetry, and literature, are the goddesses who inspire the creation of literature and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge, related orally for centuries in the ancient culture, that was contained in poetic lyrics and myths...
to Strindberg, she remained an independent artist.
Bosse married Swedish actor Anders Gunnar Wingard in 1908, and Swedish screen actor, director, and matinee idol Edvin Adolphson
Edvin Adolphson
Gustav Edvin Adolphson was a Swedish film actor and director who appeared in over 500 roles. He made his debut in 1912...
in 1927. All three of her marriages ended in divorce after a few years, leaving her with a daughter by Strindberg and a son by Wingård. On retiring after a high-profile acting career based in Stockholm, she returned to her roots in Oslo.
Early career
Bosse was born in Norway's capital Kristiania, today called OsloOslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
, as the thirteenth of fourteen children of Anne-Marie and Johann Heinrich Bosse. Her German father was a publisher and bookseller, and his business led to the family's alternating residence in Kristiania and Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. Bosse was to experience some confusion of national identity throughout her life, and to take the 512 kilometres (318.1 mi) rail trip between the cities many times. A bold, independent child, she first made the journey alone when she was only six years old.
Two of Bosse's older sisters, Alma
Alma Fahlstrøm
Alma Isabella Bosse was born in Denmark, and became a well known Norwegian actress and theatre manager together with her husband Johan Fahlstrøm.Their only son, Arne Fahlstrøm, drowned in the Titanic disaster...
(1863–1947) and Dagmar
Dagmar Möller
Dagmar Möller, born Dagmar Henriette Bosse , was a Swedish singer and vocal pedagogue. She was the dedicatee of Edvard Grieg's song cycle Haugtussa and took past in many theatrical productions during her musical career.-Life:Möller studied at the Stockholm Conservatory between 1882 and 1887, and...
(1866–1954), were already successful performers when Harriet was a small child. Inspired by these role models, Harriet began her acting career in a Norwegian touring company run by her sister Alma and Alma's husband Johan Fahlstrøm
Johan Fahlstrøm
Johan Peter Broust Fahlstrøm was born in Trondheim, Norway. He was regarded as Norway's leading male actor before World War I. Fahlstrøm was also a theatre manager, and, together with his wife Alma, he ran the Fahlstrøm's Theatre in Christiania...
(1867–1938). Invited to play Juliet in Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
, the eighteen-year-old Harriet reported in a letter to her sister Inez that she had been paralysed by stage-fright before the premiere, but had then taken delight in the performance, the curtain-calls, and the way people stared at her in the street the next day. Alma was Harriet's first and only—rather authoritarian—acting teacher. Their harmonious and sisterly teacher–pupil relationship became strained when Alma discovered that her husband Johan and Harriet were having an affair. Both Bosse parents were now dead, and Harriet, ordered by Alma to leave, used a modest legacy from her father to finance studies in Stockholm, Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
, and Paris.
The Paris stage—at that time in dynamic conflict between traditional and experimental production styles—was inspirational for Bosse and convinced her that the low-key realistic acting style in which she was training herself was the right choice. Returning to Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
, she was hesitant as to whether she should carve out a career in Stockholm, with its greater opportunities, or in Kristiania, to which she had closer emotional ties. In spite of the disadvantage of speaking Swedish with a Norwegian accent, Bosse let herself be persuaded by her opera-singer sister Dagmar to try her luck in Stockholm. She applied for a place at the Royal Dramatic Theatre
Royal Dramatic Theatre
The Royal Dramatic Theatre is Sweden's national stage for "spoken drama", founded in 1788. Around one thousand shows are put on annually on the theatre's eight running stages....
("Dramaten"), the main drama venue of Stockholm, governed by the conservative tastes of King Oscar II and his personal advisors. After working hard at elocution
Elocution
Elocution is the study of formal speaking in pronunciation, grammar, style, and tone.-History:In Western classical rhetoric, elocution was one of the five core disciplines of pronunciation, which was the art of delivering speeches. Orators were trained not only on proper diction, but on the proper...
lessons to improve her Swedish, which was Dramaten's condition for employing her, Bosse was eventually to become famous on the Swedish stage for her beautiful speaking voice and precise articulation. Having trained her Swedish to a high level, she was engaged by Dramaten in 1899, where the sensation of the day was the innovative play Gustaf Vasa by August Strindberg.
August Strindberg
Although Bosse was a successful professional, she is chiefly remembered as the third wife of Swedish dramatist August StrindbergAugust Strindberg
Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography,...
(1849–1912). Strindberg, an important influence on the development of modern drama, had become nationally known in the 1870s as an angry young socialist muckraker
Muckraker
The term muckraker is closely associated with reform-oriented journalists who wrote largely for popular magazines, continued a tradition of investigative journalism reporting, and emerged in the United States after 1900 and continued to be influential until World War I, when through a combination...
and had risen to fame with his satire on the Swedish establishment
The Establishment
The Establishment is a term used to refer to a visible dominant group or elite that holds power or authority in a nation. The term suggests a closed social group which selects its own members...
, The Red Room
The Red Room (Strindberg)
The Red Room is a Swedish novel by August Strindberg that was first published in 1879. A satire of Stockholm society, it has frequently been described as the first modern Swedish novel. While receiving mixed reviews in Sweden, it was acclaimed in Denmark, where Strindberg was hailed as a genius. ...
(1879). In the 1890s, he had suffered a long and miserable psychotic interlude, known as the "Inferno
Inferno (Strindberg)
Inferno is an autobiographical novel by August Strindberg. Written in French in 1896-97 at the height of Strindberg's troubles with both censors and women, the book is concerned with Strindberg's life both in and after he lived in Paris, and explores his various obsessions, including alchemy,...
Crisis", and, emerging from this ordeal, he remained marked by it. He turned from naturalism
Naturalism (literature)
Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character...
to symbolism
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
in his prolific literary output, and his convictions and interests at the turn of the 20th century focused less on politics and more on theosophy
Theosophy
Theosophy, in its modern presentation, is a spiritual philosophy developed since the late 19th century. Its major themes were originally described mainly by Helena Blavatsky , co-founder of the Theosophical Society...
, mysticism
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
, and the occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
. When Bosse met him in 1899–1900, he was, at age 51, at the height of his creative powers, his name "red-hot" on the stage.
Strindberg had the reputation of a misogynist
Misogyny
Misogyny is the hatred or dislike of women or girls. Philogyny, meaning fondness, love or admiration towards women, is the antonym of misogyny. The term misandry is the term for men that is parallel to misogyny...
, something which all of his wives stoutly denied. Bosse wrote in an unpublished statement which she left to her daughter with Strindberg, Anne-Marie: "During the years I knew and was married to Strindberg I saw only a completely natural, kind, honorable, faithful man—a 'gentleman'". However, all of Strindberg's marriages were blighted by his jealousy and a sensitivity which has sometimes been considered paranoid
Paranoia
Paranoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...
and delusional.
Courtship
Bosse later published Strindberg's letters from their courtship and marriage. Incidents narrated in those letters and in Bosse's own interspersed comments have been analysed at length by biographers and psychiatrists, and have become part of the "Strindberg legend". Even before their first meeting, Bosse had been inspired by the newness and freshness of Strindberg's pioneering plays; an iconoclastIconoclasm
Iconoclasm is the deliberate destruction of religious icons and other symbols or monuments, usually with religious or political motives. It is a frequent component of major political or religious changes...
and radical
Radical left
Radical left is a term used in the names of several political movements:* Det Radikale Venstre, a social-liberal party in Denmark* Radical Party of the Left , a social-liberal party in France...
with two turbulent marriages already behind him presented an intriguing and irresistible mix to her.
Strindberg was susceptible to strong, independent career women, as well as to dainty, delicate-looking young girls; like his first and second wives—Siri von Essen
Siri von Essen
Siri von Essen was a Swedish-speaking Finnish noblewoman and actress. She was married to Baron Carl Gustaf Wrangel between 1872–76, with whom she had a daughter, Sigrid. After their divorce, she married the Swedish dramatist and writer August Strindberg; they were married between 1877–91...
and Frida Uhl
Frida Uhl
Frida Uhl was an Austrian writer and translator, who was closely associated to many important figures in 20th-century literature. She was married to August Strindberg. She was the daughter of the well-known Friedrich Uhl, editor of the Wiener Zeitung, and Maria Uhl, a devout Catholic...
—Bosse combined these qualities. He was entranced when he saw the dark, exotic-looking, petite 22-year-old Bosse (who was often cast in sprite
Sprite (creature)
The term sprite is a broad term referring to a number of preternatural legendary creatures. The term is generally used in reference to elf-like creatures, including fairies, and similar beings , but can also signify various spiritual beings, including ghosts. In Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl books,...
roles or what were conceptualized as "Oriental" roles) play her first major part, an impish Puck
Puck (Shakespeare)
Puck, also known as Robin Goodfellow, is a character in William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream that was based on the ancient figure in English mythology, also called Puck. Puck is a clever and mischievous elf and personifies the trickster or the wise knave...
in A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...
. He immediately picked her out as a suitable actress for the part of The Lady in his coming play To Damascus
To Damascus
To Damascus , also known as The Road to Damascus, is a trilogy of plays by the Swedish playwright August Strindberg. The first two parts were published in 1898, with the third following in 1904...
, and invited her to his bachelor establishment to discuss the role. At this famous first meeting, Strindberg, according to Bosse's narrative of the event, met her at the door all smiles and charm. Offering her wine, flowers, and beautifully arranged fruit, he shared with her his fascination with alchemy
Alchemy
Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...
, showing her a golden brown mixture he told her was gold he had made. When she got up to leave, Bosse claims Strindberg asked for the feather in her hat to use for writing his plays. Bosse gave it to him, and he used this feather, with a steel nib insert, to write all his dramas during their marriage. It is now in the Strindberg Museum
Strindberg Museum
The Strindberg Museum is a museum in Stockholm, Sweden, dedicated to the writer August Strindberg and located in his last dwelling, in the house he nicknamed the "Blå tornet" on 85, Drottninggatan, at the corner of Drottninggatan and Tegnérgatan on Norrmalm, Stockholm...
in Stockholm.
Strindberg wooed Bosse by sending her books about theosophy and the occult, by attempting to mould her mind, and by furthering her career. Throwing himself into writing plays with central parts he considered suitable for her, he tried to persuade her to act them, and the Dramaten management to cast her in them. Bosse asserts in her edition of the Letters that she tended to hang back, as did the management, being in agreement that she lacked the experience for major and complex roles. Strindberg, a power in the theatre, nevertheless often prevailed. The role of Eleonora in Easter (1901), which intimidated Bosse by its sensitivity and delicacy, but which she finally undertook to play, turned out to be Bosse's most successful and beloved role, and a turning-point in Bosse's and Strindberg's relationship. They became engaged in March 1901, during the rehearsals of Easter, in what in Bosse's narrative may be the best-known incident of the Strindberg legend. Bosse relates how she went to see Strindberg to ask him to give the part to a more experienced actress, but he assured her she would be perfect for it. "Then he placed his hands on my shoulders, looked at me long and ardently, and asked: 'Would you like to have a little child with me, Miss Bosse?' I made a curtsey and answered, as though hypnotized: 'Yes, thank you!'—and we were engaged."
Marriage and divorce
Bosse and Strindberg were married on 6 May 1901. Strindberg insisted that Bosse bring none of her possessions to the home he had furnished for her, creating a "setting in which to nurture and dominate her". In this setting, his taste in interior decoration was revealed to be Oscarian and old-fashioned, with pedestals, aspidistras, and dining-room furniture in hideous imitation of German renaissance, to Bosse's modern judgment.Agoraphobia
Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder defined as a morbid fear of having a panic attack or panic-like symptoms in a situation from which it is perceived to be difficult to escape. These situations can include, but are not limited to, wide-open spaces, crowds, or uncontrolled social conditions...
, Strindberg attempted to overcome his anxieties and allow his young wife the summer excursions she longed for. He planned sunny drives in hired victorias
Victoria (carriage)
The victoria was an elegant French carriage, possibly based on a phaeton made for King George IV of the United Kingdom. A victoria may be visualised as essentially a phaeton with the addition of a coachman's box-seat....
, but often the mystical "Powers" which governed him intervened. A crisis came as early as June 1901, when Strindberg arranged, and then at the last moment called off, a honeymoon trip to Germany and Switzerland. Bosse wrote in the Letters that she had nothing to do but stay at home and choke down the tears while Strindberg attempted consolation by giving her a Baedeker
Baedeker
Verlag Karl Baedeker is a Germany-based publisher and pioneer in the business of worldwide travel guides. The guides, often referred as simply "Baedekers" , contain important introductions, descriptions of buildings, of museum collections, etc., written by the best specialists, and...
"to read a trip in".
The cancelled journey was the beginning of the end. A crying, defiant Bosse went off by herself to the seaside resort Hornbæk
Hornbæk
Hornbæk is a seaside resort town on the north coast of the Danish island of Zealand, facing the Øresund which separates Denmark from Sweden. It is part of Helsingør Municipality and is located 12 km north-west of Elsinore, and is mainly known for its mundane holiday homes and broad sandy beaches.As...
in Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, a much shorter trip, but to her senses, a delightfully refreshing one. There, she was soon followed by Strindberg's letters, full of agonized remorse at having given her pain, and then by Strindberg himself, steeling himself to bear the social life Bosse relished. However, the relationship quickly foundered on jealousy and suspicion, as when Strindberg struck a photographer over the head with his stick, unable to endure any attention to Bosse. In August, when Bosse discovered that she was pregnant, even Strindberg's delight (he was a fond parent of the four children of his previous marriages) could not save a marriage full of distrust and accusation. This was illustrated in Strindberg's increasingly frantic letters to Bosse When their daughter Anne-Marie was born on 25 March 1902, they were already living apart. "For the sake of us both it is best that I do not return", wrote Bosse in a letter to Strindberg. "A continuation of life together with suspicion of every word, every act of mine, would be the end of me." At her insistence, Strindberg began divorce proceedings.
Strindberg's roles for Bosse
The relationship of Strindberg and Bosse was highly dramatic. Strindberg would lurch back and forth from adoration of Bosse as the regenerator of his creativity ("lovely, amiable, and kind") to a wild jealousy (calling her "a small, nasty woman", "evil", "stupid", "black", "arrogant", "venomous", and "whore"). His letters show that Bosse inspired several important characters in his plays, especially during the course of 1901, and that he manipulated her by promising to pull strings so that she could play them. During the brief, intense, creative 1901 period, the roles Strindberg wrote as artistic vehicles for Bosse, or that were based on their relationship, reflect this combination of adoration and "suspicion of every word, every act". Carla Waal counts eight minor and six major roles written for Bosse to act, or as portraits of her, several of them classics of Western theatre history. The major roles enumerated by Waal are The Lady in To DamascusTo Damascus
To Damascus , also known as The Road to Damascus, is a trilogy of plays by the Swedish playwright August Strindberg. The first two parts were published in 1898, with the third following in 1904...
(1900; mainly already written when Bosse and Strindberg met, but used between them to enhance their intimacy); Eleonora in Easter (1901; modelled on Strindberg's sister Elisabeth, but intended for Bosse to star in); Henriette in Crimes and Crimes (1901); Swan White in Swan White (1901); Christina in Queen Christina (1901); and Indra's daughter in A Dream Play
A Dream Play
A Dream Play was written in 1901 by the Swedish playwright August Strindberg. It was first performed in Stockholm on 17 April 1907. It remains one of Strindberg's most admired and influential dramas, seen as an important precursor to both dramatic Expressionism and Surrealism.-Plot:The primary...
(1902). The years refer to dates of publication; Bosse never played in Swan White, even though Strindberg kept proposing it, and though she was many years later to describe this play as Strindberg's wedding present to her.
Strindberg claimed that Queen Christina was an "explanation" of Bosse's character as being that of an actress in real life, flirtatious and deceitful. In his influential Strindberg biography, Lagercrantz describes this play as a synopsis of the entire course of the Bosse–Strindberg marriage. He sees the courtiers as representing various stages of Strindberg's own emotions: Tott, in the first glow of love; de la Gardie, betrayed but loyal; Oxenstierna, who has rejected her. Each of the three men has words to speak which Strindberg himself had spoken to Bosse.
A Dream Play is positioned at the median
Median
In probability theory and statistics, a median is described as the numerical value separating the higher half of a sample, a population, or a probability distribution, from the lower half. The median of a finite list of numbers can be found by arranging all the observations from lowest value to...
of Strindberg's series of portrayals of his own marriage, the Bosse role imbued with both light and darkness. With its associative dream structure, this play is a milestone of modernist drama, described by Strindberg as a lawless reflection of The Dreamer's (Strindberg's) consciousness, limited only by his imagination which "spins and weaves new patterns… on an insignificant basis of reality". Agnes, played by and representing Bosse, is the daughter of the Vedic
Historical Vedic religion
The religion of the Vedic period is a historical predecessor of Hinduism. Its liturgy is reflected in the mantra portion of the four Vedas, which are compiled in Sanskrit. The religious practices centered on a clergy administering rites...
god Indra
Indra
' or is the King of the demi-gods or Devas and Lord of Heaven or Svargaloka in Hindu mythology. He is also the God of War, Storms, and Rainfall.Indra is one of the chief deities in the Rigveda...
, descending to earth to observe human life and bring its disappointments to the attention of her divine father. The "Oriental" aspect of the play is based on Bosse's dark, exotic looks. Yet she is also drawn into mere humanity and into a claustrophobic marriage to The Lawyer, one of the versions of The Dreamer and, thereby, of Strindberg. Shut up indoors by a possessive husband, Agnes can not breathe; she despondently watches the servant working to exclude light and air from the house by pasting insulating strips of paper along the windows' edges. Recognizably, the "insignificant basis of reality" of Agnes' marriage to The Lawyer is the frustration of the newly married Bosse, yearning for fresh air, sunshine, and travel but fobbed off with a Baedeker.
Independence
Both before and after the divorce from Strindberg, Bosse was a StockholmStockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
celebrity in her own right. Her independence and self-supporting status gained her a reputation for being strong-willed and opinionated, insisting on, and receiving, high pay and significant roles. She left Dramaten with its conventional repertoire and began working at Albert Ranft
Albert Ranft
Albert Adam Ranft was a Swedish theatre director and actor. Ranft debuted in the theatre company of Magda von Dolcke in 1876. He started his own travelling company in 1884 and was employed at Stora Teatern in Gothenburg from 1886...
's Swedish Theatre
Swedish Theatre (Stockholm)
The Swedish Theatre in Stockholm was, at the beginning of the 20th century, Sweden's largest dramatic theatre. During its years in use, from 1875 to 1925, it was often considered as Sweden's foremost national theatre...
, where she and the skilful but more modest actor (Anders) Gunnar Wingård (1878–1912) formed a popular co-star team. She travelled frequently, particularly for guest performances in Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
, leaving little Anne-Marie with Strindberg, a competent and affectionate father. In 1907, Bosse made theatrical history as Indra's daughter in Strindberg's epoch-making Dream Play. She and Strindberg met weekly for dinner at his house, and remained lovers until she severed connections in preparation for her marriage with Gunnar Wingård in 1908. In 1909 the Wingårds had a son, Bo. This marriage was also brief, ending in divorce in 1912. According to rumour, the cause of the divorce was Wingård's infidelity. However, Strindberg also heard gossip that Wingård's large debts threatened Bosse's finances.
In 1911, a divorced woman with two children to care for and support, Bosse returned to Dramaten. Strindberg was at that time fatally ill with cancer; he died on 14 May 1912. 1912 was altogether a year of death and disaster for the Bosse and Strindberg families: Alma Fahlstrøm's son Arne went down with the Titanic on 15 April; Strindberg's first wife Siri von Essen died later the same month; von Essen's and Strindberg's daughter Greta, a promising young actress, was killed in a train crash in June; and Bosse's divorced husband Gunnar Wingård shot himself on 7 October. Strindberg's funeral was a national event. Gunnar Wingård, a popular and charming actor, was also the subject of public grief. Throughout these shattering events, which left both her children fatherless, Bosse kept up her busy schedule, apart from a few days off, distraught and grief-stricken, after Wingård's suicide. For months after it, she received anonymous letters and threatening phone-calls, blaming her for Wingård's depression and death.
Bosse's third marriage, 1927–32, was to Edvin Adolphson
Edvin Adolphson
Gustav Edvin Adolphson was a Swedish film actor and director who appeared in over 500 roles. He made his debut in 1912...
(1893–1979), fifteen years her junior. Adolphson had abandoned his stage career in order to become instead a film director and one of the best-known Swedish film actors, a ruggedly handsome matinée idol whose screen persona Nils Beyer referred to as a combination of "apache, gangster
Gangster
A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Some gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from mob and the suffix -ster....
and gigolo
Male prostitution
Male prostitution is the practice of engaging in sexual acts for money. Compared to female sex workers, male sex workers have been far less studied by researchers, and while studies suggest that there are differences between the ways these two groups look at their work, more research is needed.Male...
".
Bosse made two films, ambitiously shot and directed and based on novels by well-known writers. The artistic achievement of Sons of Ingmar
Sons of Ingmar
Sons of Ingmar is a 1919 Swedish drama film directed by Victor Sjöström. It is the first part of his adaption of Selma Lagerlöf's novel Jerusalem, originally published 1901-1902. It was followed by a second part, Karin, Daughter of Ingmar, the following year...
(1919) has been highly praised. Directed by and co-starring Victor Sjöström
Victor Sjöström
Victor Sjöström was a Swedish actor, screenwriter, and film director.- Biography:Born in Silbodal, in the Värmland region of Sweden, he was only a year old when his father, Olof Adolf Sjöström, moved the family to Brooklyn, New York. His mother died when he was seven years old in 1886...
, it was based on a novel by Swedish Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize in Literature
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
winner Selma Lagerlöf
Selma Lagerlöf
Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf was a Swedish author. She was the first female writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and most widely known for her children's book Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige ....
; many years later, Ingmar Bergman
Ingmar Bergman
Ernst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish director, writer and producer for film, stage and television. Described by Woody Allen as "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera", he is recognized as one of the most accomplished and...
referred to Sons of Ingmar as a "magnificent, remarkable film" and acknowledged his own debt to Sjöström. Bosse, who played the female lead Brita, called Sons of Ingmar "the only worthwhile Swedish film I was involved in." However, the film failed to give her career the kind of fresh start that the Swedish film industry had given Edvin Adolphson, and it was seventeen years before she made another film. This was Bombi Bitt and I (1936), her only talkie, based on Fritiof Nilsson Piraten
Fritiof Nilsson Piraten
Fritiof Nilsson Piraten , born Nils Fritiof Adam Nilsson was a Swedish author, from the south-most province Skåne, which plays an important role in many of his books....
's popular first novel with the same title and directed by Gösta Rodin. Bombi Bitt was a successful though more lightweight production, with a smaller Bosse role ("Franskan").
Retirement
After many years of ambitious and successful free-lance acting, Bosse found her options narrowing in the 1930s. The Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
brought her economic hardship, and, even though she looked younger than her age, most important women's roles were out of her age range. Her technique was still often praised, but also sometimes perceived as old-fashioned and mannered, in comparison with the more ensemble-oriented style of the times. Finding herself unneeded by any Swedish repertory theatre, she only managed to return as a member of Dramaten by means of skilful persuasion and pointed reminders of her long history there. A humble employee at a humble salary, she played only fifteen roles, all minor, during her last ten years at Dramaten, 1933–43.
Retiring from the stage during World War II, Bosse considered moving back to Norway's capital Oslo, the home of her childhood and youth. Both her children had settled there. The move was delayed for ten years, during which she travelled whenever possible, and when it took place in 1955, she perceived it to be a mistake. Her brother Ewald
Ewald Bosse
Ewald Theodor Alfred Bosse was a Swedish-Norwegian sociologist and economist.He was born in Stockholm as a son of bookseller and publisher Johan Heinrich Wilhelm Bosse and Anne-Marie Lehmann...
's death in 1956 left her the only survivor of the fourteen children of Anne-Marie and Johann Heinrich Bosse. "How I long desperately for Stockholm", she wrote to a friend in 1958. "My whole life is there." She became chronically melancholy, enduring failing health and bitter memories of the final phase of her career at Dramaten.
Bosse always guarded her privacy, so much so that the memoir she wrote of her life with Strindberg was deemed to be too uninterestingly discreet to be publishable.
External links
- The Strindberg Museum in Stockholm