The Collector Journal for Swedish Literature Science Research

Klaus Müller-Wille, Jagets skådeplats. Medieteoretiska reflexioner kring Strindbergs Taklagsöl (1906). (The Scene of the I. Media theoretical reflexions on Strindberg’s The roofing Ceremony (1906)). In this essay I show how Strindberg in his “The roofing Ceremony” displays a profound media theoretical consciousness, something that is reflected in the deployment of a series of medial devices in the plot. These media devices are in turn associated with a series of theoretical appre­hensions of the human psyche. Media technologies such as the graphopone, the telephone and pen and paper play crucial roles in the crisis of the subject that Strindberg stages in his story.The notion of a self-sustained psychological identity is constantly challenged by the differ­ent media that surround the protagonist, but also by the inescapable otherness of human lan­guage and the very materiality of the perceptual and mnemonic apparatus itself.These medial devices in turn reflect various contemporary psychological theories, such as psychophysical and protopsychoanalytical notions of the psyche. In this interplay between media technology and psychological theory, however, Strindberg does not simply reproduce current notions on the human mind, but rather reflects them critically.