Many authors have, of course, dealt with the profoundest problems
of humanity without, on that account, having been able to evoke our
interest. There may have been too much philosophy and too little
art in the presentation of the subject, too little reality and too
much soaring into the heights. That is not so with Strindberg's
drama. It is a trenchant settling of accounts between a complex and
fascinating individual--the author--and his past, and the realistic
scenes have often been transplanted in detail from his own
changeful life.

In order fully to understand _The Road to Damascus_ it is therefore
essential to know at least the most important features of that
background of real life, out of which the drama has grown.

Parts I and II of the trilogy were written in 1898, while Part III
was added somewhat later, in the years 1900-1901. In 1898
Strindberg had only half emerged from what was by far the severest
of the many crises through which in his troubled life he had to
pass. He had overcome the worst period of terror, which had brought
him dangerously near the borders of sanity, and he felt as if he
could again open his eyes and breathe freely. He was not free from
that nervous pressure under which he had been working, but the
worst of the inner tension had relaxed and he felt the need of
taking a survey of what had happened, of summarising and trying to
fathom what could have been underlying his apparently unaccountable
experiences. The literary outcome of this settling of accounts with
the past was _The Road to Damascus_.

_The Road to Damascus_ might be termed a marriage drama, a mystery