Mummies, vampires, and metaphors of "other ghostly vermin" inhabit the dream plays of Strindberg (1849-1912), a source of the Theatre of the Absurd. Countering critics who claim that The Ghost
Sonata (1907) lacks coherence or merely link it to the playwright's biography, Converse (theatre, Washington State U.) offers a psychoanalytically-based critical analysis that champions this
enigmatic play as offering both thematic and symbolic congruence. Presenting his definition of the grotesque among other theories, his textual analysis probes such themes as the collapse of the
child's house, from shadow to sun, and anima as mirror. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.
