(Robert David MacDonald’s majestic version of Ibsen’s poem...)
Robert David MacDonald’s majestic version of Ibsen’s poem-drama about the triumph of will over compromise. Brand, a fiery priest-hero, urges his flock to sacrifice their lives to save their souls.
(The play is significant for its critical attitude toward ...)
The play is significant for its critical attitude toward 19th century marriage norms. It aroused great controversy at the time, as it concludes with the protagonist, Nora, leaving her husband and children because she wants to discover herself.
(In Ghosts, the playwright assailed the hypocrisy of moral...)
In Ghosts, the playwright assailed the hypocrisy of moral codes, offering a daring treatment of such then-taboo issues as infidelity, venereal disease, and illegitimacy. Ibsen substituted the modern scientific idea of heredity for the ancient Greek concept of fate, exposing hidden sins of the past as the roots of corruption.
(In this powerful work, Ibsen places his main characters, ...)
In this powerful work, Ibsen places his main characters, Dr. Thomas Stockman, in the role of an enlightened and persecuted minority of one confronting an ignorant, powerful majority. When the physician learns that the famous and financially successful baths in his hometown are contaminated, he insists they be shut down for expensive repairs. For his honesty, he is persecuted, ridiculed, and declared an "enemy of the people" by the townspeople, included some who have been his closest allies.
(A masterpiece of modern theater, Hedda Gabler is a dark p...)
A masterpiece of modern theater, Hedda Gabler is a dark psychological drama whose powerful and reckless heroine has tested the mettle of leading actresses of every generation since its first production in Norway in 1890.
(First performed in 1892, this psychological drama is one ...)
First performed in 1892, this psychological drama is one of the great Norwegian playwright's most symbolic and lyrical works. The drama explores the insecurities of an aging architect, Halvard Solness, who suspects that his creative powers have diminished with age.
Henrik Ibsen was a Norwegian playwright who developed realistic techniques that changed the entire course of Western drama. There is very little in modern drama that does not owe a debt to him.
Background
Henrik Ibsen was born on March 20, 1828 in Skien, the oldest of five children. His father, Knud Ibsen, was a successful merchant and his mother, Marichen Ibsen, painted, played the piano and loved to go to the theater. His father went bankrupt when Henrik was 8, a shattering blow to the family. Nearly all traces of their previous affluence had to be sold off to cover debts, and the family moved to a rundown farm near town. There Ibsen spent much of his time reading, painting and performing magic tricks.
Education
Due to his family's poor financial status, Ibsen had to stop school shortly after his fifteenth birthday and moved to a small town, Grimstad, where he took up a job as an assistant to an apothecary (pharmacist).
During his six years stay in Grimstad, he devoted his free time to reading, writing and painting. He also stole time for artistic pursuits - performing magic tricks, puppet shows, caricatures, and satirical poems. He continued producing caricatures and satires in Grimstad but also advanced to more mature paintings, mainly landscapes. For a while he seriously considered becoming a professional painter.
In 1850, Ibsen went to Christiania (later renamed Kristiania and then Oslo) hoping to continue his studies at Christiania University. He failed the Greek and mathematics portions of the entrance examinations, however, and was not admitted. During this time, he read and wrote poetry, which he would later say came more easily to him than prose.
Career
Ibsen's first play, the tragedy Catilina or Catiline (1850), was published under the pseudonym Brynjolf Bjarme, when he was only 22. Although this work generated little interest and was not produced until several years later, it evidenced Ibsen's emerging concerns with the conflict between guilt and desire.
In 1851 Ibsen became resident dramatist, later director, of a new theater in Bergen. Although he never became a good director and his plays were mostly unsuccessful, the years in Bergen gave him invaluable experience in practical stagecraft. In May of the same year, he published his second play, The Burial Mound and just like Catilina, The Burial Mound failed to receive much attention. However, unlike Catilina, it was performed in the theatre. In similar fashion, several of his plays after The Burial Mound were hugely unsuccessful. But Ibsen remained determined to succeed as an author.
Having failed to impress as a playwright, Ibsen took up another job as a director and producer at Det norske Theater (Bergen), where he was involved in the production of more than 145 plays. The experience he gathered in his years at Bergen served him later in life when he became the creative director of Kristiania Theatre. In 1858, he returned to Kristiania and became the creative director of the Kristiania Theatre.
Still living in financial difficulties despite his position at the theatre, Ibsen left Kristiania for Sorrento in Italy in 1864 and in 1865 his play, Brand was published. Brand was Ibsen's first play to receive critical acclaim and huge financial success. This play made Ibsen famous and acknowledged as a playwright. The success of Brand brought to an end an era of failure for Ibsen and ushered in the golden era in the life of Ibsen for after this play he regained the confidence he had lost as a playwright. Brand is a five-act tragedy about a clergyman whose feverish devotion to his faith costs him his family and ultimately his life.
Two years after the publication of Brand, he published yet another successful play, Peer Gynt in 1867. At the peak of his career, in 1868, Ibsen moved to Germany where he wrote his two most famous works The Pillars of Society and A Doll's House. The Pillars of Society was his first play to be performed in Munich and helped launch his career in Munich. A Doll's House was published in 1879. In his usual fashion he had used this play as a tool to question the accepted social practices at the time. This had stirred up controversy and debate throughout Europe for exploration of Nora's struggle with the traditional roles of wife and mother and her own need for self-exploration.
Not moved by the controversy generated by A Doll’s House, his next work, Ghosts, released in 1881 stirred up even more controversy by publicly displaying the consequences of covering up immoralities and licentiousness by parents. Many critics viewed the play as a descretion of the sacred institution of marriage and family and termed Ibsen a bad old man.
Not deterred by criticisms, Ibsen wrote yet another controversial piece in 1882, An Enemy of the People. This time, he focused the play on a medical practitioner, Doctor Stockmann, charged with inspecting the general public baths on that the prosperity of his native city depends. Being a sincere man, he refused to hide the reality regarding the state of the general public baths and also the contaminated water employed in the baths and for his sincerity he was formally declared 'An Enemy of the People' by his community. However, in 1884 he wrote a more socially acceptable piece, The Wild Duck. Unlike his previous works, Ibsen completely reversed his viewpoint in this stage play. The plot is on a poor however happy family whose ethical foundations were weakened by a young man, Gregers Werle, leaving them shattered and hopeless by guilt. In 1886 he wrote Rosmersholm, a play that resulted in the double suicide of the protagonist, Rosmerand the antagonist, Rebecca. When penning this play, he spent a few years in Germany and eventually rapt back to Norway in 1891 where he spent the remaining years of his life writing plays. On May 23, 1906, Ibsen died in his home at Arbins gade 1 in Cristiania (now Oslo) after a series of strokes in March 1900.
During his time, Ibsen very much disliked Parliamentarism of the 1880s. He left Norway and expressed his views through work. An example is Enemy of the People, where he depicts how the collective society is dominant but evil and individuals must conform to survive.
Ibsen often criticised conservatism and liberalism. He disliked the philosophy that the act of preserving things as they are in society leads to stability. He showed that liberty is something society lacks but individuals should struggle to achieve.
Views
Ibsen's writing style criticises the Victorian society of his time where there was gender inequality. Ibsen emphasises realism and naturalism to portray his perspective on society, as his writing is often direct. The plots of his works usually have social morals that oppose the social norms and conventions.
For example, in his A Doll's House, Ibsen conveys the theme of individualism through Nora, who breaks free from her marriage with Torvald, a rich and powerful man who treats her like a doll. There are also themes of struggle for power, corruption, survival, gender roles, and sacrifice. The conflicts shown are man against society, man against man, and also man against self. The play Ghosts portrays how corrupted love in marriage will lead to a life of lies, similar to the speech Torvald gave, describing Krogstad. He says that corruption will infect the family, passed on to the children, then their children. However, in this play, the theme is literal where the infection is a venereal disease.
Quotations:
"It is the very mark of the spirit of rebellion to crave for happiness in this life."
"I don't imagine you will dispute the fact that at present the stupid people are in an absolutely overwhelming majority all the world over."
"You see, the point is that the strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone."
"You have never loved me. You have only thought it pleasant to be in love with me."
"A thousand words leave not the same deep impression as does a single deed."
"The majority is never right. Never, I tell you! That's one of these lies in society that no free and intelligent man can help rebelling against. Who are the people that make up the biggest proportion of the population - the intelligent ones or the fools?"
"You see, there are some people that one loves, and others that perhaps one would rather be with."
"I must make up my mind which is right – society or I."
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
"Henrik Ibsen was a profound poetic dramatist - the best since Shakespeare." - Richard Hornby
Connections
In 1858 Ibsen married Suzannah Thoresen and she soon gave birth to their only child, Sigurd. Ibsen also had a son from an earlier relationship. He had fathered a child with a maid in 1846 while working as an apprentice. While he provided some financial support, Ibsen never met the boy.
Henrik Ibsen: The Man and the Mask
This is the first full-scale biography to take a literary as well as historical approach to the works, life, and times of Ibsen. Ivo de Figueiredo shows how, as a man, Ibsen was drawn toward authoritarianism, was absolute in his judgments over others, and resisted the ideas of equality and human rights that formed the bases of the emerging democracies in Europe. And yet as an artist, he advanced debates about the modern individual’s freedom and responsibility - and cultivated his own image accordingly. Where other biographies try to show how the artist creates the art, this book reveals how, in Ibsen’s case, the art shaped the artist.