Background

Rolf Gerhard Fjelde was born on March 15, 1926, in Brooklyn, New York, United States. He was a son of Paul Fjelde, a noted sculptor, and Amy Fjelde. His grandfather was the Norwegian-born sculptor Jacob Fjelde. Rolf Fjelde grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Education

Rolf Gerhard Fjelde was educated in Greenwich public schools. He was a student at Yale University, where he received his bachelor's degree in 1946 before going to Cambridge University to earn his master's degree in 1947. He also attended the Pratt Institute, Copenhagen University, and the University of Heidelberg during the early 1950s, and the University of Oslo in 1965.

Career

Rolf Gerhard Fjelde was the founding editor of the Yale Poetry Review (1945-1949), the founding editor of Poetry New York (1949-1951) as well as the founding editor of Ibsen News and Comment (1980-1986). Fjelde began his career as an advertising copywriter in New York City from 1948 to 1950, followed by two years as a senior copywriter and editorial assistant for Outdoor Life magazine. In 1954, he joined the Pratt Institute's faculty as a professor of drama and literature and taught until his retirement in 1997. He also taught at Juilliard beginning in 1973.

Of Norwegian ancestry, Fjelde became fascinated by the plays of Henrik Johan Ibsen, first translating The Wild Duck in 1956 for a production at the Pratt Institute. This first success led to two translations of Ibsen's Peer Gynt (1964 and 1980), and the translated volumes Four Major Plays (Volume 1, 1965, Volume 2, 1970) and The Complete Major Prose Plays (1978). His dominance in the field was such that, when J.C. Compton founded the Ibsen Series Off-Broadway in 1998 with the intention of mounting each of the master's plays, she used a Fjelde translation every time. Other prominent productions of his work include a 1981 staging of John Gabriel Borkman at Circle in the Square, Peer Gynt at Classic Stage Company Repertory Off-Broadway, also in 1981, and The Wild Duck, presented in a hailed 1984 staged reading at the American Place Theatre. In addition to his translation work, Fjelde edited collections of Ibsen's writings. A lover of poetry, he also wrote such verse as The Rope Walk (1967), Rafferty One by One (1975), and The Bellini Look (1982).

Achievements

• In 1991, the King of Norway honored Rolf Gerhard Fjelde with the medal of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav and in 1993 the American Academy of Arts and Letters presented him with its Award in Literature. Rolf Fjelde's translations are used for many of Henrik Johan Ibsen productions staged across the United States. Critic Harold Clurman called Fjelde's translations of Ibsen "the truest to the original and unexcelled for theatrical performance."

Works

More photos

• book

  • Ibsen: Four Major Plays

    (Builder Among the greatest and best known of Ibsen's work...)

    1965
  • Ibsen: Four Major Plays

    (The foremost dramatist of his age, Ibsen changed theatre ...)

    1970
  • Ibsen: A Collection of Critical Essays

    (Modern critics analyze the Norwegian playwright's style a...)

    1965

Views

Rolf Gerhard Fjelde quoted Ibsen on the art of translation: ''I believe that a translator should employ the style which the original author would have used if he had written in the language of those who are to read him in translation.'' He was critical of some Ibsen translations from the past, and of freehand adaptations, calling them ''larceny by pastiche.'' For Fjelde, it was important that Ibsen speak directly to a contemporary American audience. In describing his own approach, he emphasized his command of what he called ''Ibsenese,'' his familiarity with the world and creativity of the playwright. Fjelde was proud of his Norwegian heritage - and of his theatrical background. ''I speak the language,'' he said. ''I've been a playwright and a poet. I've worked with actors for years. I've delved into the Norwegian culture of Ibsen's period. And that's what is necessary to translate.''

Quotations: "We need our translations of the great classics drawn from our roots and reflecting our own speech rhythms, idiom, nuances of meaning. Enlightened choice of superior native renderings of the landmarks of world drama is a subtle but crucial factor in the struggle for an American theater of true distinction."

Membership

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  Rolf Gerhard Fjelde was the founding president of the Ibsen Society of America for 15 years, and during that time he founded Ibsen News and Comment, the journal of the Society which has been published annually since 1980.

  Ibsen Society of America , United States

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  American Scandinavian Foundation , United States

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  Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study , United States

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  Modern Language Association , United States

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  Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas , United States

Interests

• Writers

  Henrik Johan Ibsen

Connections

Rolf Gerhard Fjelde was married to Christel Fjelde. He had a daughter Michelle Andrea Fjelde-Burke, sons Eric Fjelde and Christopher Fjelde, and two grandchildren: Thea and Eamonn Burke.

Father:

Paul Fjelde

Paul Fjelde became a noted sculptor who was a long-time professor of sculpture at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn from 1929. He also taught at the National Academy of Design, and from 1951 to 1955, was editor of the National Sculpture Review. He exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1913 to 1919, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1935 to 1936. Fjelde's sculptural works include the Lincoln Monument in Frogner Park in Oslo, the statue of Col. Hans C. Heg, leader of the 15th Wisconsin Regiment of Civil War fame in Madison, WI, the Wendell Wilkie Memorial in the Indiana Statehouse, the bronze portrait of Orville Wright in the Hall of Fame colonnade, the John Scott Bradstreet tablet at the Minneapolis Art Institute, and the Pioneers Memorial in Council Bluffs, IA.

Mother:

Amy Fjelde

Wife:

Christel Fjelde

Daughter:

Michelle Andrea Fjelde-Burke

Son:

Eric Fjelde

Son:

Christopher Fjelde

grandchild:

Thea Burke

grandchild:

Eamonn Burke

Grandfather:

Jacob Henrik Gerhard Fjelde

Jacob Henrik Gerhard Fjelde was born in Alesund, Norway, and arrived in the United States in 1887. He settled in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was a prolific portraitist and created a number of public monuments. One of his most well-known monuments was dedicated to the 1st Minnesota Infantry (1897) that is located at the Gettysburg battlefield. Some of his statues in the Minneapolis and St. Paul area include "Hiawatha carrying Minnehaha," "Minerva," and "Ole Bull." In 1885, he sculpted Henrik Ibsen from life and created a number of public statues and busts from the experience. Ibsen based the character of the sculptor in ''The Lady From the Sea'' partly on him.

grandmother:

Margarethe Fjelde