In the English-speaking world today, Henrik Ibsen has become one of three playwrights widely recognized as preeminent. Alongside William Shakespeare and Anton Chekhov, he stands at the very center of the standard dramatic repertoire, and no actor can aspire to the highest rank unless he has played some of the leading roles in the works of these three giants. In this triad, Ibsen occupies a central position, marking the transition from a traditional to a modern theater. While Ibsen, like all great dramatists who came after him, owed an immense debt to Shakespeare, Chekhov (who regarded Ibsen as his ‘‘favorite writer’’) was already writing under Ibsen’s influence. Ibsen can thus be seen as one of the principal creators and wellsprings of the modern movement in drama, having contributed to the development of all its diverse manifestations: the ideological and political theater, as well as the introspective trends that focus on the representation of inner realities and dreams.
Works in Biographical and Historical Context
Poverty in Norway and the Beginnings of Poetry Ibsen was born on March 20, 1828, to wealthy parents in Skien, Norway, a lumber town south of Christiania (now Oslo). The family was reduced to poverty when Ibsen’s father’s business failed in 1834. After leaving school at the age of fifteen and working for six years as a pharmacist’s assistant, Ibsen went to Christiania 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. He wrote his first drama, Catiline, in 1850 and 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. While Catiline is a traditional romance written in verse, Ibsen’s merging of two female prototypes—one conservative and domestic, the other adventurous and dangerous—foreshadowed the psychological intricacies of his later plays.
From an Original Drama per Year to Life on Scholarships Shortly after writing Catiline, Ibsen became assistant stage manager at the Norwegian Theater in Bergen. His duties included composing and producing an original drama each year. Ibsen was expected to write about Norway’s glorious past, but because Norway had just recently acquired its independence from Denmark after five hundred years, medieval folklore and Viking sagas were his only sources of inspiration. Although these early plays were coldly received and are often considered insignificant, they further indicated the direction Ibsen’s drama was to take, especially in their presentation of strong individuals who come in conflict with the oppressive social mores of nineteenth-century Norwegian society. In 1862, verging on a nervous breakdown from overwork, Ibsen began to petition the government for a grant to travel and write. He was given a stipend in 1864, and various scholarships and pensions subsequently followed. For the next twenty-seven years he lived in Italy and Germany, returning to Norway only twice. While critics often cite Ibsen’s bitter memories of his father’s financial failure and his own lack of success as a theater manager as the causes for his long absence, it is also noted that Ibsen believed that only by distancing himself from his homeland could he obtain the perspective necessary to write truly Norwegian drama. Ibsen explained: ‘‘I could never lead a consistent life [in Norway]. I was one man in my work and another outside— and for that reason my work failed in consistency too.’’
Phase One: Verse and the Stage, a Transition from Poetry Critics generally divide Ibsen’s work into three phases. The first consists of his early dramas written in verse and modeled after romantic historical tragedy and Norse sagas. These plays are noted primarily for their idiosyncratic Norwegian characters and for their emerging elements of satire and social criticism. In Love’s Comedy, for example, Ibsen attacked conventional concepts of love and explored the conflict between the artist’s mission and his responsibility to others. Brand (1866), an epic verse drama, was the first play Ibsen wrote after leaving Norway and was the first of his works to earn both popular and critical attention. The story of a clergyman who makes impossible demands on his congregation, his family, and himself, Brand reveals the fanaticism and inhumanity of uncompromising idealism. While commentators suggest that Brand is a harsh and emotionally inaccessible character, they also recognized that this play reflects Ibsen’s doubts and personal anguish over his poverty and lack of success. More significant still was Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, written while Ibsen was traveling in Italy and published in Denmark in 1867. Written in verse, Peer Gynt was not originally intended for stage performance, but has gone on to become a significant piece in Ibsen’s oeuvre, in good part because of the score written for it by composer Edvard Grieg.
Phase Two: Social Realism and the Prose Drama Ibsen wrote prose dramas concerned with social realism during the second phase of his career. During his stay in Munich, when he was becoming increasingly attuned to social injustice, Ibsen wrote The Pillars of Society (1877). A harsh indictment of the moral corruption and crime resulting from the quest for money and power, this drama provided what Ibsen called a ‘‘contrast between ability and desire, between will and possibility.’’ Writing as the Industrial Revolution was making new labor relations possible throughout much of Western Europe, and writing from a Germany newly united as one nation (in 1871)—under the firm, if less than universally beloved hand of Kaiser Wilhelm I of Prussia—Ibsen was in an excellent position to bear witness to both the power and the limitations of the human will. His protagonist here, Consul Bernick, while first urging his son to abide by conventional morality and become a ‘‘pillar of society,’’ eventually experiences an inner transformation and asserts instead: ‘‘You shall be yourself, Olaf, and then the rest will have to take care of itself.’’
Ibsen’s next drama, A Doll’s House (1879), is often considered a masterpiece of realist theater. The account of the collapse of a middle-class marriage, this work, in addition to sparking debate about women’s rights and divorce, is also regarded as innovative and daring because of its emphasis on psychological tension rather than external action. This technique required that emotion be conveyed through small, controlled gestures, shifts in inflection, and pauses, and therefore instituted a new style of acting.
Ghosts (1881) and An Enemy of Society (1882) are the last plays included in Ibsen’s realist period. In Ghosts Ibsen uses a character infected with syphilis to symbolize how stale habits and prejudices can be passed down from generation to generation. Written as much of Europe— though not Norway—was engaged in what has come to be called the European ‘‘scramble for Africa,’’ the effort to control colonies in areas newly desirable as sources of raw material and markets for consumer goods, An Enemy of Society demonstrates Ibsen’s contempt for what he considered stagnant political rhetoric. Audiences accustomed to the Romantic sentimentality of the ‘‘well-made play’’ were initially taken aback by such controversial subjects. However, when dramatists George Bernard Shaw and George Brandes, among others, defended Ibsen’s works, the theater-going public began to accept drama as social commentary and not merely as entertainment.
Phase Three: Negotiating the Symbolic With The Wild Duck (1884) and Hedda Gabler (1890), Ibsen entered a period of transition during which he continued to deal with modern, realistic themes, but made increasing use of symbolism and metaphor. The Wild Duck, regarded as one of Ibsen’s greatest tragicomic works, explores the role of illusion and self-deception in everyday life. In this play, Gregers Werle, vehemently believing that everyone must be painstakingly honest, inadvertently causes great harm by meddling in other people’s affairs. At the end of The Wild Duck, Ibsen’s implication that humankind is unable to bear absolute truth is reflected in the words of the character named Relling: ‘‘If you rob the average man of his illusion, you are almost certain to rob him of his happiness.’’ Hedda Gabler concerns a frustrated aristocratic woman and the vengeance she inflicts on herself and those around her. Taking place entirely in Hedda’s sitting room shortly after her marriage, this play has been praised for its subtle investigation into the psyche of a woman who is unable to love others or confront her sexuality.
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Henrik Ibsen
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