Henrik Ibsen
Ibsen, Henrik - hĕnˈrĭk ĭbˈsən, 1828–1906, Norwegian dramatist and poet. His early years were lonely and miserable. Distressed by the consequences of his family's financial ruin and on his own at sixteen, he first was apprenticed to an apothecary. Not long after this he began writing poetry, and in 1850 he published his first play, Catilina, a Read More...
Ibsen, Henrik - hĕnˈrĭk ĭbˈsən, 1828–1906, Norwegian dramatist and poet. His early years were lonely and miserable. Distressed by the consequences of his family's financial ruin and on his own at sixteen, he first was apprenticed to an apothecary. Not long after this he began writing poetry, and in 1850 he published his first play, Catilina, a tragedy in verse. In 1851 he began an extended apprenticeship in the theater, first as stage manager and playwright with the National Stage in Bergen and in 1857 as theater director for the Norwegian Theater in Oslo. His early plays for the most part went unrecognized or were greeted with opposition and critical hostility. As a man far in advance of his times, Ibsen was condemned for unveiling truths which society preferred to keep hidden. In 1864, dissatisfied with the backwardness of Norway, he went to Italy. He wrote the bulk of his drama there and in Germany. His career can be divided into three periods. The first phase, that of poetic dramas, dealt primarily with historical themes, folklore, and romantic pageantry. His name was established with the publication of Love's Comedy (1862). However, it was in 1866 that he reached prominent stature as a dramatist, when he published the first of his major works, Brand, the tragedy of an idealist. Peer Gynt, another poetic drama and Ibsen's least understood work, appeared the following year. In this play Ibsen recounted the adventures of an egocentric but imaginative opportunist. With The League of Youth (1869) and Pillars of Society (1877), he began his second dramatic phase, that of the realistic social plays which are his best known. Ibsen rebelled against society's conventions through which the perpetuation of empty traditions restricts all intellectual, artistic, and spiritual growth. He was perhaps most successful in depicting the 19th-century woman, whose inner nature was in strong conflict with the role she was called on to perform. These dramas include A Doll's House (1879), Ghosts (1881), Rosmersholm (1886), and Hedda Gabler (1890). Other notable plays, An Enemy of the People (1882) and The Wild Duck (1884), examine the effects of true and false idealism. Although nearly all Ibsen's plays contain symbolic elements, it was in his final works that the emphasis on symbolism became very strong. The chief plays of this group are The Master Builder (1892), Little Eyolf (1894), John Gabriel Borkman (1896), and When We Dead Awaken (1900). All have a firmly knit structure beneath the symbols; all blend an introspective realism with folk poetry. No playwright has exerted greater influence on 20th-century drama. His plays—there are many good English translations—are continually revived in the United States and Europe. See biographies by H. Koht (1928, new tr. 1971), H. Heiberg (tr. 1969), and M. Meyer (1971); studies by G. M. C. Brandes (1899, repr. 1964), G. B. Shaw (1913, repr. 1957), J. R. Northam (1953 and 1973), and J. McFarlane (1970). The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright© 2004, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. All rights reserved. |
16 of the Best Books and Articles on: Henrik Ibsen
as selected by Questia School librarians.-
1.
-- Brings together the best criticism on the most widely read poets, novelists, and playwrights
-- Presents complex critical portraits of the most influential writers in the English-speaking world -- from the English medievalists to contemporary writers
-
2.
-
3.
This set comprises 40 volumes covering 19th and 20th century European and American authors. These volumes will be available as a complete set, mini boxed sets (by theme) or as individual volumes. This second set complements the first 68 volume set of Critical Heritage published by Routledge in October 1995.
-
4.
-
5.
Best known as the author of such plays as A Doll's House and Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen is one of the most influential figures of modern drama. During the 1890s, his works were staged by radically different avant-garde groups in England and France, a simultaneous cross-cultural exchange that demonstrated his centrality to early modernist activity both in the theatre and in other arts. This book locates the basis for an early modernist theatre in the new wave that Ibsen created internationally. Looking specifically at four Ibsen plays and their production and reception in England and France in the early 1890s, Shepherd-Barr examines Ibsen's seminal role in the radical artistic movements of this period.
-
6.
-
7.
-
8.
Divine Madness and the Absurd Paradox: Ibsen's Peer Gynt and the Philosophy of Kierkegaard
by Bruce G. Shapiro. 250 pgs.
This book is a comprehensive study of Peer Gynt, a drama that forms the foundation of not only the entire Ibsen canon, but also of modern drama as a whole. It provides scene-by-scene commentary on the drama, showing how the literature and ideas of the drama resemble, and sometimes duplicate, the literature and philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard. The revelation of Kierkegaard's influence on Ibsen allows the contemporary reader to experience the essence of the drama in the context in which it made its first literary appearance.