Directions: 1) Please read the background material on Henrik Ibsen. 2) In a blog post, please comment on the following: How did Ibsen's life impact his plays? How did Ibsen change modern drama? In the article, below, there are several quotations by Ibsen or about Ibsen. Choose 1-2 quotations, cut and paste them into your response. Next, explain its significance to Ibsen and to you as a scholar of drama. I look forward to your responses. We will be reading his play Ghosts.
1850 - Catiline (Catilina)
1850 - The Burial Mound also known as The Warrior's Barrow (Kjæmpehøjen)
1851 - Norma (Norma)
1852 - St. John's Eve (Sancthansnatten)
1854 - Lady Inger of Oestraat (Fru Inger til Østeraad)
1855 - The Feast at Solhaug (Gildet paa Solhoug)
1856 - Olaf Liljekrans (Olaf Liljekrans)
1857 - The Vikings at Helgeland (Hærmændene paa Helgeland)
1862 - Digte - only released collection of poetry
1862 - Love's Comedy (Kjærlighedens Komedie)
1863 - The Pretenders (Kongs-Emnerne)
1866 - Brand (Brand)
1867 - Peer Gynt (Peer Gynt)
1869 - The League of Youth (De unges Forbund)
1873 - Emperor and Galilean (Kejser og Galilæer)
1877 - Pillars of Society (Samfundets Støtter)
1879 - A Doll House (Et Dukkehjem)
1881 - Ghosts (Gengangere)
1882 - An Enemy of the People (En Folkefiende)
1884 - The Wild Duck (Vildanden)
1886 - Rosmersholm (Rosmersholm)
1888 - The Lady from the Sea (Fruen fra Havet)
1890 - Hedda Gabler (Hedda Gabler)
1892 - The Master Builder (Bygmester Solness)
1896 - John Gabriel Borkman (John Gabriel Borkman)
1899 - When We Dead Awaken (Når vi døde vaagner)
Introduction
Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) published his last drama, "When We Dead Awaken", in 1899, and he called it a dramatic epilogue. It was also destined to be the epilogue of his life's work, because illness prevented him from writing more. For half of a century he had devoted his life and his energies to the art of drama, and he had won international acclaim as the greatest and most influential dramatist of his time. He knew that he had gone further than anyone in putting Norway on the map.
Henrik Ibsen was also a major poet, and he published a collection of poems in 1871. However, drama was the focus of his real lyrical spirit. For a period of many hard years, he faced bitter opposition. But he finally triumphed over the conservatism and aesthetic prejudices of the contemporary critics and audiences. More than anyone, he gave theatrical art a new vitality by bringing into European bourgeois drama an ethical gravity, a psychological depth, and a social significance which the theater had lacked since the days of Shakespeare. In this manner, Ibsen strongly contributed to giving European drama a vitality and artistic quality comparable to the ancient Greek tragedies.
It is from this perspective we view his contribution to theatrical history. His realistic contemporary drama was a continuation of the European tradition of tragic plays. In these works he portrays people from the middle class of his day. These are people whose routines are suddenly upset as they are confronted with a deep crisis in their lives. They have been blindly following a way of life leading to the troubles and are themselves responsible for the crisis. Looking back on their lives, they are forced to confront themselves. However, Ibsen created another type of drama as well. In fact, he had been writing for 25 years before he, in 1877, created his first contemporary drama, "Pillars of Society".
Life and Writing
Ibsen's biography is lacking in grand and momentous episodes. His life as an artist can be seen as a singularly long and hard struggle leading to victory and fame - a hard road from poverty to international success. He spent all of 27 years abroad, in Italy and Germany. He left his land of birth at the age of 36 in 1864. It was not until he was 63 that he moved home again, to Kristiania (now Oslo), where he would die in 1906 at the age of 78.
In lbsen's last drama, "When We Dead Awaken", he describes the life of an artist that in many ways reflects on his own. The world renowned sculptor, Professor Rubek, has returned to Norway after many years abroad, and in spite of his fame and success, he feels no happiness. In the central work of his life, he has modeled a self-portrait titled "Remorse for a ruined life" During the play he is forced to admit that he has taken the pleasure out of his own life as well as spoiling others'. Everything has been sacrificed for his art - he has forsaken the love of his youth and his earlier idealism as well. It follows that he has actually betrayed his art by relinquishing these essentials. It is none other than his old flame Irene, the model who posed for him in his youth, who goes to him in his moment of destiny and tells him the truth: it is first when we dead awaken, that we see what is irremediable that we have never really lived.
It is the tragic life feeling itself that gives Ibsen's drama its special character, the experience of missing out on life and plodding along in a state of living death. The alternative is pictured as a utopian existence in freedom, truth and love - in short - a happy life. In Ibsen's world the main character strives toward a goal, but this struggle leads out into the cold, to loneliness. Yet the possibility of opting for another route is always there, one can chose human warmth and contact. The problem for Ibsen's protagonist is that both choices can appear to be good, and the individual does not see the consequences of the decision.
In "When We Dead Awaken" the chill of art is contrasted with life's warmth. In this perspective, art serves as a prison from which the artist neither can, nor wishes to escape. As Rubek says to Irene:
"I am an artist, Irene, and I take no shame to myself for the frailties that perhaps cling to me. For I was born to be an artist, you see. - And, do what I may, I shall never be anything else."
This is not an acceptable excuse for Irene, whom he has betrayed. She sees things from a different angle. She calls him a "poet", one who creates his own fictitious world, neglecting his humanity and that of the people who love him. Ella Rentheim, in "John Gabriel Borkman" (1896) makes the same complaint against the man who sacrificed her on the altar of his career. The tragic element in Ibsen's perspective is that for the type of people that concern him, this seems to be an insoluble conflict. Yet this fact does not exonerate them from the responsibility or their own decisions.
Although "When We Dead Awaken" criticizes the egocentricity of the artist, it would be going too far to view the drama as the writer's bitter self-examination. Rubek is not a self-portrait. However, some Ibsen researchers have seen him as a spokesman for the author's standpoint on the question of art. At one point, Rubek says that the public only relates to the external realistic "truth" in his human portrayal. What people do not understand is the hidden dimension in these portraits, all the deceitful motives that hide behind the respectable bourgeois facades. In his youth, Rubek had been inspired by an idealistic vision of a higher form of human existence. Experience has turned him into a disillusioned exposer of people, a man who believes he portrays life as it really is. It is the animal governing man that dominates his vision; this is Rubek's version of Zola's "La béte humaine", and he explains the changes in his art in the following way:
"I imagined that which I saw with my eyes around me in the world. I had to include it (...) and up from the fissures of the soil there now swarm men and women with dimly- suggested animal-faces. women and men - as I knew them in real life."
Understandably, some students of Ibsen have fallen into the temptation of drawing a parallel between life and art, and see this work as a merciless self-denunciation. Once again, "When We Dead Awaken" is by no means auto-biographical. Rubek's relationship with the writer has to be sought on a deeper level - in the conflicts that Ibsen, toward the end of his life, saw as a general and essential human problem.
Ibsen the Psychologist
In the work of the aging writer we meet a number of people who are experiencing similar conflicts. John Gabriel Borkman sacrifices his love for a dream of power and honor. Master builder Solness wrecks his family's lives in order to be regarded as an "artist" in his trade. And Hedda Gabler resolutely changes the fates of others in order to fulfill her own dream of freedom and independence. These examples of people who pursue their own goals, involuntarily trampling on the lives of others, are all drawn from the playwright's last decade of writing. In Ibsen's psychological analyses, he reveals the negative forces (he calls them "demons" and "trolls" in the minds of these people. His human characterization in these latter dramas is extremely complex - a common factor shared by all his last works, starting with "The Wild Duck" in 1884. In his last 15 years of writing, Ibsen developed his dialectical supremacy and his distinctive dramatic form - where realism, symbolism, and deep-digging psychological insights interact. It is this phase of his work that has prompted people to call him - rightly or wrongly - a "Freud of the theater." In any case, Freud and many other psychologists have made use of Ibsen's human portraits as a basis for character analysis or even to illustrate their own theories. Especially well known is Freud's analysis of Rebekka West in "Rosmersholm" (1886), a portrayal he discussed in 1916 together with other character types "who collapse under the weight of success." Freud sees Rebekka as a tragic victim of the Oedipus complex and an incestuous past. The analysis reveals perhaps more about Freud than about Ibsen. But Freud's influence, and the sway of psychoanalysis in general, have had a considerable effect on the way the Norwegian dramatist has been regarded.
Interest in Ibsen as a psychologist can too readily obscure other, equally important, sides of his art. His account of human life is from an acute social and conceptual perspective. Perhaps this is the essence of his art - that which turns it into existential drama exploring many facets of life. This concerns everything he wrote, even prior to his emergence as an international dramatist around 1880.
A Desperate Drama
Ibsen's work as a writer represents a long poetic contemplation of people's need to live differently than they do. Thus there is always a deep undercurrent of desperation in his work. Benedetto Croce called these portrayals of people who live in constant expectation and who are consumed by their pursuit of "something else" in life, "a desperate drama".
It is precisely this distance between what they can achieve and what they want to achieve that is the cause of the tragic (and in many cases the comic) aspect of these people's lives. Ibsen felt that this contradiction between will and real prospects was at the root of his art. Looking back on 25 years of writing in 1875, he declared that most of what he had written involved "the contradiction between ability and aspiration, between will and possibility". In this conflict he saw "humanity's and the individual's tragedy and comedy simultaneously." - A decade later, he created the tragicomic constellation of the priest Rosmer and his scruffy teacher Ulrik Brendel. These two men, who are reflections of each other, both end up on the brink of an abyss where all they see is life's total emptiness and insignificance.
In Ibsen's 12 modern contemporary plays, from "Pillars of Society" (1877) to "When We Dead Awaken" (1899), we are led time and again into the same milieu. His characters' are distinguished by their staunch, well-established bourgeois lives. Nevertheless, their world is threatened and threatening. It turns out that the world is in motion; old values and previous conceptions are adrift. The movement shakes up the life of the individual and jeopardizes the established social order. Here we see how the process has a psychological as well as a conceptual and social aspect. Yet what starts the whole process is the need for change, something springing forth from the individual's volition.
In this sense, Ibsen is a powerful conceptual writer. This does not mean that his main concern as a dramatist was the didactical use of theater, or the waging of an abstract ideological debate. (Some of his critics, contemporary and later, have made this accusation - and it's fairly obvious that Ibsen was drawn towards the didactic.) However, the basis of Ibsen's human portrayal is his characters' conceptions of what makes life worth living - their values and their understanding of existence. The concepts they use to describe their position may be unclear; their self-understanding may be intuitive and deficient. A good example of this is Ellida Wangel's description of her ambivalent attraction to the sea in "The Lady from the Sea" (1888). But for a long time, in Ellida's consciousness, a desire has grown for a freer life coupled with a need for other moral and social values than those dominating Dr. Wangel's bourgeois existence. And this discovery within her creates shockwaves on the psychological and the social plane.
The Human Conflicts
Ibsen himself has given the best characteristic of his approach to drama. This was as early as 1857 in a theater review:
"It is not the conscious strife between ideas parading before us, nor is this the situation in real life. What we see are human conflicts, and enwrapped in these, deep inside, lay ideas at battle - being defeated, or charged with victory."
This undoubtedly touches upon something essential in Ibsen's demands to dramatic art: it should as realistically as possible unify three elements: the psychological, the ideological and the social. At its best, the organic synthesis of these three elements is at the heart of Ibsen's drama. Perhaps he only succeeds completely in a few of his plays, such as "Ghosts", "The Wild Duck", and "Hedda Gabler". Interestingly, he considered his major work to be "Emperor and Galilean" (1873), contrary to everyone else. This could indicate how much emphasis he put on ideology, not overt, but as a conflict between opposing views toward life. Ibsen believed that he had created a fully "realistic" rendering of the inner conflict in the abandoned Julian. The truth is, however, that Julian is too marked by the dramatist's own thoughts - what he calls his "positive philosophy of life." Ibsen first succeeded as a theatrical writer when he seriously took another approach - the one he described in connection with "Hedda Gabler" (1890):
"My main goal has been to depict people, human moods and human fates, on the basis of certain predominant social conditions and perceptions."
Ibsen took many years, after "Emperor and Galilean", to orient himself in this direction. Five years after that great historical dramatization of ideas came "Pillars of Society", the starting point for lbsen's reputation as a European theatrical writer.
Ibsen's International Breakthrough
In 1879, Ibsen sent Nora Helmer out into the world with a demand that a woman too must have the freedom to develop as an adult, independent, and responsible person. The playwright was now over 50, and had finally been recognized outside of the Nordic countries. "Pillars of Society". had admittedly opened the German borders for him, but it was "A Doll's House". and "Ghost" (1881) which in the 1880s led him into the European avant-garde.
"A Doll's House" has a plot which he repeated in many subsequent works, in the phase when he cultivated "critical realism". We experience the individual in opposition to the majority, society's oppressive authority. Nora puts it this way: "I will have to find out who is right, society or myself."
As noted earlier, when the individual intellectually frees himself from traditional ways of thinking, serious conflicts arise. For a short period around 1880, it appears that Ibsen was relatively optimistic about the individual's chances of succeeding on his own. Although her future is insecure in many ways, Nora seems to have a real chance of finding the freedom and independence she is seeking. Ibsen can be criticized for his somewhat superficial treatment of the problems a divorced woman without means would face in contemporary society. But it was the moral problems that concerned him as a writer, not the practical and economic ones.
A Singular Success
In spite of Nora's uncertain future prospects, she has served in a number of countries as a symbol for women fighting for liberation and equality. In this connection, she is the most "international" of lbsen's characters. Yet this is a rather singular success. The middle-class public has enthusiastically applauded a woman who leaves her children and husband, completely breaking off with the most important institution in the bourgeois society - the family!
This points to the basis of Ibsen's international success. He took deep schisms and acute problems that afflicted the bourgeois family and placed them on the stage. On the surface, the middle-class homes gave an impression of success - and appeared to reflect a picture of a healthy and stable society. But Ibsen dramatizes the hidden conflicts in this society by opening the doors to the private, and secret rooms of the bourgeois homes. He shows what can be hiding behind the beautiful façades: moral duplicity, confinement, betrayal, and fraud not to mention a constant insecurity. These were the aspects of the middle-class life one was not supposed to mention in public, as Pastor Manders wished Mrs. Alving to keep secret her reading and everything else that threatened the atmosphere at Rosenvold in "Ghosts". In the same manner, the social leaders in "Rosmersholm" put pressure on Rosmer to keep him from telling that he, the priest, had given up the Christian faith.
But Ibsen did not remain silent, and the spotlights of his plays made contemporary aspects of life highly visible. He disrupted the peace of the lives of the bourgeoisie by reminding them that they had climbed to their position of social power by mastering quite different ideals than tranquillity, order and stability. The bourgeoisie had betrayed its own motto of "freedom, equality, and brotherhood", and especially after the revolutionary year 1848 they had become defenders of the status quo. There was, of course, a liberal opposition within their class, and Ibsen openly joins these ranks in his first modern contemporary drama. He considered this movement for freedom and progress to be the true "European" point of view. As early as 1870, he wrote to the Danish critic Georg Brandes that it was imperative to return to the ideas of the French revolution, freedom, equality, and brotherhood. The words need a new meaning in keeping with the times, he claimed. In 1875 he writes, again to Brandes:
"Why are you, and the rest of us who hold the European viewpoint, so isolated at home?"
Eventually, as Ibsen grew older, he had trouble accepting certain extreme forms of liberalism which overemphasized the individual's sovereign right to self-realization and to some extent radically departed from past norms and values. In "Rosmersholm", he points out the dangers of radicalism built solely on individual moral norms. It is obvious here that Ibsen is concerned with European culture's basis in a Christian inspired moral tradition. One has to build on this, he indicates, even though one has given up the Christian faith. This is certainly the conclusion that Rebekka West reaches.
Simultaneously, this drama, like "Ghosts", is a painful clash with the melancholic, killjoy aspects of the Christian bourgeois tradition which subdues the human spirit. Both these works contain, for all their despair, a warm defense of happiness and the joy of life - pitted against the bourgeois society's emphasis on duty, law, and order.
It was in the 1870s that Ibsen oriented himself toward his "European" point of view. Even though he lived abroad, he continually chose a Norwegian setting for his contemporary dramas. As a rule, we find ourselves in a small Norwegian coastal town, the kind Ibsen knew so well from his childhood in Skien and his youth in Grimstad. The background of the young Ibsen certainly gave him a sharp eye for social forces and conflicts arising from differing viewpoints. In small societies, such as the typical Norwegian coastal town, these social and ideological conflicts are more exposed than they would be in a larger city.
Ibsen's first painful experiences came from such a small community. He had seen how conventions, traditions, and norms could exercise a negative control over the individual, create anxiety, and inhibit a natural and joyful lifestyle. This is the atmosphere of the "ghosts" as Mrs. Alving experiences it. According to her, it makes people "afraid of the light."
This was the atmosphere of his youth that formed the basis for his writing and world fame. As an insecure writer and man of the theater in a stifling Norwegian milieu, he set out to create a new Norwegian drama. He began with this national perspective. At the same time, from his first journey abroad, he oriented himself toward the European tradition of theater.
lbsen's Years of Learning
In the history of drama, early in the 1850s Ibsen carried on the traditions of two highly dissimilar writers, the Frenchman Eugéne Scribe (1791-1861) and the German Friedrich Hebbel (1813-63). For 11 years the young Ibsen was occupied with day to day practical stagework, and it follows that he had to keep himself well informed about the latest contemporary Euro-heatrical art. He worked with rehearsals of new plays and was committed to writing for the theater.
Scribe could teach him how a drama's plot should be structured in a logically motivated progression of scenes. Hebbel provided him with an example of the way drama could be based on life's contemporary dialectics, creating a modern conceptual drama. Hebbel's pioneering work was his conveyance of the ideologicalconflicts of his day into the theater where he created "a drama of issues" pointing forward. He also knew how the Greek tragedy's retrospective technique could be used by a modern dramatist.
In other words, Ibsen was in close contact with the art of the stage for a long uninterrupted period. His six years at the theater in Bergen (1851-57) and the following four or five years at the theater in Kristiania from 1857 were not easy. But he acquired a sharp eye for theatrical techniques and possibilities.
During a study tour to Copenhagen and Dresden in 1852, he came across a dramaturgical work newly released in Germany. It was Hermann Hettner's "Das moderne Drama" (1852). This programmatic treatise for a new topical theater deeply affected Ibsen's development as a dramatist. In Hettner too, we see the strong influence of Scribe and Hebbel, combined with a passionate interest for Shakespeare. Ibsen also gleaned knowledge from other writers, most notably Schiller and the two Danes Adam Oehlenschleger (1779-1850) and John Ludvig Heiberg (1791-1860).
Ibsen's apprenticeship was long, lasting about 15 years, and included theater work he later would claim to be as difficult as "having an abortion every day." There was a strong pressure to produce hanging over him; one that led to fumbling attempts in many directions. He experienced a few minor artistic victories - and numerous defeats. Very few believed that he had the necessary gift to become more than a minor theatrical writer with a modicum of talent.
In spite of this insecurity, it is a determined young writer we see during these years. His goal was clearly national. Together with his friend and colleague Bjornstjerne Bjornson (1832-1910), he founded "The Norwegian Company" in 1859, an organ for Norwegian art and culture. They had a joint program for their activities. Ibsen was especially concerned with the role of theater in the young Norwegian nation's search for its own identity In these "nation-building" pursuits, he gathered his material from the country's medieval history and perfected his art as a dramatist. This is prominent in the work that caps Ibsen's period of apprenticeship, "The Pretenders" from 1863. The story takes place in Norway in the 1200s, a period marked by destructive strife. But Ibsen's perspective is Norway of the 1860s when he has the king, Haakon Haakonsson, express his thoughts on national unity:
"Norway was a kingdom, now it will be a nation (... ) all shall be as one hereafter, and all shall know in themselves that they are one!"
"The Pretenders" was Ibsen's breakthrough, yet he had to wait a few years before being recognized as one of the country's leading writers. This honor came in 1866 with "Brand" "The Pretenders", constitutes the end of his close relationship with Norwegian theater. It was also his farewell performance - he now started his long exile. In the years that followed, he turned away from the stage and sought a reading public.
The Great Topical Dramas
Both the great dramas for reading, "Brand" (1866) and "Peer Gynt" (1867), were based on Ibsen's problematic relationship with his country of birth. Political developments in 1864 led him to lose his optimistic belief in his country's future. He even began to doubt whether his countrymen had a historical raison d'être as a nation.
What he had earlier treated as a national problem of identity now became a question of the individual's personal integrity. It was no longer sufficient to dwell on an earlier historical era of greatness and focus on the continuity of the nation's life. Ibsen turned away from history, and confronted what he considered the main contemporary problem - a nation can only rise up culturally by means of the individual's exertion of will. "Brand" is mainly a drama with a message that the individual must follow the path of volition in order to achieve true humanity In addition, this is the only way to real freedom - for the individual, and it follows, for society as a whole.
In the two rather different twin works "Brand" and "Peer Gynt", the focus is on the problem of personality, Ibsen dramatizes the conflict between an opportunistic acting out of an unnatural role, and a dedication to a demanding lifelong quest. In "Peer Gynt", the dramatist created a scene which artistically illustrates this situation of conflict. The aging Peer, on his way back to his Norwegian roots is forced to come to terms with himself. As he looks back upon his wasted life, he peels an onion. He lets each layer represent a different role he has played. But he finds no core. He has to face the fact that he has become "no one", that he has no "self".
"So unspeakably poor, then, a soul can go back to nothingness, in the misty gray. You beautiful earth, don't be annoyed that I left no sign when I walked your grass. You beautiful sun, in vain you've shed your glorious light on an empty house. There was no one within to cheer and warm; - The owner, they tell me, was never at home."
Peer is the weak, spineless person - Brand's antithesis. But it is precisely in Ibsen's living portrayal of a personality's "dissolution" in changing roles, that some historians of the theater see the harbinger of a modernistic perception of the individual. The British drama researcher Ronald Gaskell puts it this way: "Peer Gynt" inaugurates the drama of the modern mind", and he continues: "Indeed, if Surrealism and Expressionism in the theater can be said to have any single source, the source is undoubtedly "Peer Gynt".
Thus does this early Ibsen drama though very "Norwegian" and romantic claim a central position in theatrical history, even though it was not written for the stage. In fact, it is "Peer Gynt" that in modern times has helped Ibsen to retain his position as a vital and relevant writer. Thus it was not only his contemporary plays that have made him one of the most towering figures in the history of the theater. Although it was mainly these works the well-known Swedish researcher in drama, Martin Lamm, had in mind when he claimed:
"Ibsen's drama is the Rome of modern drama: all roads lead to it - and from it."
Even though Ibsen withdrew from his Norwegian starting point in the 1870s and became "a European," he was always deeply marked by the country he left in 1864, and to which he first returned as an aging celebrity. It was not easy for him to return. The many years abroad, and the long struggle for recognition, had left their indelible stamp. Towards the end of his career, he said that he really was not happy with the fantastic life he had lived. He felt homeless - even in his mother country.
But it is precisely this tension between the Norwegian and the foreign (an element of freer European culture) in Ibsen that characterized him more than anything else as an individual and a writer. His independent position in what he called "the great, free, cultural situation" provided him with the broad perspective of distance, and freedom. Simultaneously, the Norwegian in him created a longing for a more liberated and happier life. This is the longing for the sun in the grave writer's poetic world. He never denied his distinctive Norwegian character. Toward the end of his life, he said to a German friend:
He who wishes to understand me, must know Norway. The magnificent, but severe, natural environment surrounding people up there in the north, the lonely, secluded life - the farms are miles apart - forces them to be unconcerned with others, to keep to their own. That is why they become introspective and serious, they brood and doubt - and they often lose faith. At home every other person is a philosopher! There, the long, dark, winters come with their thick fogs enveloping the houses - oh, how they long for the sun!
Major Plays
“Only by grasping and comprehending my entire production as a continuous and coherent whole will the reader be able to receive the precise impression I sought to convey in the individual parts…I therefore appeal to the reader that he not put any play aside, and not skip anything, but that he absorb the plays…in the order in which I wrote them.” - Henrik Ibsen1850 - Catiline (Catilina)
1850 - The Burial Mound also known as The Warrior's Barrow (Kjæmpehøjen)
1851 - Norma (Norma)
1852 - St. John's Eve (Sancthansnatten)
1854 - Lady Inger of Oestraat (Fru Inger til Østeraad)
1855 - The Feast at Solhaug (Gildet paa Solhoug)
1856 - Olaf Liljekrans (Olaf Liljekrans)
1857 - The Vikings at Helgeland (Hærmændene paa Helgeland)
1862 - Digte - only released collection of poetry
1862 - Love's Comedy (Kjærlighedens Komedie)
1863 - The Pretenders (Kongs-Emnerne)
1866 - Brand (Brand)
1867 - Peer Gynt (Peer Gynt)
1869 - The League of Youth (De unges Forbund)
1873 - Emperor and Galilean (Kejser og Galilæer)
1877 - Pillars of Society (Samfundets Støtter)
1879 - A Doll House (Et Dukkehjem)
1881 - Ghosts (Gengangere)
1882 - An Enemy of the People (En Folkefiende)
1884 - The Wild Duck (Vildanden)
1886 - Rosmersholm (Rosmersholm)
1888 - The Lady from the Sea (Fruen fra Havet)
1890 - Hedda Gabler (Hedda Gabler)
1892 - The Master Builder (Bygmester Solness)
1896 - John Gabriel Borkman (John Gabriel Borkman)
1899 - When We Dead Awaken (Når vi døde vaagner)
Background Material by Professor Bjorn Hemmer, University of Oslo
Introduction
Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) published his last drama, "When We Dead Awaken", in 1899, and he called it a dramatic epilogue. It was also destined to be the epilogue of his life's work, because illness prevented him from writing more. For half of a century he had devoted his life and his energies to the art of drama, and he had won international acclaim as the greatest and most influential dramatist of his time. He knew that he had gone further than anyone in putting Norway on the map.
Henrik Ibsen was also a major poet, and he published a collection of poems in 1871. However, drama was the focus of his real lyrical spirit. For a period of many hard years, he faced bitter opposition. But he finally triumphed over the conservatism and aesthetic prejudices of the contemporary critics and audiences. More than anyone, he gave theatrical art a new vitality by bringing into European bourgeois drama an ethical gravity, a psychological depth, and a social significance which the theater had lacked since the days of Shakespeare. In this manner, Ibsen strongly contributed to giving European drama a vitality and artistic quality comparable to the ancient Greek tragedies.
It is from this perspective we view his contribution to theatrical history. His realistic contemporary drama was a continuation of the European tradition of tragic plays. In these works he portrays people from the middle class of his day. These are people whose routines are suddenly upset as they are confronted with a deep crisis in their lives. They have been blindly following a way of life leading to the troubles and are themselves responsible for the crisis. Looking back on their lives, they are forced to confront themselves. However, Ibsen created another type of drama as well. In fact, he had been writing for 25 years before he, in 1877, created his first contemporary drama, "Pillars of Society".
Life and Writing
Ibsen's biography is lacking in grand and momentous episodes. His life as an artist can be seen as a singularly long and hard struggle leading to victory and fame - a hard road from poverty to international success. He spent all of 27 years abroad, in Italy and Germany. He left his land of birth at the age of 36 in 1864. It was not until he was 63 that he moved home again, to Kristiania (now Oslo), where he would die in 1906 at the age of 78.
In lbsen's last drama, "When We Dead Awaken", he describes the life of an artist that in many ways reflects on his own. The world renowned sculptor, Professor Rubek, has returned to Norway after many years abroad, and in spite of his fame and success, he feels no happiness. In the central work of his life, he has modeled a self-portrait titled "Remorse for a ruined life" During the play he is forced to admit that he has taken the pleasure out of his own life as well as spoiling others'. Everything has been sacrificed for his art - he has forsaken the love of his youth and his earlier idealism as well. It follows that he has actually betrayed his art by relinquishing these essentials. It is none other than his old flame Irene, the model who posed for him in his youth, who goes to him in his moment of destiny and tells him the truth: it is first when we dead awaken, that we see what is irremediable that we have never really lived.
It is the tragic life feeling itself that gives Ibsen's drama its special character, the experience of missing out on life and plodding along in a state of living death. The alternative is pictured as a utopian existence in freedom, truth and love - in short - a happy life. In Ibsen's world the main character strives toward a goal, but this struggle leads out into the cold, to loneliness. Yet the possibility of opting for another route is always there, one can chose human warmth and contact. The problem for Ibsen's protagonist is that both choices can appear to be good, and the individual does not see the consequences of the decision.
In "When We Dead Awaken" the chill of art is contrasted with life's warmth. In this perspective, art serves as a prison from which the artist neither can, nor wishes to escape. As Rubek says to Irene:
"I am an artist, Irene, and I take no shame to myself for the frailties that perhaps cling to me. For I was born to be an artist, you see. - And, do what I may, I shall never be anything else."
This is not an acceptable excuse for Irene, whom he has betrayed. She sees things from a different angle. She calls him a "poet", one who creates his own fictitious world, neglecting his humanity and that of the people who love him. Ella Rentheim, in "John Gabriel Borkman" (1896) makes the same complaint against the man who sacrificed her on the altar of his career. The tragic element in Ibsen's perspective is that for the type of people that concern him, this seems to be an insoluble conflict. Yet this fact does not exonerate them from the responsibility or their own decisions.
Although "When We Dead Awaken" criticizes the egocentricity of the artist, it would be going too far to view the drama as the writer's bitter self-examination. Rubek is not a self-portrait. However, some Ibsen researchers have seen him as a spokesman for the author's standpoint on the question of art. At one point, Rubek says that the public only relates to the external realistic "truth" in his human portrayal. What people do not understand is the hidden dimension in these portraits, all the deceitful motives that hide behind the respectable bourgeois facades. In his youth, Rubek had been inspired by an idealistic vision of a higher form of human existence. Experience has turned him into a disillusioned exposer of people, a man who believes he portrays life as it really is. It is the animal governing man that dominates his vision; this is Rubek's version of Zola's "La béte humaine", and he explains the changes in his art in the following way:
"I imagined that which I saw with my eyes around me in the world. I had to include it (...) and up from the fissures of the soil there now swarm men and women with dimly- suggested animal-faces. women and men - as I knew them in real life."
Understandably, some students of Ibsen have fallen into the temptation of drawing a parallel between life and art, and see this work as a merciless self-denunciation. Once again, "When We Dead Awaken" is by no means auto-biographical. Rubek's relationship with the writer has to be sought on a deeper level - in the conflicts that Ibsen, toward the end of his life, saw as a general and essential human problem.
Ibsen the Psychologist
In the work of the aging writer we meet a number of people who are experiencing similar conflicts. John Gabriel Borkman sacrifices his love for a dream of power and honor. Master builder Solness wrecks his family's lives in order to be regarded as an "artist" in his trade. And Hedda Gabler resolutely changes the fates of others in order to fulfill her own dream of freedom and independence. These examples of people who pursue their own goals, involuntarily trampling on the lives of others, are all drawn from the playwright's last decade of writing. In Ibsen's psychological analyses, he reveals the negative forces (he calls them "demons" and "trolls" in the minds of these people. His human characterization in these latter dramas is extremely complex - a common factor shared by all his last works, starting with "The Wild Duck" in 1884. In his last 15 years of writing, Ibsen developed his dialectical supremacy and his distinctive dramatic form - where realism, symbolism, and deep-digging psychological insights interact. It is this phase of his work that has prompted people to call him - rightly or wrongly - a "Freud of the theater." In any case, Freud and many other psychologists have made use of Ibsen's human portraits as a basis for character analysis or even to illustrate their own theories. Especially well known is Freud's analysis of Rebekka West in "Rosmersholm" (1886), a portrayal he discussed in 1916 together with other character types "who collapse under the weight of success." Freud sees Rebekka as a tragic victim of the Oedipus complex and an incestuous past. The analysis reveals perhaps more about Freud than about Ibsen. But Freud's influence, and the sway of psychoanalysis in general, have had a considerable effect on the way the Norwegian dramatist has been regarded.
Interest in Ibsen as a psychologist can too readily obscure other, equally important, sides of his art. His account of human life is from an acute social and conceptual perspective. Perhaps this is the essence of his art - that which turns it into existential drama exploring many facets of life. This concerns everything he wrote, even prior to his emergence as an international dramatist around 1880.
A Desperate Drama
Ibsen's work as a writer represents a long poetic contemplation of people's need to live differently than they do. Thus there is always a deep undercurrent of desperation in his work. Benedetto Croce called these portrayals of people who live in constant expectation and who are consumed by their pursuit of "something else" in life, "a desperate drama".
It is precisely this distance between what they can achieve and what they want to achieve that is the cause of the tragic (and in many cases the comic) aspect of these people's lives. Ibsen felt that this contradiction between will and real prospects was at the root of his art. Looking back on 25 years of writing in 1875, he declared that most of what he had written involved "the contradiction between ability and aspiration, between will and possibility". In this conflict he saw "humanity's and the individual's tragedy and comedy simultaneously." - A decade later, he created the tragicomic constellation of the priest Rosmer and his scruffy teacher Ulrik Brendel. These two men, who are reflections of each other, both end up on the brink of an abyss where all they see is life's total emptiness and insignificance.
In Ibsen's 12 modern contemporary plays, from "Pillars of Society" (1877) to "When We Dead Awaken" (1899), we are led time and again into the same milieu. His characters' are distinguished by their staunch, well-established bourgeois lives. Nevertheless, their world is threatened and threatening. It turns out that the world is in motion; old values and previous conceptions are adrift. The movement shakes up the life of the individual and jeopardizes the established social order. Here we see how the process has a psychological as well as a conceptual and social aspect. Yet what starts the whole process is the need for change, something springing forth from the individual's volition.
In this sense, Ibsen is a powerful conceptual writer. This does not mean that his main concern as a dramatist was the didactical use of theater, or the waging of an abstract ideological debate. (Some of his critics, contemporary and later, have made this accusation - and it's fairly obvious that Ibsen was drawn towards the didactic.) However, the basis of Ibsen's human portrayal is his characters' conceptions of what makes life worth living - their values and their understanding of existence. The concepts they use to describe their position may be unclear; their self-understanding may be intuitive and deficient. A good example of this is Ellida Wangel's description of her ambivalent attraction to the sea in "The Lady from the Sea" (1888). But for a long time, in Ellida's consciousness, a desire has grown for a freer life coupled with a need for other moral and social values than those dominating Dr. Wangel's bourgeois existence. And this discovery within her creates shockwaves on the psychological and the social plane.
The Human Conflicts
Ibsen himself has given the best characteristic of his approach to drama. This was as early as 1857 in a theater review:
"It is not the conscious strife between ideas parading before us, nor is this the situation in real life. What we see are human conflicts, and enwrapped in these, deep inside, lay ideas at battle - being defeated, or charged with victory."
This undoubtedly touches upon something essential in Ibsen's demands to dramatic art: it should as realistically as possible unify three elements: the psychological, the ideological and the social. At its best, the organic synthesis of these three elements is at the heart of Ibsen's drama. Perhaps he only succeeds completely in a few of his plays, such as "Ghosts", "The Wild Duck", and "Hedda Gabler". Interestingly, he considered his major work to be "Emperor and Galilean" (1873), contrary to everyone else. This could indicate how much emphasis he put on ideology, not overt, but as a conflict between opposing views toward life. Ibsen believed that he had created a fully "realistic" rendering of the inner conflict in the abandoned Julian. The truth is, however, that Julian is too marked by the dramatist's own thoughts - what he calls his "positive philosophy of life." Ibsen first succeeded as a theatrical writer when he seriously took another approach - the one he described in connection with "Hedda Gabler" (1890):
"My main goal has been to depict people, human moods and human fates, on the basis of certain predominant social conditions and perceptions."
Ibsen took many years, after "Emperor and Galilean", to orient himself in this direction. Five years after that great historical dramatization of ideas came "Pillars of Society", the starting point for lbsen's reputation as a European theatrical writer.
Ibsen's International Breakthrough
In 1879, Ibsen sent Nora Helmer out into the world with a demand that a woman too must have the freedom to develop as an adult, independent, and responsible person. The playwright was now over 50, and had finally been recognized outside of the Nordic countries. "Pillars of Society". had admittedly opened the German borders for him, but it was "A Doll's House". and "Ghost" (1881) which in the 1880s led him into the European avant-garde.
"A Doll's House" has a plot which he repeated in many subsequent works, in the phase when he cultivated "critical realism". We experience the individual in opposition to the majority, society's oppressive authority. Nora puts it this way: "I will have to find out who is right, society or myself."
As noted earlier, when the individual intellectually frees himself from traditional ways of thinking, serious conflicts arise. For a short period around 1880, it appears that Ibsen was relatively optimistic about the individual's chances of succeeding on his own. Although her future is insecure in many ways, Nora seems to have a real chance of finding the freedom and independence she is seeking. Ibsen can be criticized for his somewhat superficial treatment of the problems a divorced woman without means would face in contemporary society. But it was the moral problems that concerned him as a writer, not the practical and economic ones.
A Singular Success
In spite of Nora's uncertain future prospects, she has served in a number of countries as a symbol for women fighting for liberation and equality. In this connection, she is the most "international" of lbsen's characters. Yet this is a rather singular success. The middle-class public has enthusiastically applauded a woman who leaves her children and husband, completely breaking off with the most important institution in the bourgeois society - the family!
This points to the basis of Ibsen's international success. He took deep schisms and acute problems that afflicted the bourgeois family and placed them on the stage. On the surface, the middle-class homes gave an impression of success - and appeared to reflect a picture of a healthy and stable society. But Ibsen dramatizes the hidden conflicts in this society by opening the doors to the private, and secret rooms of the bourgeois homes. He shows what can be hiding behind the beautiful façades: moral duplicity, confinement, betrayal, and fraud not to mention a constant insecurity. These were the aspects of the middle-class life one was not supposed to mention in public, as Pastor Manders wished Mrs. Alving to keep secret her reading and everything else that threatened the atmosphere at Rosenvold in "Ghosts". In the same manner, the social leaders in "Rosmersholm" put pressure on Rosmer to keep him from telling that he, the priest, had given up the Christian faith.
But Ibsen did not remain silent, and the spotlights of his plays made contemporary aspects of life highly visible. He disrupted the peace of the lives of the bourgeoisie by reminding them that they had climbed to their position of social power by mastering quite different ideals than tranquillity, order and stability. The bourgeoisie had betrayed its own motto of "freedom, equality, and brotherhood", and especially after the revolutionary year 1848 they had become defenders of the status quo. There was, of course, a liberal opposition within their class, and Ibsen openly joins these ranks in his first modern contemporary drama. He considered this movement for freedom and progress to be the true "European" point of view. As early as 1870, he wrote to the Danish critic Georg Brandes that it was imperative to return to the ideas of the French revolution, freedom, equality, and brotherhood. The words need a new meaning in keeping with the times, he claimed. In 1875 he writes, again to Brandes:
"Why are you, and the rest of us who hold the European viewpoint, so isolated at home?"
Eventually, as Ibsen grew older, he had trouble accepting certain extreme forms of liberalism which overemphasized the individual's sovereign right to self-realization and to some extent radically departed from past norms and values. In "Rosmersholm", he points out the dangers of radicalism built solely on individual moral norms. It is obvious here that Ibsen is concerned with European culture's basis in a Christian inspired moral tradition. One has to build on this, he indicates, even though one has given up the Christian faith. This is certainly the conclusion that Rebekka West reaches.
Simultaneously, this drama, like "Ghosts", is a painful clash with the melancholic, killjoy aspects of the Christian bourgeois tradition which subdues the human spirit. Both these works contain, for all their despair, a warm defense of happiness and the joy of life - pitted against the bourgeois society's emphasis on duty, law, and order.
It was in the 1870s that Ibsen oriented himself toward his "European" point of view. Even though he lived abroad, he continually chose a Norwegian setting for his contemporary dramas. As a rule, we find ourselves in a small Norwegian coastal town, the kind Ibsen knew so well from his childhood in Skien and his youth in Grimstad. The background of the young Ibsen certainly gave him a sharp eye for social forces and conflicts arising from differing viewpoints. In small societies, such as the typical Norwegian coastal town, these social and ideological conflicts are more exposed than they would be in a larger city.
Ibsen's first painful experiences came from such a small community. He had seen how conventions, traditions, and norms could exercise a negative control over the individual, create anxiety, and inhibit a natural and joyful lifestyle. This is the atmosphere of the "ghosts" as Mrs. Alving experiences it. According to her, it makes people "afraid of the light."
This was the atmosphere of his youth that formed the basis for his writing and world fame. As an insecure writer and man of the theater in a stifling Norwegian milieu, he set out to create a new Norwegian drama. He began with this national perspective. At the same time, from his first journey abroad, he oriented himself toward the European tradition of theater.
lbsen's Years of Learning
In the history of drama, early in the 1850s Ibsen carried on the traditions of two highly dissimilar writers, the Frenchman Eugéne Scribe (1791-1861) and the German Friedrich Hebbel (1813-63). For 11 years the young Ibsen was occupied with day to day practical stagework, and it follows that he had to keep himself well informed about the latest contemporary Euro-heatrical art. He worked with rehearsals of new plays and was committed to writing for the theater.
Scribe could teach him how a drama's plot should be structured in a logically motivated progression of scenes. Hebbel provided him with an example of the way drama could be based on life's contemporary dialectics, creating a modern conceptual drama. Hebbel's pioneering work was his conveyance of the ideologicalconflicts of his day into the theater where he created "a drama of issues" pointing forward. He also knew how the Greek tragedy's retrospective technique could be used by a modern dramatist.
In other words, Ibsen was in close contact with the art of the stage for a long uninterrupted period. His six years at the theater in Bergen (1851-57) and the following four or five years at the theater in Kristiania from 1857 were not easy. But he acquired a sharp eye for theatrical techniques and possibilities.
During a study tour to Copenhagen and Dresden in 1852, he came across a dramaturgical work newly released in Germany. It was Hermann Hettner's "Das moderne Drama" (1852). This programmatic treatise for a new topical theater deeply affected Ibsen's development as a dramatist. In Hettner too, we see the strong influence of Scribe and Hebbel, combined with a passionate interest for Shakespeare. Ibsen also gleaned knowledge from other writers, most notably Schiller and the two Danes Adam Oehlenschleger (1779-1850) and John Ludvig Heiberg (1791-1860).
Ibsen's apprenticeship was long, lasting about 15 years, and included theater work he later would claim to be as difficult as "having an abortion every day." There was a strong pressure to produce hanging over him; one that led to fumbling attempts in many directions. He experienced a few minor artistic victories - and numerous defeats. Very few believed that he had the necessary gift to become more than a minor theatrical writer with a modicum of talent.
In spite of this insecurity, it is a determined young writer we see during these years. His goal was clearly national. Together with his friend and colleague Bjornstjerne Bjornson (1832-1910), he founded "The Norwegian Company" in 1859, an organ for Norwegian art and culture. They had a joint program for their activities. Ibsen was especially concerned with the role of theater in the young Norwegian nation's search for its own identity In these "nation-building" pursuits, he gathered his material from the country's medieval history and perfected his art as a dramatist. This is prominent in the work that caps Ibsen's period of apprenticeship, "The Pretenders" from 1863. The story takes place in Norway in the 1200s, a period marked by destructive strife. But Ibsen's perspective is Norway of the 1860s when he has the king, Haakon Haakonsson, express his thoughts on national unity:
"Norway was a kingdom, now it will be a nation (... ) all shall be as one hereafter, and all shall know in themselves that they are one!"
"The Pretenders" was Ibsen's breakthrough, yet he had to wait a few years before being recognized as one of the country's leading writers. This honor came in 1866 with "Brand" "The Pretenders", constitutes the end of his close relationship with Norwegian theater. It was also his farewell performance - he now started his long exile. In the years that followed, he turned away from the stage and sought a reading public.
The Great Topical Dramas
Both the great dramas for reading, "Brand" (1866) and "Peer Gynt" (1867), were based on Ibsen's problematic relationship with his country of birth. Political developments in 1864 led him to lose his optimistic belief in his country's future. He even began to doubt whether his countrymen had a historical raison d'être as a nation.
What he had earlier treated as a national problem of identity now became a question of the individual's personal integrity. It was no longer sufficient to dwell on an earlier historical era of greatness and focus on the continuity of the nation's life. Ibsen turned away from history, and confronted what he considered the main contemporary problem - a nation can only rise up culturally by means of the individual's exertion of will. "Brand" is mainly a drama with a message that the individual must follow the path of volition in order to achieve true humanity In addition, this is the only way to real freedom - for the individual, and it follows, for society as a whole.
In the two rather different twin works "Brand" and "Peer Gynt", the focus is on the problem of personality, Ibsen dramatizes the conflict between an opportunistic acting out of an unnatural role, and a dedication to a demanding lifelong quest. In "Peer Gynt", the dramatist created a scene which artistically illustrates this situation of conflict. The aging Peer, on his way back to his Norwegian roots is forced to come to terms with himself. As he looks back upon his wasted life, he peels an onion. He lets each layer represent a different role he has played. But he finds no core. He has to face the fact that he has become "no one", that he has no "self".
"So unspeakably poor, then, a soul can go back to nothingness, in the misty gray. You beautiful earth, don't be annoyed that I left no sign when I walked your grass. You beautiful sun, in vain you've shed your glorious light on an empty house. There was no one within to cheer and warm; - The owner, they tell me, was never at home."
Peer is the weak, spineless person - Brand's antithesis. But it is precisely in Ibsen's living portrayal of a personality's "dissolution" in changing roles, that some historians of the theater see the harbinger of a modernistic perception of the individual. The British drama researcher Ronald Gaskell puts it this way: "Peer Gynt" inaugurates the drama of the modern mind", and he continues: "Indeed, if Surrealism and Expressionism in the theater can be said to have any single source, the source is undoubtedly "Peer Gynt".
Thus does this early Ibsen drama though very "Norwegian" and romantic claim a central position in theatrical history, even though it was not written for the stage. In fact, it is "Peer Gynt" that in modern times has helped Ibsen to retain his position as a vital and relevant writer. Thus it was not only his contemporary plays that have made him one of the most towering figures in the history of the theater. Although it was mainly these works the well-known Swedish researcher in drama, Martin Lamm, had in mind when he claimed:
"Ibsen's drama is the Rome of modern drama: all roads lead to it - and from it."
Even though Ibsen withdrew from his Norwegian starting point in the 1870s and became "a European," he was always deeply marked by the country he left in 1864, and to which he first returned as an aging celebrity. It was not easy for him to return. The many years abroad, and the long struggle for recognition, had left their indelible stamp. Towards the end of his career, he said that he really was not happy with the fantastic life he had lived. He felt homeless - even in his mother country.
But it is precisely this tension between the Norwegian and the foreign (an element of freer European culture) in Ibsen that characterized him more than anything else as an individual and a writer. His independent position in what he called "the great, free, cultural situation" provided him with the broad perspective of distance, and freedom. Simultaneously, the Norwegian in him created a longing for a more liberated and happier life. This is the longing for the sun in the grave writer's poetic world. He never denied his distinctive Norwegian character. Toward the end of his life, he said to a German friend:
He who wishes to understand me, must know Norway. The magnificent, but severe, natural environment surrounding people up there in the north, the lonely, secluded life - the farms are miles apart - forces them to be unconcerned with others, to keep to their own. That is why they become introspective and serious, they brood and doubt - and they often lose faith. At home every other person is a philosopher! There, the long, dark, winters come with their thick fogs enveloping the houses - oh, how they long for the sun!
Ibsen’s entire life, including his childhood, young adulthood, and older years when he became internationally recognized, has impacted his plays in some way. His contemporary dramas are always set in a small Norwegian town like the one he grew up in as a child. His childhood experiences influenced some of the ideas that are portrayed in his plays, such as “how conventions, traditions, and norms could exercise a negative control over the individual, create anxiety, and inhibit a natural and joyful lifestyle.” His characters are primarily in the middle class, which his own family was a part of, as well. Professor Hemmer mentions the word “insecure” several times in the reading. When Ibsen was an apprentice at a theater, he felt very insecure as a writer because most of his works were getting rejected, but he persevered and ultimately made a breakthrough with “The Pretenders.” Ibsen writes about the insecurities that the bourgeois struggle with daily. Hemmer says that the play “When We Dead Awaken” reflects Ibsen’s life. One area in which this is seen is despite the character Rubek’s “fame and success, he feels no happiness,” similar to how Ibsen does not feel happy at the end of his successful life.
ReplyDeleteThis frustration with finding the meaning of life is how Ibsen changed modern drama. He went deep into the psychology of his bourgeois characters, as seen in “Peer Gynt.” In this play, Ibsen talks about the disillusion people have with their identity, and the confusion people experience when trying to play an unnatural role. Hemmer says, “More than anyone, he gave theatrical art a new vitality by bringing into European bourgeois drama an ethical gravity, a psychological depth, and a social significance which the theater had lacked since the days of Shakespeare.” Like many writers who write on controversial topics, Ibsen did not become widely known until the end of his life and after his death. Hemmer’s quote shows that Ibsen made a distinct mark in history and so as a student, in order to understand modern drama, I must first understand Ibsen.
Like most playwrights, Ibsen focuses on incorporating specific elements into each of his works. To create a well balanced and intricate piece of dramatic art one must unify three elements: the psychological, the ideological and the social. The article states that he has only truly achieved this unification of ideas in a small number of his plays, one of which is “Ghosts”. I thought it interesting that Ibsen would focus his career so strongly on a principle others don’t feel he follows very well. The plays mentioned were written towards the end of his career, which demonstrates an evolution to his writing. However, he claims that his best work was one of his middle plays, “Emperor and Galilean” written in 1873. I guess in his mind this drama very accurately depicted people, which is something he aimed to do in all of his writings. Ibsen stated, "My main goal has been to depict people, human moods and human fates, on the basis of certain predominant social conditions and perceptions." Analyzing this quote you can clearly tell Ibsen wanted to express the views and thoughts of a variety of people in his plays, hence the vast differences in setting and people amongst his dramas. Ibsen has a really colored palette when it comes to creating dramatic works, as evidenced by the conflicting ideas seen in his plays “Brand” and “Ghost”. In “Brand” the main character argues that volition is the only way to push through life and make the most of it, while in “Ghosts” it’s much the opposite. Another example is his play “Peer Gynt”, which focuses on a man who is forced to come to terms with himself. Unlike in “Brand” where the characters are expressing who they are through volition, the main character Peer in this play discovers he has no sense of self and loathes his humanity. A quote from the drama states, "So unspeakably poor, then, a soul can go back to nothingness, in the misty gray. You beautiful earth, don't be annoyed that I left no sign when I walked your grass. You beautiful sun, in vain you've shed your glorious light on an empty house. There was no one within to cheer and warm; - The owner, they tell me, was never at home." This large contrast between themes and messages is exactly what Ibsen strove to do as a playwright. He masterfully created complex and extremely unique stories to cover a wide variety of people, opinions, ideas, places, etc.
ReplyDeleteHenrik Ibsen was an integral part to the development of modern drama. He gave art a “new vitality” by incorporating ethical complications into the lives of the rich. His influence on theater is like how swords were constructed; smiths would mix newly found materials, like iron, with old ones, like carbon. Ibsen took the old––Shakespeare’s masterful plays––and gave his own unique twist of social commentary. He believed in the idea that we cannot predict the future or what other options we have had would have led us down, especially infusing this mentality into his characters. A woman, Irene, in “When We Dead Awaken”, says to Professor Rubek, “it is first when we dead awaken, that we see what is irremediable that we have never really lived”. The way that Ibsen presents his conflict, though, is when the main characters see that two choices both lead to favorable outcomes. Each option has its own qualities that make the protagonist question their morals and judgment. They cannot see the consequences, and this is where Ibsen says that predictability is futile; countless decisions will be made, and countless chances will be missed. Predictions come with a margin of error.
ReplyDeleteIbsen, born in a small town in Norway, had life handed to him on display. He could easily sense the strife of others since the town was so close-knit and anything that would happen was interesting, as small towns are. Easily, he used these ideas to create theatrical works throughout his life. His plays found themselves set in coastal towns in Norway, just like the ones he had known so well. They make for beautiful scenery, and great places to showcase and splay characters for analysis. Ironically, the perspectives we see most are influenced by his own feelings. They are usually reflections of himself, despite the material he has to work with from others in his life. In using his own ideas (often times controversial or unpopular), he changed public opinions and mindsets globally through his work.
Henrik Johan Ibsen (20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and one of the founders of modernism in theater. Ibsen is well known as the father of realism and modern drama.
ReplyDeleteHe was born into an affluent merchant family in Norway. When he was seven years old, his family came down in the world and they fell in financial difficulty. Suffering in hard life, Ibsen moral conflicts stemming from dark secrets hidden from society. Alongside, he also saw his mom how sacrificed herself to support the family and how optimistic she faced the difficulties. He started to write plays when he was fifteen working at a pharmacy. His hard life and experience make him pay more attentions on the themes of moral conflicts and social vices, like what can be hiding behind the beautiful facades: moral duplicity, confinement, betrayal, and fraud. These were the aspects of the middle-class life one was not supposed to mention in public. In his letter, he wrote to the Danish critic Georg Brandes that "it was imperative to return to the ideas of the French revolution, freedom, equality, and brotherhood.” The characters in his plays often mirror his family members, especially his mom, he shows sympathy with suffering women, for example, A Doll's House. Nora has served as a symbol for women fighting for liberation and equality. Moreover, his life as an artist was a long and hard struggle leading to victory and fame - a hard road from poverty to international success, was also reflected in his dramas which are filled with an atmosphere of tragedy, as he said
“What we see are human conflicts, and enwrapped in these, deep inside, lay ideas at battle - being defeated, or charged with victory."
Moreover, even though Ibsen left Norwegian when he was thirty-four and became “a European” and felt homeless even in his mother country, he referred his success to his Norwegian background in a letter to his friend:
“He who wishes to understand me, must know Norway. The magnificent, but severe, natural environment surrounding people up there in the north, the lonely, secluded life - the farms are miles apart - forces them to be unconcerned with others, to keep to their own. That is why they become introspective and serious, they brood and doubt - and they often lose faith. At home every other person is a philosopher! There, the long, dark, winters come with their thick fogs enveloping the houses - oh, how they long for the sun!”
Ibsen is the father of realism and modern drama. Instead of the coincidence, romantics and strong storyline of the traditional dramas, he emphasizes on an ethical gravity, a psychological depth, and a social significance while focuses on the middle class rather then the upper class, depicting their daily lives, troubles, crisis, and their feelings, struggling and thoughts. In this manner, he provides a new form of European drama -- the realistic contemporary drama.
I feel that art is often, if not always, reflective of the artist as a whole. Van Gogh is an example of this. He is famous for the depression that influenced his artwork. I believe that Ibsen is no different. When We Dead Awaken seems to be extremely reflective of Ibsen’s life, and may have created the image of the unhappy artist. In this play, art seems to be an overwhelming force that takes over the artist’s life. Ironically, the professor in the play has broken off ties with his S.O. because of art. He had dedicated his whole life to art and had no room for love. Ibsen’s wife was the antithesis of Rubek’s S.O. Ibsen’s wife encouraged his art, often sacrificing their relationship. While ibsen claims that Rubek is not a self portrait, one cannot ignore the similarities between them. Neither are extremely happy, and neither care much about their fame. They are simply going through life, creating meaningful art that does not provide the artist enjoyment. In Rubek’s situation, his art has caused him to close himself off from the world, while Ibsen’s is forced to create art for the world. The contrast between the life of Ibsen and the fictional life of Rubek show the extremes of the artist. More importantly, it shows how both extremes ultimately have the same result. This could be a message meant for the greater world: extremes in either direction lead to the same result, and in this case the result is not a good one. One can conclude that life is best in moderation. Perhaps if Rubek had put down the pen and spent more time with Irene, he may have lead a happier life, and if Ibsen had not been forced to create art he would have had more enjoyment in his life.
ReplyDeleteHenrik Ibsen is quite a deep and philosophical person and seems like the type of person who is more of an observer of society and someone who is very detail oriented in their critiques and observations about society and the world around him. I feel like this probably led him to write plays about the human condition and about people’s seemingly small character flaws that can lead to many misfortunes down the road. His writing seems quite critical to me at least and they are the type of plays and stories where the reader is supposed to learn a lesson and learn from the character’s mistakes. Ibsen lived a very difficult life in regards to his strive to become an accomplished writer and that is also definitely seen in his writing too.
ReplyDeleteThe ‘lessons’ that he teaches in his writing is quite philosophical and is deeply rooted with everlasting human conflicts. One of the most popular being, "the contradiction between ability and aspiration, between will and possibility". He brings in new perspectives in his writing about ethical and moral values. People always want more and always want to be better and brighter than the rest so I feel like that brings in an interesting perspective of what we want and what we actually can achieve and Ibsen seemed to be quite critical of this especially when it came to writing about the upper class bourgeois society.
Another quote which I found quite interesting was when it added a quote from him which said, "My main goal has been to depict people, human moods and human fates, on the basis of certain predominant social conditions and perceptions.". I feel like we are going to see this theme of human condition and quality of life pop up a lot in this unit and I am quite interested to see how it plays out. I hope to see writing about human fate and how much control we have over it based on our choices and conditions and I’m also interested in learning more about his perceptions on society and how it changed in his times.
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ReplyDeleteIsben wrote about a character leaving their home country and traveling abroad to gain knowledge, respect, and success. This characters emptiness despite the newfound fame is a direct reflection of Isben’s own life. Although he was able to create great works of art he felt as though he abandoned his youth and failed relationships. The truths about his own struggle of balancing human relations and working towards a goal are displayed in his writing. This strategy allows Isben’s audience to connect their own decisions and issues with the choices of the characters and Isben himself. "I am an artist, Irene, and I take no shame to myself for the frailties that perhaps cling to me. For I was born to be an artist, you see. - And, do what I may, I shall never be anything else." (Isben) Isben saw as a blessing and a curse as he felt it disconnects the artist from their relationships.
ReplyDeleteIsben was able to changed modern drama by focusing his work on the middle class, because this was his main audience. Before Isben’s work literature and art depicted the upper classes, but he felt that this created a false reality for the people viewing it. He wanted to expose the truth behind the motives of people who hide behind an act as he felt the Bourgeois did.
I feel that art is often, if not always, reflective of the artist as a whole. Van Gogh is an example of this. He is famous for the depression that influenced his artwork. I believe that Ibsen is no different. When We Dead Awaken seems to be extremely reflective of Ibsen’s life, and may have created the image of the unhappy artist. In this play, art seems to be an overwhelming force that takes over the artist’s life.
ReplyDeleteIronically, the professor in the play has broken off ties with his S.O. because of art. He had dedicated his whole life to art and had no room for love. Ibsen’s wife was the antithesis of Rubek’s S.O. Ibsen’s wife encouraged his art, often sacrificing their relationship. While ibsen claims that Rubek is not a self portrait, one cannot ignore the similarities between them. Neither are extremely happy, and neither care much about their fame. They are simply going through life, creating meaningful art that does not provide the artist enjoyment. In Rubek’s situation, his art has caused him to close himself off from the world, while Ibsen’s is forced to create art for the world. The contrast between the life of Ibsen and the fictional life of Rubek show the extremes of the artist. More importantly, it shows how both extremes ultimately have the same result. This could be a message meant for the greater world: extremes in either direction lead to the same result, and in this case the result is not a good one. One can conclude that life is best in moderation.
Perhaps if Rubek had put down the pen and spent more time with Irene, he may have lead a happier life, and if Ibsen had not been forced to create art he would have had more enjoyment in his life.
It is very common for those involved in the production of literary, dramatic or poetic works to take from their lives, for such experiences would be most personal and easiest to discuss. In addition, commentary can be made upon the author’s life, to reflect upon past decisions and which path could have been taken. In his plays, Henrik Ibsen discusses choice, the selection between a joyous life and a life devoted to the arts but lacking. A character in Ibsen’s play mentions that “’I am an artist, Irene, and I take no shame to myself for the frailties that perhaps cling to me. For I was born to be an artist, you see. - And, do what I may, I shall never be anything else.’” There was no other path Ibsen could take, for he has within him the need to create. Even if he finds himself in a “state of living death,” Ibsen has to keep going. However, Ibsen could feel a sense of regret, for the main character in “When We Dead Awaken” realizes that he left a girl he once loved to pursue art, and this could be the inner voice of Ibsen speaking. In addition, Professor Rubek, a character in the aforementioned play left his small Norwegian town, which Ibsen did, leaving to pursue their dreams in art. Ibsen changed the modern drama in focus. He sough to examen the psyche, and psychologically analyze his characters, trying to create people as if from life. The aesthetic values, a remnant from Oscar Wilde’s works, were changed from art of art’s sake to something much deeper. Ibsen also took up social causes in his work, as he advocated for women’s rights in his play “A Doll’s House.” Henrik Ibsen was definitely a pivot in turns of subject matter his dramas discussed. Gone were Wilde’s airy fairy love stories, as they were replaced by the struggles of real people. Although many of Ibsen’s plays were set in scenes of prosperity, there were undercurrents of negative thoughts and disorder. Very light plays are only so useful, but dramas that leave the viewer with something familiar, or adds a new perspective about life are personally much more valuable.
ReplyDeleteHenrik Ibsen was able to change the modern drama because his "main goal has been to depict people, human moods and human fates, on the basis of certain predominant social conditions and perceptions." This is different to writers during this time and before him. It seems like through his plays, Ibsen pointed at flaws in society and ways of life, which was out of the ordinary for writers to do. The reading said that it was “But it was the moral problems that concerned him as a writer, not the practical and economic ones.” Studying Ibsen, it seems important to be able to recognize this. From the article it seems like Ibsen did draw inspiration from his personal life but not necessarily himself or his thoughts, such as some other writers, like Virginia Woolf who wrote about her own thoughts and her perception of life. However, it does seem like he drew from the world around him, such as small Norwegian towns like where he was raised and lived part of his life.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up with a rough childhood has a significant impact on Ibsen's writing. Many of the lives he describes in his work reflects his own. In part about his "life and writing," there are some examples of characters that represent Ibsen. One being Professor Rubek from "When We Dead Awaken." He feels no happiness, even though he has fame and success by his side. "It is the tragic life feeling itself that Gives Ibsen's drama its special character, the experience of missing out on life and plodding along in a state of living death." This can be interpreted as a description of Ibsen's life. He struggles with gaining the fame and success. Once he achieves it, there is no substantial evidence of him feeling content with the victory he has received. That being said, his work has impacted many lives. Benedetto Croce describes Ibsen's characters as "'something else' in life, "a desperate drama.'" Ibsen's characters desire to live differently than they do. So there is a sense of desperation in his work. This can sometimes be intriguing to readers because they sometimes wish to live a different life than the one they are living right now.
ReplyDeleteThere is a quote from the human conflicts section that intrigued me.
"It is not the conscious strife between ideas parading before us, nor is this the situation in real life. What we see are human conflicts, and enwrapped in these, deep inside, lay ideas at battle - being defeated, or charged with victory."
I believe Ibsen's goal is to allow readers to see daily and relatable conflicts between characters in themselves; in his stories, his characters either defeat the battle or gets defeated. It sends the message to readers to face their problems and not avoid them. You either encounter and overcome them, or you can let it consume you.
Ibsen also spoke out about social injustice through his work.
"He disrupted the peace of the lives of the bourgeoisie by reminding them that they had climbed to their position of social power by mastering quite different ideals than tranquillity, order, and stability. The bourgeoisie had betrayed its own motto of "freedom, equality, and brotherhood",
He was not afraid to call out the bourgeoisie for the betrayal of their personal motto. By highlighting it in his work, he spoke out about, but subtly.
Ibsen seemed to be concerned more about his artistic integrity and career rather than intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships. In doing so, his plays were more tragedy focused but in living his life, he was not able to share it with others which is one of the greatest things you could do to bring yourself true contentment. His play “When We Dead Awaken” is about realizing how life was not truly lived by his characters and, ironically, you will only be able to realize that once your consciousness is wiped from existence, only after death. But if life is not solely about productivity, creation, and one’s career, it is what why choose to do with those skills, who we do it for, and appreciate and reflect on why it has become our focus is what can make life fulfilling. Ibsen’s character Ruben, from “When We Dead Awaken”, said, “I am an artist, Irene, and I take no shame to myself for the frailties that perhaps cling to me. For I was born to be an artist, you see. - And, do what I may, I shall never be anything else,” therefore Ibsen, based on his plays, is a man who sacrificed his happiness for literary art and we cannot praise him nor chide him for doing so. In pursing it, he changed modern drama by integrating aspects that were never before so widely analyzed like characteristics from a psychodynamic viewpoint (later studied by Freud). According to Ibsen, “It is not the conscious strife between ideas parading before us, nor is this the situation in real life. What we see are human conflicts, and enwrapped in these, deep inside, lay ideas at battle - being defeated, or charged with victory." He also incorporates forms of ideological debate in his plays and how society affects his characters’ traits, that “moral problems that concerned him as a writer, not the practical and economic ones.”
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting guy. I think that the biography betrays Ibsen; it is so dense and intellectual. Maybe I read it with some of my own biases. It seems to me, after searching through the chunks of text, that Ibsen was an incredibly interesting person, or at least I find him that way.
ReplyDeleteI was especially enthralled by how smart he is portrayed to be yet how fervently nationalist he was, it's a combination I rarely see. As for his plays, I thought those were interesting too. The fact that his life played such a big part in his plays seemed incredibly honest to me. The quote in which he said that "I imagined that which I saw with my eyes around me in the world. I had to include it (...) and up from the fissures of the soil there now swarm men and women with dimly- suggested animal-faces. women and men - as I knew them in real life." represented to me that the way he creates reality in his plays is to borrow from the reality of his life.
Additionally, I find it interesting that he is compared to Freud seeing that as he explained it "My main goal has been to depict people, human moods and human fates, on the basis of certain predominant social conditions and perceptions." I find it amazing that he can depict life in such a realistic way, to the point where his invented characters can be psychoanalyzed.
Upon reading about Henrik Ibsen I think that he was an incredibly talented writer. Ibsen seems to have inserted a lot of himself and his own experiences into his writings. His tough childhood and depressing adult life seem to have had a major impact on his writings I think this is great because he is writing about what he has acquired knowledge about, rather than write about something you have only read about.
ReplyDeleteOf all the Ibsen quotes listed, my favorite was the following, "My main goal has been to depict people, human moods and human fates, based on certain predominant social conditions and perceptions"(Ibsen). This quote leads me to believe, Ibsen’s fascination with people and emotions would cause him to create the perceptions of his characters vividly, and I am excited to read his plays.
Another quote by Ibsen that I find especially interesting is, “’ I am an artist, Irene, and I take no shame to myself for the frailties that perhaps cling to me. I was born to be an artist, you see. - And, do what I may, I shall never be anything else’”(Ibsen). Ibsen is explaining the emotions of the character depicted in this line, which is part of how Ibsen affected modern drama. Ibsen emphasized putting more depth into the psychology of characters, exploring their inner thoughts rather than analyzing what was shown on the outside.
To me, Ibsen seemed to be an incredibly interesting person. He lived for his art, yet it seems as if he still felt hollow inside, even after producing works he approved of and achieving everlasting fame. By creating plays that depicted people realistically and in modern, relatable settings for his audiences, he defined the idea of a modern drama by grabbing the attention of millions and never letting go. It’s easy to look away from tragedies if they occur in a country far far away, but far harder to ignore when they’re down your street or in your living room.
ReplyDelete"I am an artist, Irene, and I take no shame to myself for the frailties that perhaps cling to me. For I was born to be an artist, you see. - And, do what I may, I shall never be anything else." I found this quote to be particularly striking because it highlights the loneliness that can be encountered in the pursuit of art. Whether it be his own life or reflected in his pieces, Ibsen was clearly entirely devoted to his work. The quote paints it in an almost dejected manner, as if it is a fate he cannot escape even if he wanted to. This is quite an interesting juxtaposition to the common idealization of artists as perfect creative geniuses.
"It is not the conscious strife between ideas parading before us, nor is this the situation in real life. What we see are human conflicts, and enwrapped in these, deep inside, lay ideas at battle - being defeated, or charged with victory." This quote resonated with me because it shows how Ibsen was incredibly focused on portraying the struggles of real people. One of the best pieces of theatre advice I have ever received was to give all characters, “the dignity of being real”. Ibsen brought his characters to life on stage and beyond, leaving a mark on the art form and the world itself that will never be forgotten.
A way Ibsen’s life impacted his plays was that illness brought his writing career to a halt. But before the end, he reshaped modern drama by giving “theatrical art a new vitality by bringing into European bourgeois drama an ethical gravity, a psychological depth, and a social significance which the theater had lacked since the days of Shakespeare.”
ReplyDeleteA quote that I found interesting was “In Ibsen's 12 modern contemporary plays, from "Pillars of Society" (1877) to "When We Dead Awaken" (1899), we are led time and again into the same milieu. His characters' are distinguished by their staunch, well-established bourgeois lives. Nevertheless, their world is threatened and threatening. It turns out that the world is in motion; old values and previous conceptions are adrift. The movement shakes up the life of the individual and jeopardizes the established social order. Here we see how the process has a psychological as well as a conceptual and social aspect. Yet what starts the whole process is the need for change, something springing forth from the individual's volition.” As a scholar of drama, this was very informative as it helped me better understand the meaning, theme and plot of Ibsen’s work.
“He who wishes to understand me, must know Norway. The magnificent, but severe, natural environment surrounding people up there in the north, the lonely, secluded life - the farms are miles apart - forces them to be unconcerned with others, to keep to their own. That is why they become introspective and serious, they brood and doubt - and they often lose faith. At home every other person is a philosopher! There, the long, dark, winters come with their thick fogs enveloping the houses - oh, how they long for the sun!”
ReplyDeleteI never thought too much about having to understand the person behind fiction; I’d say that in regards to modern fiction many people don’t want to. Normally I have no indication to who the author is or was except for their name hinting at an ethnicity and gender. In this case however, Ibsen connects his upbringing to his work in the way a critic would. It makes sense to me why, since his works seems to be quite psychological and political in nature. It’s more interesting considering his estranged relationship with his homeland.
“ As he looks back upon his wasted life, he peels an onion. He lets each layer represent a different role he has played. But he finds no core. He has to face the fact that he has become "no one", that he has no "self".”
This quote was way too real to me. Honestly, this is the point when reading about him when I understood why he’s important. Modern literature is full of characters like this. Not only are they lost, they never find themselves. The closest they ever get is accepting that they aren’t something defined. Gogol, for example, went through this, moving between attitudes and cultures, searching for a way to define himself. He never really gets there, stopping after he damages too many relationships and just resigns himself to living his life. This search for who we are is something important to almost all of us. Ibsen being one of the first to recognize that sometimes there’s nothing to be found really elevates him in my mind.
Like almost all great writers that I can recall, Ibsen writes about what he knows. When something in his life is either troubling or challenging him, he writes it out and symbolizes these problems and experiences, like with an onion. Ibsen's works were entirely based around his psyche, opinions and the thoughts that made him bear the most weight. Ibsen changed modern drama by practically creating his own subgenres and being very introspective about his situation, "Indeed, if Surrealism and Expressionism in the theater can be said to have any single source, the source is undoubtedly "Peer Gynt". A quote that really resonated with me was "But it is precisely this tension between the Norwegian and the foreign (an element of freer European culture) in Ibsen that characterized him more than anything else as an individual and a writer. His independent position in what he called "the great, free, cultural situation" provided him with the broad perspective of distance, and freedom. Simultaneously, the Norwegian in him created a longing for a more liberated and happier life. This is the longing for the sun in the grave writer's poetic world. He never denied his distinctive Norwegian character. Toward the end of his life, he said to a German friend:
ReplyDeleteHe" who wishes to understand me, must know Norway. The magnificent, but severe, natural environment surrounding people up there in the north, the lonely, secluded life - the farms are miles apart - forces them to be unconcerned with others, to keep to their own. That is why they become introspective and serious, they brood and doubt - and they often lose faith. At home every other person is a philosopher! There, the long, dark, winters come with their thick fogs enveloping the houses - oh, how they long for the sun!"
This quote lets me empathize with Ibsen a lot. I'm not saying I'm a master writer by any means, but I do feel like I process and give off information the same as Ibsen. I feel him emotionally on his connection to his mother land and the influence of his works.
Ibsen reminds me very much of the obsessed artist. Rather than incorporating an existing happy life into his work, his rise-to-fame story is one of sacrifice and loss. It reminds me of movies such as Whiplash or Black Swan where the protagonist sacrifices everything for the sake of their art. In fact, in Whiplash there is a scene where Neyman breaks up with his love interest to pursue drumming in the same way that Ibsen “has forsaken the love of his youth.” I will continue further with this connection to the movie Whiplash by saying Neyman in the movie also has the choice to quit at any time. His hands bleed from practice, his sweat drenches his drum kit, and his abusive coach Fletcher verbally beats on him. On the other end of the spectrum, his father is a complete pushover who babies him at the cost of not understanding his passion for drumming. This connects to the choice aspect in Isben’s characters who “strive toward a goal” at the expense of a possibly happier life.
ReplyDeleteMy impression on what Ibsen’s influence when it comes to changing drama derives from his ability to sit the genre down in a chair and tell it to grow up. I am not sure I am understanding the history correctly but it seems to me that dramas such as the ones we read from Oscar Wilde during the same period are almost immature in comparison to the depth and realism that Ibsen portrays through the conflict, plot, and theme in his works. It reminds me of Ricky Gervais’ speech at the Golden Globe award ceremony, where he bashes and criticises the fakeness of Hollywood life without restraint. I speculate that what makes Ibsen’s drama great and Ricky Gervais’ speech great is the fact that they were both not afraid to bring brutal honesty to a genre stale with repetitive movies or plays that were too afraid to break the status quo.
In each of his plays, Henrik Ibsen included the same three qualities, “an ethical gravity, a psychological depth, and a social significance”. This trifecta is present in each of his works, from Catiline (1850) all the way to When We Dead Awaken (1899). The purpose of these three aspects is to give depth to Ibsen’s pieces as a way to make them more than just a play but rather something people can hold on to, something people can understand and connect to. In a similar way, each of his works included aspects of Ibsen’s own life whether it was intentional or purely accidental. Often in literature, the author's leave pieces of themselves in their work. Virginia Woolf included essences of herself into her novel Mrs. Dalloway through the character Septimus as a way to voice out all the struggles and pain she had whereas Tim O’Brien quite literally put himself into his novel The Things They Carried despite the book remaining fictional. In each of these instances, the writers blended their own personal lives with their work because it is second nature to them. Ibsen never felt at peace with his homeland of Norway and was continually questioning it’s society. Ibsen’s own personal life helped to create the plot line he used most often in his writing in which the individual opposes the majority, “society’s oppressive authority” so that they may discover “who is right, society or [themself]”. Ibsen’s fearless personality in the real world transferred onto paper with his bold decision to “show what can be hiding behind the beautiful facades” of the middle class which had not yet been done before. Up until that point, many were too fearful to discuss the imperfections of life because it something that “was not supposed to [be] mention[ed] in public” yet Ibsen did it anyway. As a result, Ibsen transformed modern drama by opening the door to having more honest and authentic plays that depict the world for what it really is instead of what it appears to be.
ReplyDeleteLike many writers, Ibsen's work was greatly impacted by his ideology and Norwegian background. He based all of his contemporary plays in a small Norwegian town and examined how “conventions, traditions, and norms could exercise a negative control over the individual, create anxiety, and inhibit a natural and joyful lifestyle.” He then moved into modern drama as he began to dissect the lives of the bourgeois and their social facade.
ReplyDeleteI found really compelling that Iben centered his plays around his personal struggles with self identity and connection with his homeland. It was due to this that his plays became so relatable as many could identify with his art. What I also found interesting was how all the hard work he put in to getting recognized and developing his artistry, Ibsen realized that he was not content with his life and past decisions. He even felt homeless when returning to Norway. This feeling of homelessness was one that I connected with immigrants and many others in terms of patriotism. Personally, I have felt such emotions as I was practically raised in the United States and I have adopted many of its traditions but have a stronger connection and sense of home with the Dominican Republic. A quote that really caught my attention was when Ibsen conveyed how "the contradiction between ability and aspiration, between will and possibility...humanity's and the individual's tragedy and comedy simultaneously”.
Ibsen was very focused on his art in his life. His written works were all that he spent his time on. For the majority of his life, he devoted all of his energy to writing dramas, and is known as one of the most incredible and influential dramatists of all time. He spent most of his life living in European countries such as Italy and Germany and brought a European bourgeois style into his work. This brought depth and significance to his pieces ethically, psychologically, and socially. This style mirrored more of that of the ancient Greek tragedies than modern European styles of the time period. He brought fame to his homeland of Norway, which was one of his main motives in writing works. His main goal was to put Norway on the map - they weren’t known for a prowess in literature at the time. I find it interesting that despite having spent the majority of his life outside of Norway, he still felt strongly enough about his heritage to make sure his successes in his works were associated with his homeland. However, he pushed Norway to assimilate to the culture of arts in European countries such as France.
ReplyDeleteIn the article Background Material by Professor Bjorn Hemmer, University of Oslo, Hemmer wrote:
“As early as 1870, he wrote to the Danish critic Georg Brandes that it was imperative to return to the ideas of the French revolution, freedom, equality, and brotherhood. The words need a new meaning in keeping with the times, he claimed. In 1875 he writes, again to Brandes:”
This idea was not widely accepted, and Norway kept its culture rather separate and did not adopt outside cultures. Ibsen was a stranger to his own country. "Why are you, and the rest of us who hold the European viewpoint, so isolated at home?,” he once wrote.
I think this clash in identity is interesting: Ibsen is a man who loves his country dearly, is proud of his connection to its name, but wants to change its culture entirely.