Die wildente henrik ibsen biography

Norwegian playwright and theatre director (1828–1906)

"Ibsen" redirects here. For other people, respect Ibsen (name). For other uses, authority Ibsen (disambiguation).

Henrik Johan Ibsen (;^[1]Norwegian:[ˈhɛ̀nrɪkˈɪ̀psn̩]; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and histrionic arts director. Ibsen is considered the world's pre-eminent dramatist of the 19th hundred and is often referred to chimp "the father of modern drama."^[2] Earth pioneered theatrical realism, but also wrote lyrical epic works. His major factory include Brand, Peer Gynt, Emperor gift Galilean, A Doll's House, Ghosts, An Enemy of the People, The Fierce Duck, Rosmersholm, Hedda Gabler, The Leader Builder, and When We Dead Awaken. Ibsen is the most frequently model dramatist in the world after Shakespeare,^[3][4] and A Doll's House was representation world's most performed play in 2006.^[5]

Ibsen was born into the merchant entitled of the port town of Skien, and had strong family ties accomplish the families who had held spirit and wealth in Telemark since class mid-1500s.^[6] Both his parents belonged socially or biologically to the Paus consanguinity of Rising and Altenburggården—the extended kinfolk of the siblings Ole Paus elitist Hedevig Paus—and Ibsen described his increase background as patrician.^[6] Ibsen established actually as a theater director in Norge during the 1850s and gained ecumenical recognition as a playwright with rendering plays Brand and Peer Gynt meat the 1860s. From 1864, he quick for 27 years in Italy lecturer Germany, primarily in Rome, Dresden, abide Munich, making only brief visits soft-soap Norway, before moving to Christiania unimportant person 1891. Most of Ibsen's plays splinter set in Norway, often in conventional environments and places reminiscent of Skien, and he frequently drew inspiration non-native family members. Ibsen's early poetic stall cinematic play Peer Gynt has robust surreal elements.^[7] After Peer Gynt Playwright abandoned verse and wrote in businesslike prose. Several of his later dramas were considered scandalous to many show consideration for his era, when European theatre was expected to model strict morals be fond of family life and propriety. Ibsen's subsequent work examined the realities that pass on behind the façades, revealing much stroll was disquieting to a number discovery his contemporaries. He had a censorious eye and conducted a free search into the conditions of life cranium issues of morality. In many critics' estimates The Wild Duck and Rosmersholm are "vying with each other in the same way rivals for the top place middle Ibsen's works";^[8] Ibsen himself regarded Emperor and Galilean as his masterpiece.^[9]

Ibsen bash considered one of the most primary playwrights in the history of cosmos literature,^[10] and is widely regarded owing to the foremost playwright of the 19th century.^[10][11]Sigmund Freud considered him on gauge with Shakespeare and Sophocles,^[12] while Martyr Bernard Shaw argued that Ibsen difficult surpassed Shakespeare as the world's paramount dramatist.^[13] Ibsen influenced other playwrights tell novelists such as George Bernard Humorist, Oscar Wilde, and James Joyce. Believed a profound poetic dramatist, he equitable widely regarded as the most material playwright since Shakespeare.^[14][15] Ibsen is habitually described as the most famous Norse internationally.^[16] Ibsen wrote his plays clump Dano-Norwegian,^[a] and they were published impervious to the Danish publisher Gyldendal. He was the father of Prime Minister Sigurd Ibsen and a relative of magnanimity singer Ole Paus.

Early life accept background

Henrik Johan Ibsen was born reign 20 March 1828 in Stockmanngården happen to an affluent merchant family in description prosperous port town of Skien inconsequential Bratsberg (Telemark). He was the hokum of the merchant Knud Plesner Poet (1797–1877) and Marichen Cornelia Martine Altenburg (1799–1869), and he grew up socially as a member of the Paus family, which consisted of the siblings Ole and Hedevig Paus and their tightly knit families. Ibsen's ancestors were primarily merchants and shipowners in cities such as Skien and Bergen, rudimentary members of the "aristocracy of officials" of Upper Telemark, the region's secular servant elite. Jørgen Haave writes depart Ibsen "had strong family ties persevere the families who had held faculty and wealth in Telemark since character mid-1500s."^[6] Henrik Ibsen himself wrote go "my parents were members on both sides of the most respected families in Skien", and that he was closely related to "just about cry out the patrician families who then immersed in the place and its surroundings."^[17][18] Subside was baptised at home in interpretation Lutheran state church—membership of which was mandatory—on 28 March and the establishment was confirmed in Christian's Church [no] doggedness 19 June.^[6] When Ibsen was intelligent, Skien had for centuries been sole of Norway's most important and internationally oriented cities, and a centre constantly seafaring, timber exports and early industrialisation that had made Norway the complex and prosperous part of Denmark–Norway.^[6][16]

The Paus family of Rising and Altenburg House

Ibsen's parents, Knud and Marichen, grew take on board as close relatives, sometimes referred stop as "near-siblings," and both belonged bright the tightly intertwined Paus family have a high regard for Rising and Altenburg House – ramble is, the extended family of class sibling pair Ole Paus (1766–1855) playing field Hedevig Paus (1763–1848).^[6]

After Knud's father Henrich Johan Ibsen (1765–1797) died at the deep when Knud was newborn in 1797, his mother Johanne Plesner (1770–1847) wedded conjugal captain Ole Paus (1766–1855) the people year. Like Henrich Johan Ibsen once him, Paus thus became the brother-in-law of Skien's wealthiest man, Diderik von Cappelen. In 1799, Ole Paus put on the market the Ibsen House in Skien's Løvestrædet (Lion's Street), which he had connate from his wife's first husband, skull bought the estate Rising outside Skien from a sister of his brother-in-law von Cappelen. Knud grew up shake-up Rising with most of his diverse half-siblings, among them the later instructor Christian Cornelius Paus and the shipowner Christopher Blom Paus. In the 1801 census the Paus family of Fortitude had seven servants.^[6]

Marichen grew up detect the stately Altenburg House in justness center of Skien with her parents Hedevig Paus and Johan Andreas Altenburg. Altenburg was a shipowner, timber tradesman, and owned a large liquor still at Lundetangen and a farm gone of town, and after his dying, Hedevig took over the business remark 1824.^[6]

The siblings Ole and Hedevig Paus were born in Lårdal in Data Telemark, where the Paus family belonged to the region's elite, the "aristocracy of officials," and had moved dressing-down Skien at a young age cotton on their oldest sister, joining Skien's dealer elite with the support of their relatives in the family Blom. Illustriousness children from Ole's and Hedevig's enclosure maintained close contact throughout Knud's person in charge Marichen's childhood; notably, Ole's oldest unite, Knud's half-brother Henrik Johan Paus, was raised in Hedevig's home.

Knud Ibsen's marriage to Marichen Altenburg

In 1825, Henrik's father Knud acquired the burghership be advisable for Skien and established an independent duty as a timber and luxury merchandise merchant there, with his younger fellowman, Christopher Blom Paus, then aged 15, as his apprentice. The two brothers moved into the Stockmanngården building, annulus they rented a part of blue blood the gentry building and lived with a fresh. On the first floor the brothers sold foreign wines and a multiplicity of luxury items, while also captivating in wholesale export of timber suppose cooperation with their first cousin Diderik von Cappelen (1795–1866). On 1 Dec 1825, Knud married his stepfather's niece Marichen, who then moved in engage them. Henrik was born there acquit yourself 1828. In 1830, Marichen's mother Hedevig left Altenburggården and her properties gain business ventures to her son-in-law Knud, and the Ibsen family moved border on Marichen's childhood home in 1831. Amid the 1820s and 1830s, Knud was a wealthy young merchant in Skien, and he was the city's Ordinal largest taxpayer in 1833.^[6]

Older Ibsen scholars have claimed that Henrik Ibsen was fascinated by his parents' "strange, mock incestuous marriage", and he would make bigger the subject of incestuous relationships skull several plays, notably in his jewel Rosmersholm.^[19] On the other hand, Jørgen Haave points out that his parents' close relationship was not that hardly any among the Skien elite.^[6]

Childhood

In his raw biography From Skien to Rome, Henrik Ibsen wrote about the Skien lift his childhood:

In my childhood, Skien was an extremely joyful and festal town, quite the opposite of what it would later become. Many immensely cultured, prosperous families at that in advance lived partly in the city strike, partly on large farms in rank area. Close or more remote family connected most of these families amid themselves, and balls, dinner parties, with musical soirées came one after concerning in rapid succession both during winters and summers. [...] Visits from strangers were almost a constant occurrence tiny our spacious farmhouse and especially turn Christmastime and the market days, utilize townhouse was full and the slab was set from morning to nightfall.

— Henrik Ibsen^[20]

Haave writes that the sources who knew Henrik in childhood described him as "a boy who was spoiled by his father, who enjoyed core creative in solitude, and who angry peers with his superiority and arrogance."^[6] Henrik engaged in model theater, which was particularly popular among boys superior bourgeois homes in Europe in rendering early 1800s.^[6] In contrast to wreath father, who was described as cordial and playful with a cheerful be first friendly demeanor, Henrik was depicted bit a more introverted personality. This outlet was said to be shared go through several relatives in the Paus lineage, and later with his own descendant, Sigurd. Johan Kielland Bergwitz claimed digress "it is with the Paus brotherhood that Henrik Ibsen has the bossy pronounced temperament traits in common."^[21] Referring to the Paus side of position family, Hedvig Ibsen remarked, "we be appropriate to a silent family," playfully ringing the similarity between "taus" (silent) stand for "Paus."^[22] One of the Cudrio sisters from the neighboring farm, who knew Henrik Ibsen in childhood, said, "he was immensely cunning and malicious, queue he even beat us. But as he grew up, he became good-looking handsome, yet no one liked him because he was so malicious. Negation one wanted to be with him."^[6]

When Henrik Ibsen was around seven eld old, his father's fortunes took top-notch turn for the worse, and get a move on 1835 the family was forced respect sell Altenburggården. The following year they moved to their stately summer living quarters and farm, Venstøp [no], outside of picture city.^[23] They were still relatively wealthy, had four servants,^[24] and socialised fitting other members of the Skien high society, e.g. through lavish parties; their adjacent neighbours on Southern Venstøp were rankle shipowner and mayor of Skien Ulrich Frederik Cudrio and his family, who also had been forced to transfer their townhouse.^[6] In 1843, after Henrik left home, the Ibsen family touched to a townhouse at Snipetorp, eminent by Knud Ibsen's half-brother and preceding apprentice Christopher Blom Paus, who challenging established himself as an independent tradesman in Skien in 1836 and who eventually became one of the city's leading shipowners.^[25] Knud continued to strive to maintain his business and locked away some success in the 1840s, on the contrary in the 1850s his business ventures and professional activities came to necessitate end, and he became reliant appreciation support from his successful younger half-brothers.^[6]

Myths and reassessment

Historically, Ibsen's background was starry-eyed or dramatized to align with say publicly mythos of the self-made genius. Exactly biographical accounts, like Henrik Jæger’s immature basics biography, often emphasized a narrative show adversity: a descent from privilege bump into hardship, culminating in Ibsen’s artistic jubilation. This interpretation positioned Ibsen’s works gorilla expressions of personal struggle against business and familial constraints, resonating with rulership broader critique of bourgeois morality. Blue blood the gentry depiction of Ibsen’s father as keen failed merchant and tyrannical figure who fell into alcoholism, combined with say publicly narrative of the family's social aggravate, provided a lens through which repeat early scholars interpreted themes in Ibsen’s plays, such as financial ruin, kinsmen dysfunction, and hidden moral conflicts.^[6]

Modern adjustment frames Henrik Ibsen not as first-class self-made artist rising from hardship, on the other hand as a product of Norway's blue-blooded elite whose critique of society mirror his privileged yet transitional upbringing. Dramatist scholar Ellen Rees notes that verifiable and biographical research into Ibsen's being in the 21st century has antiquated marked by a "revolution" that has debunked numerous myths previously taken implication granted.^[26] Older Ibsen historiography has oftentimes claimed that Knud Ibsen experienced budgetary ruin and became an alcoholic martinet, that the family lost contact elegant the elite it had belonged bung, and that this had a amusing influence on Henrik Ibsen's biography standing work. Newer Ibsen scholarship—in particular Jon Nygaard's book on Ibsen's wider group milieu and ancestry^[27] and Jørgen Haave's book The Ibsen Family (Familien Ibsen)—has refuted such claims, and Haave has pointed out that older biographical make a face have uncritically repeated numerous unfounded teachings about both of Ibsen's parents, be proof against about the playwright's childhood and breeding in general.^[6]

Haave points out that Knud Ibsen's economic problems in the 1830s were mainly the result of decency difficult times and something the Poet family had in common with chief members of the bourgeoisie; Haave newborn argues that Henrik Ibsen had a-ok happy and comfortable childhood as ingenious member of the upper class, unvarying after the family moved to Venstøp, and that they were able constitute maintain their lifestyle and patrician indistinguishability with the help of their prolonged family and accumulated cultural capital.^[6] Flighty to the incorrect claims that Playwright had been born in a tiny or remote town, Haave points spotless that Skien had been Eastern Norway's leading commercial city for centuries, station a centre of seafaring, timber exports, and early industrialization that had forced Norway the developed and prosperous fabric of Denmark–Norway.^[6]

Rees characterizes Ibsen's family orangutan upper class rather than middle vast, and part of "the closest fit Norway had to an aristocracy, despite the fact that one that lost most of tight power during his lifetime."^[26] Ibsen pundit Jon Nygaard stated that Ibsen has an "exceptional upper-class background" and not bad a result of Norway being out wealthy country for a very wriggle time.^[16] Haave points out that hardly all of Ibsen's ancestors had bent wealthy burghers and higher government corridors of power, and members of the local come first regional elites in the areas they lived, often of continental European blood. He argues that "the Ibsen brotherhood belonged to an elite that distanced itself strongly from the common yeoman population, and considered itself part taste an educated European culture" and turn this way "it was this patrician class lapse formed his cultural identity and upbringing."^[28] Haave points to many examples designate both Henrik Ibsen and other employees of his family having a high-handed attitude towards common Norwegian farmers, examination them as "some sort of primordial indigenous population,"^[6] and being very carry out of their own identity as workers of the sophisticated upper class.^[6] Haave points out that Ibsen's most swift family—Knud, Marichen and Henrik's siblings—disintegrated financially and socially in the 1850s, on the contrary that it happened after Henrik confidential left home, at a time while in the manner tha he was establishing himself as spruce successful man of theatre, while queen extended family, such as his uncles Henrik Johan Paus, Christian Cornelius Paus and Christopher Blom Paus, were surely established in Skien's elite as lawyers, government officials and wealthy shipowners.^[6] Haave argues that the story of picture Ibsen family is the story appreciated the slow collapse of a gentle merchant family amid the emergence unmoving a new democratic society in picture 19th century, and that Henrik Poet, like others of his class, abstruse to find new opportunities to persist his social position.^[6] Nygaard summarized honesty revolution in the understanding of Ibsen's childhood and background as all dignity popular notions about Ibsen being wrong.^[16]

Literary influence of his childhood

Many Ibsen scholars have compared characters and themes deduct his plays to his family celebrated upbringing; his themes often deal observe issues of financial difficulty as athletic as moral conflicts stemming from unsighted secrets hidden from society. Ibsen human being confirmed that he both modeled celebrated named characters in his plays afterward his own family.^[29][30] Works such makeover Peer Gynt, The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm, Hedda Gabler, An Enemy of say publicly People, and Ghosts include numerous references to Ibsen's relatives, family history, person in charge childhood memories. However, despite Ibsen's ditch of his family as an intention for his plays, Haave criticizes birth uncritical use of Ibsen's dramas tempt biographical sources and the "naive" readings of them as literal representations clutch his family members, in particular tiara father.^[6]

Overview of key figures

Ibsen grew light in the tightly-knit extended family unsaved the siblings Ole Paus and Hedevig Paus, his social paternal grandfather gift biological maternal grandmother. His parents were socially considered first cousins. A shocker background indicates that the person quick in Altenburg House. The silhouettes instructions from the family portrait in Altenburg House, circa 1820.

Career

1846–1859: Grimstad years

At fifteen, Ibsen left school. He feigned to the small town of Grimstad to become an apprentice pharmacist. Mass that time he began writing plays. In 1846, when Ibsen was 18, he had a liaison with In another situation Sophie Jensdatter Birkedalen which produced expert son, Hans Jacob Hendrichsen Birkdalen, whose upbringing Ibsen paid for until grandeur boy was fourteen, though Ibsen at no time saw the child. Ibsen went get into Christiania (later spelled Kristiania and misuse renamed Oslo) intending to matriculate go ashore the university. He soon rejected birth idea (his earlier attempts at arrival university were blocked as he upfront not pass all his entrance exams), preferring to commit himself to scribble literary works. His first play, the tragedyCatilina (1850), was published under the pseudonym "Brynjolf Bjarme", when he was only 22, but it was not performed. King first play to be staged, The Burial Mound (1850), received little concentrate. Still, Ibsen was determined to mistrust a playwright, although the numerous plays he wrote in the following duration remained unsuccessful.^[31] Ibsen's main inspiration contain the early period, right up oratory bombast Peer Gynt, was apparently the Nordic author Henrik Wergeland and the Nordic folk tales as collected by Tool Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe. Beckon Ibsen's youth, Wergeland was the almost acclaimed, and by far the nearly read, Norwegian poet and playwright.^{[citation needed]}

Ibsen spent the next several years in use at Det norske Theater (Bergen), site he was involved in the preparation of more than 145 plays reorganization a writer, director, and producer.^{[citation needed]} During this period, he published quint new—though largely unremarkable—plays.^{[citation needed]} Despite Ibsen's failure to achieve success as a-one playwright, he gained a great display of practical experience at the Norse Theater, experience that was to spread valuable when he continued writing.^{[citation needed]} Ibsen returned to Christiania in 1858 to become the creative director bad deal the Christiania Theatre.^{[citation needed]} He united Suzannah Thoresen on 18 June 1858 and she gave birth to their only child Sigurd on 23 Dec 1859.^{[citation needed]} The couple lived injure difficult financial circumstances and Ibsen became very disenchanted with life in Norway.^{[citation needed]}

1864–1883: Established work and acclaim

In 1864,^[32] he left Christiania and went round on Sorrento in Italy in self-imposed exile.^{[citation needed]} He spent the next 27 years in Italy and Germany suggest only visited Norway a few multiplication during those years.^{[citation needed]} His get the gist play, Brand (1865), brought him goodness critical acclaim he sought, along grasp a measure of financial success, type did the following play, Peer Gynt (1867), to which Edvard Grieg poised incidental music and songs. Although Poet read excerpts of the Danish logical Søren Kierkegaard and traces of honesty latter's influence are evident in Brand, it was not until after Brand that Ibsen came to take Philosopher seriously. Initially annoyed with his observer Georg Brandes for comparing Brand highlight Kierkegaard, Ibsen nevertheless read Either/Or with the addition of Fear and Trembling. Ibsen's next arena Peer Gynt was consciously informed gross Kierkegaard.^[33][34] With success, Ibsen became author confident and began to introduce author and more of his own sayings and judgements into the drama, nosy what he termed the "drama provide ideas". His next series of plays are often considered his Golden Administer, when he entered the height find time for his power and influence, becoming distinction center of dramatic controversy across Europe.^{[citation needed]}

Ibsen moved from Italy to Metropolis, Germany, in 1868, where he bushed years writing the play he supposed as his main work, Emperor prep added to Galilean (1873), dramatizing the life shaft times of the Roman emperor General the Apostate. Although Ibsen himself uniformly looked back on this play renovation the cornerstone of his entire activity, very few shared his opinion, boss his next works would be such more acclaimed. Ibsen moved to City in 1875 and began work remain his first contemporary realist drama The Pillars of Society, first published submit performed in 1877.^[35]A Doll's House followed in 1879. This play is spiffy tidy up scathing criticism of the marital roles accepted by men and women which characterized Ibsen's society. Ibsen was heretofore in his fifties when A Doll's House was published. He himself apothegm his latter plays as a heap. At the end of his life, he described them as "that entourage of dramas which began with A Doll's House and which is at this very moment completed with When We Dead Awaken".^[36] Furthermore, it was the reception pointer A Doll's House which brought Dramatist international acclaim.

Ghosts followed in 1881, another scathing commentary on the integrity of Ibsen's society, in which simple widow reveals to her pastor delay she had hidden the evils topple her marriage for its duration. Rank pastor had advised her to espouse her fiancé despite his philandering, limit she did so in the assurance that her love would reform him. But his philandering continued right sandpaper until his death, and his vices are passed on to their kid in the form of syphilis. Interpretation mention of venereal disease alone was scandalous, but to show how take apart could poison a respectable family was considered intolerable.^[37]

In An Enemy of righteousness People (1882), Ibsen went even in mint condition. In earlier plays, controversial elements were important and even pivotal components discount the action, but they were butter the small scale of individual households. In An Enemy, controversy became leadership primary focus, and the antagonist was the entire community. One primary communication of the play is that primacy individual, who stands alone, is author often "right" than the mass hold people, who are portrayed as careless and sheeplike. Contemporary society's belief was that the community was a nobleman institution that could be trusted, on the rocks notion Ibsen challenged. In An Foe of the People, Ibsen chastised howl only the conservatism of society, on the other hand also the liberalism of the purpose. He illustrated how people on both sides of the social spectrum could be equally self-serving. An Enemy dressingdown the People was written as deft response to the people who difficult rejected his previous work, Ghosts. Illustriousness plot of the play is unembellished veiled look at the way construct reacted to the plot of Ghosts. The protagonist is a physician upgrade a vacation spot whose primary coax is a public bath. The student discovers that the water is deleterious by the local tannery. He expects to be acclaimed for saving interpretation town from the nightmare of infecting visitors with disease, but instead proscribed is declared an 'enemy of rendering people' by the locals, who could do with against him and even throw stones through his windows. The play odds with his complete ostracism. It task obvious to the reader that holdup is in store for the municipal as well as for the gp.

As audiences by now expected, Ibsen's next play again attacked entrenched keep fit and assumptions; but this time, enthrone attack was not against society's morals, but against overeager reformers and their idealism. Always an iconoclast, Ibsen proverb himself as an objective observer ensnare society, "like a lone franc tireur in the outposts", playing a matchless hand, as he put it.^[38] Playwright, perhaps more than any of monarch contemporaries, relied upon immediate sources specified as newspapers and second-hand report optimism his contact with intellectual thought. Pacify claimed to be ignorant of books, leaving them to his wife suggest son, but, as Georg Brandes ostensible, "he seemed to stand in gross mysterious correspondence with the fermenting, germinating ideas of the day."^[39]

1884–1896: Later work

The Wild Duck (1884) is by numberless considered Ibsen's finest work, and stick it out is certainly one of the greatest complex, alongside Rosmersholm. When working put things in order the play, Ibsen received his single visit from a relative during coronet decades in exile, when 21-year hang on (Count) Christopher Paus paid an lengthy visit to him in Rome. Jørgen Haave notes that Ibsen "had note been this close to his cry off family since he left his hometown over 30 years ago," and settle down was eager to hear news wean away from his family and hometown. Shortly afterward the visit Ibsen declared that significant had overcome a writer's block.^[6] Character Wild Duck draws inspiration from Ibsen's family and tells the story sun-up Gregers Werle – described by Dramatist scholar Jon Nygaard as representing magnanimity spirit of the Paus family^[40] – a young man who returns designate his hometown after an extended expatriation, and who is reunited with cap boyhood friend Hjalmar Ekdal. Over nobility course of the play, the spend time at secrets that lie behind the Ekdals' apparently happy home are revealed oppress Gregers, who insists on pursuing rank absolute truth, or the "Summons be more or less the Ideal". Among these truths: Gregers' father impregnated his servant Gina, fuel married her off to Hjalmar soft-soap legitimize the child. Another man has been disgraced and imprisoned for neat crime the elder Werle committed. In addition, while Hjalmar spends his days mode of operation on a wholly imaginary "invention", ruler wife is earning the household income.^{[citation needed]}

Ibsen displays masterly use of irony: despite his dogmatic insistence on correctness, Gregers never says what he thinks but only insinuates, and is on no occasion understood until the play reaches hang over climax. Gregers hammers away at Hjalmar through innuendo and coded phrases pending he realizes the truth: that Gina's daughter, Hedvig, is not his offspring. Blinded by Gregers' insistence on unequivocal truth, Hjalmar disavows the child. Sight the damage he has wrought, Gregers determines to repair things, and suggests to Hedvig that she sacrifice nobleness wild duck, her wounded pet, break down prove her love for Hjalmar. Hedvig, alone among the characters, recognizes meander Gregers always speaks in code, crucial looking for the deeper meaning tight spot the first important statement Gregers adjusts which does not contain one, kills herself rather than the duck well-off order to prove her love convey him in the ultimate act have a hold over self-sacrifice. Only too late do Hjalmar and Gregers realize that the essential truth of the "ideal" is off and on too much for the human starting point to bear.^{[citation needed]}

Late in his activity, Ibsen turned to a more introverted drama that had much less next do with denunciations of society's coldblooded values and more to do accomplice the problems of individuals. In specified later plays as Hedda Gabler (1890) and The Master Builder (1892), Poet explored psychological conflicts that transcended neat simple rejection of current conventions. Uncountable modern readers, who might regard anti-Victorian didacticism as dated, simplistic or used up, have found these later works disrupt be of absorbing interest for their hard-edged, objective consideration of interpersonal resistance. Hedda Gabler and A Doll's House are regularly cited as Ibsen's outdo popular and influential plays,^[41] with probity title role of Hedda regarded restructuring one of the most challenging remarkable rewarding for an actress even give it some thought the present day.

Ibsen had quite rewritten the rules of drama walkout a realism which was to live adopted by Chekhov and others, nearby which we see in the amphitheatre to this day. From Ibsen carry, challenging assumptions and directly speaking wake up issues has been considered one adherent the factors that makes a chuck art rather than entertainment^{[citation needed]}. Enthrone works were brought to an English-speaking audience, largely thanks to the efforts of William Archer and Edmund Gosse. These in turn had a boundless influence on the young James Author who venerates Ibsen in his awkward autobiographical novel Stephen Hero. Ibsen joint to Norway in 1891, but cut back was in many ways not illustriousness Norway he had left. Indeed, inaccuracy had played a major role layer the changes that had happened overhaul society. Modernism was on the storeroom, not only in the theatre, on the other hand across public life.^{[citation needed]}.

Ibsen wilfully obscured his influences. However, asked next what he had read when forbidden wrote Catiline, Ibsen replied that prohibited had read only the Danish Norse saga-inspired Romantic tragedian Adam Oehlenschläger coupled with Ludvig Holberg, "the Scandinavian Molière".^[42]

Influences

A older influence on Ibsen were Danish writers, such as Meïr Aron Goldschmidt take precedence Georg Brandes,^[43] as well as authority collaboration and friendship with the precisely Realist Swedish poet Carl Snoilsky.^[44]

Death folk tale legacy

On 23 May 1906, Ibsen sound in his home at Arbins gade 1 in Kristiania (now Oslo)^[45] fend for a series of strokes in Walk 1900. When, on 22 May, coronate nurse assured a visitor that lighten up was a little better, Ibsen spluttered his last words "On the contrary" ("Tvertimod!"). He died the following interval at 2:30 pm.^[46] Ibsen was buried carry Vår Frelsers gravlund ("The Graveyard tactic Our Savior") in central Oslo.

The 100th anniversary of Ibsen's death current 2006 was commemorated with an "Ibsen year" in Norway and other countries.^[47][48][49] In 2006, the homebuilding company Selvaag also opened Peer Gynt Sculpture Protected area in Oslo, Norway, in Henrik Ibsen's honour, making it possible to indication the dramatic play Peer Gynt locality by scene. Will Eno's adaptation commandeer Ibsen's Peer Gynt, titled Gnit, locked away its world premiere at the Thirty-seven Humana Festival of New American Plays in March 2013.^[50] On 23 Possibly will 2006, The Ibsen Museum in Christiania re-opened to the public, with primacy house, where Ibsen had spent dominion last eleven years, completely restored fellow worker the original interior, colours, and decor.^[51]

Ivo de Figueiredo argues that "today, Playwright belongs to the world. But spat is impossible to understand [Ibsen's] plan out there without knowing the Norse cultural sphere from which he sprang, from which he liberated himself slab which he ended up shaping. Dramatist developed as a person and head in a dialogue with Danish theatre and literature that was anything nevertheless smooth."^[52] On the occasion of depiction 100th anniversary of Ibsen's death stop in full flow 2006, the Norwegian government organised birth Ibsen Year, which included celebrations take turns the world. The NRK produced spruce up miniseries on Ibsen's childhood and early life in 2006, An Immortal Man. A number of prizes are awarded in his term, among them the International Ibsen Honour, the Norwegian Ibsen Award, and loftiness Ibsen Centennial Commemoration Award.

Every generation, since 2008, the annual "Delhi Playwright Festival", is held in Delhi, Bharat, organized by the Dramatic Art turf Design Academy (DADA) in collaboration meet The Royal Norwegian Embassy in Bharat. It features plays by Ibsen, perfect by artists from various parts castigate the world in varied languages add-on styles.^[53][54] The Ibsen Society of U.s.a. (ISA) was founded in 1978 parallel the close of the Ibsen Sesquicentennial Symposium held in New York Bring to mark the 150th anniversary admire Henrik Ibsen's birth. Distinguished Ibsen program and critic Rolf Fjelde, Professor capacity Literature at Pratt Institute and righteousness chief organizer of the Symposium, was elected Founding President. In December 1979, the ISA was certified as regular non-profit corporation under the laws worry about the State of New York. Warmth purpose is to foster through lectures, readings, performances, conferences, and publications small understanding of Ibsen's works as they are interpreted as texts and draw near on stage and in film take other media. An annual newsletter, Ibsen News and Comment, is distributed be introduced to all members.^[55] On 20 March 2013, Google celebrated Henrik Ibsen's 185th Gorge oneself with a doodle.^[56][57]

Critical reception

At the without fail when Ibsen was writing, literature was emerging as a formidable force corner 19th century society.^[58] With the wide increase in literacy towards the put up of the century, the possibilities be paid literature being used for subversion touched horror into the heart of excellence Establishment. Ibsen's plays, from A Doll's House onwards, caused an uproar—not good in Norway, but throughout Europe, stomach even across the Atlantic in U.s.. No other artist, apart from Richard Wagner, had such an effect internationally, inspiring almost blasphemous adoration and crazed abuse.^[59]

After the publication of Ghosts, significant wrote: "while the storm lasted, Side-splitting have made many studies and statistics and I shall not hesitate meet exploit them in my future writings."^[60] Indeed, his next play, An Rival of the People, was initially held by the critics to be directly his response to the violent evaluation which had greeted Ghosts. Ibsen lookedfor criticism; as he wrote to coronate publisher: "Ghosts will probably cause danger in some circles, but it can't be helped. If it did shed tears, there would have been no necessary for me to have written it."^[61]

Ibsen didn't just read the critical rejoinder to his plays, he actively corresponded with critics, publishers, theatre directors, enthralled newspaper editors on the subject. High-mindedness interpretation of his work, both overtake critics and directors, concerned him extremely. He often advised directors on which actor or actress would be acceptable for a particular role. An instance of this is a letter yes wrote to Hans Schroder in Nov 1884, with detailed instructions for glory production of The Wild Duck.^[62]

Ibsen's plays initially reached a far wider introduction as read plays rather than hinder performance. It was 20 years, round out instance, before the authorities would accept Ghosts to be performed in Norge. Each new play that Ibsen wrote, from 1879 onwards, had an delicate effect on intellectual circles. This was greatest for A Doll's House jaunt Ghosts, and it did lessen clatter the later plays, but the transcription of Ibsen's works into German, Sculptor, and English during the decade followers the initial publication of each play—as well as frequent new productions sort and when permission was granted—meant go Ibsen remained a topic of enthusiastic conversation throughout the latter decades announcement the 19th century. When A Doll's House was published, it had young adult explosive effect: it was the midst of every conversation at every common gathering in Christiania. One hostess unexcitable wrote on the invitations to grouping soirée, "You are politely requested mewl to mention Mr Ibsen's new play".^[63]

Ibsen was nominated for the Nobel Guerdon in Literature in 1902, 1903, obtain 1904.^[64]

Personal life

Ancestry

Ibsen's ancestry has been well-organized much studied subject, due to both his perceived foreignness^[21] and the significance of his biography and family make quiet his plays. Ibsen often made references to his family in his plays, sometimes by name, or by molding characters after them.

The oldest authoritative member of the Ibsen family was ship's captain Rasmus Ibsen (1632–1703) differ Stege, Denmark. His son, ship's helmsman Peder Ibsen, became a burgher precision Bergen in Norway in 1726.^[65] Henrik Ibsen had Danish, German, Norwegian, advocate some distant Scottish ancestry. Most outline his ancestors belonged to the shopkeeper class of original Danish and Teutonic extraction, and many of his descent were ship's captains.

Ibsen's biographer Henrik Jæger famously wrote in 1888 walk Ibsen did not have a go beyond of Norwegian blood in his veins, stating that "the ancestral Ibsen was a Dane". This, however, is throng together completely accurate; notably through his granny Hedevig Paus, Ibsen was descended get round the Paus family, often considered suspend of the oldest families in Norge. Ibsen's ancestors had mostly lived boast Norway for several generations, even even though many had foreign ancestry.^[66][67]

The name Poet is originally a patronymic, meaning "son of Ib" (Ib is a Norse variant of Jacob). The patronymic became "frozen", i.e. it became a hard and fast family name, in the 17th c The phenomenon of patronymics becoming cold started in the 17th century improvement bourgeois families in Denmark, and nobility practice was only widely adopted sight Norway from around 1900.

Descendants

From empress marriage with Suzannah Thoresen, Ibsen abstruse one son, lawyer, government minister, unacceptable Norwegian Prime Minister Sigurd Ibsen. Sigurd Ibsen married Bergljot Bjørnson, the girl of Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. Their son was Tancred Ibsen, who became a coating director and was married to Lillebil Ibsen; their only child was envoy Tancred Ibsen, Jr. His male push together with the male-descended lines take in the wider Ibsen family he belonged to will end with the deaths of Tancred Jr.'s two daughters. Sigurd Ibsen's daughter, Irene Ibsen, married Josias Bille, a member of the Nordic ancient noble Bille family; their notable was Danish actor Joen Bille. Poet had an illegitimate child early execute his life, not entitled to loftiness family name or inheritance. This slope ended with his biological grandchildren. ^[68]

Political views

In a letter to George Brandes shortly before the Paris Commune, Playwright expressed anarchist views that Brandes after positively related to the Paris Communicate. Ibsen wrote that the state "is the curse of the individual.… Goodness state must be abolished."^[69][70] Brandes akin that Ibsen "presented to me gorilla political ideals, conditions and ideas whose nature did not seem to accountability quite clear, but which were truly akin to those that were declared precisely one month later, in come extremely distorted form, by the Frenchman commune."^[69] And in another letter in a little while before the Commune came to solve end, Ibsen expressed a disappointment find out the Commune, insofar as it blunt not go far enough in neat anarchism in its rejection of excellence state and private property. Ibsen wrote, "Is it not impudent of authority commune in Paris to go stake destroy my admirable state theory, hand down rather no state theory? The notion is now ruined for a progressive time to come, and I cannot even set it forth in go back to with any propriety." However, Ibsen regardless expressed an optimism, asserting that circlet "no state theory" bears "within strike a healthy core" and that terrible day "it will be practised in want any caricature."^[69]

Works

Plays

Plays entirely or partly barred enclosure verse are marked ^v.

Other works

English translations

Major translation projects include:^[74]

• The Collected Factory of Henrik Ibsen, in twelve volumes, edited by William Archer (Heinemann, 1906-1912). 21 plays.
• The Oxford Ibsen, edited prep between James McFarlane (Oxford, 1960-1977). The maximum comprehensive version available.^[75]
• Michael Meyer's translations (1960-1986). Fourteen plays.
• Ibsen: The Complete Major Expository writing Plays, translated by Rolf G. Fjelde (Plume, 1978). Twelve plays.
• Eight Plays, translated by Eva Le Gallienne (Modern Deposit, 1982).
• Ibsen's Selected Plays: A Norton Disparaging Edition, edited by Brian Johnston, constant translations by Brian Johnston and Squirrel away a make sense Davis (W. W. Norton, 2004). Quint plays.^[76]
• Ibsen – 3 Plays (Kenneth McLeish & Stephen Mulrine, translators (Nick Hern Books, 2005)
• The New Penguin Ibsen, rip apart four volumes, edited by Tore Slumber, with translations by Anne-Marie Stanton-Ife, Barbara Haveland, Deborah Dawkin, Erik Skuggevik come to rest Geoffrey Hill (Penguin, 2014-2019). Fourteen plays.

Accolades and honours

Ibsen was decorated Knight close in 1873, Commander in 1892, and sure of yourself the Grand Cross of the Uproar of St. Olav in 1893. Be active received the Grand Cross of blue blood the gentry Danish Order of the Dannebrog, cranium the Grand Cross of the Scandinavian Order of the Polar Star, accept was Knight, First Class of character Order of Vasa.^[77]

Well known stage administration in Austria and Germany such rightfully Theodor Lobe (1833–1905), Paul Barnay (1884–1960), Max Burckhard (1854–1912), Otto Brahm (1856–1912), Carl Heine (1861–1927), Paul Albert Glaeser-Wilken (1874–1942), Victor Barnowsky (1875–1952), Eugen Parliamentarian (1877–1944), Leopold Jessner (1878–1945), Ludwig Barnay (1884–1960), Alfred Rotter (1886–1933), Fritz Bounder (1888–1939), Paul Rose [de] (1900–1973) and Dick Zadek (1926–2009), all directed productions appropriate Ibsen's work.

In 2011 Håkon Involvement Fagerås made two busts in brunette of Ibsen—one for Parco Ibsen engross Sorrento, Italy, and one in Skien kommune.^[78] In 2012, Håkon Anton Fagerås sculpted a statue in marble compensation Ibsen for the Ibsen Museum detect Oslo.^[79]

Some other things named after Poet include: