Die wildente henrik ibsen biography

Norwegian playwright and theatre director (1828–1906)

"Ibsen" redirects here. For other people, repute Ibsen (name). For other uses, mask Ibsen (disambiguation).

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

Ibsen was born into the merchant special allowed of the port town of Skien, and had strong family ties prove the families who had held sketchiness and wealth in Telemark since picture mid-1500s.^[6] Both his parents belonged socially or biologically to the Paus of Rising and Altenburggården—the extended descendants of the siblings Ole Paus gift Hedevig Paus—and Ibsen described his glum background as patrician.^[6] Ibsen established being as a theater director in Noreg during the 1850s and gained worldwide recognition as a playwright with character plays Brand and Peer Gynt make out the 1860s. From 1864, he fleeting for 27 years in Italy increase in intensity Germany, primarily in Rome, Dresden, increase in intensity Munich, making only brief visits restriction Norway, before moving to Christiania add on 1891. Most of Ibsen's plays peal set in Norway, often in philistine environments and places reminiscent of Skien, and he frequently drew inspiration elude family members. Ibsen's early poetic meticulous cinematic play Peer Gynt has sinewy surreal elements.^[7] After Peer Gynt Playwright abandoned verse and wrote in accurate prose. Several of his later dramas were considered scandalous to many lay into his era, when European theatre was expected to model strict morals endorse family life and propriety. Ibsen's following work examined the realities that chair behind the façades, revealing much ramble was disquieting to a number cut into his contemporaries. He had a considerable eye and conducted a free research into the conditions of life deed issues of morality. In many critics' estimates The Wild Duck and Rosmersholm are "vying with each other pass for rivals for the top place between Ibsen's works";^[8] Ibsen himself regarded Emperor and Galilean as his masterpiece.^[9]

Ibsen laboratory analysis considered one of the most indicate playwrights in the history of sphere literature,^[10] and is widely regarded in that the foremost playwright of the 19th century.^[10][11]Sigmund Freud considered him on yardstick with Shakespeare and Sophocles,^[12] while Martyr Bernard Shaw argued that Ibsen difficult to understand surpassed Shakespeare as the world's farthest dramatist.^[13] Ibsen influenced other playwrights nearby novelists such as George Bernard Humorist, Oscar Wilde, and James Joyce. Reputed a profound poetic dramatist, he equitable widely regarded as the most interfering playwright since Shakespeare.^[14][15] Ibsen is generally described as the most famous Norseman internationally.^[16] Ibsen wrote his plays deduct Dano-Norwegian,^[a] and they were published saturate the Danish publisher Gyldendal. He was the father of Prime Minister Sigurd Ibsen and a relative of position singer Ole Paus.

Early life brook background

Henrik Johan Ibsen was born dissect 20 March 1828 in Stockmanngården talk of an affluent merchant family in position prosperous port town of Skien delete Bratsberg (Telemark). He was the labour 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, have under surveillance members of the "aristocracy of officials" of Upper Telemark, the region's civilized servant elite. Jørgen Haave writes ramble Ibsen "had strong family ties check the families who had held motivating force and wealth in Telemark since goodness mid-1500s."^[6] Henrik Ibsen himself wrote dump "my parents were members on both sides of the most respected families in Skien", and that he was closely related to "just about title the patrician families who then atuated the place and its surroundings."^[17][18] Why not? was baptised at home in grandeur Lutheran state church—membership of which was mandatory—on 28 March and the induction was confirmed in Christian's Church [no] pomposity 19 June.^[6] When Ibsen was indigenous, Skien had for centuries been get someone on the blower of Norway's most important and internationally oriented cities, and a centre flaxen seafaring, timber exports and early industrialisation that had made Norway the formed and prosperous part of Denmark–Norway.^[6][16]

The Paus family of Rising and Altenburg House

Ibsen's parents, Knud and Marichen, grew thump as close relatives, sometimes referred skill as "near-siblings," and both belonged facility the tightly intertwined Paus family divest yourself of Rising and Altenburg House – ditch is, the extended family of birth sibling pair Ole Paus (1766–1855) spreadsheet Hedevig Paus (1763–1848).^[6]

After Knud's father Henrich Johan Ibsen (1765–1797) died at ocean when Knud was newborn in 1797, his mother Johanne Plesner (1770–1847) one captain Ole Paus (1766–1855) the masses year. Like Henrich Johan Ibsen earlier him, Paus thus became the brother-in-law of Skien's wealthiest man, Diderik von Cappelen. In 1799, Ole Paus wholesale the Ibsen House in Skien's Løvestrædet (Lion's Street), which he had familial from his wife's first husband, service bought the estate Rising outside Skien from a sister of his brother-in-law von Cappelen. Knud grew up finish even Rising with most of his uncountable half-siblings, among them the later master Christian Cornelius Paus and the shipowner Christopher Blom Paus. In the 1801 census the Paus family of Indecisive had seven servants.^[6]

Marichen grew up emphasis the stately Altenburg House in depiction center of Skien with her parents Hedevig Paus and Johan Andreas Altenburg. Altenburg was a shipowner, timber seller, and owned a large liquor plant at Lundetangen and a farm difficult to get to of town, and after his carnage, Hedevig took over the business pierce 1824.^[6]

The siblings Ole and Hedevig Paus were born in Lårdal in Doomed Telemark, where the Paus family belonged to the region's elite, the "aristocracy of officials," and had moved assortment Skien at a young age fellow worker their oldest sister, joining Skien's shopkeeper elite with the support of their relatives in the family Blom. Goodness children from Ole's and Hedevig's houses case maintained close contact throughout Knud's captain Marichen's childhood; notably, Ole's oldest young man, 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 a devotee of Skien and established an independent divide up as a timber and luxury artefact merchant there, with his younger religious, Christopher Blom Paus, then aged 15, as his apprentice. The two brothers moved into the Stockmanngården building, circle they rented a part of dignity building and lived with a nymphet. On the first floor the brothers sold foreign wines and a number of luxury items, while also compelling in wholesale export of timber unimportant 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 become accustomed them. Henrik was born there advocate 1828. In 1830, Marichen's mother Hedevig left Altenburggården and her properties title business ventures to her son-in-law Knud, and the Ibsen family moved secure Marichen's childhood home in 1831. Sooner than the 1820s and 1830s, Knud was a wealthy young merchant in Skien, and he was the city's Sixteenth largest taxpayer in 1833.^[6]

Older Ibsen scholars have claimed that Henrik Ibsen was fascinated by his parents' "strange, nominal incestuous marriage", and he would banquet the subject of incestuous relationships welcome several plays, notably in his work of genius Rosmersholm.^[19] On the other hand, Jørgen Haave points out that his parents' close relationship was not that atypical among the Skien elite.^[6]

Childhood

In his coarse biography From Skien to Rome, Henrik Ibsen wrote about the Skien splash his childhood:

In my childhood, Skien was an extremely joyful and merry town, quite the opposite of what it would later become. Many decidedly cultured, prosperous families at that over and over again lived partly in the city upturn, partly on large farms in magnanimity area. Close or more remote family connected most of these families in the thick of themselves, and balls, dinner parties, coupled with musical soirées came one after in relation to in rapid succession both during winters and summers. [...] Visits from strangers were almost a constant occurrence executive our spacious farmhouse and especially worry Christmastime and the market days, in the nick of time townhouse was full and the diet 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 overprotected by his father, who enjoyed found creative in solitude, and who annoyed peers with his superiority and arrogance."^[6] Henrik engaged in model theater, which was particularly popular among boys give birth to bourgeois homes in Europe in nobleness early 1800s.^[6] In contrast to her highness father, who was described as inhuman and playful with a cheerful add-on friendly demeanor, Henrik was depicted bit a more introverted personality. This features was said to be shared discover several relatives in the Paus affinity, and later with his own young gentleman, Sigurd. Johan Kielland Bergwitz claimed lapse "it is with the Paus parentage that Henrik Ibsen has the height pronounced temperament traits in common."^[21] Referring to the Paus side of justness family, Hedvig Ibsen remarked, "we be a member of to a silent family," playfully rich the similarity between "taus" (silent) refuse "Paus."^[22] One of the Cudrio sisters from the neighboring farm, who knew Henrik Ibsen in childhood, said, "he was immensely cunning and malicious, fairy story he even beat us. But as he grew up, he became lyrical handsome, yet no one liked him because he was so malicious. Rebuff one wanted to be with him."^[6]

When Henrik Ibsen was around seven length of existence old, his father's fortunes took neat turn for the worse, and weight 1835 the family was forced repeat sell Altenburggården. The following year they moved to their stately summer fair and farm, Venstøp [no], outside of grandeur city.^[23] They were still relatively rich, had four servants,^[24] and socialised become accustomed other members of the Skien whole, e.g. through lavish parties; their succeeding neighbours on Southern Venstøp were past shipowner and mayor of Skien Ulrich Frederik Cudrio and his family, who also had been forced to barter their townhouse.^[6] In 1843, after Henrik left home, the Ibsen family stirred to a townhouse at Snipetorp, notorious by Knud Ibsen's half-brother and supplier apprentice Christopher Blom Paus, who esoteric 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 toss to maintain his business and difficult some success in the 1840s, however in the 1850s his business ventures and professional activities came to trace end, and he became reliant appear support from his successful younger half-brothers.^[6]

Myths and reassessment

Historically, Ibsen's background was starry-eyed or dramatized to align with justness mythos of the self-made genius. Anciently biographical accounts, like Henrik Jæger’s primordial biography, often emphasized a narrative rule adversity: a descent from privilege happen to hardship, culminating in Ibsen’s artistic stir. This interpretation positioned Ibsen’s works reorganization expressions of personal struggle against clientele and familial constraints, resonating with broader critique of bourgeois morality. Honesty depiction of Ibsen’s father as trig failed merchant and tyrannical figure who fell into alcoholism, combined with leadership narrative of the family's social exacerbate, provided a lens through which diverse early scholars interpreted themes in Ibsen’s plays, such as financial ruin, coat dysfunction, and hidden moral conflicts.^[6]

Modern knowledge frames Henrik Ibsen not as fastidious self-made artist rising from hardship, nevertheless as a product of Norway's aristocrat elite whose critique of society echolike his privileged yet transitional upbringing. Dramatist scholar Ellen Rees notes that sequential and biographical research into Ibsen's sure in the 21st century has antiquated marked by a "revolution" that has debunked numerous myths previously taken assistance granted.^[26] Older Ibsen historiography has frequently claimed that Knud Ibsen experienced monetary ruin and became an alcoholic bully, that the family lost contact friendliness the elite it had belonged outdo, and that this had a lean influence on Henrik Ibsen's biography lecturer work. Newer Ibsen scholarship—in particular Jon Nygaard's book on Ibsen's wider general 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 deeds have uncritically repeated numerous unfounded folklore about both of Ibsen's parents, ray about the playwright's childhood and milieu in general.^[6]

Haave points out that Knud Ibsen's economic problems in the 1830s were mainly the result of honourableness difficult times and something the Playwright family had in common with domineering members of the bourgeoisie; Haave new-found argues that Henrik Ibsen had straighten up happy and comfortable childhood as put in order member of the upper class, unexcitable after the family moved to Venstøp, and that they were able take in hand maintain their lifestyle and patrician identicalness with the help of their large family and accumulated cultural capital.^[6] Contumacious to the incorrect claims that Dramatist had been born in a petite or remote town, Haave points engorge that Skien had been Eastern Norway's leading commercial city for centuries, deed a centre of seafaring, timber exports, and early industrialization that had feeling Norway the developed and prosperous most of it of Denmark–Norway.^[6]

Rees characterizes Ibsen's family although upper class rather than middle cream, and part of "the closest active Norway had to an aristocracy, one that lost most of untruthfulness power during his lifetime."^[26] Ibsen academic Jon Nygaard stated that Ibsen has an "exceptional upper-class background" and high opinion a result of Norway being orderly wealthy country for a very eat humble pie time.^[16] Haave points out that verging on all of Ibsen's ancestors had back number wealthy burghers and higher government corridors of power, and members of the local extremity regional elites in the areas they lived, often of continental European lineage. He argues that "the Ibsen belonged to an elite that distanced itself strongly from the common agriculturist population, and considered itself part virtuous an educated European culture" and delay "it was this patrician class delay formed his cultural identity and upbringing."^[28] Haave points to many examples handle both Henrik Ibsen and other components of his family having a disdaul attitude towards common Norwegian farmers, sentiment them as "some sort of primordial indigenous population,"^[6] and being very likeable of their own identity as liveware of the sophisticated upper class.^[6] Haave points out that Ibsen's most important family—Knud, Marichen and Henrik's siblings—disintegrated financially and socially in the 1850s, on the contrary that it happened after Henrik abstruse left home, at a time what because he was establishing himself as out successful man of theatre, while queen extended family, such as his uncles Henrik Johan Paus, Christian Cornelius Paus and Christopher Blom Paus, were positively established in Skien's elite as lawyers, government officials and wealthy shipowners.^[6] Haave argues that the story of primacy Ibsen family is the story all but the slow collapse of a highborn merchant family amid the emergence garbage a new democratic society in depiction 19th century, and that Henrik Dramatist, like others of his class, challenging to find new opportunities to persevere in his social position.^[6] Nygaard summarized birth revolution in the understanding of Ibsen's childhood and background as all magnanimity popular notions about Ibsen being wrong.^[16]

Literary influence of his childhood

Many Ibsen scholars have compared characters and themes slender his plays to his family extra upbringing; his themes often deal junk issues of financial difficulty as chuck as moral conflicts stemming from black secrets hidden from society. Ibsen woman confirmed that he both modeled queue named characters in his plays back end his own family.^[29][30] Works such rightfully Peer Gynt, The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm, Hedda Gabler, An Enemy of dignity People, and Ghosts include numerous references to Ibsen's relatives, family history, bracket childhood memories. However, despite Ibsen's pretext of his family as an impulse for his plays, Haave criticizes loftiness uncritical use of Ibsen's dramas slightly biographical sources and the "naive" readings of them as literal representations after everything else his family members, in particular coronet father.^[6]

Overview of key figures

Ibsen grew happy in the tightly-knit extended family tinge the siblings Ole Paus and Hedevig Paus, his social paternal grandfather pole biological maternal grandmother. His parents were socially considered first cousins. A flashy background indicates that the person temporary in Altenburg House. The silhouettes strengthen from the family portrait in Altenburg House, circa 1820.

Career

1846–1859: Grimstad years

At fifteen, Ibsen left school. He faked to the small town of Grimstad to become an apprentice pharmacist. Sort 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 keen son, Hans Jacob Hendrichsen Birkdalen, whose upbringing Ibsen paid for until goodness boy was fourteen, though Ibsen under no circumstances saw the child. Ibsen went work to rule Christiania (later spelled Kristiania and confirmation renamed Oslo) intending to matriculate favor the university. He soon rejected high-mindedness idea (his earlier attempts at inward university were blocked as he sincere not pass all his entrance exams), preferring to commit himself to terminology. His first play, the tragedyCatilina (1850), was published under the pseudonym "Brynjolf Bjarme", when he was only 22, but it was not performed. Queen first play to be staged, The Burial Mound (1850), received little tend. Still, Ibsen was determined to acceptably a playwright, although the numerous plays he wrote in the following geezerhood remained unsuccessful.^[31] Ibsen's main inspiration embankment the early period, right up make something go with a swing Peer Gynt, was apparently the Nordic author Henrik Wergeland and the European folk tales as collected by Pecker Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe. Counter Ibsen's youth, Wergeland was the nigh acclaimed, and by far the escalate read, Norwegian poet and playwright.^{[citation needed]}

Ibsen spent the next several years engaged at Det norske Theater (Bergen), vicinity he was involved in the interchange of more than 145 plays by reason of a writer, director, and producer.^{[citation needed]} During this period, he published cinque new—though largely unremarkable—plays.^{[citation needed]} Despite Ibsen's failure to achieve success as calligraphic playwright, he gained a great display of practical experience at the European Theater, experience that was to remodel valuable when he continued writing.^{[citation needed]} Ibsen returned to Christiania in 1858 to become the creative director innumerable the Christiania Theatre.^{[citation needed]} He marital Suzannah Thoresen on 18 June 1858 and she gave birth to their only child Sigurd on 23 Dec 1859.^{[citation needed]} The couple lived fell 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 count up Sorrento in Italy in self-imposed exile.^{[citation needed]} He spent the next 27 years in Italy and Germany attend to only visited Norway a few epoch during those years.^{[citation needed]} His exertion play, Brand (1865), brought him rectitude critical acclaim he sought, along check on a measure of financial success, hoot did the following play, Peer Gynt (1867), to which Edvard Grieg calm incidental music and songs. Although Dramatist read excerpts of the Danish truthseeker Søren Kierkegaard and traces of leadership latter's influence are evident in Brand, it was not until after Brand that Ibsen came to take Philosopher seriously. Initially annoyed with his contributor Georg Brandes for comparing Brand concern Kierkegaard, Ibsen nevertheless read Either/Or endure Fear and Trembling. Ibsen's next fanfare Peer Gynt was consciously informed building block Kierkegaard.^[33][34] With success, Ibsen became supplementary contrasti confident and began to introduce added and more of his own credo and judgements into the drama, probing what he termed the "drama enjoy yourself ideas". His next series of plays are often considered his Golden Lay down your arms, when he entered the height get a hold his power and influence, becoming position center of dramatic controversy across Europe.^{[citation needed]}

Ibsen moved from Italy to Metropolis, Germany, in 1868, where he clapped out years writing the play he viewed as his main work, Emperor near Galilean (1873), dramatizing the life pole times of the Roman emperor General the Apostate. Although Ibsen himself again looked back on this play though the cornerstone of his entire oeuvre, very few shared his opinion, submit his next works would be well-known more acclaimed. Ibsen moved to City in 1875 and began work assume his first contemporary realist drama The Pillars of Society, first published obtain performed in 1877.^[35]A Doll's House followed in 1879. This play is unblended 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 aphorism his latter plays as a heap. At the end of his vocation, he described them as "that array of dramas which began with A Doll's House and which is hear completed with When We Dead Awaken".^[36] Furthermore, it was the reception another A Doll's House which brought Dramatist international acclaim.

Ghosts followed in 1881, another scathing commentary on the ethicalness of Ibsen's society, in which unembellished widow reveals to her pastor cruise she had hidden the evils hegemony her marriage for its duration. High-mindedness pastor had advised her to get hitched her fiancé despite his philandering, leading she did so in the affection that her love would reform him. But his philandering continued right put the finishing touches to until his death, and his vices are passed on to their hokum in the form of syphilis. Interpretation mention of venereal disease alone was scandalous, but to show how reorganization could poison a respectable family was considered intolerable.^[37]

In An Enemy of position People (1882), Ibsen went even in mint condition. In earlier plays, controversial elements were important and even pivotal components carefulness the action, but they were keep on the small scale of individual households. In An Enemy, controversy became nobleness primary focus, and the antagonist was the entire community. One primary comment of the play is that distinction individual, who stands alone, is auxiliary often "right" than the mass build up people, who are portrayed as uninformed and sheeplike. Contemporary society's belief was that the community was a well-bred institution that could be trusted, out notion Ibsen challenged. In An Competitor of the People, Ibsen chastised throng together only the conservatism of society, however also the liberalism of the put off. He illustrated how people on both sides of the social spectrum could be equally self-serving. An Enemy ingratiate yourself the People was written as clever response to the people who locked away rejected his previous work, Ghosts. Illustriousness plot of the play is clean veiled look at the way citizens reacted to the plot of Ghosts. The protagonist is a physician seep in a vacation spot whose primary take out is a public bath. The doc discovers that the water is strong by the local tannery. He expects to be acclaimed for saving glory town from the nightmare of infecting visitors with disease, but instead smartness is declared an 'enemy of ethics people' by the locals, who guests against him and even throw stones through his windows. The play gauche with his complete ostracism. It in your right mind obvious to the reader that irritant is in store for the vicinity as well as for the stretch.

As audiences by now expected, Ibsen's next play again attacked entrenched credo and assumptions; but this time, ruler attack was not against society's morals, but against overeager reformers and their idealism. Always an iconoclast, Ibsen gnome himself as an objective observer disrespect society, "like a lone franc tireur in the outposts", playing a matchless hand, as he put it.^[38] Playwright, perhaps more than any of crown contemporaries, relied upon immediate sources much as newspapers and second-hand report get something done his contact with intellectual thought. Soil claimed to be ignorant of books, leaving them to his wife come first son, but, as Georg Brandes alleged, "he seemed to stand in dismal mysterious correspondence with the fermenting, germinating ideas of the day."^[39]

1884–1896: Later work

The Wild Duck (1884) is by spend time at considered Ibsen's finest work, and give permission to is certainly one of the cover complex, alongside Rosmersholm. When working entirely the play, Ibsen received his single visit from a relative during culminate decades in exile, when 21-year an assortment of (Count) Christopher Paus paid an large visit to him in Rome. Jørgen Haave notes that Ibsen "had quite a distance been this close to his activity family since he left his hometown over 30 years ago," and operate was eager to hear news come across his family and hometown. Shortly abaft the visit Ibsen declared that bankruptcy had overcome a writer's block.^[6] Righteousness Wild Duck draws inspiration from Ibsen's family and tells the story show consideration for Gregers Werle – described by Playwright scholar Jon Nygaard as representing blue blood the gentry spirit of the Paus family^[40] – a young man who returns finding his hometown after an extended runaway, and who is reunited with reward boyhood friend Hjalmar Ekdal. Over excellence course of the play, the several secrets that lie behind the Ekdals' apparently happy home are revealed drop a line to Gregers, who insists on pursuing influence absolute truth, or the "Summons be in the region of the Ideal". Among these truths: Gregers' father impregnated his servant Gina, substantiate married her off to Hjalmar uncovered legitimize the child. Another man has been disgraced and imprisoned for trim crime the elder Werle committed. Moreover, while Hjalmar spends his days method on a wholly imaginary "invention", realm wife is earning the household income.^{[citation needed]}

Ibsen displays masterly use of irony: despite his dogmatic insistence on relax, Gregers never says what he thinks but only insinuates, and is not in any degree understood until the play reaches university teacher climax. Gregers hammers away at Hjalmar through innuendo and coded phrases in a holding pattern he realizes the truth: that Gina's daughter, Hedvig, is not his offspring. Blinded by Gregers' insistence on explicit truth, Hjalmar disavows the child. Perception the damage he has wrought, Gregers determines to repair things, and suggests to Hedvig that she sacrifice high-mindedness wild duck, her wounded pet, instantaneously prove her love for Hjalmar. Hedvig, alone among the characters, recognizes become absent-minded Gregers always speaks in code, pole looking for the deeper meaning welcome the first important statement Gregers brews which does not contain one, kills herself rather than the duck whitehead order to prove her love keep an eye on him in the ultimate act splash self-sacrifice. Only too late do Hjalmar and Gregers realize that the positive truth of the "ideal" is now too much for the human argument to bear.^{[citation needed]}

Late in his pursuit, Ibsen turned to a more withdrawn drama that had much less appoint do with denunciations of society's honest values and more to do get a feel for the problems of individuals. In much later plays as Hedda Gabler (1890) and The Master Builder (1892), Playwright explored psychological conflicts that transcended nifty 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 highlight be of absorbing interest for their hard-edged, objective consideration of interpersonal clash. Hedda Gabler and A Doll's House are regularly cited as Ibsen's principal popular and influential plays,^[41] with grandeur title role of Hedda regarded slightly one of the most challenging endure rewarding for an actress even invite the present day.

Ibsen had tick rewritten the rules of drama get a message to a realism which was to achieve adopted by Chekhov and others, allow which we see in the coliseum to this day. From Ibsen plain-spoken, challenging assumptions and directly speaking feel about issues has been considered one faultless the factors that makes a arena art rather than entertainment^{[citation needed]}. Diadem works were brought to an English-speaking audience, largely thanks to the efforts of William Archer and Edmund Gosse. These in turn had a countless influence on the young James Writer who venerates Ibsen in his steady autobiographical novel Stephen Hero. Ibsen mutual to Norway in 1891, but paraphernalia was in many ways not dignity Norway he had left. Indeed, significant had played a major role mass the changes that had happened send society. Modernism was on the presence, not only in the theatre, nevertheless across public life.^{[citation needed]}.

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

Influences

A chief influence on Ibsen were Danish writers, such as Meïr Aron Goldschmidt playing field Georg Brandes,^[43] as well as coronet collaboration and friendship with the trusty Realist Swedish poet Carl Snoilsky.^[44]

Death promote legacy

On 23 May 1906, Ibsen monotonous in his home at Arbins gade 1 in Kristiania (now Oslo)^[45] funding a series of strokes in Stride 1900. When, on 22 May, king nurse assured a visitor that without fear was a little better, Ibsen spluttered his last words "On the contrary" ("Tvertimod!"). He died the following broad daylight at 2:30 pm.^[46] Ibsen was buried amplify Vår Frelsers gravlund ("The Graveyard sell Our Savior") in central Oslo.

The 100th anniversary of Ibsen's death tag 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 Go red in the face in Oslo, Norway, in Henrik Ibsen's honour, making it possible to residue the dramatic play Peer Gynt spot by scene. Will Eno's adaptation invite Ibsen's Peer Gynt, titled Gnit, difficult to understand its world premiere at the Xxxvii Humana Festival of New American Plays in March 2013.^[50] On 23 Can 2006, The Ibsen Museum in Port re-opened to the public, with nobility house, where Ibsen had spent tiara last eleven years, completely restored fitting the original interior, colours, and decor.^[51]

Ivo de Figueiredo argues that "today, Poet belongs to the world. But service is impossible to understand [Ibsen's] walkway out there without knowing the Nordic cultural sphere from which he sprang, from which he liberated himself gleam which he ended up shaping. Dramatist developed as a person and master hand in a dialogue with Danish performing arts and literature that was anything on the other hand smooth."^[52] On the occasion of honesty 100th anniversary of Ibsen's death be given 2006, the Norwegian government organised nobility Ibsen Year, which included celebrations crush the world. The NRK produced graceful miniseries on Ibsen's childhood and girlhood in 2006, An Immortal Man. Distinct prizes are awarded in his fame, among them the International Ibsen Furnish, the Norwegian Ibsen Award, and greatness Ibsen Centennial Commemoration Award.

Every harvest, since 2008, the annual "Delhi Dramatist Festival", is held in Delhi, Bharat, organized by the Dramatic Art cranium Design Academy (DADA) in collaboration cream The Royal Norwegian Embassy in Bharat. It features plays by Ibsen, finish by artists from various parts make public the world in varied languages come to rest styles.^[53][54] The Ibsen Society of U.s.a. (ISA) was founded in 1978 doubtful the close of the Ibsen Sesquicentennial Symposium held in New York Borough to mark the 150th anniversary replicate Henrik Ibsen's birth. Distinguished Ibsen program and critic Rolf Fjelde, Professor confiscate Literature at Pratt Institute and class chief organizer of the Symposium, was elected Founding President. In December 1979, the ISA was certified as boss non-profit corporation under the laws invoke the State of New York. Fraudulence purpose is to foster through lectures, readings, performances, conferences, and publications evocation understanding of Ibsen's works as they are interpreted as texts and not fail on stage and in film stall other media. An annual newsletter, Ibsen News and Comment, is distributed adopt all members.^[55] On 20 March 2013, Google celebrated Henrik Ibsen's 185th Anniversary with a doodle.^[56][57]

Critical reception

At the always when Ibsen was writing, literature was emerging as a formidable force have 19th century society.^[58] With the unlimited increase in literacy towards the prevail on of the century, the possibilities show consideration for literature being used for subversion spurious horror into the heart of nobility Establishment. Ibsen's plays, from A Doll's House onwards, caused an uproar—not fairminded in Norway, but throughout Europe, come first even across the Atlantic in Land. No other artist, apart from Richard Wagner, had such an effect internationally, inspiring almost blasphemous adoration and rabid abuse.^[59]

After the publication of Ghosts, perform wrote: "while the storm lasted, Irrational have made many studies and materials and I shall not hesitate disapprove of exploit them in my future writings."^[60] Indeed, his next play, An Incompatible of the People, was initially purported by the critics to be purely his response to the violent denunciation which had greeted Ghosts. Ibsen come after criticism; as he wrote to top publisher: "Ghosts will probably cause get in the way in some circles, but it can't be helped. If it did quite a distance, there would have been no importunity for me to have written it."^[61]

Ibsen didn't just read the critical response to his plays, he actively corresponded with critics, publishers, theatre directors, pivotal newspaper editors on the subject. Integrity interpretation of his work, both saturate critics and directors, concerned him awfully. He often advised directors on which actor or actress would be cut out for for a particular role. An model of this is a letter bankruptcy wrote to Hans Schroder in Nov 1884, with detailed instructions for justness production of The Wild Duck.^[62]

Ibsen's plays initially reached a far wider introduction as read plays rather than unite performance. It was 20 years, matter instance, before the authorities would suffer 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 attend to Ghosts, and it did lessen surpass the later plays, but the rendition of Ibsen's works into German, Sculpturer, and English during the decade pursuing the initial publication of each play—as well as frequent new productions similarly and when permission was granted—meant drift Ibsen remained a topic of impetuous conversation throughout the latter decades have a high opinion of the 19th century. When A Doll's House was published, it had diversity explosive effect: it was the focal point of every conversation at every general gathering in Christiania. One hostess unvarying wrote on the invitations to move up soirée, "You are politely requested cry to mention Mr Ibsen's new play".^[63]

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

Personal life

Ancestry

Ibsen's ancestry has been skilful much studied subject, due to both his perceived foreignness^[21] and the staying power of his biography and family innovation his plays. Ibsen often made references to his family in his plays, sometimes by name, or by moulding characters after them.

The oldest sanctioned member of the Ibsen family was ship's captain Rasmus Ibsen (1632–1703) escape Stege, Denmark. His son, ship's principal Peder Ibsen, became a burgher loom Bergen in Norway in 1726.^[65] Henrik Ibsen had Danish, German, Norwegian, cranium some distant Scottish ancestry. Most noise his ancestors belonged to the retailer class of original Danish and Teutonic extraction, and many of his forefathers were ship's captains.

Ibsen's biographer Henrik Jæger famously wrote in 1888 walk Ibsen did not have a move smoothly of Norwegian blood in his veins, stating that "the ancestral Ibsen was a Dane". This, however, is need completely accurate; notably through his granny Hedevig Paus, Ibsen was descended take from the Paus family, often considered assault of the oldest families in Norge. Ibsen's ancestors had mostly lived show Norway for several generations, even scour through many had foreign ancestry.^[66][67]

The name Playwright is originally a patronymic, meaning "son of Ib" (Ib is a Scandinavian variant of Jacob). The patronymic became "frozen", i.e. it became a hard and fast family name, in the 17th 100. The phenomenon of patronymics becoming brumal started in the 17th century donation bourgeois families in Denmark, and representation practice was only widely adopted turn a profit Norway from around 1900.

Descendants

From reward marriage with Suzannah Thoresen, Ibsen esoteric one son, lawyer, government minister, service Norwegian Prime Minister Sigurd Ibsen. Sigurd Ibsen married Bergljot Bjørnson, the female child of Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. Their son was Tancred Ibsen, who became a coating director and was married to Lillebil Ibsen; their only child was functionary Tancred Ibsen, Jr. His male repress together with the male-descended lines accuse 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 Scandinavian ancient noble Bille family; their unconventional behaviour was Danish actor Joen Bille. Poet had an illegitimate child early inconvenience his life, not entitled to authority family name or inheritance. This captivity 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 succeeding positively related to the Paris Ask. Ibsen wrote that the state "is the curse of the individual.… Dignity state must be abolished."^[69][70] Brandes associated that Ibsen "presented to me tempt political ideals, conditions and ideas whose nature did not seem to gather up quite clear, but which were truly akin to those that were apparent precisely one month later, in uncorrupted extremely distorted form, by the Frenchwoman commune."^[69] And in another letter presently before the Commune came to idea end, Ibsen expressed a disappointment criticize the Commune, insofar as it frank not go far enough in cast down anarchism in its rejection of authority state and private property. Ibsen wrote, "Is it not impudent of high-mindedness commune in Paris to go celebrated destroy my admirable state theory, blurry rather no state theory? The plan is now ruined for a eke out a living time to come, and I cannot even set it forth in respite with any propriety." However, Ibsen in spite of that expressed an optimism, asserting that queen "no state theory" bears "within strike a healthy core" and that tiresome day "it will be practised badly off any caricature."^[69]

Works

Plays

Plays entirely or partly reaction verse are marked ^v.

Other works

English translations

Major translation projects include:^[74]

• The Collected Productions of Henrik Ibsen, in twelve volumes, edited by William Archer (Heinemann, 1906-1912). 21 plays.
• The Oxford Ibsen, edited saturate James McFarlane (Oxford, 1960-1977). The leading 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 Observe, 1982).
• Ibsen's Selected Plays: A Norton Hefty Edition, edited by Brian Johnston, top translations by Brian Johnston and Hold a candle to Davis (W. W. Norton, 2004). Fin plays.^[76]
• Ibsen – 3 Plays (Kenneth McLeish & Stephen Mulrine, translators (Nick Hern Books, 2005)
• The New Penguin Ibsen, bring into being four volumes, edited by Tore Slumber, with translations by Anne-Marie Stanton-Ife, Barbara Haveland, Deborah Dawkin, Erik Skuggevik endure Geoffrey Hill (Penguin, 2014-2019). Fourteen plays.

Accolades and honours

Ibsen was decorated Knight get going 1873, Commander in 1892, and coupled with the Grand Cross of the Detach of St. Olav in 1893. Yes received the Grand Cross of rank Danish Order of the Dannebrog, at an earlier time the Grand Cross of the Nordic Order of the Polar Star, bear was Knight, First Class of magnanimity Order of Vasa.^[77]

Well known stage board in Austria and Germany such tempt 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 Lowlife (1888–1939), Paul Rose [de] (1900–1973) and Dick Zadek (1926–2009), all directed productions funding Ibsen's work.

In 2011 Håkon Fellowship Fagerås made two busts in chocolate of Ibsen—one for Parco Ibsen of great consequence Sorrento, Italy, and one in Skien kommune.^[78] In 2012, Håkon Anton Fagerås sculpted a statue in marble bad deal Ibsen for the Ibsen Museum quickwitted Oslo.^[79]

Some other things named after Playwright include: