Henrik Ibsen Biography and List of Works

Norwegian playwright, one of "the four great ones" with Alexander Kielland, Jonas Lie and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson of the 19th-century Norwegian literature. Ibsen is generally acknowledged as the founder of modern prose drama. He moved away from the Romantic style and brought the problems and ideas of the day onto his stage. Ibsen focused on character rather than ingenious plots and created realistic dramas of psychological conflict.

"A woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view."
(from Ibsen's Workshop, 1912)

Ibsen was born in Skien, a tiny coastal town. His father was a prosperous merchant, whose financial failure changed the family's social position. Poverty interrupted Ibsen's education and it gave Ibsen a strong distrust of society. At the age of16 he was for a time apprenticed to a druggist in Grimstad. In 1846 he was compelled to support an illegitimate child born to a servant girl. In 1848 a revolution swept Europe and Ibsen adopted the new ideas of personal freedom.

In 1850 Ibsen moved to Christiania (now Oslo). He attended Heltberg's 'student factory' for university candidates, and occasionally earned money from his journalistic writings. In the same year he wrote two plays, Catilina, a tragedy, and The Burial Mound. Ibsen hoped to become a physician but after failing university entrance examinations, he was appointed in 1851 as 'stage poet' of Den Nationale Scene, a small theatre in Bergen. He wrote there four plays based on Norwegian folklore and history, notably Lady Inger of Ostrat (1855), dealing with the liberation of medieval Norway.

Ibsen returned in 1857 to Christiania to become artistic director of the new Norwegian (Norske) Theatre. In 1858 he married Suzannah Thoresen, the stepchild of the novelist Magdalene Thoresen. After many productions, the theatre went bankrupt, and Ibsen was appointed to the Christiania Theatre. To this period belong The Vikings of Helgoland (1858) and The Pretenders (1864), both historical sagas, and Love's Comedy (1862), a satire.

In 1864 Ibsen received an award for foreign travel from the government, and also had financial help from Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. He left Norway for Italy in April, and travelled abroad for the next 27 years, returning to Norway only for brief visits. During this time, when he lived in Rome, Munich and Dresden, Ibsen wrote most of his best-known works, among others Brand (1866), a symbolic tragedy. Its theme, an individual pitted against society, reflected deeply the feelings of young liberals. Peer Gynt (1867) was a satiric fantasy about a boastful, irresponsible Peer, who is saved by the love of a woman, Solveig. Pillars of Society (1877) dealt with a wealthy and hypocritical businessman, whose perilous course almost results in the death of his son. A Doll's House (1879) was a social drama on marriage, in which a woman refuses to obey her husband and walks out from her family. The work caused a sensation and toured Europe and America. In An Enemy of the People (1882) Ibsen contrasted the enlightened and persecuted minority with the conformity of mass opinion. Ghosts (1881) touched the forbidden subject of hereditary venereal disease and attacked social conventions as destroyers of life and happiness. Hedda Gabler (1890) was a study of modern woman.

In 1866 Ibsen received poet's annual stipend. He also had royalties from his dramatic poem Brand. This secured his financial position. With the receipt of a new grant, he visited Stockholm, dined with the King, and later represented Norway at the opening of the Suez Canal. In the 1870s he worked with composer Edward Grieg on the premiere of Peer Gynt.

Ibsen returned to Norway in 1891 and continued to write until a stroke in 1900. George Bernard Shaw called Ibsen the greatest living dramatist in a lecture entitled 'The Quintessence of Ibsenism'. Ibsen's son married Bjørnson's daughter Bergliot. The marriage built a bridge of friendship between the two writers, who had a break in relationship after Ibsen's play The League of Youth (1869), where the central character resembled Bjørnson. Ibsen died in Christiania on May 23, 1906.

Peer Gynt (1867) - a verse drama. The hero is the legendary Peer Gynt of Norwegian Folklore. Peer, a young peasant farmer, lazy and boastful, goes through life thinking quite well of himself, though there is not much substance in his personality. Peer attends the country-wedding feast, where he meets Solveig, a girl who is deeply attracted to him. Peer kidnaps the bride and later abandons her in the wilderness. A fugitive now, Peer has many amazing adventures in many lands. He courts and then abandons the daughter of the Troll King. Before fleeing the country, he visits Aase, his aged mother, whose death he softens by a fantasy of a sleigh ride into an imaginary heaven. In his middle life dandified Peer ships missionaries and idols to China, makes and loses money, saves his own life in a shipwreck by letting another drown. Old and embittered by his fruitless odyssey, Peer returns to Norway. He finally comes up before the Button Molder, who tries to melt him in his ladle, informing him that he is neither evil enough for hell nor good enough for heaven, Peer is but an undeveloped self. Peer is horrified at the idea of losing his precious identity. However, he is saved from oblivion by the redeeming love of Solveig, who has waited for him faithfully and in whose mind he has existed as a real personality. Peer discovers his reason after being in her forgiving arms. Incidental music accompany the play was composed by Edward Grieg.

For further reading: The Quintessence of Ibsenism by George Bernard Shaw (1891); Henrik Ibsen: A Critical Study by G. Brandes (1899); Henrik Ibsen by R. Woerner (1923, 2 vols.); Life of Ibsen by H. Koht (1931); Henrik Ibsen: A Study in Art and Personality by T. Jorgenson (1945); Ibsen's Dramatic Technique by P.F. Tennant (1948); Ibsen's Dramatic Method by J. Northam (1953); Henrik Ibsen by Lauri Viljanen (1962), Henrik Ibsen by G.W. Knight (1963); Contemporary Approaches to Ibsen, vol. 1-3 by D. Haakonsen et al (1966, 1971, 1977); Ibsen: A Biography by M. Meyer (1971); Henrik Ibsen: a Critical Biography by Henrik Jaeger (1972); Ibsen's Drama by E. Haugen (1979); To the Third Empire: Ibsen's Early Plays by B. Johnston (1980) Patterns of Ibsen's Middle Plays by R. Hornby (1981); An Ibsen Companion by George B. Bryan (1984); Approaches to Teaching Ibsen's a Doll House, ed. by Yvonne Shafer (1985); Henrik Ibsen: Life, Work, and Criticism by Yvonne Shafer (1985); Prophet of the New Drama by Thomas Postlewait (1986); Critical Essays on Henrik Ibsen by Charles R. Lyons ( 1987); Ibsen in America: A Century of Change by Robert A. Schanke (1988); Ibsen's Drama: Right Action and Tragic Joy by Theoharis Constantine Theoharis (1996); Ibsen and Early Modernist Theatre, 1890-1900 by Kirsten Shepherd-Barr (1997); Henrik Ibsen: The Critical Heritage, ed. by Michael Egan (1997); Ibsen: The Dramaturgy of Fear by Michael Goldman (1999) - Museums: Ibsen's Apartment, Arbiens gate 1, Oslo; Ibsen's Childhood Home, Venstøp, 3700 Skien (also Skien Ibsen Annual Festival); Ibsen's House, 4890 Grimstad - See also: Little Blue Light, James Joyce, Georg Brandes, Knut Hamsun, Mao Zedong's wife Chiang Ch'ing.

CATILINA, (1850)