Jatgeir — That will
oftentimes
befall.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v14 - Ibn to Juv
7839 (#31) ############################################
7839
HENRIK IBSEN
(1828-)
BY WILLIAM H. CARPENTER
A
ENRIK IBSEN was born March 20th, 1828, at the little village of
Skien, in the south of Norway, where his father conducted
an extensive business as a general merchant. His ancestors
for generations had been shipmasters; and the original Ibsen, the
poet's great-great-grandfather, had come to Norway from Denmark.
His great-grandmother was of Scotch, his grandmother and mother
of Gerinan descent; so that in the veins of the poet there is not a
drop of pure Norse blood. When the boy was eight years old, busi-
ness reverses compelled his father to give up the comfortable con-
dition that had hitherto prevailed, and the family moved to a farm
just outside the town, where they lived during the succeeding six
years in economy and retirement. When Ibsen was fourteen they
moved back into Skien, where the boy in the mean time had attended
the scientific school. In his sixteenth year he went as an apothe-
cary's apprentice to Grimstad, a village even smaller than Skien, on
the southeast coast.
The following five years that he spent in Grimstad were import-
ant ones, not only as a period of unrest and development, but in that
within them are found the first visible beginnings of his literary
career. His first printed literary work is the poem Hösten,' con-
tained in the Christiania Posten in 1849. His first dramatic attempt,
the three-act play (Catilina,' was also written in Grimstad.
It was
published in Christiania in 1850, under the pseudonym of Brynjolf
Bjarme. It attracted however but little attention, and only some
thirty copies were sold; the rest of the edition being subsequently
disposed of by the author to a huckster, who used it as wrapping-
paper for his wares. This same year Ibsen left Grimstad for Christi-
ania with the intention of entering the University, which he did in a
few months by the way of Heltberg's school. His university career,
however, was but brief. During the Whitsuntide holidays he wrote
the one-act drama “Kjæmpehöjen' (The Warrior's Mound), which was
produced at the Christiania Theatre this same year. After the pro-
duction of his play, Ibsen abandoned all thought of the University.
With several associates he began, early in 1851, the publication of a
## p. 7840 (#32) ############################################
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HENRIK IBSEN
weekly paper called Manden (Man), subsequently renamed Andhrim-
ner, the name of the mythical cook of the gods in Walhalla. It had
a precarious existence of only nine months, when it was forced to
suspend. Ibsen's own contributions were, besides poetry and criti-
cism, a three-act political satire called Norma,' which appeared
anonymously. In November of this same year, 1851, after living for
a year and a half in Christiania, Ibsen was called as stage manager to
the newly opened Norwegian theatre in Bergen. The following year
.
he received a meagre traveling stipend and three months' leave of
absence, that he might study stage management abroad. In Germany
he wrote his next play, Sankthansnatten' (St. John's Night), which
was produced at the Bergen Theatre in 1853. It was not a success,
and has never been printed.
With his next play, however, Ibsen's dramatic career may be
said to have fairly and successfully begun. This was the first of
the national historical dramas, Gildet paa Solhaug' (The Banquet at
Solhaug), 1856; which was produced in Bergen with enthusiastic ap-
plause, and was subsequently given in Christiania, Copenhagen, and
Stockholm. This same year he also wrote the romantic drama Olaf
Liljekrans, which was produced at the Bergen Theatre twice during
the following year, but has never been printed. The same year, 1857,
he left Bergen to accept the directorship of the Norwegian theatre
in Christiania; a position he held until the summer of 1862, when
the theatre became bankrupt and was forced to close. Several plays
belong to this period. The historical drama Fru Inger til Österaat'
(Lady Inger of Österaat), and Hærmaendene paa Helgeland' (The
Vikings at Helgeland), appeared in 1857 and 1858 respectively; and
Kjærlighedens Komedie (The Comedy of Love), a satirical play in
rhymed verse, in 1862. To this same period belong also the long-
est of his minor poems, Paa Vidderne (On the Mountain Plains)
and 'Terje Vigen'; published the one in 1860, the other in 1862. From
the beginning of 1863 Ibsen received a small stipend as artistic
adviser of the Christiania Theatre. He endeavored presently to obtain
the “poet's salary,” which had been granted to Björnson this year;
but the demand was refused, and he was forced to put up with a
small traveling stipend, allowed him for the purpose of collecting the
popular poetry of Norway. It was afterwards proposed by his friends
to procure for him a subordinate position in the custom-house, but
this came to naught. When the war broke out between Denmark
and Germany, Ibsen beheld with indignation and scorn the attitude
of Norway, and he made up his mind to break away from condi-
tions which he felt so belittling. He applied for a traveling stipend,
which was ultimately allowed him; and in April 1864, the year of
the appearance of 'Kongs-Emnerne) (The Pretenders), his masterpiece
(
## p. 7841 (#33) ############################################
HENRIK IBSEN
7841
.
among the historical dramas, he left Christiania not to return for
many years. Abroad, Ibsen lived first in Germany and subsequently
in Trieste and Rome. In 1866 he sent back to Norway the great
dramatic poem Brand'; and the Storthing, on the strength of it,
found but little difficulty in granting him the “poet's salary » which
had before been refused. For twenty-seven years Ibsen lived abroad,
with only occasional visits to Norway; although when he left he had
intended to return, and his position as artistic adviser at the Chris-
tiania Theatre was for some time kept open for him. From Rome,
besides Brand,' he sent home in 1867 the dramatic poem Peer
Gynt. ' The next year he removed to Dresden, and the two summers
following he made short visits to Stockholm and Copenhagen. His
next work, the political comedy De Unges Forbund' (The League
of Youth), appeared in 1869; his longest work, the drama Kejser og
Galilær) (Emperor and Galilean), followed in 1873. The year after,
1874, he returned for a short time to Norway after an absence of ten
years, and was everywhere received with ovations. Subsequently to
this, until his final return to Norway in 1891,- since which time he
has lived in Christiania, — Ibsen spent the greater part of the time in
Germany, and principally in Munich. These last years have contrib-
uted the major part of the fame of the poet outside of Norway; for
within them fall all the modern social dramas that are immediately
connected with his name, and have even made Ibsenism »
a dis-
tinctive characterization in literature. Of these, (Samfundets Stötter)
(The Pillars of Society) appeared in 1877; Et Dukkehjem (A Doll's
House), in 1879; "Gjengangere (Ghosts), in 1881; En Folkefiende
(An Enemy of the People), in 1882; Vildanden' (The Wild Duck), in
1884; Rosmersholm,' in 1886; (Fruen fra Havet' (The Lady from the
Sea), in 1888; Hedda Gabler,' in 1890; Bygmester Solness' (Master
Builder Solness), in 1892; and finally Lille Eyjolf' (Little Eyjolf), in
1894. To complete the list of his works, a volume of poems had fur-
thermore appeared in 1871, with the title (Digte) (Poems).
Ibsen's dramas fall naturally, in the light of both subject and
chronology, into several groups, which mark with tolerable exactness
the successive phases in the development of his art. After the first
tragedy, Catilina,'—— which, crude though it is, has in it undoubted
elements of strength, — his work at the outset was romantic. This
phase culminated in the lyrical drama in verse, the Banquet at
Solhaug '; which was at the same time the first of the plays whose
subjects were taken from Norwegian history, that now followed in
succession until interrupted by the Comedy of Love. ' The materials
for the Banquet at Solhaug' Ibsen found in old Norwegian folk-
songs and ballads. Lady Inger of Österaat,' which later on
almost entirely rewritten, is a tragedy from Norwegian life in the
XIV-491
(C
C
was
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HENRIK IBSEN
(
sixteenth century. In the Vikings at Helgeland Ibsen turns for his
material to the ancient sagas, several of which are drawn upon for the
main plot and incidents. This play marks a definite break, once for
all, with Ibsen's youthful romanticisin, which afterward may scarcely
be said to reappear.
It is however in the last of the historical
dramas, the Pretenders,' that he reaches his height in this kind of
writing. The action of the play falls within the thirteenth century,
the “pretenders” being the two claimants to the throne of Sverre,
King of Norway,– Hakon and Skule. Ibsen in this drama exhibits an
unmistakable dramatic power, and his treatment of the psychological
contrast involved in the self-sufficiency of the King and the vacillation
of the Duke is among his surest dramatic effects. Some of his critics
have seen in Skule the reflection of many of the poet's own traits of
character. From a dialogue between Skule and Jatgeir the skald,
Ibsen himself has been well called “the poet of doubt,” — a charac-
terization that particularly fits him as the writer of the social dramas
yet to come.
Ibsen meantime, it will be remembered, — before the appearance
of the Pretenders,' which had been taken up and then tempo-
rarily laid aside,— had written his first distinctly satirical play, the
'Comedy of Love. This was in several ways a remarkable change
in the direction he had been following; but it marks simply a grow-
ing maturity of power in his art, and the consciousness already of
what was to be its ultimate mode of expression. It was in reality
the first definite formulation of what we now know as Ibsenism. In
Norway it was received with a storm of protest, such as the subse-
quent social dramas have not failed to evoke there and elsewhere.
The problem of the Comedy of Love,' like that of so many others
of Ibsen's dramas, is the marriage relation. Here the theme is the
manner in which love must of necessity die out in a union entered
into through affection alone. The play is a “defense of the rational
marriage as opposed to the marriage of inclination”; and the lovers,
Falk and Svanhild, at the end voluntarily renounce each other to
escape the common fate.
In Italy, whither Ibsen ultimately went after leaving Norway in
1864, he first took up the studies that were subsequently embodied in
Emperor and Galilean. ' His thoughts, however, seem irresistibly to
have gone back to the North upon which he had turned his back in
indignation; and this work was laid aside for what to most Norsemen
are the greatest of his works, the dramatic poems (Brand and Peer
Gynt. ' The two poems, although essentially unlike, mark a distinct
phase in the poet's development, in that they belong to what may be
called his polemical period. Both are intensely national, and in both
he applies unsparingly the scourge to his country's foibles. He rises
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HENRIK IBSEN
7843
in them to an unexpected height of strength, and in them he has left
to Norwegian literature works which for all time to come will be
reckoned among its greatest classics. (Brand' is really a protest
against the half-heartedness of his countrymen.
« That which thou art, be it completely;
Not merely piecemeal and discreetly. ”
The hero, the young clergyman Brand, is himself an embodiment
of this protest against the spirit of Compromise. With his motto
“Everything or nothing,” he scorns the religion of the day and
declares a bitter though futile war against it; until, heavy laden with
sorrow and defeat but with unbroken will, he is overwhelmed in
the snow of the avalanche. Peer Gynt,' on the other hand, is the
embodiment of the spirit itself against which Brand' protests. The
hero accordingly is to Ibsen's mind the typical Norseman. It is not a
complimentary picture that the poet has so fearlessly painted of the
national character, for Peer Gynt is a man of dreams and of idle
inaction; he is cynically indifferent, selfish, sordid, superstitious, and
withal mendacious. He realizes at the end that he has never been
himself; that he is in fact no one, and is only fitted, although his
destiny is after all left undecided in the poem, to go into the melting-
spoon of the mysterious Button-Molder, who is to melt him over into
fresh material from which to stamp new souls. In manner the two
poems have but little in common. (Brand) is solemn and monotonous;
Peer Gynt varied and witty. Although both are as Norwegian as
well may be, each one is capable of universal application. Peer
Gynt' has been called the Scandinavian Faust'; for it too, like
Goethe's poem, is the story of the human soul.
Ibsen's polemics did not end with these two great poems; but the
phase was continued in the prose comedy (The League of Youth,'
which was the next to follow. This is a satire on the politics of
Norway, its parties and their motives; and is directed particularly
against democracy, which to Ibsen has always been in ill favor.
'Emperor and Galilean,' which had been begun and laid aside, was
next taken up and completed. The whole is made up of two dramas,
Cæsar's Apostasy' and the Emperor Julian,' each having five acts.
It is written throughout in prose. Although perhaps the most ambi-
tious of all of Ibsen's works, it is not as a whole an artistic success.
It was the last of the historical dramas; and though apparently far
removed from the modern social plays that were now to follow, there
is nevertheless a link between it and them. In none of them does
he so unmistakably formulate the creed that we find embodied in the
action of the later plays.
(
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HENRIK IBSEN
new
C
The dramas of modern life, which outside of Scandinavia are most
closely connected with the name of Ibsen, next followed in unbroken
succession. Although this is at first sight almost absolutely a
tendency, the poet none the less definitely follows a direction that all
through his earlier work is frequently enough indicated. It is found
in Catilina,' the first dramatic work, as well as in Emperor and
Galilean,' the last, and the League of Youth' prefigures it almost
completely. In some ways it is however a new development. Hence-
forth Ibsen is the pathologist who unerringly, and with cruel direct-
ness, makes his diagnosis of the ills of the social body; and although
the setting of his plays is Norwegian, their application is as universal
as are the conditions of modern society itself. The Pillars of Soci-
ety,' the first of the group, attacks the hypocrisy of the principal
supporters of a community, here typified in particular by the rich
Consul Bernick, the local magnate in a small Norwegian town. Ber-
nick ultimately avows his real character; he shows how he has
brought about his own personal aggrandizement at the expense of
the community of which he has been a vaunted pillar, and stands at
last for the first time on the firm ground of truth. « The spirits of
Truth and Freedom,”— it is declared at the end, — "these are the
Pillars of Society. ”
A Doll's House,' the next play, is concerned with the problem of
marriage as a failure. To answer the question, it furnishes an illus-
tration of the customary sacrifice of the individuality of the woman
to that of the man to whom she is married. Nora, the doll of this
particular doll's-house, is one of the most distinctive of Ibsen's crea-
tions, as is the drama one of his most pronounced successes. She is
an undeveloped child in mind and morals, and eventually, unthinking
of consequences, sacrifices honor to love, and forges her father's name
to a document in order to help her husband. At the end her illus-
ions have all vanished. She sees and understands the doll's-house
in which she has lived, and determines for her children's sake and
her own to leave it.
"Ghosts) is in some respects a complement to A Doll's House. )
It shows in reality, in its own way and with wholly different setting,
what might have happened had Nora Helmer remained with her hus-
band and children. The play is the most thrilling and dreadful of
all of Ibsen's works. Its fundamental idea is the awful consequences
of hereditary vices, which are ghosts to revisit the scenes of their
past existence. Oswald Alving, the son of a vicious father whose
memory has been cloaked by his wife after his death, becomes a
mere physical wreck, and begs his mother in the last awful scene to
give him the morphia that shall end his torment. It is left uncertain
whether this is or is not done, but it scarcely mitigates the horror of
(
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HENRIK IBSEN
7845
the end. (Ghosts' raised a howl of protest, but its drastic strength
cannot be questioned.
(An Enemy of the People' is to a great extent a personal polemic
due to the reception accorded “Ghosts. Its hero, Dr. Stockmann,
simply tells the truth in regard to the corruption of the medicinal
waters that had brought visitors and prosperity to a little town in
Norway. Every one knows that it is the truth, and he is stoned and
driven out for uttering it. The play as a whole is inferior to the
rest.
(The Wild Duck) receives its name from a bird that is kept
captive in a garret, and is the fondest treasure of a little girl
of fourteen, Hedwig. The play is gloomy and despairing. Hedwig,
ultimately, instead of killing the wild duck as she is advised to do,
turns the bullet into her own heart.
Rosmersholm) is the story of the clergyman Rosmer, the last of
his race, whose wife had committed suicide, and who had fallen under
the influence of her former companion Rebecca West. The relation-
ship between them, except in name, is love, tender but passionless.
Idle scandals arise, and Rosmer offers marriage, which Rebecca's con-
science does not allow her to accept. Both put an end to their con-
fused lives by throwing themselves into the mill-dam.
“The Lady from the Sea' is the daughter of a light-house keeper
who has become the second wife of Dr. Wangel, the physician of a
little coast town. She has however been mysteriously betrothed to a
seafaring man, a Finn, who finally comes back to claim her. When
her husband at her own request leaves her to choose between him
and the sailor, and tells her that she must bear the individual
responsibility for her action, she decides with rapture to remain.
Hedda Gabler' seems to be the only one of the social dramas
without a problem. Hedda is a woman of the modern literary type,
-- vain, pleasure-loving. undomestic, and selfish. As the wife of Dr.
,
Tisman she lures back to his destruction her old friend Lövborg, who
had once grievously insulted her. When in despair he threatens to
kill himself, she offers him one of her pistols. He is afterward found
dead with Hedda's pistol discharged, and she, fearful of the scandal
that will arise, ends her life with the other.
(Master Builder Solness) tells the story of the price of success: the
ruin of many for the benefit of the one, and the impoverishment in
heart and affections of the one, who must thus pay the penalty for
his successes. Halvard Solness, the builder, step by step has fought
his way to success; and in his desire to keep what he has gained he
is wary and jealous of any possible competitor, and particularly of
the coming generation, whom he recognizes as his enemies. His first
concession to youth, in the person of Hilda Wangel, brings about his
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HENRIK IBSEN
own destruction. Hilda challenges him to perform again the feat of
his earlier years.
He accordingly climbs to the tower of his new
house to place the garland upon the top, but grows giddy and falls
headlong to the earth.
Little Eyjolf' presents the problem of a loveless marriage. Little
Eyjolf, the crippled son of Allmers and Rita, is drowned in the fjord.
There are mutual recriminations, and the husband declares that they
must henceforth live apart. Rita however begs that they may still
live their lives together, and Allmers decides finally to remain; so
that there is a gleam of hope in the dénouement. The problem is
fundamentally that of A Doll's House, but the reverse solution is
much more hopeful, and possibly truer. This play seems to inculcate
too a new principle in Ibsen's philosophy of life. While the others,
one and all, turn upon the dissolution of modern society, constituted
as it is, this unmistakably looks toward the possibility of its regener-
ation.
In John Gabriel Borkman,' his latest drama, Borkman is a bank
official whose great money schemes lead him into dishonesty and dis-
grace. Estranged from his wife, he regards himself as more sinned
against than sinning, and dreams of yet redeeming the past. The
wife looks to their son to reinstate their name, but he forsakes her
to make a runaway match. Borkman, incensed by both mother and
son, wanders out, in a broken state of health, into a snowy winter's
night, in company with his wife's sister, a former sweetheart whom
he threw over for his ambition's sake; — and he perishes there, the
two women confronting each other across his body. The play has
poetic suggestion, but is hardly plain in purpose, - one implication
being that Borkman's greatest mistake was in putting ambition before
love.
Ibsen's social dramas have carried his fame throughout the world,
and a vast literature of translation and comment has arisen. Many
of them, in Norway and out of it, have evoked loud protests of indig-
nation at the drastic presentation of his problems, and he has been
assailed as immoral, as a cynic and a pessimist. It is not impossible,
however, to absolve him of each and all of these charges. Ibsen's
whole problem, as it has well been stated, is the relation of the
individual to his social and personal surroundings; these are studies
accordingly in human responsibility, and the characters are intended
to be types of the race in modern social conditions. Such condi-
tions, moreover, in salient points Ibsen as diagnostician finds to be
inherently bad, and fearlessly he puts his finger upon the sore spots
to point out the danger they inevitably involve to the whole social
body. Ibsen in this is the poet of protest, and his voice is that of
one crying aloud against social hypocrisy and sophistry of whatever
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HENRIK IBSEN
7847
sort it may be. He is not immoral, in that no one has ever made
vice more repulsive, or by contrast virtue more attractive. When it
is urged against him that he destroys but suggests no remedy, his
critics have failed to apprehend the positive result of the lessons
involved in this very destruction, whose causes he has rendered so
apparent. He is not the mere cynic, for there is a whole galaxy of
characters to draw upon one's sympathies. «Truth, freedom, and
love," says his biographer, "are the three corner-stones of the edifice,
noble in proportion and serious in purpose, that the poet has erected. ”
Ibsen in the social dramas in many ways has struck the highest
note of modern dramatic art. Primarily his manner of construction
is analytic. He begins his plays where another dramatist would have
ended them. Often the climax has occurred before the opening of
the play, and the consequences accordingly form the subject-matter
of the action. There is no place in his dramas for the purely con-
ventional, and they bear characteristically the stamp of reality.
Ibsen in all this is the creator of a school, whose teachings have left
an indelible mark upon the literature of the century.
The following are the best works on Ibsen for the general reader:
(Henrik Ibsen' in Eminent Authors of the Nineteenth Century,' by
Georg Brandes (New York: 1886); Henrik Ibsen: A Critical Biogra-
phy,' by Henrik Jaeger (Chicago: 1890); A Commentary on the
Writings of Henrik Ibsen,' by H. H. Boyesen (New York: 1894);
(Four Lectures on Henrik Ibsen,' by R. H. Wicksteed (London: 1892).
The most accessible edition of Ibsen's prose dramas is that trans-
lated by William Archer, in six volumes (New York: 1890-92).
(
Wast. Carpenter.
FROM THE PRETENDERS)
J
^ King Smule
The action passes in the first half of the Thirteenth Century. Present:
Skule; Jatgeir the Skald, an Icelander; Paul Flida, a nobleman.
ATGEIR [enters from the back] - Forgive my coming, lord King.
You come to my wish, Skald!
Jatgeir - I overheard some townsfolk at my lodging talking
darkly of
King Skule - Let that wait. Tell me, Skald, you who have
fared far abroad in strange lands,— have you ever seen a woman
love another's child ? Not only be kind to it — 'tis not that I
mean; but love it, love it with the warmest passion of her soul.
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HENRIK IBSEN
seem
Jatgeir — That can only those women do who have no child of
their own to love.
King Skule -- Only those women - ?
?
Jatgeir — And chiefly women who are barren.
King Skule — Chiefly the barren —? They love the children of
others with all their warmest passion ?
Jatgeir — That will oftentimes befall.
King Skule — And does it not sometimes befall that such a
barren woman will slay another's child, because she herself has
none ?
Jatgeir — Ay, ay; but in that she does unwisely.
King Skule – Unwisely?
Jatgeir — Ay, for she gives the gift of sorrow to her whose
child she slays.
King Skule - Think you the gift of sorrow is a great good ?
Jatgeir — Yes, lord.
King Skule [looking fixedly at him]— Methinks there are two
men in you, Icelander. When you sit amid the household at the
merry feast, you draw cloak and hood over all your thoughts;
when one is alone with you, sometimes
you
to be of
those among whom one were fain to choose his friend. How
comes it ?
Jatgeir — When you go to swim in the river, my lord, you
would scarce strip you where the people pass by to church: you
seek a sheltered privacy.
King Skule - True, true.
Jatgeir — My soul has a like shyness; therefore I do not strip
me when there are many in the hall.
King Skule -- Hm. (A short pause. ] Tell me, Jatgeir, how
[
came you to be a skald? Who taught you skaldcraft ?
Jatgeir — Skaldcraft cannot be taught, my lord.
King Skule — Cannot be taught? How came it then?
?
Jatgeir — I got the gift of sorrow, and I was a skald.
King Skule — Then 'tis the gift of sorrow the skald has need
of ?
Jatgeir I needed sorrow; others there may be who need
faith, or joy — or doubt -
King Skule — Doubt, as well ?
Jatgrir - Ay; but then must the doubter be strong and sound.
King Skule - And whom call you the unsound doubter?
Jatgeir — He who doubts his own doubt.
## p. 7849 (#41) ############################################
HENRIK IBSEN
7849
King Skule [slowly] – That, methinks, were death.
Jatgeir —'Tis worse; 'tis neither day nor night.
King Skule (quickly, as if shaking off his thoughts] - Where
are my weapons ? I will fight and act — not think.
I
What was it
you would have told me when you came ?
Jatgeir —'Twas what I noted in my lodgings. The townsmen
whisper together secretly, and laugh mockingly, and ask if we be
well assured that King Hakon is in the west land: there is some-
what they are in glee over.
King Skule - They are men of Viken, and therefore against
me.
Jatgeir They scoff because King Olaf's shrine could not be
brought out to the mote-stead when we did you homage; they
say it boded ill.
King Skule — When next I come to Nidaros the shrine shall
out! It shall stand under the open sky, though I should have to
tear down St. Olaf's church and widen the mote-stead over the
spot where it stood.
Jatgeir - That were a strong deed; but I shall make a song
of it as strong as the deed itself.
King Skule — Have you many unmade songs within you,
Jatgeir ?
Jatgeir — Nay, but many unborn; they are conceived one after
the other, come to life, and are brought forth.
King Skule — And if I, who am King and have the might, –
if I were to have you slain, would all the unborn skald-thoughts
within you die along with you?
Jatgeir My lord, it is a great sin to slay a fair thought.
King Skule— I ask not if it be a sin: I ask if it be possible !
Jatgeir - I know not.
King Skule – Have you never had another skald for your
friend, and has he never unfolded to you a great and noble song
he thought to make ?
Jatgeir — Yes, lord.
King Skule - Did you not then wish that you could slay him,
to take his thought and make the song yourself?
Jatgeir -— My lord, I am not barren: I have children of my
own; I need not to love those of other men. [Goes. ]
King Skule (after a pause]— The Icelander is in very deed a
skald. He speaks God's deepest truth and knows it not.
as a barren woman. Therefore I love Hakon's kingly thought-
I am
## p. 7850 (#42) ############################################
7850
HENRIK IBSEN
child, love it with the warmest passion of my soul. Oh that I
could but adopt it! It would die in my hands. Which were best,
that it should die in my hands or wax great in his ? Should I
ever have peace of soul if that came to pass ? Can I forego all ?
Can I stand by and see Hakon make himself famous for all time?
How dead and empty is all within me - and around me.
No
friend — ah, the Icelander! [Goes to the door and calls. ] Has the
skald gone from the palace ?
A Guard [outside]— No, my lord: he stands in the outer hall
talking with the watch.
King Skule Bid him come hither. [Goes forward to the
table; presently Jatgeir enters. ] I cannot sleep, Jatgeir: 'tis all
my great kingly thoughts that keep me awake, you see.
Jatgeir — 'Tis with the king's thoughts as with the skald's, I
doubt not. They fly highest and grow quickest when there is
night and stillness around.
King Skule - Is it so with the skald's thoughts too?
Jatgeir -- Ay, lord: no song is born by daylight; it may be
written down in the sunshine, but it makes itself in the silent
night.
King Skule — Who gave you the gift of sorrow, Jatgeir ?
Jatgeir — She whom I loved.
King Skule — She died, then ?
Jatgeir — No, she deceived me.
King Skule — And then you became a skald ?
Jatgeir - Ay, then I became a skald.
King Skule (seizes him by the arm] - What gift do I need to
become a king ?
Jatgeir - Not the gift of doubt; else would you not ques-
tion so.
King Skule— What gift do I need ?
Jatgeir — My lord, you are a king.
King Skule — Have you at all times full faith that you are a
skald ?
Jatgeir [looks silently at him for a while]— Have you never
loved ?
King Skule— Yes, once — burningly, blissfully, and in sin.
Jatgeir — You have a wife.
King Skule — Her I took to bear me sons.
Jatgeir — But you have a daughter, my lord — a gracious and
noble daughter.
## p. 7851 (#43) ############################################
HENRIK IBSEN
7851
King Skule -- Were my daughter a son, I would not ask you
what gift I need. [Vehemently. ] I must have some one by me
who sinks his own will utterly in mine — who believes in me
unflinchingly, who will cling close to me in good hap and ill, who
lives only to shed light and warmth over my life, and must die
if I fall. Give me counsel, Jatgeir Skald!
Jatgeir — Buy yourself a dog, my lord.
King Skule -- Would no man suffice ?
Jatgeir — You would have to search long for such a man.
King Skule (suddenly) - Will you be that man to me, Jatgeir ?
Will you be a son to me? You shall have Norway's crown to
your heritage — the whole land shall be yours, if you will be a
son to me, and live for my life work, and believe in me.
Jatgeir — And what should be my warranty that I did not
feign — ?
King Skule — Give up your calling in life, sing no more songs,
and then will I believe you!
Jatgeir — No, lord: that were to buy the crown too dear.
King Skule — Bethink you well: 'tis greater to be a king than
a skald.
Jatgeir — Not always.
King Skule—'Tis but your unsung songs you must sacrifice!
Jatgeir - Songs unsung are ever the fairest.
King Skule — But I must -I must have one who can trust in
me! Only one. I feel it: had I that one I were saved!
Jatgeir — Trust in yourself and you will be saved !
Paul Flida [enters hastily] — King Skule, look to yourself!
Hakon Hakonsson lies off Elgjarness with all his fleet!
King Skule— Off Elgjarness! Then he is close at hand.
Jatgeir — Get we to arms then! If there be bloodshed to-night,
I will gladly be the first to die for you!
King Skule - You, who would not live for me!
Jatgeir — A man can die for another's life work; but if he go
on living, he must live for his own. [Goes. ]
## p. 7852 (#44) ############################################
7852
HENRIK IBSEN
FROM A DOLL'S HOUSE)
Scene : Sitting-room in Torvald Helmer's house (a flat) in Christiania.
Time : The Present Day. Nora Helmer enters, crossing to table
in every-day dress.
ELMER
H. .
Why, what's this? Not gone to bed ? You have
changed your dress.
Nora — Yes, Torvald; now I have changed my dress.
Helmer — But why now, so late?
Nora - I shall not sleep to-night.
Helmer - But, Nora dear -
Nora [looking at her watch]— It's not so late yet. Sit down,
Torvald: you and I have much to say to each other. [She sits at
one side of the table. ]
Helmer - Nora, what does this mean? Your cold, set face-
Nora — Sit down. It will take some time: I have much to
talk over with you.
Helmer (sitting down at the other side of the table] - You
alarm me; I don't understand you.
Nora — No, that's just it. You don't understand me; and I
have never understood you — till to-night. No, don't interrupt.
Only listen to what I say. We must come to a final settlement,
Torvald!
Helmer How do you mean?
Nora [after a short silence] - Does not one thing strike you
as we sit here?
Helmer - What should strike me ?
Nora — We have been married eight years. Does it not strike
you that this is the first time we two — you and I, man and wife
have talked together seriously?
Helmer - Seriously! Well, what do you call seriously?
?
Nora — During eight whole years and more - ever since the
day we first met - we have never exchanged one serious word
about serious things.
Helmer - Was I always to trouble you with the cares you
could not help me to bear?
Nora — I am not talking of cares. I say that we have never
yet set ourselves seriously to get to the bottom of anything.
Helmer - Why, my dear Nora, what have you to do with
serious things ?
## p. 7853 (#45) ############################################
HENRIK IBSEN
7853
into yours.
-
Nora - There we have it! You have never understood me. I
have had great injustice done me, Torvald: first by my father,
and then by you.
Helmer - What! by your father and me? — by us who have
loved you more than all the world ?
Nora (shaking her head] – You have never loved me. You
only thought it amusing to be in love with me.
Helmer — Why, Nora, what a thing to say!
Nora — Yes, it is so, Torvald. While I was at home with
father he used to tell me all his opinions, and I held the same
opinions. If I had others I concealed them, because he would
not have liked it. He used to call me his doll child, and play
.
with me
as I played with my dolls. Then I came to live in
your house
Helmer — What an expression to use about our marriage!
Nora [undisturbed]-I mean I passed from father's hands
You settled everything according to your taste; and
I got the same tastes as you; or I pretended to—I don't know
which — both ways, perhaps. When I look back on it now,
I
seem to have been living here like a beggar, from hand to mouth.
I lived by performing tricks for you, Torvald. But you would
have it so. You and father have done me a great wrong.
It's
your fault that my life has been wasted.
Helmer — Why, Nora, how unreasonable and ungrateful you
are! Haven't you been happy here?
Nora — No, never: I thought I was, but I never was.
Helmer - Not — not happy?
Nora — No, only merry. And you have always been so kind
to me. But our house has been nothing but a play-room. Here
I have been your doll wife, just as at home I used to be papa's
doll child. And the children in their turn have been my dolls.
I thought it was fun when you played with me, just as the
children did when I played with them. That has been our mar-
riage, Torvald,
Helmer — There is some truth in what you say, exaggerated
and overstrained though it be. But henceforth it shall be differ-
ent. Play-time is over; now comes the time for education.
Nora – Whose education ? Mine, or the children's ?
Helmer - Both, my dear Nora.
Nora — 0 Torvald, you can't teach me to be a fit wife for
you.
## p. 7854 (#46) ############################################
7854
HENRIK IBSEN
me.
7839
HENRIK IBSEN
(1828-)
BY WILLIAM H. CARPENTER
A
ENRIK IBSEN was born March 20th, 1828, at the little village of
Skien, in the south of Norway, where his father conducted
an extensive business as a general merchant. His ancestors
for generations had been shipmasters; and the original Ibsen, the
poet's great-great-grandfather, had come to Norway from Denmark.
His great-grandmother was of Scotch, his grandmother and mother
of Gerinan descent; so that in the veins of the poet there is not a
drop of pure Norse blood. When the boy was eight years old, busi-
ness reverses compelled his father to give up the comfortable con-
dition that had hitherto prevailed, and the family moved to a farm
just outside the town, where they lived during the succeeding six
years in economy and retirement. When Ibsen was fourteen they
moved back into Skien, where the boy in the mean time had attended
the scientific school. In his sixteenth year he went as an apothe-
cary's apprentice to Grimstad, a village even smaller than Skien, on
the southeast coast.
The following five years that he spent in Grimstad were import-
ant ones, not only as a period of unrest and development, but in that
within them are found the first visible beginnings of his literary
career. His first printed literary work is the poem Hösten,' con-
tained in the Christiania Posten in 1849. His first dramatic attempt,
the three-act play (Catilina,' was also written in Grimstad.
It was
published in Christiania in 1850, under the pseudonym of Brynjolf
Bjarme. It attracted however but little attention, and only some
thirty copies were sold; the rest of the edition being subsequently
disposed of by the author to a huckster, who used it as wrapping-
paper for his wares. This same year Ibsen left Grimstad for Christi-
ania with the intention of entering the University, which he did in a
few months by the way of Heltberg's school. His university career,
however, was but brief. During the Whitsuntide holidays he wrote
the one-act drama “Kjæmpehöjen' (The Warrior's Mound), which was
produced at the Christiania Theatre this same year. After the pro-
duction of his play, Ibsen abandoned all thought of the University.
With several associates he began, early in 1851, the publication of a
## p. 7840 (#32) ############################################
7840
HENRIK IBSEN
weekly paper called Manden (Man), subsequently renamed Andhrim-
ner, the name of the mythical cook of the gods in Walhalla. It had
a precarious existence of only nine months, when it was forced to
suspend. Ibsen's own contributions were, besides poetry and criti-
cism, a three-act political satire called Norma,' which appeared
anonymously. In November of this same year, 1851, after living for
a year and a half in Christiania, Ibsen was called as stage manager to
the newly opened Norwegian theatre in Bergen. The following year
.
he received a meagre traveling stipend and three months' leave of
absence, that he might study stage management abroad. In Germany
he wrote his next play, Sankthansnatten' (St. John's Night), which
was produced at the Bergen Theatre in 1853. It was not a success,
and has never been printed.
With his next play, however, Ibsen's dramatic career may be
said to have fairly and successfully begun. This was the first of
the national historical dramas, Gildet paa Solhaug' (The Banquet at
Solhaug), 1856; which was produced in Bergen with enthusiastic ap-
plause, and was subsequently given in Christiania, Copenhagen, and
Stockholm. This same year he also wrote the romantic drama Olaf
Liljekrans, which was produced at the Bergen Theatre twice during
the following year, but has never been printed. The same year, 1857,
he left Bergen to accept the directorship of the Norwegian theatre
in Christiania; a position he held until the summer of 1862, when
the theatre became bankrupt and was forced to close. Several plays
belong to this period. The historical drama Fru Inger til Österaat'
(Lady Inger of Österaat), and Hærmaendene paa Helgeland' (The
Vikings at Helgeland), appeared in 1857 and 1858 respectively; and
Kjærlighedens Komedie (The Comedy of Love), a satirical play in
rhymed verse, in 1862. To this same period belong also the long-
est of his minor poems, Paa Vidderne (On the Mountain Plains)
and 'Terje Vigen'; published the one in 1860, the other in 1862. From
the beginning of 1863 Ibsen received a small stipend as artistic
adviser of the Christiania Theatre. He endeavored presently to obtain
the “poet's salary,” which had been granted to Björnson this year;
but the demand was refused, and he was forced to put up with a
small traveling stipend, allowed him for the purpose of collecting the
popular poetry of Norway. It was afterwards proposed by his friends
to procure for him a subordinate position in the custom-house, but
this came to naught. When the war broke out between Denmark
and Germany, Ibsen beheld with indignation and scorn the attitude
of Norway, and he made up his mind to break away from condi-
tions which he felt so belittling. He applied for a traveling stipend,
which was ultimately allowed him; and in April 1864, the year of
the appearance of 'Kongs-Emnerne) (The Pretenders), his masterpiece
(
## p. 7841 (#33) ############################################
HENRIK IBSEN
7841
.
among the historical dramas, he left Christiania not to return for
many years. Abroad, Ibsen lived first in Germany and subsequently
in Trieste and Rome. In 1866 he sent back to Norway the great
dramatic poem Brand'; and the Storthing, on the strength of it,
found but little difficulty in granting him the “poet's salary » which
had before been refused. For twenty-seven years Ibsen lived abroad,
with only occasional visits to Norway; although when he left he had
intended to return, and his position as artistic adviser at the Chris-
tiania Theatre was for some time kept open for him. From Rome,
besides Brand,' he sent home in 1867 the dramatic poem Peer
Gynt. ' The next year he removed to Dresden, and the two summers
following he made short visits to Stockholm and Copenhagen. His
next work, the political comedy De Unges Forbund' (The League
of Youth), appeared in 1869; his longest work, the drama Kejser og
Galilær) (Emperor and Galilean), followed in 1873. The year after,
1874, he returned for a short time to Norway after an absence of ten
years, and was everywhere received with ovations. Subsequently to
this, until his final return to Norway in 1891,- since which time he
has lived in Christiania, — Ibsen spent the greater part of the time in
Germany, and principally in Munich. These last years have contrib-
uted the major part of the fame of the poet outside of Norway; for
within them fall all the modern social dramas that are immediately
connected with his name, and have even made Ibsenism »
a dis-
tinctive characterization in literature. Of these, (Samfundets Stötter)
(The Pillars of Society) appeared in 1877; Et Dukkehjem (A Doll's
House), in 1879; "Gjengangere (Ghosts), in 1881; En Folkefiende
(An Enemy of the People), in 1882; Vildanden' (The Wild Duck), in
1884; Rosmersholm,' in 1886; (Fruen fra Havet' (The Lady from the
Sea), in 1888; Hedda Gabler,' in 1890; Bygmester Solness' (Master
Builder Solness), in 1892; and finally Lille Eyjolf' (Little Eyjolf), in
1894. To complete the list of his works, a volume of poems had fur-
thermore appeared in 1871, with the title (Digte) (Poems).
Ibsen's dramas fall naturally, in the light of both subject and
chronology, into several groups, which mark with tolerable exactness
the successive phases in the development of his art. After the first
tragedy, Catilina,'—— which, crude though it is, has in it undoubted
elements of strength, — his work at the outset was romantic. This
phase culminated in the lyrical drama in verse, the Banquet at
Solhaug '; which was at the same time the first of the plays whose
subjects were taken from Norwegian history, that now followed in
succession until interrupted by the Comedy of Love. ' The materials
for the Banquet at Solhaug' Ibsen found in old Norwegian folk-
songs and ballads. Lady Inger of Österaat,' which later on
almost entirely rewritten, is a tragedy from Norwegian life in the
XIV-491
(C
C
was
## p. 7842 (#34) ############################################
7842
HENRIK IBSEN
(
sixteenth century. In the Vikings at Helgeland Ibsen turns for his
material to the ancient sagas, several of which are drawn upon for the
main plot and incidents. This play marks a definite break, once for
all, with Ibsen's youthful romanticisin, which afterward may scarcely
be said to reappear.
It is however in the last of the historical
dramas, the Pretenders,' that he reaches his height in this kind of
writing. The action of the play falls within the thirteenth century,
the “pretenders” being the two claimants to the throne of Sverre,
King of Norway,– Hakon and Skule. Ibsen in this drama exhibits an
unmistakable dramatic power, and his treatment of the psychological
contrast involved in the self-sufficiency of the King and the vacillation
of the Duke is among his surest dramatic effects. Some of his critics
have seen in Skule the reflection of many of the poet's own traits of
character. From a dialogue between Skule and Jatgeir the skald,
Ibsen himself has been well called “the poet of doubt,” — a charac-
terization that particularly fits him as the writer of the social dramas
yet to come.
Ibsen meantime, it will be remembered, — before the appearance
of the Pretenders,' which had been taken up and then tempo-
rarily laid aside,— had written his first distinctly satirical play, the
'Comedy of Love. This was in several ways a remarkable change
in the direction he had been following; but it marks simply a grow-
ing maturity of power in his art, and the consciousness already of
what was to be its ultimate mode of expression. It was in reality
the first definite formulation of what we now know as Ibsenism. In
Norway it was received with a storm of protest, such as the subse-
quent social dramas have not failed to evoke there and elsewhere.
The problem of the Comedy of Love,' like that of so many others
of Ibsen's dramas, is the marriage relation. Here the theme is the
manner in which love must of necessity die out in a union entered
into through affection alone. The play is a “defense of the rational
marriage as opposed to the marriage of inclination”; and the lovers,
Falk and Svanhild, at the end voluntarily renounce each other to
escape the common fate.
In Italy, whither Ibsen ultimately went after leaving Norway in
1864, he first took up the studies that were subsequently embodied in
Emperor and Galilean. ' His thoughts, however, seem irresistibly to
have gone back to the North upon which he had turned his back in
indignation; and this work was laid aside for what to most Norsemen
are the greatest of his works, the dramatic poems (Brand and Peer
Gynt. ' The two poems, although essentially unlike, mark a distinct
phase in the poet's development, in that they belong to what may be
called his polemical period. Both are intensely national, and in both
he applies unsparingly the scourge to his country's foibles. He rises
## p. 7843 (#35) ############################################
HENRIK IBSEN
7843
in them to an unexpected height of strength, and in them he has left
to Norwegian literature works which for all time to come will be
reckoned among its greatest classics. (Brand' is really a protest
against the half-heartedness of his countrymen.
« That which thou art, be it completely;
Not merely piecemeal and discreetly. ”
The hero, the young clergyman Brand, is himself an embodiment
of this protest against the spirit of Compromise. With his motto
“Everything or nothing,” he scorns the religion of the day and
declares a bitter though futile war against it; until, heavy laden with
sorrow and defeat but with unbroken will, he is overwhelmed in
the snow of the avalanche. Peer Gynt,' on the other hand, is the
embodiment of the spirit itself against which Brand' protests. The
hero accordingly is to Ibsen's mind the typical Norseman. It is not a
complimentary picture that the poet has so fearlessly painted of the
national character, for Peer Gynt is a man of dreams and of idle
inaction; he is cynically indifferent, selfish, sordid, superstitious, and
withal mendacious. He realizes at the end that he has never been
himself; that he is in fact no one, and is only fitted, although his
destiny is after all left undecided in the poem, to go into the melting-
spoon of the mysterious Button-Molder, who is to melt him over into
fresh material from which to stamp new souls. In manner the two
poems have but little in common. (Brand) is solemn and monotonous;
Peer Gynt varied and witty. Although both are as Norwegian as
well may be, each one is capable of universal application. Peer
Gynt' has been called the Scandinavian Faust'; for it too, like
Goethe's poem, is the story of the human soul.
Ibsen's polemics did not end with these two great poems; but the
phase was continued in the prose comedy (The League of Youth,'
which was the next to follow. This is a satire on the politics of
Norway, its parties and their motives; and is directed particularly
against democracy, which to Ibsen has always been in ill favor.
'Emperor and Galilean,' which had been begun and laid aside, was
next taken up and completed. The whole is made up of two dramas,
Cæsar's Apostasy' and the Emperor Julian,' each having five acts.
It is written throughout in prose. Although perhaps the most ambi-
tious of all of Ibsen's works, it is not as a whole an artistic success.
It was the last of the historical dramas; and though apparently far
removed from the modern social plays that were now to follow, there
is nevertheless a link between it and them. In none of them does
he so unmistakably formulate the creed that we find embodied in the
action of the later plays.
(
## p. 7844 (#36) ############################################
7844
HENRIK IBSEN
new
C
The dramas of modern life, which outside of Scandinavia are most
closely connected with the name of Ibsen, next followed in unbroken
succession. Although this is at first sight almost absolutely a
tendency, the poet none the less definitely follows a direction that all
through his earlier work is frequently enough indicated. It is found
in Catilina,' the first dramatic work, as well as in Emperor and
Galilean,' the last, and the League of Youth' prefigures it almost
completely. In some ways it is however a new development. Hence-
forth Ibsen is the pathologist who unerringly, and with cruel direct-
ness, makes his diagnosis of the ills of the social body; and although
the setting of his plays is Norwegian, their application is as universal
as are the conditions of modern society itself. The Pillars of Soci-
ety,' the first of the group, attacks the hypocrisy of the principal
supporters of a community, here typified in particular by the rich
Consul Bernick, the local magnate in a small Norwegian town. Ber-
nick ultimately avows his real character; he shows how he has
brought about his own personal aggrandizement at the expense of
the community of which he has been a vaunted pillar, and stands at
last for the first time on the firm ground of truth. « The spirits of
Truth and Freedom,”— it is declared at the end, — "these are the
Pillars of Society. ”
A Doll's House,' the next play, is concerned with the problem of
marriage as a failure. To answer the question, it furnishes an illus-
tration of the customary sacrifice of the individuality of the woman
to that of the man to whom she is married. Nora, the doll of this
particular doll's-house, is one of the most distinctive of Ibsen's crea-
tions, as is the drama one of his most pronounced successes. She is
an undeveloped child in mind and morals, and eventually, unthinking
of consequences, sacrifices honor to love, and forges her father's name
to a document in order to help her husband. At the end her illus-
ions have all vanished. She sees and understands the doll's-house
in which she has lived, and determines for her children's sake and
her own to leave it.
"Ghosts) is in some respects a complement to A Doll's House. )
It shows in reality, in its own way and with wholly different setting,
what might have happened had Nora Helmer remained with her hus-
band and children. The play is the most thrilling and dreadful of
all of Ibsen's works. Its fundamental idea is the awful consequences
of hereditary vices, which are ghosts to revisit the scenes of their
past existence. Oswald Alving, the son of a vicious father whose
memory has been cloaked by his wife after his death, becomes a
mere physical wreck, and begs his mother in the last awful scene to
give him the morphia that shall end his torment. It is left uncertain
whether this is or is not done, but it scarcely mitigates the horror of
(
## p. 7845 (#37) ############################################
HENRIK IBSEN
7845
the end. (Ghosts' raised a howl of protest, but its drastic strength
cannot be questioned.
(An Enemy of the People' is to a great extent a personal polemic
due to the reception accorded “Ghosts. Its hero, Dr. Stockmann,
simply tells the truth in regard to the corruption of the medicinal
waters that had brought visitors and prosperity to a little town in
Norway. Every one knows that it is the truth, and he is stoned and
driven out for uttering it. The play as a whole is inferior to the
rest.
(The Wild Duck) receives its name from a bird that is kept
captive in a garret, and is the fondest treasure of a little girl
of fourteen, Hedwig. The play is gloomy and despairing. Hedwig,
ultimately, instead of killing the wild duck as she is advised to do,
turns the bullet into her own heart.
Rosmersholm) is the story of the clergyman Rosmer, the last of
his race, whose wife had committed suicide, and who had fallen under
the influence of her former companion Rebecca West. The relation-
ship between them, except in name, is love, tender but passionless.
Idle scandals arise, and Rosmer offers marriage, which Rebecca's con-
science does not allow her to accept. Both put an end to their con-
fused lives by throwing themselves into the mill-dam.
“The Lady from the Sea' is the daughter of a light-house keeper
who has become the second wife of Dr. Wangel, the physician of a
little coast town. She has however been mysteriously betrothed to a
seafaring man, a Finn, who finally comes back to claim her. When
her husband at her own request leaves her to choose between him
and the sailor, and tells her that she must bear the individual
responsibility for her action, she decides with rapture to remain.
Hedda Gabler' seems to be the only one of the social dramas
without a problem. Hedda is a woman of the modern literary type,
-- vain, pleasure-loving. undomestic, and selfish. As the wife of Dr.
,
Tisman she lures back to his destruction her old friend Lövborg, who
had once grievously insulted her. When in despair he threatens to
kill himself, she offers him one of her pistols. He is afterward found
dead with Hedda's pistol discharged, and she, fearful of the scandal
that will arise, ends her life with the other.
(Master Builder Solness) tells the story of the price of success: the
ruin of many for the benefit of the one, and the impoverishment in
heart and affections of the one, who must thus pay the penalty for
his successes. Halvard Solness, the builder, step by step has fought
his way to success; and in his desire to keep what he has gained he
is wary and jealous of any possible competitor, and particularly of
the coming generation, whom he recognizes as his enemies. His first
concession to youth, in the person of Hilda Wangel, brings about his
## p. 7846 (#38) ############################################
7846
HENRIK IBSEN
own destruction. Hilda challenges him to perform again the feat of
his earlier years.
He accordingly climbs to the tower of his new
house to place the garland upon the top, but grows giddy and falls
headlong to the earth.
Little Eyjolf' presents the problem of a loveless marriage. Little
Eyjolf, the crippled son of Allmers and Rita, is drowned in the fjord.
There are mutual recriminations, and the husband declares that they
must henceforth live apart. Rita however begs that they may still
live their lives together, and Allmers decides finally to remain; so
that there is a gleam of hope in the dénouement. The problem is
fundamentally that of A Doll's House, but the reverse solution is
much more hopeful, and possibly truer. This play seems to inculcate
too a new principle in Ibsen's philosophy of life. While the others,
one and all, turn upon the dissolution of modern society, constituted
as it is, this unmistakably looks toward the possibility of its regener-
ation.
In John Gabriel Borkman,' his latest drama, Borkman is a bank
official whose great money schemes lead him into dishonesty and dis-
grace. Estranged from his wife, he regards himself as more sinned
against than sinning, and dreams of yet redeeming the past. The
wife looks to their son to reinstate their name, but he forsakes her
to make a runaway match. Borkman, incensed by both mother and
son, wanders out, in a broken state of health, into a snowy winter's
night, in company with his wife's sister, a former sweetheart whom
he threw over for his ambition's sake; — and he perishes there, the
two women confronting each other across his body. The play has
poetic suggestion, but is hardly plain in purpose, - one implication
being that Borkman's greatest mistake was in putting ambition before
love.
Ibsen's social dramas have carried his fame throughout the world,
and a vast literature of translation and comment has arisen. Many
of them, in Norway and out of it, have evoked loud protests of indig-
nation at the drastic presentation of his problems, and he has been
assailed as immoral, as a cynic and a pessimist. It is not impossible,
however, to absolve him of each and all of these charges. Ibsen's
whole problem, as it has well been stated, is the relation of the
individual to his social and personal surroundings; these are studies
accordingly in human responsibility, and the characters are intended
to be types of the race in modern social conditions. Such condi-
tions, moreover, in salient points Ibsen as diagnostician finds to be
inherently bad, and fearlessly he puts his finger upon the sore spots
to point out the danger they inevitably involve to the whole social
body. Ibsen in this is the poet of protest, and his voice is that of
one crying aloud against social hypocrisy and sophistry of whatever
## p. 7847 (#39) ############################################
HENRIK IBSEN
7847
sort it may be. He is not immoral, in that no one has ever made
vice more repulsive, or by contrast virtue more attractive. When it
is urged against him that he destroys but suggests no remedy, his
critics have failed to apprehend the positive result of the lessons
involved in this very destruction, whose causes he has rendered so
apparent. He is not the mere cynic, for there is a whole galaxy of
characters to draw upon one's sympathies. «Truth, freedom, and
love," says his biographer, "are the three corner-stones of the edifice,
noble in proportion and serious in purpose, that the poet has erected. ”
Ibsen in the social dramas in many ways has struck the highest
note of modern dramatic art. Primarily his manner of construction
is analytic. He begins his plays where another dramatist would have
ended them. Often the climax has occurred before the opening of
the play, and the consequences accordingly form the subject-matter
of the action. There is no place in his dramas for the purely con-
ventional, and they bear characteristically the stamp of reality.
Ibsen in all this is the creator of a school, whose teachings have left
an indelible mark upon the literature of the century.
The following are the best works on Ibsen for the general reader:
(Henrik Ibsen' in Eminent Authors of the Nineteenth Century,' by
Georg Brandes (New York: 1886); Henrik Ibsen: A Critical Biogra-
phy,' by Henrik Jaeger (Chicago: 1890); A Commentary on the
Writings of Henrik Ibsen,' by H. H. Boyesen (New York: 1894);
(Four Lectures on Henrik Ibsen,' by R. H. Wicksteed (London: 1892).
The most accessible edition of Ibsen's prose dramas is that trans-
lated by William Archer, in six volumes (New York: 1890-92).
(
Wast. Carpenter.
FROM THE PRETENDERS)
J
^ King Smule
The action passes in the first half of the Thirteenth Century. Present:
Skule; Jatgeir the Skald, an Icelander; Paul Flida, a nobleman.
ATGEIR [enters from the back] - Forgive my coming, lord King.
You come to my wish, Skald!
Jatgeir - I overheard some townsfolk at my lodging talking
darkly of
King Skule - Let that wait. Tell me, Skald, you who have
fared far abroad in strange lands,— have you ever seen a woman
love another's child ? Not only be kind to it — 'tis not that I
mean; but love it, love it with the warmest passion of her soul.
## p. 7848 (#40) ############################################
7848
HENRIK IBSEN
seem
Jatgeir — That can only those women do who have no child of
their own to love.
King Skule -- Only those women - ?
?
Jatgeir — And chiefly women who are barren.
King Skule — Chiefly the barren —? They love the children of
others with all their warmest passion ?
Jatgeir — That will oftentimes befall.
King Skule — And does it not sometimes befall that such a
barren woman will slay another's child, because she herself has
none ?
Jatgeir — Ay, ay; but in that she does unwisely.
King Skule – Unwisely?
Jatgeir — Ay, for she gives the gift of sorrow to her whose
child she slays.
King Skule - Think you the gift of sorrow is a great good ?
Jatgeir — Yes, lord.
King Skule [looking fixedly at him]— Methinks there are two
men in you, Icelander. When you sit amid the household at the
merry feast, you draw cloak and hood over all your thoughts;
when one is alone with you, sometimes
you
to be of
those among whom one were fain to choose his friend. How
comes it ?
Jatgeir — When you go to swim in the river, my lord, you
would scarce strip you where the people pass by to church: you
seek a sheltered privacy.
King Skule - True, true.
Jatgeir — My soul has a like shyness; therefore I do not strip
me when there are many in the hall.
King Skule -- Hm. (A short pause. ] Tell me, Jatgeir, how
[
came you to be a skald? Who taught you skaldcraft ?
Jatgeir — Skaldcraft cannot be taught, my lord.
King Skule — Cannot be taught? How came it then?
?
Jatgeir — I got the gift of sorrow, and I was a skald.
King Skule — Then 'tis the gift of sorrow the skald has need
of ?
Jatgeir I needed sorrow; others there may be who need
faith, or joy — or doubt -
King Skule — Doubt, as well ?
Jatgrir - Ay; but then must the doubter be strong and sound.
King Skule - And whom call you the unsound doubter?
Jatgeir — He who doubts his own doubt.
## p. 7849 (#41) ############################################
HENRIK IBSEN
7849
King Skule [slowly] – That, methinks, were death.
Jatgeir —'Tis worse; 'tis neither day nor night.
King Skule (quickly, as if shaking off his thoughts] - Where
are my weapons ? I will fight and act — not think.
I
What was it
you would have told me when you came ?
Jatgeir —'Twas what I noted in my lodgings. The townsmen
whisper together secretly, and laugh mockingly, and ask if we be
well assured that King Hakon is in the west land: there is some-
what they are in glee over.
King Skule - They are men of Viken, and therefore against
me.
Jatgeir They scoff because King Olaf's shrine could not be
brought out to the mote-stead when we did you homage; they
say it boded ill.
King Skule — When next I come to Nidaros the shrine shall
out! It shall stand under the open sky, though I should have to
tear down St. Olaf's church and widen the mote-stead over the
spot where it stood.
Jatgeir - That were a strong deed; but I shall make a song
of it as strong as the deed itself.
King Skule — Have you many unmade songs within you,
Jatgeir ?
Jatgeir — Nay, but many unborn; they are conceived one after
the other, come to life, and are brought forth.
King Skule — And if I, who am King and have the might, –
if I were to have you slain, would all the unborn skald-thoughts
within you die along with you?
Jatgeir My lord, it is a great sin to slay a fair thought.
King Skule— I ask not if it be a sin: I ask if it be possible !
Jatgeir - I know not.
King Skule – Have you never had another skald for your
friend, and has he never unfolded to you a great and noble song
he thought to make ?
Jatgeir — Yes, lord.
King Skule - Did you not then wish that you could slay him,
to take his thought and make the song yourself?
Jatgeir -— My lord, I am not barren: I have children of my
own; I need not to love those of other men. [Goes. ]
King Skule (after a pause]— The Icelander is in very deed a
skald. He speaks God's deepest truth and knows it not.
as a barren woman. Therefore I love Hakon's kingly thought-
I am
## p. 7850 (#42) ############################################
7850
HENRIK IBSEN
child, love it with the warmest passion of my soul. Oh that I
could but adopt it! It would die in my hands. Which were best,
that it should die in my hands or wax great in his ? Should I
ever have peace of soul if that came to pass ? Can I forego all ?
Can I stand by and see Hakon make himself famous for all time?
How dead and empty is all within me - and around me.
No
friend — ah, the Icelander! [Goes to the door and calls. ] Has the
skald gone from the palace ?
A Guard [outside]— No, my lord: he stands in the outer hall
talking with the watch.
King Skule Bid him come hither. [Goes forward to the
table; presently Jatgeir enters. ] I cannot sleep, Jatgeir: 'tis all
my great kingly thoughts that keep me awake, you see.
Jatgeir — 'Tis with the king's thoughts as with the skald's, I
doubt not. They fly highest and grow quickest when there is
night and stillness around.
King Skule - Is it so with the skald's thoughts too?
Jatgeir -- Ay, lord: no song is born by daylight; it may be
written down in the sunshine, but it makes itself in the silent
night.
King Skule — Who gave you the gift of sorrow, Jatgeir ?
Jatgeir — She whom I loved.
King Skule — She died, then ?
Jatgeir — No, she deceived me.
King Skule — And then you became a skald ?
Jatgeir - Ay, then I became a skald.
King Skule (seizes him by the arm] - What gift do I need to
become a king ?
Jatgeir - Not the gift of doubt; else would you not ques-
tion so.
King Skule— What gift do I need ?
Jatgeir — My lord, you are a king.
King Skule — Have you at all times full faith that you are a
skald ?
Jatgeir [looks silently at him for a while]— Have you never
loved ?
King Skule— Yes, once — burningly, blissfully, and in sin.
Jatgeir — You have a wife.
King Skule — Her I took to bear me sons.
Jatgeir — But you have a daughter, my lord — a gracious and
noble daughter.
## p. 7851 (#43) ############################################
HENRIK IBSEN
7851
King Skule -- Were my daughter a son, I would not ask you
what gift I need. [Vehemently. ] I must have some one by me
who sinks his own will utterly in mine — who believes in me
unflinchingly, who will cling close to me in good hap and ill, who
lives only to shed light and warmth over my life, and must die
if I fall. Give me counsel, Jatgeir Skald!
Jatgeir — Buy yourself a dog, my lord.
King Skule -- Would no man suffice ?
Jatgeir — You would have to search long for such a man.
King Skule (suddenly) - Will you be that man to me, Jatgeir ?
Will you be a son to me? You shall have Norway's crown to
your heritage — the whole land shall be yours, if you will be a
son to me, and live for my life work, and believe in me.
Jatgeir — And what should be my warranty that I did not
feign — ?
King Skule — Give up your calling in life, sing no more songs,
and then will I believe you!
Jatgeir — No, lord: that were to buy the crown too dear.
King Skule — Bethink you well: 'tis greater to be a king than
a skald.
Jatgeir — Not always.
King Skule—'Tis but your unsung songs you must sacrifice!
Jatgeir - Songs unsung are ever the fairest.
King Skule — But I must -I must have one who can trust in
me! Only one. I feel it: had I that one I were saved!
Jatgeir — Trust in yourself and you will be saved !
Paul Flida [enters hastily] — King Skule, look to yourself!
Hakon Hakonsson lies off Elgjarness with all his fleet!
King Skule— Off Elgjarness! Then he is close at hand.
Jatgeir — Get we to arms then! If there be bloodshed to-night,
I will gladly be the first to die for you!
King Skule - You, who would not live for me!
Jatgeir — A man can die for another's life work; but if he go
on living, he must live for his own. [Goes. ]
## p. 7852 (#44) ############################################
7852
HENRIK IBSEN
FROM A DOLL'S HOUSE)
Scene : Sitting-room in Torvald Helmer's house (a flat) in Christiania.
Time : The Present Day. Nora Helmer enters, crossing to table
in every-day dress.
ELMER
H. .
Why, what's this? Not gone to bed ? You have
changed your dress.
Nora — Yes, Torvald; now I have changed my dress.
Helmer — But why now, so late?
Nora - I shall not sleep to-night.
Helmer - But, Nora dear -
Nora [looking at her watch]— It's not so late yet. Sit down,
Torvald: you and I have much to say to each other. [She sits at
one side of the table. ]
Helmer - Nora, what does this mean? Your cold, set face-
Nora — Sit down. It will take some time: I have much to
talk over with you.
Helmer (sitting down at the other side of the table] - You
alarm me; I don't understand you.
Nora — No, that's just it. You don't understand me; and I
have never understood you — till to-night. No, don't interrupt.
Only listen to what I say. We must come to a final settlement,
Torvald!
Helmer How do you mean?
Nora [after a short silence] - Does not one thing strike you
as we sit here?
Helmer - What should strike me ?
Nora — We have been married eight years. Does it not strike
you that this is the first time we two — you and I, man and wife
have talked together seriously?
Helmer - Seriously! Well, what do you call seriously?
?
Nora — During eight whole years and more - ever since the
day we first met - we have never exchanged one serious word
about serious things.
Helmer - Was I always to trouble you with the cares you
could not help me to bear?
Nora — I am not talking of cares. I say that we have never
yet set ourselves seriously to get to the bottom of anything.
Helmer - Why, my dear Nora, what have you to do with
serious things ?
## p. 7853 (#45) ############################################
HENRIK IBSEN
7853
into yours.
-
Nora - There we have it! You have never understood me. I
have had great injustice done me, Torvald: first by my father,
and then by you.
Helmer - What! by your father and me? — by us who have
loved you more than all the world ?
Nora (shaking her head] – You have never loved me. You
only thought it amusing to be in love with me.
Helmer — Why, Nora, what a thing to say!
Nora — Yes, it is so, Torvald. While I was at home with
father he used to tell me all his opinions, and I held the same
opinions. If I had others I concealed them, because he would
not have liked it. He used to call me his doll child, and play
.
with me
as I played with my dolls. Then I came to live in
your house
Helmer — What an expression to use about our marriage!
Nora [undisturbed]-I mean I passed from father's hands
You settled everything according to your taste; and
I got the same tastes as you; or I pretended to—I don't know
which — both ways, perhaps. When I look back on it now,
I
seem to have been living here like a beggar, from hand to mouth.
I lived by performing tricks for you, Torvald. But you would
have it so. You and father have done me a great wrong.
It's
your fault that my life has been wasted.
Helmer — Why, Nora, how unreasonable and ungrateful you
are! Haven't you been happy here?
Nora — No, never: I thought I was, but I never was.
Helmer - Not — not happy?
Nora — No, only merry. And you have always been so kind
to me. But our house has been nothing but a play-room. Here
I have been your doll wife, just as at home I used to be papa's
doll child. And the children in their turn have been my dolls.
I thought it was fun when you played with me, just as the
children did when I played with them. That has been our mar-
riage, Torvald,
Helmer — There is some truth in what you say, exaggerated
and overstrained though it be. But henceforth it shall be differ-
ent. Play-time is over; now comes the time for education.
Nora – Whose education ? Mine, or the children's ?
Helmer - Both, my dear Nora.
Nora — 0 Torvald, you can't teach me to be a fit wife for
you.
## p. 7854 (#46) ############################################
7854
HENRIK IBSEN
me.
