The Author

Knowing about the author of the play is also very important. Henrik Ibsen (1828 – 1906), after publishing his first play in 1850, was appointed resident dramatist and stage manager at the newly created Norwegian National Theatre in Bergen in 1851. By 1857 he had assisted in staging 145 plays, and had written seven of his own. Between 1857 and 1862, he worked at the Norwegian Theatre in Christiania (Now Oslo), and after 1864 he lived abroad until 1891.

Ibsen wrote twenty-five plays. Most of the early works are verse-dramas about the Scandinavian past. These include Lady Inger of Ostraat (1855), The Viking at Heelgeland (1858), and The Pretenders (1864). The most important early works, however, are Brand (1866) and Peer Gynt contrasts sharply with Brand, for its protagonist is a man who avoids issues by skirting them. A skillful blending of fantasy and reality, Peer Gynt was interpreted by many as a satire on the Norwegian character.

In the 1870s Ibsen made a sharp break with his past when he announced his intention of abandoning verse because it was unsuited to creating an illusion of reality. The future direction of his work first became apparent with Pillars of Society (1877), but it was with A Doll’s House (1879), Ghosts (1881), and An Enemy of the People (1882) that Ibsen established his reputation as a radical thinker. Above all, it was a Doll’s House and Ghosts that shocked conservative readers and served as a rallying point for supporters of a drama of ideas. Unlike Dumas fils and Augier, who also wrote about controversial subjects, Ibsen did not resolve his plays in ways that confirmed received ideology. Rather, he made ideology the cause of problems and suggested that need to change it.


History of Theatre, Oscar G. Brockett, Franklin J. Hildy

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