Ibsen and Tragedy: a Study in Lykke
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Ibsen and Tragedy: A Study in Lykke Anne-Marie Victoria Stanton-Ife University College London Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 31 March 2003 1 Abstract This thesis traces Ibsen's development as a writer of tragedy through lykke. contingency and happiness. Chapter I explains why notions of chance and happiness are so central to tragedy, and shows how the interests of tragedy and ethics converge in these concepts. Aristotle's arguments in the Poetics for the secularisation of tragedy are examined, along with basic ethical and tragic categories of eudaimonia (happiness) and tuche (luck). The case is then made for seeing Norwegian lykke as a concept straddling both these notions. This leads to the argument that Ibsen performs an analogous secularising gesture on his own tragedies, which explains the development from an excessive reliance on external agencies in his historical tragedies to the highly sophisticated accounts of lykke in later works. Chapter II presents the early historical tragedies from Catilina to Kejser og GaiJlceer, dramas written in 'high tragic' mode, dependent on notions of fate and other forces hostile to human happiness. Chapter ill argues that with Brand, Ibsen turns away from manifestations of contingency, and is more concerned with human agency. Here the spiritual discipline of the hero, not contingency, is pitted against happiness, and the move towards secularisation is discernible. Chapters IV, V and VI focus on Ibsen's realist tragedies Et Dukkehjem, Gengangere and Rosmersholm, secularised tragedies par excellence. Through their explorations of happiness, they participate in philosophical debates such as the affirmation of the ordinary life and utilitarianism. The last two chapters examine Bygmester Solness and John Gabriel Borkman, in which Ibsen returns to an analysis of notions of extra-human agencies and chance as determiners of happiness, not as a return to the cosmologies of his historical tragedies, but as a part of the dramatization of the hero's search for truth. 2 Contents Acknowledgements 5 Chapter I Introduction 1.1 Introduction 7 1.2.1 Ibsen Criticism 9 1.2.2 Ibsen the Tragedian 12 1.3.1 Ethical Criticism 13 1.3.2 Tragedy and Philosophy 16 1.4.1 Lykke 18 1.4.2 Aristotle: tuche, eudaimonia, hamartia 20 1.4.3 The Tragic Plot 24 1.4.4 Hamartia and the Secularisation of Tragedy 25 1.4.5 Ibsen and the Secu1arisation of Tragedy 27 Chapter II Early Historical Tragedy and der g6tt1iche Gegensatz 2.1 Introduction 36 2.2 Cati1ina 37 2.3 Fro Inger til estrat 42 2.4 Hrermrendene pa Helgeland 49 2.5 Kongsemneme 59 2.6 Kejser og Galilreer 65 Chapter ill Brand Mellem Lykke og Pligt 3.1.1 Introduction 84 3.1.2 The Failure of the Enlightenment Project 86 3.1.3 Kant: The Pure Will and Duty 88 3.1.4 Kant: Happiness 89 3.1.5 Kant and Aristotle 92 3.1.6 Necessary Identities 94 3.2 Brand - Helt og Holdent Kallets Mann 97 3.3 Agnes and Ejnar: Sensible Happiness 100 3.4 Ought and Can 102 3.5 Duty vs. Duties 106 3.6 Mellem Lykke og Pligt 108 Chapter IV Opptegnelser til nutids-tragedier 4.1.1 "The Death of Tragedy" 124 4.1.2 Realism and Naturalism 128 4.2 Et Dukkehjem 135 4.2.1 Lykke 139 4.2.2 My Station and its Duties 146 Chapter V Gengangere Livsglreden - kan det V(efe redoing i den? 5.1 Introduction: Tragedy? 156 5.2 Gengangere 158 5.2.2 Livsglreden - kan detvrere redning i den? 163 Chapter VI Rosmersholnr. Lykken som LivsmM 6.1 Tragedy or Tragi-Comedy? 189 6.1.2 Ibsen and Utilitarianism 193 3 6.2 Act I 6.2.1 Ulrik Brendel 196 6.2.2 Frigereisens Vrerk 199 6.2.3 Lykke 205 6.3 Act II 6.3.1 Kroll and Mortensgard 209 6.3.2 Den stille, glade skyldfribed 214 6.4 Act III 6.4.1 Lykke for alle 219 6.4.2 The Mainspring of Morality Has Been Taken Away 222 6.5 Act IV 6.5.1 Nu er jeg ble 't slig 227 6.5.2 A holde justits selv 234 Chapter vn Bygmester Solness. Lykke as Compensatory Fiction 7.1 Introduction 246 7.1.2 Despair 249 7.2 Lykke 253 7.3 KunstnerpJads 259 7.4 Denne her sprukoe skorstenspiben 263 7.5 Pligt 265 7.6 HjreJpeme og Tjeneme 267 7.7 De er syg, bygmester 272 7.8 Revelation 275 Chapter VITI John Gabriel Borkman Emotions of Self-Assessment 8.1 Introduction Crime and Punishment 288 8.2 Act I 8.2.1 Reparation: Erhart 290 8.3 Act II 8.3.1 Lykke 293 8.3.2 Helping Friends and Harming Enemies 296 8.3.3 Ulykke 299 8.3.4 Forbryder 304 8.4 Act III 8.4.1 Jeg mattedet 308 8.4.2 Emotions of Self-Assessment 315 8.4.4 Lykke. Erhart 321 8.5 Act IV 8.5.1 Utenfor muren 323 Conclusion 334 Bibliography 340 4 Acknowledgements Without the unflagging support and commitment of my supervIsor, Dr Marie Wells, this thesis would never have been written. My thanks to her for nurturing my undergraduate interest in Ibsen into an enduring passion. I have also benefited immensely from the help of my mother, Turid Stanton Ife, whose irreverent wit sustained me during our marathon proof-reading sessions. My brother, Dr John Stanton-Ife, has frequently proved a valued dcerone to 'en s0ster i n0d' through the complexities of moral philosophy. Several others have given generously of their time, in particular, Professor Emeritus Thomas Van Laan, whose work has been an inspiration to me. He has been kind enough to let me consult the manuscript of a major work in progress. I thank him for this and for all the encouragement he has given me. My thanks to Arnbj0rn Jakobsen for sharing his formidable knowledge of the biblical background to Ibsen with me, to Dr Vasiliki Giannopoulou, an invaluable consultant on matters classical, and to Dr Mozaffar Qizilbash for providing me with unexpectedly useful resources. Warmest thanks are due to Professor Vigdis Y stad, Randi Meyer and all at the Ibsen Centre in Oslo, where I spent three productive and happy months in 2002. Thanks are also due to the Research Council of Norway for so generously funding this stay, and to Persephone and Nikolaos Nikolaou, who made it possible for me to take up the scholarship by holding the fort at home. I cannot thank them enough. This thesis is dedicated to my husband Vasilios and my children Clio and Nicholas, who have all taught me so much about lykke. 5 Hvorfor blir man staende ved Sokrates? Hvorfor gar man ikke et lidet skritt videre og hdger Diogenes eller - om jeg ter sige - mig, da vi dog ferer eder tillykken? Thi er ikke lykken formalet for al visdomsl~re? - Kejser Julian 6 Chapter I Introduction 1.1 Introduction Julian the Apostate defines lykke (happiness) as the end of all philosophical enquiry.! This is one of his less controversial statements, because as Simon Blackburn explains, All ethical theories accord some importance to human happiness. They differ first in their conception of what that happiness consists in, secondly in views of how an agent's own personal happiness is aligned with, or traded against, the general happiness, and thirdly in whether it is necessary to acknowledge any other end for human action.2 This thesis sets out to explore lykke and kindred concepts in the tragedies of Henrik Ibsen. It does not do so in order to distil a discrete philosophy from these dramas, nor to crystallise any neat definition of 'lbsenian tragedy,' but rather to locate lykke at the tragic core of these works. Norwegian lykke (happiness, luck, success) will be considered alongside Greek eudaimonia (happiness) and tuche (chance) within a specifically Aristotelian framework. The main point of entry is Aristotle's canonical anatomy of tragedy contained in the Poetics3 supported by his views on eudaimania as expounded in the Nichomachean and the Eudemian Ethics. 4 By establishing an affinity between lykke and eudaimania, it will be possible both to evaluate the extent to which Ibsen's tragedies are Aristotelian and to delimit the conceptual spine which supports these plays and what Miguel de Unamuno would term their "tragic sense of life".5 7 The evolution of lykke is traced from Catilina (1850) to John Gabriel Borkman (1896), with the emphasis on the post-Brand dramas. The early historical works are of interest not because they uniformly indicate the levels of subtlety Ibsen was to reach in later works, but because they evidence a writer who was vexed by the lykke question from the very beginning of his dramatic output, and who would never be free from its reach. These plays also enable us to appreciate the continual refinements in Ibsen's thinking on lykke, both in the sense of 'happiness' and 'chance'. It is these refinements that so enlarge his tragic vision. Ibsen once remarked, "Man taler her i Landet om min Filosofi. Jeg har ingen Filosofi" .6 This is one of the few pronouncements of Ibsen's which should be accepted without qualification. However, this does not mean that Ibsen's dramatic works have no philosophical content Tvertimot. They constantly bring to the fore problems that are as old and enduring as philosophy itself - happiness being the prime example, "Thi er ikke lykken formalet for al visdomsl(Ere?" I will argue that the basic structure of Ibsen's exploration of lykke is Aristotelian, but I also argue that his treatment of the problem undergoes several important modifications and is nuanced at times more obviously by other thinkers, most notably the ideas of Kant, Kierkegaard and the Utilitarians.