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Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Six Plays Peer Gynt A Doll's House Ghosts The Wild Duck Hedda Gabler The Master Builder by Henr Henrik Ibsen. Henrik Ibsen, considered by many to be the father of modern prose drama, was born in Skien, Norway, on March 20, 1828. He was the second of six children. Ibsen’s father was a prominent merchant, but he went bankrupt when Ibsen was eight years old, so Ibsen spent much of his early life living in poverty. From 1851 to 1864, he worked in theaters in Bergen and in what is now Oslo (then called Christiania). At age twenty-one, Ibsen wrote his first play, a five-act tragedy called Catiline. Like much of his early work, Catiline was written in verse. In 1858, Ibsen married Suzannah Thoreson, and eventually had one son with her. Ibsen felt that, rather than merely live together, husband and wife should live as equals, free to become their own human beings. (This belief can be seen clearly in his play A Doll’s House. ) Consequently, Ibsen’s critics attacked him for failing to respect the institution of marriage. Like his private life, Ibsen’s writing tended to stir up sensitive social issues, and some corners of Norwegian society frowned upon his work. Sensing criticism in Oslo about not only his work but also his private life, Ibsen moved to Italy in 1864 with the support of a traveling grant and a stipend from the Norwegian government. He spent the next twenty-seven years living abroad, mostly in Italy and Germany. Ibsen’s early years as a playwright were not lucrative, but he did gain valuable experience during this time. In 1866, Ibsen published his first major theatrical success, a lyric drama called Brand. He followed it with another well-received verse play, Peer Gynt. These two works helped solidify Ibsen’s reputation as one of the premier Norwegian dramatists of his era. In 1879, while living in Italy, Ibsen published his masterpiece, A Doll’s House. Unlike Peer Gynt and Brand, A Doll’s House was written in prose. It is widely considered a landmark in the development of what soon became a highly prevalent genre of theater—realism, which strives to portray life accurately and shuns idealized visions of it. In A Doll’s House, Ibsen employs the themes and structures of classical tragedy while writing in prose about everyday, unexceptional people. A Doll’s House also manifests Ibsen’s concern for women’s rights, and for human rights in general. Ibsen followed A Doll’s House with two additional plays written in an innovative, realistic mode: Ghosts, in 1881, and An Enemy of the People, in 1882. Both were successes. Ibsen began to gain international recognition, and his works were produced across Europe and translated into many different languages. In his later work, Ibsen moved away from realistic drama to tackle questions of a psychological and subconscious nature. Accordingly, symbols began to gain prominence in his plays. Among the works he wrote in this symbolist period are The Wild Duck (1884) and Hedda Gabler (1890). Hedda Gabler was the last play Ibsen wrote while living abroad. In 1891, he returned to Oslo. His later dramas include The Master Builder (1892) and Little Eyolf (1896). Eventually, a crippling sickness afflicted Ibsen and prevented him from writing. He died on May 23, 1906. Henrik Ibsen Study Guides. Henrik Ibsen Quotes. The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone. Never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth. The pillars of truth and the pillars of freedom - they are the pillars of society. A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm. The worst enemy of truth and freedom in our society is the compact majority. A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed. Biography of Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian Playwright. Henrik Ibsen (March 20, 1828–May 23, 1906) was a Norwegian playwright. Known as “the father of realism,” he is most notable for plays questioning the social mores of the time and featuring complex, yet assertive female characters. Fast Facts: Henrik Ibsen. Full Name: Henrik Johan Ibsen Known For: Norwegian playwright and director whose plays exposed the tensions of the rising middle class regarding morality, and featured complex female characters Born: March 20, 1828 in Skien, Norway Parents: Marichen and Knud Ibsen Died: May 23, 1906 in Kristiania, Norway Selected Works: Peer Gynt (1867), A Doll’s House (1879), Ghosts (1881), An Enemy of the People (1882), Hedda Gabler (1890). Spouse: Suzannah Thoresen Children: Sigurd Ibsen, prime minister of Norway. Hans Jacob Hendrichsen Birkedalen (out of wedlock). Early Life. Henrik Ibsen was born on March 20, 1828 to Marichen and Knud Ibsen in Skien, Norway. His family was part of the local merchant bourgeoisie and they lived in wealth until Knud Ibsen declared bankruptcy in 1835. His family’s fleeting financial fortunes had a lasting impression on his work, as several of his plays feature middle-class families dealing with financial hardship in a society that values morality and decorum. In 1843, upon being forced to leave school, Ibsen traveled to the town of Grimstad, where he started apprenticing in an apothecary’s shop. He had an affair with the apothecary’s maid and he fathered her child, Hans Jacob Hendrichsen Birkedalen, in 1846. Ibsen accepted patrimony and paid maintenance for him for the next 14 years, though he never met the boy. Early Work (1850–1863) Catilina (1850) Kjempehøien, the Burial Mound (1850) Sancthansnatten (1852) Fru Inger til Osteraad (1854) Gildet Pa Solhoug (1855) Olaf Liljekrans (1857) The Vikings at Helgeland (1858) Love’s Comedy (1862) The Pretenders (1863) In 1850, under the pseudonym Brynjolf Bjarme , Ibsen published his first play Catilina, based on Cicero’s speeches against the elected questor, who was conspiring to overthrow the government. Catiline to him was a troubled hero, and he felt drawn to him because, as he wrote in the prologue for the second edition of the play, “there are given few examples of historical persons, whose memory has been more entirely in the possession of their conquerors, than Catiline." Ibsen was inspired by the uprisings that Europe witnessed in the late 1840s, especially the Magyar uprising against the Habsburg empire. Also in 1850, Ibsen travelled to the capital Christiania (also known as Christiania, now Oslo) to sit for the national high school exams, but failed in Greek and arithmetic. That same year, his first play to be performed, The Burial Mound, was staged at the Christiania Theater. In 1851, violinist Ole Bull hired Ibsen for the Det Norske Theater in Bergen, where he began as an apprentice, eventually becoming director and resident playwright. While there, wrote and produced one play for the venue per year. He first gained recognition for Gildet paa Solhoug (1855), which was subsequently restaged in Christiania and published as a book and, in 1857, it received its first performance outside of Norway at the Royal Dramatic Theater in Sweden. That same year he was appointed artistic director at the Christiania Norske Theater. In 1858 he married Suzannah Thoresen, and a year later, his son Sigurd, future prime minister of Norway, was born. The family experienced a difficult financial situation. Ibsen published The Pretenders in 1863 with an initial run of 1.250 copies; the play was staged in 1864 at the Kristiania Theater, to great acclaim. Also in 1863, Ibsen applied for a state stipend, but was instead awarded a travel grant of 400 speciedaler (to make a comparison, in 1870 a male teacher would earn around 250 speciedaler a year) for a journey abroad. Ibsen left Norway in 1864, initially settling in Rome and exploring the south of Italy. Self-Imposed Exile and Success (1864–1882) Brand (1866) Peer Gynt (1867) Emperor and Galilean (1873) The League of Youth (1869) Digte, poems (1871) Pillars of Society (1877) A Doll’s House (1879) Ghosts (1881) An Enemy of the People (1882) Ibsen's luck turned when he left Norway. Published in 1866, his verse drama Brand, published by Gyldendal in Copenhagen, had three more print runs by the end of the year. Brand centers on a conflicted and idealist priest who has an “all or nothing” mentality and is obsessed with “doing the right thing”; its main themes are free will and consequence of choices. It premiered in Stockholm in 1867 and was the first play that established his reputation and secured him financial stability. That same year, he started working on his verse play Peer Gynt, which, through the trials and adventures of the eponymous Norwegian folk hero, expands on the themes laid out in Brand. Blending realism, folkloric fantasy and displaying then-unprecedented freedom in moving between time and space in a play, it chronicles the character’s travels from Norway all the way to Africa. The play was divisive among Scandinavian intellectuals: some criticized the lack of lyricism in his poetic language, while others praised it as a satire of Norwegian stereotypes. Peer Gynt premiered in Kristiania in 1876. In 1868, Ibsen moved to Dresden, where he remained for the next seven years. In 1873, he published Emperor and Galilean, which was his first work to be translated into English. Focusing on the Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate, who was the last non-christian ruler of the Roman empire, Emperor and Galilean was, to Ibsen, his major work, even though critics and audiences didn't see it that way. After Dresden, Ibsen moved to Rome in 1878.

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