A Doll's House

ABSTRACT !e Disenchantment of the Wonderful - A Doll’s House and the Idealist Imagination The Disenchantment of the During the course of the nineteenth century, the notion of imagination underwent a radical rede$nition. From being the highest, divine, power of man to Wonderful - A Doll’s House and being subjected to a growing pathologization and degradation, the rede$nition of imagination played a central role in the transition from idealism and roman- the Idealist Imagination ticism to the emerging modernism and realism. Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (1879) may be read into this particular context with its ‘disenchantment’ of the ‘wonderful’ – a word which Georg Brandes termed the very keyword of romanticism. ULLA KALLENBACH Focusing on the speci$c Scandinavian context, where idealist aesthetics contin- ued to be particularly strong, I will examine A Doll’s House from the perspective of the contemporary spectator in the context of an on-going Nordic aesthetic Its famous afterlife as a trailblazing feminist play has resentation of the characters of Nora and Helmer. dispute. !e contemporary Scandinavian reviews will serve to bear evidence of somewhat overshadowed a view of A Doll’s House as Idealism runs as an underlying current that this dispute. In the article, I analyse how the play thematizes imagination and a response to the era that preceded it. When A Doll’s dominates the century stretching from Immanuel employs recurrent references to idealist culture in order to disenchant the ro- House was $rst performed at the Royal !eatre in Kant’s so-called “Copernican revolution” to the mantic imagination of the wonderful. !e analysis will focus in particular on the Copenhagen, 21 December 1879, it was not only modern breakthrough. !e context of Idealism in representation of the characters of Nora and Helmer, but also comes to implicate Nora’s famous exit that was debated. More than relation to Ibsen has been explored in Toril Moi’s the spectator of the play. solely a feminist attack on a patriarchal, authoritar- Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism (2006). ian society, the play was – also – seen as a confron- Moi, in her analysis, focuses on German Idealism, Keywords: imagination, Henrik Ibsen, Idealism, Romanticism, philosophy. tation with the romantic, idealist culture that had especially that of Friedrich Schiller. !e Scandina- dominated the nineteenth century. In the following, vian context is distinct, however, from the Europe- I will seek to examine A Doll’s House from the per- an in its strong focus on the idyllic and harmonic. spective of the contemporary spectator in the con- Furthermore, Scandinavian Idealism was incarnated text of an on-going Scandinavian aesthetic and ide- in various forms such as the natural philosophy of ological dispute concerning the transition between Henrich Ste#ens (1773-1845), the National Ro- the romantic idealist and the modern conception of manticism of “Nordic Poet King” Adam Oehlen- imagination that took place in the nineteenth cen- schläger (1779-1850), and in the Hegelian aesthet- tury. !e course of the nineteenth century had seen ics of authoritarian arbiter of taste Johan Ludvig a drastic ideological and aesthetic re-evaluation, and Heiberg (1791-1860). !e current of Idealism bore the notion of imagination played a central part in a strong in"uence, permeating aesthetic, religious this process. It thus seems relevant to look closer at and philosophical thought. Even in the late 1870s, how this rede$nition of imagination is adressed in idealist aesthetics was still dominant. !is was also this play, which deals with many aspects of imagi- evident in the theatrical repertoire. BIOGRAPHY nation such as make-believe, pretence, masquerad- In the following, I will $rst introduce key aspects ing and, notably, the collapse of the fantasy of the of imagination in a Scandinavian idealist context, Ulla Kallenbach holds a PhD (2014) in Arts and Cultural Studies from the Uni- “wonderful”. and the reversal in the appraisal of imagination as versity of Copenhagen, Denmark, where she is currently External Lecturer. She Consulting the Danish and Norwegian reviews illustrated e.g. in Georg Brandes’ illustrative analy- received her MA in Text and Performance in 2005 (Royal Academy of Dramatic of the publication and Scandinavian premieres of sis of Oehlenschläger’s play Aladdin or the Wonderful Arts (RADA) / King’s College London) and an MA in !eater Studies in 2007 the play will bear evidence of this ideological and Lamp (Aladdin, eller Den forunderlige Lampe, 1805) (University of Copenhagen) with the prize dissertation Space and Visuality in the aesthetic dispute, being as they are both observers and Ibsen’s Peer Gynt (1867). !is will provide the Drama Text. Her primary $elds of research deal with the cultural history of im- of and partakers in the cultural debate, as well as background for an analysis of imagination in A agination in philosophy and drama as well as various aspects of dramaturgy. She provide us with a view of the play’s impact on its au- Doll’s House, where I argue that a similar reversal is a board member of the Association of Nordic !eatre Scholars and is presently dience. !ese reviews provide the starting point of can be observed. the Co-Editor of Nordic !eatre Studies. my analysis of the play, which will focus on the rep- [email protected] 76 Nordic Theatre Studies vol. 26: no. 2 Nordic Theatre Studies vol. 26: no. 2 77 THE IDEALIST IMAGINATION accessing a truth beyond the truth, that of reason. concept of the idealist imagination had been signif- bliss and cause of his genius; it is Per Gynt’s misery !e concept of imagination has long been an over- !us, in 1833, Norwegian poet Nicolai Wergeland icantly contested, especially in the latter part of the and causes his wretchedness. !e very same power, looked aspect in studies of both performance and (1780-1848) wrote in a defence of his son Henrik nineteenth century. which to Oehlenschläger is truth and life, is to Ibsen of the drama text and a precise de$nition of imag- Wergeland’s (1808-45) poetry: “A sublime Imagina- the lie that evades life.”13 ination is still elusive. Originially derived from the tion! !ree or four, in a prosaic sense widely di#er- Imagination has, states Brandes, been entirely Latin imaginatio (of imago, image) translated from ent, objects in one merging, to be conceived by the FROM ALADDIN TO PEER GYNT reevaluated: “for the same, which in Aladdin is the Greek Phantasia (of phantazein, making visible, same capacity that created it, by Imagination, but !e Romantic veneration of the poetic genius was beautiful dream is in Per Gynt the loathsome de- phantasma, mental representation), imagination impossibly by Reason.”3 later analysed by Georg Brandes (1842-1927) in his lusion.”14 !e opposition that Brandes sets up here had since Aristotle, whose in"uence was strikingly For Idealism, imagination was a means of con- 1886 essay on Adam Oehlenschläger and his ori- between Aladdin and Peer Gynt is illustrative of the durable, signi$ed a capacity to form mental images necting with the ideal, an ideal reality, free from the entalist play, Aladdin or the Wonderful Lamp (Alad- development in the understanding of imagination and was thus conceived as a reproductive faculty, constraints of the material reality, which was only din, eller Den forunderlige Lampe, 1805). Aladdin, that took place in the nineteenth century. From which “mirrored” the sensible world in mental im- a faint re"ection of the ideal. Hence, also the Ro- to Brandes, represented not only the foundation wonderful dream and ideal truth to pathologization, ages. In the context of Idealism and Romanticism, mantic fascination with the exotic and fantastic . In upon which Danish literature in the $rst half of the fantastical escapism and illusory lies, from worship however, the concept of imagination has a speci$c idealist aesthetics, art goes beyond mere representa- nineteenth century was built. It was the foundation to degradation, imagination underwent a radical cultural and ideological signi$cance as a productive tion; accordingly, Danish philosopher F. C. Sibbern of Danish cultural life as such – nothing less than rede$nition where the relation of imagination and or creative force of man, as suggested in the German (1785-1872) can describe a “double idealization” in the “the poetic bible” of an entire era.9 Stating that, reality was turned upside down. And the light of terms Einbildungskraft or Vorstellungskraft. Rather which the Ideal is represented in an ideal manner.4 “[i]n the common view, Aladdin signi$es […] the the lamp became connected with diversion rath- than a mirror, imagination would be conceived as An idea which we also $nd in the works of one of enthronement of Imagination”10 Brandes de$nes er than revelation. A key term is fantasteri, which a “lamp”; a force of divine origin casting its inner the most in"uential and dominant $gures in Danish the romantic imagination as “the poetic inven- can be translated as delusion or reverie, the fan- light onto its object.1 theatre and cultural life of the Golden Age, Johan tiveness”, the free, creative invention that was “the tast being the escapist, or the dreamer, disengaged It was precisely the concept of imagination, Ein- Ludvig Heiberg, whose adoptation of Hegelian aes- watchword of Romanticism”.11 When describing with real life. !is was the topic of Danish writer bildungskraft, which was at the heart of Kant’s “Co- thetics had a marked emphasis on unity, idealization the in"uence of the $gure of Aladdin in Danish Hans Egede Schack’s (1820-59) novel !e Phantasts pernican revolution”, which was launched with the and harmonization.

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