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IBSEN AND YEATS: THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A NATIONAL DRAMA

A Thesis Presented to the Graduate Faculty

of

California State University, Hayward

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts in English

By

Kathleen A. Heininge

June, 1993 AND YEATS: THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A NATIONAL DRAMA

By

Kathleen A. Heininge

Approved: Date:

ii Table of Contents

I- Introduction - pg. 1

II - Ibsen and - pg. 9

III - Yeats and - pg. 38

Works Consulted - pg. 74

iii and William Butler Yeats would appear, on the surface, to have very little in common. Ibsen, in

Norway, wrote fifty years before Yeats in Ireland. Ibsen wrote in his native tongue, rejecting the influence of the

Danish language, while Yeats wrote in English, the tongue of his oppressors, rejecting the little-known Gaelic. Ibsen's was primarily realistic, and Yeats was more fanciful and poetic. Yeats adamantly drew a distinction between their styles, on the one hand calling Ibsen "the one great master the modern stage has produced" ("Irish Dramatic

Movement" 12), but also believing that "there will be a reaction after the realism of Ibsen, and romance will have its turn" (Gregory Journals 52). In fact, in his newsletter, "Irish Dramatic Movement," Yeats both praised and questioned Ibsen's influence: "Ibsen has sincerity and logic beyond any writer of our time, and we are all seeking to learn them at his hand; but is he not a good deal less than the greatest of all times, because he lacks beautiful and vivid language?" (119).

Nonetheless, Ibsen and Yeats have a considerable amount in common. They were both motivated by the oppressive political forces at work within their to create a "national drama," a form of literature which would preserve their cultures and traditions. They both felt strongly that language and individualism were

1 2

endangered by the political situation. They reacted by turning to drama, an art form more easily accessible to the

"common" people than the written word. Moreover, both were acutely aware of and opposed to the danger of propagandizing through their plays. To avoid that danger, they relied heavily on the myths and legends of their own countries as source material for their plays, thereby retaining some of the stories, characters, and symbols that were unique to their countries. They both longed to create a drama recognizable by all as peculiar to their respective countries, and so they drew heavily from myth, folklore, and legend. Ibsen chose to portray many of his characters in classically mythic struggles, although he varied between historical settings, as in The Pretenders, and more contemporary situations, as in . Yeats took most of his settings from the impoverished countryside around him, but also chose to put them in mythic, often very spiritual struggles, using superstition and religion interchangeably, as in "The Countess Cathleen" and "The Dreaming of the

Bones" .

There are most certainly distinctions between myth, folklore and legend, distinctions that Orley Holtan has explained in Mythic Patterns in Ibsen's Last Plays:

The term "myth" almost immediately calls to mind a fantastic tale involving gods, heroes, or supernatural beings, a tale closely related to the ritual and to the religious and social order of a people or a culture. 3

Myth is thus distinguished from folk or fairy tales and from other narratives that serve chiefly for entertainment, and from history, which is a true account of a national or a cultural past. (6)

This is a distinction that is very valuable for the purposes of studying these various types of stories as they relate to the history and traditions of a people, but it is a distinction that becomes somewhat blurred when looking at

Ibsen's and Yeats's works. After all, they were not striving to record facts for posterity, to preserve the truth of an historical event or the circumstances of a folk tale, and their purposes were certainly not academic. They drew from the tales they had heard all their lives, tales that were told, with variations, throughout their countries, with little concern for which were myth, which folk, which

history. They were striving for the evocative, not the

factual. Certainly in our minds tales heard in childhood

are mixed together, and we don't particularly care which fit

into which category. Paul Revere, John Bunyan, Cinderella,

the Headless Horseman, George Washington's cherry tree,

Peter Pan, and Moses are all more or less jumbled in our

heads so that we know the stories and recall them fondly as

tales that entertained us as children, but we do not

generally sift through them to categorize them, preferring

instead to accept them for the memories they bring us.

Ibsen and Yeats felt the same when they chose the material

for their plays. There is some of myth, folklore, legend, 4

and history in each play, and it is irrelevant which is which for our purposes. The lines are blurred and one becomes the other. In addition, both Ibsen and Yeats took tremendous liberties with the tales as they were told to them, twisting the facts to make a point, either political or characteristic; neither writer can be thought of as trying to record accurate tales.

Both Ibsen and Yeats chose to draw from their national folklore, shunning the contemporary political material used by those such as Strindberg or Synge. They clearly agreed, despite stylistic differences, that the material would claim the national identity far more effectively than a dramatic newspaper account. It is a like decision that is reached due, in great part, to the similar political situations of their countries, as both came from oppressed, occupied countries that were fighting for freedom. As Robert O'Driscoll points out in his book,

Theatre and Nationalism in Twentieth-Century Ireland:

In times of acute national consciousness the theatre is the form of literature which makes the most direct impact on the people, becoming at times a means for propaganda, but ultimately the means by which the deeper life of the people is expressed. ... At the point of renaissance, a meeting-point of the mythic and the scientific, the tribal and the commercial, a point when the past is re-evaluated and rediscovered in the light of changing values and iconoclastic discoveries, something vital and new is created. Myth and legend assume sudden significance; the antiquary and historian attempt to trace the cultural and historical beginnings of the nation, and the artist, by consciously choosing for subject the life and legends of the people, by 5

restoring to topographical sites their former heroic association, and by giving them new levels of poetic association, is inspired by an ideal similar to that which inspires the politician. (12)

Ibsen and Yeats recognized, in a way that many twentieth century scholars have failed to recognize, that the folklore would not by itself create a national literature. If that were so, a national literature would have already existed in the form of the folk tales, and there would have been no need for anything to be done except to record them. It is not just the stories themselves that are national, but the archetypal significance of the symbols, the geographical significance, the mysticism, and the national characteristics that all combine to create this national literature, and both Ireland and Norway had vast amounts of material from which to draw. Brynjulf suggests in his essay, "Folklore and National Identity," "It is no accident that (Scandinavia) and Ireland, two countries that had to struggle for national and linguistic independence, boast the largest folklore archives anywhere, built from systemic collecting of national traditions in the vernacular" (18-19). Traditions is probably the best, all- encompassing word for the material from which Ibsen and

Yeats drew. Alver continues, "We fool ourselves if we believe that folklore alone represents national culture, whether in the nineteenth century or today, or that it can always be employed as such. But there is one in which 6 folklore outstrips other cultural expression: as a national symbol of the folk" (19).

Ibsen and Yeats both use these symbols consistently throughout their careers. Much of Ibsen's early work uses legend or folk tales for his settings, as in The Pretenders (1863), but slightly later and throughout the rest of his career he tends towards a more modern setting while maintaining the same traditions, as with Brand (1865), which buries the mythic under its setting. Geography for Ibsen is hugely mythic, as are horses and birds. James McFarlane suggests: In a precariously balanced on the top of , cut across by fjord and ravine and gorge, monstrously furrowed into mountain and valley, the tradition of living was for long centuries one of multiple isolation: national, cultural, individual. (Ibsen and the Temper of Norwegian Literature 11)

Also tremendously significant are Ibsen's characterizations and the symbolic struggles they experience. There is an important difference between viewing his characters as individuals representative of a national identity and seeing them as experiencing a mythic struggle; by no means does this make the characters stereotypical in any way. On the contrary, Ibsen strove to create characters who were strongly Norwegian, strongly individual, but who were caught up in a mythic relationship with their . Holtan observes, "His universe consists of three parts, the heights, the lowlands, and the sea, with each part acting as 7

a power and on each of which man moves precariously, never certain that a misstep will not lead him to destruction"

(181).

Yeats is also deeply concerned with character, especially as it relates to myth and to language. His

earliest play, "The Countess Cathleen" (1892), gives us the highly mythic character of Cathleen. "The Dreaming of the

Bones" (1919) is later in Yeats's career, and reflects a more mystic, although just as mythic, point of view, a development very similar to that of Ibsen in his later

years. In a lecture given on the by Yeats in

1913, he states his intentions behind his art:

In external circumstances I keep to the speech in which people ordinarily talk, but when I am going to express my own mind, the things I think of when alone, the things I feel as a solitary man--then I want all culture, I cannot know too much. I want a vast symbolism, a phantasmagoria going back to the beginning of the world, and always the Tale of Troy, of Judea, will be nearer to me than my own garden, because I am not limited by time. I am as old as mankind. (71)

He knows that language is tremendously important to his

plays, to his expression of Irish character, but he also

knows, as does Ibsen, that the symbolism is as important.

For him as well as Ibsen, the geography and the animals are

also important mythic symbols.

By looking at each of these four plays, and by

studying the motivations and influences working upon both

Ibsen and Yeats, it is clear that there are striking 8

similarities between the two. Although Yeats may have violently disagreed with some of the trends toward

Ibsenesque realism within the Irish Literary Theatre, he did

indeed achieve what Edward Martyn and (two

fellow Irish dramatists) had dreamed: ".. to do for Ireland what (Ibsen) had done for Norway" (0 lAodha 27). Ibsen and Norway

In 1814, after some 400 years of Danish rule, Norway wrote its own and established a relative semblance of independence. Before then, the influence of

Danish customs, language and literature far outweighed that of Norway, and there had been almost no Norwegian literature, but , with the advent of a Norwegian renaissance, there was a call for one who, as biographer

Edvard Byer states it, "wrote grandly about the greatness of ancient Norway and the freedom of the new Norway" (111). As a response to this call, in 1827, the first professional theater was created in Norway, but nearly all the actors were Danish. Not until 1850 was a theater created that was only for Norwegian actors and Norwegian pronunciation, called "Det norske Theater," and in 1852 another completely

Norwegian theater was founded in the capital of Christiania.

The success was overwhelming and Norwegians embraced the

"new" drama, perhaps because, according to James McFarlane,

"the people craved reassurance that despite the political youthfulness of the nation, they nevertheless belonged to an ancient kingdom; they wanted to be reminded of their long history and their great traditions" ("Introduction," The

Vikings at Helgeland 1).

Ibsen became involved in the movement from the beginning, participating in both theaters, and eventually

9 10

taking charge of the Christiania Norwegian Theatre. He became a strong advocate of Norwegian nationalism, but declined to consider himself "political." Although he was a

"Norwegian patriot anxious for political regeneration" who resented the "cultural hegemony of " (Knight 1-9), he firmly believed in the unification of Scandinavia. He felt that, for the purposes of facing the world, Scandinavia must present a united front. He himself was concerned that this apparent dichotomy was vacillation, and in his letters to tried to clarify his position:

A political state may be annihilated, but not a nation....We Scandinavians, even if we were deprived of our apparent independence, even if our countries were conquered and our states disintegrated, would still survive as a nation. (Letters and Speeches 40)

In 1874, writing to his friend Georg Brandes, he was still more vociferous and ultimately more revealing:

Only the Danish--strictly speaking, only the --point of view in philosophy, matters of philosophy, politics, etc., seems to you to be of any importance. In fact, you really know about no other, as far as Scandinavia is concerned--though you are remarkably well-informed as regards foreign countries. The regard it as almost an act of grace to acknowledge that what is strictly Norwegian has the right to express itself in literature....What do the Copenhagens know about our domestic affairs, about our politics, and about our politicians? Nothing. We Norwegians, and a certain proportion of the , know all about your affairs; you hardly know anything of ours. The Copehnagen ignorance of Scandinavian affairs surpasses everything but Copenhagen arrogance. (148)

Ibsen craved a country that would embrace what it was to be

Norwegian, that would allow Norwegians to exist without the 11

ever-present, hovering Danish influence, while simultaneously and peacefully existing within a Scandinavian umbrella.

Naturally, these issues came up in his plays, many of which also reflect his vacillating politics. In The

Pretenders, Ibsen comes out strongly for cause, but he also refuses to label the Danes as evil and irredeemable. King Haakon is a very popular and able ruler, struggling to maintain hold of his country while Skule,

Haakon's regent and uncle, and therefore another Pretender to the throne, tries to lay claim to the kingdom. Skule does all he can to undermine the peace and progress that

Haakon has made, and to divide the country in a civil war.

The comparison is clear: Denmark has given Norway much, has ruled her in name, but now that Norway is "coming of age," with her own constitution and language, her own talents, her own people, Denmark is loathe to relinquish rule, despite the demands of many of the people. Haakon, after he proves his legitimate claim to the throne with a trial by fire, proclaims that "it is time to summon the Assembly. Until today my hands were shackled. None I think will blame me now for wishing to have them freed" (225). It is Norway, to be allowed to rule unfettered, guided only by her

own constitution and desires and not by Denmark's.

However, Haakon allows Skule to continue to hold the 12

King's Seal, and Haakon takes as his queen Skule's daughter,

Margrete. With these two moves, Haakon himself obfuscates

the clear lines he appears to have been trying to draw,

ensuring that Skule can still function as King for all

practical purposes, and ensuring that future generations

will forever remain somewhat incestuously tied (Margrete is

Haakon's first cousin) to both Skule and Haakon. Ibsen

appears to be bowing his head to the fact that Denmark has

contributed much to Norway, and that it would be impossible

to completely wipe out all things Danish within the country.

At last somewhat secure in his position as King,

Haakon tells Skule of a glorious vision for the future of

the country: Norway was a kingdom, it shall become a nation. The men of Trondelag fought the men from Viken. The men of Agde fought the men of Hordaland, and the men of Haalogaland the men of Sogn; now all must be united and know themselves and realize that they are one! That is the task which God has laid upon my shoulders; that is the high calling which faces Norway's king. (283-284)

Skule recognizes the glory of Haakon's vision. He

knows that the people rejoice in Haakon, that nature thrives

under Haakon's rule, and that even God favors him. Consumed

by ambition and jealousy, and by the bitterness of having

his life's work thwarted, Skule attempts to claim the vision

as his own, pretending that it is his idea. He fails when

it becomes clear that his character is not strong enough to

uphold the ideal. Only Haakon, with his unwavering 13

confidence, can carry it off. Skule concedes, "My kingdom? It is dark ... like that of the angels who rebelled against the Light" (326). Thus Ibsen suggests that ultimately,

Denmark lacks the strength of character to be able to continue to rule Norway, and that while Denmark may have sufficed in the interim, now is the time for glory. Denmark must either bow out or be thrown out; after all, even God

favors Norway.

This "strength of character," a persistent theme in all of Ibsen's plays, represents his vision of nationality.

Many people at the time felt that "national" and "natural" were virtually identical concepts, that all within nature constituted the national, and that, therefore, all true patriots ought to embrace and fanatically love all of

Norwegian nature and folklore, while renouncing all the

"unnatural" that carne from Denmark. Ibsen agreed that nature and folklore were important to the nationalist movement and to an understanding of Norway, but he felt that

character was the key component to that which is truly

Norwegian. Dedication of spirit, conviction, strength of will were the traits that best defined Norwegian character.

Each of his plays this strength of character in

one form or another. It is a singlemindedness that is

reflected sometimes in a fatalistic attitude, an almost

supernatural faith in a power outside of oneself that is 14

truly in control, a faith that can be defeatist, as in The

Pretenders, or frighteningly fanatical, as in Brand. This strength of will is sometimes reflected in the form of a calling which must be obeyed, or sometimes in the form of a battle between individuality and society. But the common denominator in these variations is that the will is nearly unshakable, so much so that the character who is driven by this will almost seems to lack will, lack control. He or she is unable to deny the will, swept along by its force.

It is as if to go against one's fate or calling or individuality is to deny the Norwegian character.

Paradoxically, the inevitable choice is to obey one's own will.

In The Pretenders, Ibsen implies that God, fate, and calling are fairly synonymous, but luck is not. God is firm and immutable, where luck is fickle and changeable. In a manipulative game designed to ensure that neither Haakon nor

Skule ever achieve greatness, Bishop Nikolas counsels Skule, trying to build his confidence by suggesting that it is only through luck that Haakon is king, and that luck might change at any time.

The luckiest man is the greatest man. The greatest deeds are done by him on whom fortune smiles, who feels the needs of on his pulse, whose intuition outstrips his reason and points a way for him he knows not where, which nonetheless he takes, and MUST take, until he hears the people shout with joy, and looking around him with dazed eyes, perceives he has achieved a noble deed. (245) 15

Of course, it is no accident that the Bishop's counsel is such, as the Bishop acknowledges that the greatest Pretender is Satan himself, and as the Bishop comes back later on in the playas a representative of Satan's forces. As such, he cannot be expected to counsel Skule to believe that Haakon might have a calling from God. He would much rather continue to spur Skule to fight.

Skule's greatest torment is that he thinks Haakon has been favored by fortune, while he himself has had to struggle for every achievement. "What have I not sacrificed to gain that throne which I have yet to reach? And what has

Haakon sacrificed, he who now sits there so securely? ...

Yes. Everything goes right for Haakon" (247). Frustrated,

Skule tries to turn the tables, tries to seduce luck, and cannot understand how he could fail, how luck could persist in favoring Haakon instead of him. "The chances are even not a jot more in the scales on one side than on the other and yet ... and yet the balance dips for Haakon. I can throw hatred, passion, into my scale, and still the balance dips for Haakon" (294). Skule insists that there must be something different about Haakon, but he cannot see what it is. Yet Haakon reveals this difference at the beginning of the play, when he tells Skule, "There is vocation, and with vocation duty. I feel conviction warm

and strong within me--and I am not ashamed to say so--that I 16

alone can best rule the land in these troubled times" (224).

Skule does not want to believe such a thing. It is far easier to believe in luck than to fight against God's calling. But as long as Skule refuses to recognize what the difference is, what a vocation is, he can only notice with amazement, "He faces the day as if he knows he was created to go forward, always forward" (251).

The Bishop knows that doubt is the key: as long as

Skule believes that his luck can change, he will continue to

struggle for power; as long as Haakon is confident in his

calling, Skule cannot succeed. He plans to use the letter

about Haakon's birth to cast doubts on all sides, but he

receives it too late to be able to read it by himself, as he

is so near death. "I will sow the seed of doubt in his heart. Haakon is honest, as they call it; but the belief in

himself and his right must fail him. Doubting and then

believing, now up and now down, neither of them must feel

firm ground beneath their feet--perpetuum mobile!" (270).

If the Bishop can plant the seed of doubt, he can be sure

that the struggle will be endless. But he dies before he is

able to corrupt Haakon's self-confidence, once again proving

to Skule that "God protects Haakon" (279).

Skule tries to adopt some kind of plan, but is not

satisfied with any which he considers, and chides himself

disgustedly, "Ha, ha, hal There I am again. Reflecting and 17

wavering--! Haakon never does that; he strides forward--and he wins!" (280). This is the wavering for which Ibsen has only contempt. Indeed, Ibsen implies that, while extraordinarily evil, Bishop Nikolas's intensity of purpose is preferable to Skule's whining and wavering. The Bishop, after all, demonstrates a strength of will and does not accuse God of refuting him. Again, Haakon represents the strength and glory of a united Norway, while Skule is the indecision and lack of commitment of Denmark. The Bishop may very well represent the Church, refusing to specifically take political sides, but wielding a good deal of power and influence on each side. Indeed it is not a pleasant view of the church.

Only when Haakon reveals to Skule his great plan for a united Norway does Skule realize wherein Haakon's power lies; as Haakon says, "I hear the unmistakable voice of

Heaven within me: 'Thou shalt carry out a great kingly task in Norway'" (285).

As mentioned earlier, Skule decides to steal the vision, to proclaim it as his own, but he lacks the faith that comes with a calling, the faith that Haakon has been given, and so Skule finds it wearying to "pretend" constantly, "and smile, and always look so unshakably sure of victory and success" (294). He begins to realize that a

calling cannot be lured away, cannot be courted, cannot be 18

confiscated. He is unable to carry out Haakon's vision because, while he recognizes the glory of it, he does not believe in it and can only pervert it.

Can a man steal God's calling from another, just as he takes gold and weapons from his fallen enemy? Can a Pretender become a King in deed as easily as he can put on his royal robes? Suppose the tree, cut to make ship's timbers, said: "I would rather be the mast and do the pine tree's work, point upwards, straight and shining, bearing a golden ensign at my tip; spread my white billowing sails in sunshine and be seen by men far off in the distance"? No, you heavy rugged oak, your place is the keel; there lie and do good work; hidden and unseen, your part to prevent the ship capsizing in the storm. Only the mast of pine with swelling sails and golden ensign can the ship onwards to new land, to the unknown, to foreign beaches and to saga in the making. (296)

He is puzzled by the concept, puzzled by the fact that he has no calling to rule, and challenges his bard,

Jatgeir, to give up his life's work and become Skule's son, with a chance at inheriting the kingdom. "Renounce your

calling. Write no more poems, then I will believe you."

Jatgeir responds, "No, my lord... 1 should buy the crown too dear. ..A man may die for the life work of another; but

if he lives, he must live for his own" (300-301).

Only when Skule sees that the calling, the vocation

from God, is unshakable, when he sees that all circumstances

are in Haakon's favor because of God's choice, does he see

that he himself also had a calling. It is a calling that he

tries to change and so neglects, a calling much like that

one of the oak in the ship, but he lacks the will and the 19

ability to accept it, lusting after Haakon's fate instead.

Haakon's (Norwegian) strength of character upholds his calling and he can only succeed. Skule's lack of acceptance and his doubt, his vacillation, prevent him from succeeding, and he dies with the sense that he wasted his life.

The struggle itself is the primary mythic symbol here. Everything is set against everything else in

"perpetuum mobile," a condition that should be expected from a country so long ruled by outside forces. It is part of the Norwegian experience to struggle for power, and also part of Norwegian experience to glean little from that struggle. After 400 years of Danish rule, "perpetuum mobile" must be the very thing that many Norwegians were feeling. But it is highly significant that the Bishop fails to set up the struggle in perpetuity: while it does indeed last a long while, eventually Skule comes to know that it is an ineffectual struggle, and he gives up. Surely this is a sign of hope for the future of Norway.

As important mythically as the struggle itself are the forces behind it, the characters who drive it. God,

Fate, vocation, and the Bishop are all very critical to the perpetuation of the struggle. Holtan notes:

The mysterious world of nature and the supernatural intervenes in human conduct but, usually, in a destructive way, frequently to bring punishment for past crimes or mistakes (181).

We have already seen how this vocation empowered 20

Haakon, and we have touched on God's and Fate's influences in terms of that vocation. But God is also the creator of

Nature, which is touched on comparatively lightly in The

Pretenders when compared to Ibsen's later plays. Perhaps he is still responding to his fears of nationalism being equated with naturalism, because he only hints here at themes that he elaborates on quite extensively in later plays. When Skule observes how Nature responds to Haakon's rule, as if she were a god in her own right, we get a clear view of the myth of nature:

Don't all things prosper at his touch, and all things turn out well where he's concerned? Even the peasants notice it, for they say the trees bear twice the fruit and the birds lay twice as many eggs since Haakon has been the king. The Vermeland country which he burned and harried, now stands adorned with new-built houses and its fields are rich with corn. It is as if blood and ashes manure the land where Haakon leads his men. (246)

It is almost as if Nature is her own character, responding to circumstances according to her pleasure or displeasure.

Later, when the Bishop, as the Monk, promises Skule, "I will lead you up to a high mountain and show you all the glories of the world" (328), we get a glimpse of the myth behind Norwegian geography. The heights of the mountains

are thought to give one a sense of near omniscience, power,

glory, the like of which can never be found in the lowlands.

It is a theme repeated through nearly all Ibsen's plays.

Nonetheless, it is through his characters that Ibsen is most 21

concerned with portraying myth and nationalism, and the

Bishop is the perfect example of this. Bishop Nikolas is one of the strongest mythic characters in this play, particularly with his subsequent transformation into a representative of Satan. When he claims, "I am in a state of innocence. I do not know the difference between good and " (248), he echoes some of the common folklore and myth regarding the "natural" creatures who are capable of controlling and taking over one's thoughts and desires, much like the Greek Sirens. As

Holtan has suggested, rarely are these "natural" (or

"supernatural") creatures ever up to any beneficent purpose. The wood nymphs of folklore are said to playa "lur", a musical instrument that will enchant and bind, and they do this so merrily and innocently that surely they cannot be

blamed for wanting some fun out of tricking and using other

people. Asbjornsen's tales are full of such creatures with

intents that range from mischievous to malicious to evil.

The Bishop appears only curiously malicious at first, and we

are unsure of his reasons for the game he is playing as he

sets everyone up to betray and then to discover each other.

Early on, Skule says, "Evil angels are working against us

today" (256), but little does he know how truly insightful

and prophetic that is. Still, no one connects the Bishop to

the peculiar events. 22

Only when we see the Bishop's death scene do we see how genuinely evil he is. His glee and malice are appalling, especially in light of the fact that this man who is supposedly of God is on his death bed, and ought to be repenting.

One of them must soon become the greatest man who ever lived in Norway. No, no. No one else shall reach what l have failed to attain. Doubt is my best weapon; as long as the Duke is racked with uncertainty the two of them will lay each other in waste where and when they can; towns will burn, villages will be destroyed. Neither shall profit by the others' loss. (265)

He is quite clearly evil, and Margrete, Haakon's wife, is apparently the only one who recognizes it, as she exclaims,

"The Bishop dead! Oh, believe me, all strife dies with him"

(280) .

Little does Margrete know that the strife is not really over, as he continues to manipulate even beyond the dead. He comes back as a monk to try to convince Skule to give him the soul of his son in exchange for the kingdom.

The Bishop's casual attitude about "the oldest Pretender in the world. .. the first earl who rose against the greatest kingdom and who himself founded a kingdom that will last till doomsday" (328) is admiring, and he appears so self- satisfied with his situation that briefly, Skule considers the offer, despite his horror. However, it is no accident that Ibsen has made the Bishop impotent, both literally and figuratively. All of his powers lie in his ability to 23

control others, and without their cooperation he is nothing. He needs them to play along with him in order for him to have any power at all, but the victims fail to see that he is a force in their lives, and by their blindness they give him all the power he needs, another folkloric tradition.

Power is also held by women in the play, in a very mythic, nearly unreal sense. Ibsen's early women were not yet the delightfully strong characters he was to create later, but he endowed them with fascinating mythic qualities. Inga, Haakon's , must undergo the trial by fire to prove Haakon's birthright, but it is Haakon who receives the congratulations for the successful outcome of the trial. While this was a customary tradition according to folklore, Ibsen manages to subtly point out its absurdity when Haakon so thoughtlessly arranges for Inga to leave the country immediately after her exhausting ordeal. After all,

it wasn't nearly so exhausting for Haakon. Not until

Dagfinn mentions, "Remember, my liege, that she has lain all night on the altar steps in prayer and fasting" (232), does

Haakon say, "True, true, my good kind mother! Yes, if she

is too tired, let her rest until tomorrow" (232). We are meant to see how underwhelming his kindness is, and how

lightly she is cared for. As soon as the ordeal is over,

and Haakon has what he wants from her, he exiles her,

claiming that it is not good for a king to have someone who 24

is so dear close to him, for fear of his enemies. She is the perfect mythic figure of the long-suffering, patient, loving mother: "To love, then sacrifice my all and be

forgotten, that is my story" (306).

Margrete, Haakon's wife, and Lady Ragnhild, Skule's wife, are equally "perfect" in their roles as supportive wives. Margrete never questions Haakon's pronouncement of her father's death sentence, certain that her husband would

do only what is right and that she has no reason to question him, every husband's dream response from his wife. Lady

Ragnhild, to , is convinced that Skule is the

rightful ruler, swearing that "his turn will corne again"

(332). Skule only realizes how perfect she is at the end, when he sees her love for him even when he himself knows

that he has failed. "Ragnhild, my wife, against whom I have

transgressed so deeply, you surround me with warmth and love

in my hour of direst need. You tremble and fear for a man's

life who has never cast a ray of light across your path"

(334). Ragnhild has the perfect wife's response, humbling

herself, "You? Transgressed? Oh, Skule, do not speak so; do

not think that I should ever wish to rebuke you! I have

always been too unworthy of you, my splendid husband; no

blame attaches to anything you've done" (334). Both she and

Margrete have played the mythic wives perfectly. 25

Sigrid, Skule's sister and Haakon's aunt, is the prophetess, pronouncing that if Skule receives power, "he will lose his soul" (230). She swears that she has "been given the power to see things hidden from the eyes of others, and one thing I see now--a time of pain and grief will come upon the land. ... Rich harvests ripen for him who reaps in darkness" (258). Sigrid has a relatively small role in the play, only reappearing at the end, when her prophecy is fulfilled and she encourages Skule to take the only path that will save his soul, that of relinquishing the crown.

None of the four women is really considered central to the theme, any more than the Bishop is, although each of them plays a key role in the perpetuation of the struggle, and in the strength of the mythic symbols, helping to establish the nationalistic mode.

At this time in Ibsen's life, after 1863, he begins to move into a much more intense concern with the theme of the calling. As seen in The Pretenders, he believes that a calling is a sacred, inviolate thing, to which all else must take a subservient position, and it is indeed his own calling that kept him from serving in the war between

Denmark and . Still, he wondered if he had made the right decision, having deemed his own calling to be weightier than his duty to his country. As Michael Meyer 26

asks, "Was he right to believe so inflexibly in his calling as a writer, and so, in all probability, condemn his wife and child to continued poverty in order that he might follow his calling?" ("Introduction", Brand 14). And poverty was definitely an issue, as the Norwegian Theatre of Christiania went bankrupt in 1863, leaving him virtually penniless. Of all his ten plays so far, The Pretenders, written the same year the Theatre closed, was the only one that had brought him any real money.

The qualms helped give birth to his next play,

Brand, a play which gives us our clearest example of unflinching fanaticism of will, full of mythic symbolism.

Brand is a priest who believes that he alone, of all the slacking believers in the world, has the true vision of what

God demands of His followers: Allor Nothing. Throughout the play, "Allor Nothing" is Brand's battlecry, and he asserts that anything less is "the way of death" (53). It is a cold, cruel vision, ruthless and relentless in its message, and it is Ibsen's vision of the ultimate perversion of strength of will. It is a calling gone so far, held to

so strictly, that it wipes out everything, good or evil, in

its way. If Brand is to be taken as a parallel to Norway as was Haakon, both having received their calling from God, we

come to believe that Norway might not always be in the

right, after all, and might need to compromise some small 27

bit, a view consistent with Ibsen's "vacillation", or,

rather, his great sense and lack of personal fanaticism

regarding things political.

The play opens with Brand and his Guide on their way

to administer a blessing on the Guide's dying daughter.

They journey through a thick mist, thin ice, a crack in the

snow, and an obliterated path, and the Guide, fearful, begs

to go back. Brand refuses, telling the Guide that only if

he is willing to give up his own life for the sake of his

daughter's peaceful death will God know him. The Guide

still turns back, unwilling to risk death, and Brand calls

out:

You coward! If you'd had the will but only lacked the strength, I would have helped you. Footsore as I am, I could have carried you on my tired back Gladly and easily. (54)

Brand continues on to the top of the mountain, where

he meets Ejnar and Agnes, two lovers on their way to be

married. He and Ejnar, who knew each other as children,

enter into a discussion of God and what He demands of his

followers. Brand claims that God despises any form of

vacillation, any lack of consistency, causing us to

recognize the doubts in Ibsen's own conscience.

Enjoy life if you will, But be consistent, do it all the time, Not one thing one day and another the next. Be wholly what you are, not half and half. Everyone now is a little of everything: A little solemn on Sundays, a little respectful 28

Toward tradition; makes love to his wife after Saturday Supper, because his father did the same; A little gay at feasts, a little lavish In giving promises, but niggardly in Fulfilling them; a little of everything; A little sin, a little virtue; A little good, a little evil; the one Destroys the other, and every man is nothing. (60)

No form of compromise whatsoever is acceptable. It is very much what Ibsen feared from a completely nationalist movement: Norwegian is the only good, and all else is false. His fear was not so much of bigotry as it was of narrow-minded rejection of all that was not Norwegian, and the assumption that if it was Danish, it was necessarily bad.

During Brand's journey, he comes upon the village where he grew up, where his mother lives, and where the people are starving, children dying every day. They beg him for some kind of help, a bit of food, some money, but he refuses, saying if he were to help, he would commit a sin against God's will. "A living people sucks strength from sorrow....But where extremity breeds no courage, the flock is not worthy of salvation" (71).

The people are understandably appalled by Brand's words, but in the middle of the scene comes a woman frantically calling for a priest to bless her dying husband, a priest with the courage to cross the fjord despite the squall that is building. Brand volunteers, but no one will accompany him, including the woman whose husband is dying. 29

Agnes, in an ecstasy, becomes caught up in the nobility of the idea, and volunteers Ejnar to go, but Ejnar, afraid for his life, refuses. Disgusted that her lover does not have the courage of his convictions that Brand has, Agnes herself goes. Later, defending his decision to brave the storm,

Brand says, "If you give all you have, but not your life, you give nothing" (77).

The townspeople, in awe at Brand's moral strength, beg him to stay on as their priest and set them an example, but he refuses, certain that his calling is to save the world and not just this isolated town. Their response is to quote his own words to him, "If you give all you have, but not your life, you give nothing." Brand's reaction closely reflects Ibsen's own views on vocation:

One thing a man cannot give: his soul. He cannot deny his calling. He dare not block that river's course; It forces its way towards the ocean. . Where there is no will, there is no calling. If you cannot be what you would be, Turn your face to the earth and till it well. (78)

It is not unlike Jatgeir's advice to Skule, and we admire

Brand's strength. In the end, he is brought by his own arguments to 'feel that he would be hypocritical to his ideals were he to leave these needy people, so he agrees to stay. He marries Agnes and settles in to wait for his dying mother's repentance; Brand is certain that the only way his mother can achieve heaven is to renounce all her worldly 30

goods, but she is only willing to renounce a portion of them, feeling that she has worked hard for them all her life and ought not to have to relinquish all. He is unremitting, and the standoff continues until she is dead. "There is no forgiveness for failure," he asserts (87). The doctor tells him that he is a hard man, a man without love, and even

Agnes wonders at his cruelty to his own mother. He defends his decision by insisting that overcoming all desire through will, desire for anything or anyone, is the only way to attain eternal life, and he reiterates his "Allor Nothing" doctrine.

It is not Martyrdom to die in agony on a cross; But to will that you shall die upon a cross, To will it in the extremity of pain, To will it when the spirit cries out in torment, That is to find salvation. . When the will has triumphed, then comes the time for love, But here, faced by a generation Which is lax and slothful, the best love is hate. (95)

Clearly Brand has forgotten that before Jesus hung on the cross, be begged God, "Father, if it be Thy will, let this cup pass from me." It was not Jesus's will to die on a cross, but God's, although Brand's fanaticism will not allow him to see this distinction any more than he can see that his own will might not necessarily be synonymous with God's will, either.

Ibsen, here, is also pointing to a trait in many nationalists that he was beginning to despise, as touched 31

upon earlier. There was a certain sense of martyrdom, a spirit of blamelessness, on a parallel with today's desire to blame everything on "dysfunctionality". Everything can be blamed on Denmark and the oppressive rule which the

Norwegians have had to endure. It is the same as the refusal to compromise on anything in life. "There is no forgiveness for failure," so there is no room for anything

Danish in the country. "Allor Nothing" equates to removing

Denmark from the country at whatever cost, and if every vestige of Danish influence could not be removed, then there was no point to even beginning. Ibsen knew that not all that was Danish was innately evil, any more than all that was Norwegian was innately good, and that not all of

Norway's problems could honestly be blamed on the Danish.

But again, he also felt strongly that Norway had to be given the chance to succeed or fail on her own, so his representations of the two sides are still somewhat mixed and might seem ambiguous. We admire Brand's courage and strength of will, but at the same time we see what harm the fanaticism is doing to all around him, especially with his unstinting and harsh interpretations of God's messages.

Ejnar makes Ibsen's argument with his warning to Brand:

Do not blowout the match because it smokes Before the lantern lights the road. Do not destroy the old language Until you have created the new. (61)

When the doctor tells Agnes and Brand that their 32

son, Ulf, will die if they do not leave their cold, unhealthy home, they prepare to leave immediately, until the people complain that Brand is abandoning them and going

against all that he has ever taught them. He too suspects,

in his heart, that he is too attached to his son, and believes that God is asking him to sacrifice as Abraham

sacrificed, "Allor Nothing". They decide to stay, and Ulf

dies. Again, we have to wonder at Brand's interpretation of

God's will, remembering that when Abraham prepared to

sacrifice his only son, God intervened and did not let him

go through with it, satisfied that Abraham would have done

it. But because of Brand's (Norway's) convictions, the next

generation is condemned to die.

Agnes, devastated by the death of her son, clings to

Ulf's memory, and to certain of his clothing as mementoes.

Brand accuses her of weakness and faithlessness, and forces

her to give the clothes to an old gypsy woman for her child.

Agnes, at first distraught, gives away the clothes, the last

vestige of any tangible symbol she had left to cling to.

Suddenly she becomes elated, crying that at last she is free

of all earthly desire, just as Brand had assured her that

she should be, and she dies. Now it is Brand's turn to be

devastated, and though he tries to go on, he seems to lose

touch with his former ideals. He suddenly realizes that

when "Allor Nothing" is commanded of him, or of anyone, all 33

connectedness is lost.

In the end, with a scene much like the one with which the play opens, Brand is again leading a group of people up

a hazardous mountain top. They abandon him, finally tired

of constant sacrificing, and he goes to the top alone,

disillusioned and abandoned by all, completely desolate.

Agnes comes to him there, offering him the chance to do it

all again. She tells him that it could all be no more than

a bad dream if only he would renounce all his harshness and

cruelty, learn to forgive and to compromise, learn to be more human and charitable. He refuses, still convinced that

his salvation lies in the strength of his will, and that if

he crumbles now, if he gives in even a little, all would

have been for naught. It is Ibsen's frustration with the

fanaticism of the renaissance. But in the end, caught in an

avalanche, Brand cries out:

Answer me, God, in the moment of death! If not by Will, how can Man be redeemed?

A voice cries out through the thunder of the

crushing avalanche,

He is the God of Love. (157)

Here we have not only Ibsen's powerful condemnation

of an unrelenting ideal, one which brooks no weakness, which

forgives no faltering, which considers no humanity, but we

also have Ibsen's acknowledgement that the calling is

sacrosanct, and can no more be ignored by Brand than it 34

could be by Skule and Ibsen himself. Ibsen's own guilt remains clear: Brand's obsession destroys all that he loves, including wife and child, for the sake of his vocation, only to find that his singleminded obedience to that calling was condemned in the end, despite any good that may have been achieved. Could Ibsen receive the same judgement and sentence for the choices he made in his life?

Brand also gives us a very clear example of Ibsen's use of nature and geography as myth. His very personality is explained to us in terms of his geographical background as he tells Ejnar:

No, I was not at home Among you southerners. I was Of another race, born by a cold fjord, In the shadow of a barren mountain. (58)

We know that he is not warm by nature, has never felt a part of lush vegetation or warm sun, and his harshness should come as no surprise to us. Ibsen seems to be making excuses for Norway here, reminding us of the difficult upbringing she has had, asking for understanding of the country's intolerance as the journey to freedom begins, the journey up the mountain to knowledge and peace.

The play even opens with the journey up the mountain, the mythic path to omniscience, and the way is obscured, cloudy, threatening, dangerous. It is a difficult trek, but as Brand approaches the top, he encounters the two lovers, Ejnar and Agnes, already there, laughing and 35

singing. Brand notes:

Light shines about these two. It is as though the mist fell back from them, As though heather clothed every slope and ridge, And the sky smiled on them. (55)

Nature tells us at the start of the play that God is the God of Love, smiling on the young lovers and only creating more harshness where harshness already exists. The ending of the play should come as no surprise. Ejnar has also noticed this favor which Nature has bestowed upon them, telling

Brand:

The mist was heavy from the north, But it fell back before us. (57)

Ejnar and Agnes have already found the mountain peak and are heading back towards the fjord to be married. Brand has not yet reached the peak, and does not do so at this point in the play. It is no accident that as Ejnar and Agnes reach the fjord, in the valley, the harshness begins to set in, and their glorious union is tainted until they separate, as if no healthy union could survive in such a dearth of light.

When Brand first sees his childhood home from the side of the mountain, he has to peer down into an abyss, noting that the snowdrift that hangs over the town juts out still further:

It cuts Even more from the valley's meagre strip of sky; It lowers, threatens, shadows, steals more sun. (64)

Even the stage directions are clues about Ibsen's use of 36

geography. The beginning of Act Three describes Brand's new home with Agnes: "The fjord is visible in the background, narrow and mountain-locked" (87). His very home will not allow his mind to expand from its narrowness and coldness, and it is that home, buried on the side of the mountain where no light ever shines, that kills his son. Brand, as

Norway, is locked into the struggle with the land for the

land. The mythic peaks and valleys are a close parallel to Brand's own struggle. When he is strong and able and clear, he is heading for the mountain peaks, but he never quite gets there. When he is fanatical and cold, he descends to the valley, where it is cold and hopeless. Only after he has truly reached the bottom, after he has lost all that he holds dear and begins to doubt himself, does he re-ascend the mountain-top, alone and discouraged. Then, when it seems as though he has been given a way to repair his life, to accept forgiveness and to forgive, he denies the

opportunity, choosing instead the path of intolerance which he has followed for so long, and in which he believes. God

and Nature strike him down from the mountain-top, where he had no right to be, with the avalanche that destroys him.

Even through his use of myth, Ibsen reiterates the

same message: this is the Norwegian story, in the Norwegian

land. Harshness, cruelty, intolerance will not survive at

the top of the mountain, but will remain forever in the 37

cold, shadowy valley, unable to rise and give glory to the country. As long as Norway persists in its intolerance and narrow-mindedness, it will never see the glory for which it longs. If Brand agrees to change, he can return to "the good days ...then there was peace" (151), but he must renounce "Allor Nothing" in order for this to happen. If

Norway is unable to renounce the same concept, it too will remain in the valley forever, struck down every time it tries to ascend the mountain.

There can be no doubt, upon reading these representative plays, The Pretenders and Brand, that Ibsen had very specific ideas about the nationalist movement.

Although the plays appear very different on the surface, they are certainly consistent with the themes and messages that he used throughout his career. Through his use of myth and character, he showed that Norway was a force coming into its own, with strong ideas and determinations, but that

Norway needed to temper those ideas with tolerance, not fanaticism. All else was a matter of destiny, and the future glory of Norway would be ensured. Yeats and Ireland

Ireland had been an occupied country for much longer than had Norway; invaded Ireland somewhere around the year 1168, and the Irish have basically been fighting for their freedom ever since. The last 150 years have been some of the most striking, with the potato famine resulting in mass emigrations; 's remarkably effective yet ultimately tragic fight for Home Rule; the

Land League and its fight against absentee landlordism and outrageous rent hikes; the of 1916, which resulted in the of Ireland and the Irish constitution, 102 years after Norway got its constitution; and the Irish Literary Movement. It was a violent, politically volatile time, and William Butler Yeats was born into the middle of it, in 1865, fifteen years after Henrik

Ibsen had written his first play. Yeats's father, Jonathan

Butler Yeats, was an artist with small means, and their life was a constant financial struggle; they had to gradually sell off what property they had in the family during the

Land Wars of 1880. Although Yeats consequently spent a considerable amount of time in London and abroad, his heart was always in Ireland, and he found it painful to witness what he saw as the decline in Irish education and culture.

He greatly feared that English ways would swallow up all

38 39

that was ever Irish, and that the loss would be irredeemable, a fear shared by many. In 1892, Douglas Hyde wrote an essay called, "The Necessity for De-Anglicising

Ireland", calling for a return to Irish ways, but without fanaticism.

When we speak of "The Necessity for De-Anglicising the Irish Nation", we mean it, not as a against imitating what is best in the , for that would be absurd, but rather to show the folly of neglecting what is Irish, and hastening to adopt, pell­ mell and indiscriminately, everything that is English, simply because it is English. (117)

Recognizing the impossibility of pretending that the English influence simply did not exist, he refused to let that influence presuppose any kind of superiority, with an attitude like Ibsen's in Norway. Fundamentally, despite 600 years of English oppression, the Irish have never and will never become English. So, he asks:

...why should we de-Anglicise it at all? I answer because the Irish race is at present in a most anomalous position, imitating England and yet apparently hating it. How can it produce anything good in literature, art, or institutions as long as it is actuated by motives so contradictory? Besides, I believe it is our Gaelic past which, though the Irish race does not recognize it just at present, is really at the bottom of the Irish heart, and prevents us becoming citizens of the Empire. (121)

Hyde begs everyone, regardless of politics, to

set his face against this constant running to England for our books, literature, music, games, fashions, and ideas ...to do his best to help the Irish race, to develop in future upon Irish lines, even at the risk of encouraging national aspiration. (137)

The separatist movement was especially an issue in 40

education, because every successive generation of children became a bit more Anglicised, and lost a bit more Irish.

They were losing time. Charles Duffy, in a speech given in

1893, exhorted the country to consider the young people, to take an active part in their education, and to counter the inevitable English influence in their education with a revival of , which would in turn facilitate a revival in and pride. He grants that

"individual writers have done useful work from the unquenchable desire God has planted in men's heart to serve their own race, but there has been no organized attempt to raise the mind of the country to higher and more ideals of life and duty, or to quicken its interest in things which it behoves us to know ...What writers ought to aim at who hope to benefit the people, is to fill up the blanks which an imperfect education, and the fervor of a tempestuous time, have left in their knowledge, so that their lives might become contented and fruitful" (11-47).

Duffy felt strongly that the responsibility for the future course of the country rested with the writers and the educators; the young people were the only hope for the salvation of Ireland. "We labour for the young men and young women of Ireland, on whom the future of our race depends; and our hope is that...they may aim to gain a complete knowledge of their own country, and come forth from 41

the study seeped in Irish memories, proud of Irish traditions, panting with Irish hopes" (50).

It was virtually the identical call for "one who wrote grandly" that in Norway gave us Ibsen, but in Ireland, it was Yeats who responded to the call. In 1892, a year after the death of Parnell and the total disillusionment of the Nationalists, Yeats founded the Irish Literary Society in an effort to respond to the needs around him and the needs that were beginning to consume him. At this still early stage, Yeats's concern was with promoting Irish culture, but in doing so with a minimum of political involvement. He too, with Ibsen, was somewhat of a political fence-sitter; while Nationalist in the strictest sense of the word, he still felt closely bound to England, having spent most of his childhood in London, and found it difficult to completely condemn all things English.

However, he still longed for the recognition and racial pride that would come with freedom, education, and acceptance. His biographer, A. Norman Jeffares, notes, "He envisaged a remaking of Ireland's awareness of its own cultural identity, something which his own often homesick exile in England had taught him was a necessary part of an

individual's and thus--by extension--a nation's spiritual

and intellectual development" (67).

Yeats was aware of the trap of becoming a 42

propagandist for a political movement, and he tried to focus on writing nationally, historically motivated plays, rather than those that would be specifically political; of course, it is a very fine line. He agreed with Ibsen that history is an integral part of a people's racial identity, the common experience which unites members of a country. Yet history was a facet of their identity which was slipping away from them, as their educational system was run by a country with a significantly different point of view. Duffy warns:

Someone has invented the audacious axiom that history never repeats itself, but it would be truer to affirm that history is always repeating itself; assuredly in our own history identical weaknesses and identical virtues recur from generation to generation, and to know them may teach us where weak places in national and individual character need to be fortified and strong ones developed. (38)

History and character are nearly inseparable for the Irish: the one precludes the other. But knowing history, for an oppressed people, is also essential for preventing further exploitation. Knowing history will, Duffy claims, "enable us to vindicate our race from unjust aspersions. This is no sentimental gain, but one eminently practical; Ireland's

Irishmen suffer wrong from systematic misrepresentation, which only better knowledge will cure" (39).

In 1896, already intensely involved in the theatrical movement, Yeats met , who responded to the same dream of glory in Irish literature; the 43

relationship would change their lives forever. In 1899, together with George Moore and Edward Martyn, they formed the Irish Literary Theatre, conceived of as a National

Theatre much like Norway's Christiania Theatre, "which would playa leading role," according to Lady Gregory, "in developing Ireland's cultural identity; it would express the

Irish character and bring upon the stage the deeper thoughts

and emotions of Ireland" (Bradley 31). The time and the combination of people were, at first, perfect. Moore and Martyn both had some experience in running a theater, and

Lady Gregory was compiling stories in Irish for translations

into English. As Peter Ure points out in Yeats and Anglo-

Irish Literature:

"The end of Parnellism seems to have made clear to Yeats and others the need for the final supercession of the old nationalism in Anglo-Irish literature; the meeting of Lady Gregory meant that the idea of nationality in that literature--for Yeats already an accepted principle--became a formula that worked in practice" (61).

Of course, as in any effort involving more than one person, there were conflicts. Everyone had his or her own

vision of how things ought to be, and every vision was

founded on good, sound principles; they simply weren't very

compatible. Yeats had his own agenda, which he expounded

upon regularly in "Irish Dramatic Movement," part newsletter

and part advertisement for the Theatre. He wanted "to put

old stories into verse, and if I put them into dramatic 44

verse, it will matter less to me henceforward who plays them than what they play and how they play" (9). His ideas and his visions were very specific, but he had almost no experience in the practical aspects of running a theater, much to the great frustration of those with whom he worked.

He wanted it done his way, and often that way was not practicable.

In addition, Yeats stuck to his original desires to work with history, insisting that "if literature does not draw its substance from history, or anything about us in the world, what is a National Literature?" (12). Of course, he drew little distinction between history, myth, and folklore, so his interpretations of history were somewhat unusual.

Lady Gregory and the others agreed with him to an extent, but they wanted to become more political, more obvious in their support for the Nationalists. Yeats was vehemently opposed to this, unwilling to be reduced to a mere political machine. He was not opposed to a political message now and

again, as he was more fervently Nationalist than was Ibsen, but he refused to allow politics to become the focus for the

Theatre. He could not bear the thought of becoming a

political puppet. Again in his newsletter, he averred:

If creative minds preoccupy themselves with incidents from the political , so much the better, but we must enforce them to select these incidents.... I am a Nationalist, and certain of my intimate friends have made Irish politics the business of their lives, and this made certain thoughts habitual 45

with me, and an accident made these thoughts take fire in me in such a way that I could give them dramatic expression. (106)

The "intimate friends" to whom he referred were, among others, Maude Gonne and Lady Gregory. Gonne, with whom

Yeats was in love throughout most of his life, was passionately committed to the violent revolution against

England. Yeats felt strongly that the violence was unnecessary and pointless, believing that the revolution could be achieved through different means. He and Gonne never agreed on this point, and she retained a feeling of amused contempt for what she perceived as his cowardliness.

Their political differences were perhaps the most significant reason they never married.

Lady Gregory was automatically embroiled in the politics of the land because of her status as landlord, but she also became involved in a battle over some Irish paintings that were housed in London, fighting to have them returned to their native land. In a different way and to a much lesser extent than Maude Gonne, Lady Gregory was also becoming a political force.

Unfortunately, politics were only the beginning of the conflicts within the Theatre. Moore and Martyn were wildly enthusiastic over Ibsen, and longed to create an

Ibsenesque drama in Ireland. Yeats acknowledged Ibsen's greatness, acknowledged the outstanding contribution and 46

achievement in the Norwegian Nationalist movement, and recognized that there was much to be learned from Ibsen.

"The moment we leave even a little the folk-tradition of the peasant, as we must in drama, if we do not know the best that has been said and written in the world, we do not even know ourselves" (12).

However, he stipulated, that did not mean that Ibsen ought to be emulated in Ireland. Norway and Ireland were not identical countries, and the Irish and Norwegians were not identical people, would not respond to identical styles or symbols. Ibsen had a specific idea in mind when he considered Norwegian character and Norwegian geography. But

Irish character and geography were completely different and were best represented in the language and the history.

Yeats abhorred the fallacy of "quaintness" that he saw being perpetuated whenever Irish character was in question.

Thatched huts and donkeys by the sea were not Irish character. Yeats dreamed of a drama that would appeal to the emotions of the people, the spirituality; he was not interested in imitating the stark reality of their lives, as

Ibsen's drama so often does. Where Ibsen wrote realistically in order to show the absurdity of life, forcing his audiences to think about their own lives, Yeats wrote poetically to stir the emotions, allowing his audiences the luxury to escape their own lives and hope for 47

something better. He was not appealing to a group of thinkers, to the educated elite of the country, but to the

"real", everyday people he might encounter in the country.

Again in "Irish Dramatic Movement," Yeats states:

Plays about drawing rooms are written for the middle classes of great cities, for the classes who live in drawing rooms; but if you would ennoble the man of the roads you must write about the roads, or about the people of romance, or about the great historical people. (32)

The key to achieving his effect, he was certain, was through language. Yeats envisioned a language that would be poetic and symbolic and beautiful, a language Ibsen was not as concerned with because it did not affect his country the same way that words affect the Irish. "Let us learn construction from the masters, and dialogue from ourselves"

(13), Yeats would argue again and again. He trusted only the language that was spoken by the people whom he was trying to reach, the language to which every person, from the city to the most remote village, would respond with the heart. Thus, he chose English, spoken in the Irish dialect.

Yet Moore and Martyn believed that this language would be poorly received by their audiences. They were

afraid that it might appear contrived and, since Irish

dialect had only been used in the theater for comedy,

derisive of the characters the plays intended to elevate.

Yeats, however, continued to defend the use of Irish

dialect, primarily because he felt that its beauty 48

represented culture. "Before men read," he recalled in his introduction to Plays: Enlarged and Revisited, "the ear and the tongue were subtle, and delighted one another with the little tunes that were its words; every word would have its own tune, though but one main note may have been marked enough for us to name it" (525). He wanted to revive the poetry embedded in the musical sound of the language. He did not believe that the dialogue would seem contrived because he was not merely "poeticizing" realistic plays, as he accused Ibsen of doing, but he was writing from his emotions, from some archetypal, racial place that would give him the words. In "Irish Dramatic Movement" he says, "One can write well in that country idiom without much thought about one's words; the emotion will bring the right word itself, for there everything is old and everything alive and nothing common or threadbare" (30). The language and the character are as one, and if the writer truly knows and understands his character, and can clearly communicate that character, the writer cannot fall into triteness or stilted language. One must be able to make a king of faery or an old countryman or a modern lover speak that language which is his and nobody else's, and speak it with so much of emotional substance that the hearer may find it hard to know whether it is the thought or the word that has moved him, or whether these could be separated at all" (46) •

However, the dispute within the Irish Literary 49

Theatre extended far beyond the use of dialect. Could the

Irish Literary Theatre really be a National Theatre if its plays were written in English and not in Irish, the native tongue? Yeats comments, "Our friends have already told us, writers for the theatre in Abbey Street, that we have no right to the name (National Theatre), some because we do not write in Irish, and others because we do not plead the

National cause in our plays" (106). In Norway, Ibsen had had the problem circumvented for him. There was a version of the original Norwegian language that had been combined with the Danish to create a language that was Norwegian, but still understandable to those who were more familiar with the Danish language. In Ireland, however, there was

English, which was understood in all except the remotest areas of the country, and there was Irish, which was rarely understood except in remote areas. Some insisted that in order to be truly national, the plays must be in the native language. Douglas Hyde, for example, who wrote several plays in Irish for the Irish Literary Theatre and for the

Abbey Theatre, insisted on rejecting the English. "I have often heard people thank God that if the English gave us nothing else they gave us at least their language ....But the is worth knowing, or why would the greatest philologists of Germany, , and be emulously studying it?" (136). 50

Yeats agreed to produce Hyde's Irish plays, but found them largely ineffectual. They neither attracted the audiences nor the responses the English plays received.

Furthermore, they seemed works of scholarly translation and erudition rather than works of emotion and symbolism. Yeats insisted upon English within the Theater, choosing to use the Irish dialect in his own plays to make his nationalist points.

After three years of tumultuous battles over how best to produce a national drama, the Irish Literary Theatre dissolved with the departure of both Moore and Martyn. The remaining founders, Yeats and Lady Gregory, with Synge joining somewhat later, moved to the new quarters in Abbey

Street. Thus was born the Abbey Theatre, of which Yeats was more or less solely in charge. With few exceptions, Yeats was given free reign to pursue his own version of what a

National drama ought to be.

For Yeats, then, the elements of Irish national literature were different from those of Ibsen's Norwegian national literature. Yeats agreed that character was an essential element, but felt that the language went a long way toward creating that character. Irish character was motivated less by strength of character than by a dreamy, vague sense of hope, a hope that found its voice in poetry,

in religion, in fairy tales. The Irish have traditionally 51

been known for their despair and their maudlin pessimism, traits reflected in their poetry, music, drama and stories.

Certainly Yeats did little to dispel that image, giving us settings of poverty and hopeless bitterness as a background for his characters. Yet from this misery comes that tenuous, barely plausible hope. And we see that when hope is weak, beautiful, strong, and poetic words can inspire, ironically making hope appear more substantial than it is.

From this perspective of faint hope, Yeats addresses many of the same issues that Ibsen addressed, such as will, fate, God, and vocation. In addition he gives us allegories for his country as did Ibsen. But where Norwegian character rested on strength of character and strong will, Irish character is more passive, listless, and what hope there is is meager, certainly not strong. Norway acts, where Ireland hopes. "The Countess Cathleen" (1892) is an excellent example of this faint hope buoyed up with little more than words. A morality play with parallels to Ibsen's Brand, it is a story told with variations by many different cultures: the sale of the soul in a bargain with the devil. Cathleen, by selling her soul, raises enough money to feed the poor and starving people of her country. The Irish twist is that through the bargain comes hope, not despair, and it is a bargain struck for unselfish ends, in an effort to save the 52

people. Because of her sacrifice, both she and they are saved.

The play opens with a family discussion of the famine experienced in the . Shemus and Teigue are bemoaning their lack of food, money, or prospects, and Mary, ever strong in her faith, is trying to reassure them:

God, that to this hour has found bit and sup, Will cater for us still. (5)

Despite Mary's deep faith and example, the family is steeped in superstition. Teigue relates all the omens and portents that he has heard of, including a man with ears that move up and down like a bat's wings, a man with no eyes, mouth, or ears, and two birds in the shape of horned owls with human faces. He knows that all these signs bode ill for his family, and recounts them gloomily, complaining that his family has been abandoned by God. Mary ignores it all, refusing to comment.

When the wealthy Cathleen comes along, she is appalled at their poverty and moved to give all that she has with her to appease some of their hunger, in direct contrast to Brand's response to the poverty he saw in his country.

However, Cathleen has been giving her money away all along her journey, and has little left to give Mary's family.

Mary is grateful for what Cathleen can give, but Shemus and

Teigue are resentful that it is not more. Yeats already gives us a view of the difference between Cathleen and 53

Brand, Ireland and Norway. Where Norway is harsh and unyielding from the beginning, Ireland's main concern is for her people and the alleviation of their suffering.

Cathleen takes the suffering of the county to heart and determines to try to help any way she can. When she arrives at her own home, she is told that someone has climbed over the wall and stolen some of her cabbage.

While all those around condemn the thieves and clamor for better protection, Cathleen excuses the sinners, knowing that they only took the food out of their need to survive.

If they had not been starving, there would have been no need to steal. "And if it be a sin, while faith's unbroken God cannot help but pardon" (21). She believes that it is their right to survive in any way they can, and if stealing is the only way to do so, so be it. This, too, is markedly different from Brand's dogma, where forgiveness in any form is out of the question. Brand would accuse Cathleen of being weak and of not understanding what God requires of her. Cathleen would be surprised, knowing that her vocation

is to protect and feed the people, and that God is on the

side of the oppressed and broken, no matter what they might

do. God could not condemn them for trying to stay alive.

Her ability to forgive here, implying that the motivation

behind a sin might automatically pardon the sin, also sets

up our understanding of her own sin later. 54

This difference in attitudes about forgiveness reflects the difference between the two countries' political situations at the time of writing. Norway already has her constitution and is well on the way to independence and

freedom, so Brand is struggling with issues such as intolerance, a luxurious consideration in Ireland's eyes.

Ireland, on the other hand, is still embroiled in revolution

and hunger and oppression, and Cathleen is struggling with more physical issues, trying to help the people survive.

While Cathleen is making plans to help her country,

Aleel, a musician travelling with her, has a prophetic dream. He urges Cathleen to leave, to go where she herself will be safe and fed.

For here some terrible death is waiting you, Some unimagined evil, some great darkness That fable has not dreamt of, nor sun nor moon Scattered. (25-26)

It is the doctor warning Brand that to stay in his house would be death to his son. Aleel argues, much the same as

did the doctor with Brand, that Cathleen is trying to play

God, a job better left alone, and that her disappointment in

failing to relieve the suffering will destroy her:

Let Him that made mankind, the angels and devils And dearth and poverty, mend what He has made, For when we labour in vain and eye still sees, Heart breaks in vain. (26)

It is a typically Irish argument, an argument that

Yeats could not abide. He did not believe that suffering 55

would be alleviated by passively waiting for God to take care of things, or that anyone was really laboring in vain, despite pitifully meager results. It is an argument born of discouragement and Yeats refused to be discouraged.

However, nor did he believe that Maude Gonne's answer was right: causing more death and destruction did not, to

Yeats, seem to solve anything except more death and destruction. Cathleen does not agree with Aleel that she should leave, unable to resist what she now sees as her vocation, and her response is lofty and full of hope. She has sworn

By her whose heart the seven sorrows have pierced, To pray before this altar until my heart Has grown to Heaven like a tree, and there Rustled its leaves, till Heaven has saved my people. (27)

Again the difference between Irish and Norwegian character is spelled out clearly. Cathleen's desire to save her country with her prayers is noble and beautiful and poetic, springing from her deep and abiding faith in God.

Her response gives hope and encourages those who hear her to also pray, though they suspect that God will listen more readily to her than to them as she is so much more saintly than they. But the hope that Cathleen gives is still a faint hope, a hope based on a firm and unshakable belief in the power of prayer, a belief that we have already seen weakened in Shemus and Teigue when Teigue says, 56

What is the good of praying? father says. God and the mother of God have dropped asleep. (4)

Only when that belief is strong is there any real sense of hope behind Cathleen's words. She does not offer the strength of will that Brand offers, with his sense that he knows God's will and makes it happen. Thus far, it's

Cathleen's words alone that offer hope, far more than any action she takes. But it is the very kind of hope that

Ireland has typically offered its people, for the lack of anything better.

Disabused of any hope at all, Shemus and Teigue express their disgust with Cathleen's scant contribution by callously inviting the devils into their home.

I'll have no bolts, for there is not a thing, That walks above the ground or under it I had not rather welcome to this house Than any more of mankind, rich or poor.... So that they brought us money. (10)

When the two merchants do appear, Shemus and Teigue don't recognize them as devils at first, but when they do, they are delighted and surprised. Mary knows from the beginning who the two are, and she is horrified. They make their offer: money for their souls, "that may be nothing"

(14), and it is eagerly accepted at once by Shemas and

Teigue. But before they collect their money, they must become messengers for the merchants, spreading the word and the money throughout the area. Refusing to have anything to do with the merchants, Mary is condemned to starve, 57

unrelieved of her misery, while she watches all those around her become "rich".

You shall eat dock and grass, and dandelion, Till that low threshold there becomes a wall, And when your hands can scarcely drag your body We shall be near you. (16) When Cathleen hears of the bargain that has been struck, she too is horrified. She immediately sells all her possessions so that she can buy food for the people, thinking that then they would not have to sell their souls.

She swears that she will never rest until the people are fed and have their souls intact. It is a far cry from Brand's continual insistence that the people must sacrifice "Allor

Nothing". Cathleen knows that they have sacrificed all they have already, and longs to give them something back.

Come follow me, for the earth burns my feet Till I have changed my house to such a refuge That the old and ailing, and all weak of heart, May escape from beak and claw; all, all, shall come Till the walls burst and roof fallon us. From this day out I have nothing of my own. (24)

As soon as Cathleen discovers that the people are letting the enemy in through sacred territory, she becomes

revolutionary Ireland. She must save her people at whatever

cost. Thievery out of starvation is one thing, and God will

forgive it, but selling out to the enemy is quite another.

Ireland's commodities are rare and precious, and must not be

squandered in bargains with the enemy; such activity would

be death to the nation. She recognizes, as most of the 58

people do not, that the enemy (England) is a much greater threat when posing as a friend or a savior than when posing as pure enemy.

However, despite Cathleen's plans to help, the merchants trick her. They steal all that she has so that she can offer the people nothing, in much the same way that

England has done to Ireland for years. England takes the best of the men to go to work in England, takes the best of the crops to sell in England, takes the best of the land and rents it out from England, and still taxes the people into poverty, leaving Ireland with virtually nothing to offer its people. Now as poor as her people, Cathleen still tries to offer some reassurance and hope.

Old man, old man, He never closed a door Unless one opened. I am desolate Because of a strange thought that's in my heart; But I have still my faith; therefore be silent, For surely He does not forsake the world, But stands before it modelling in the clay And moulding there His image. (33)

And yet the people continue to sell their souls for cash, refusing the slim hope offered by her words, deciding instead to count on the intangibility of a soul as proof that it does not truly exist. Despairing for the people and finally driven to act as a true revolutionary, Cathleen offers to sell her soul in exchange for five hundred thousand crowns and the freedom of everyone else's souls.

The merchants agree enthusiastically, knowing that her 59 saintly soul is worth much more than the others. Aleel, repeating his argument, tries to stop her, crying out,

"Leave all things to the Builder of Heavens" (44). But

Cathleen has had enough of that argument, and feels that she must not fail her people. Completing the transaction, she saves the other souls but loses her own. The others see her noble act and repent their own selfishness, knowing that she is too good for them, and that she should never have made such a sacrifice. Her nurse, Oona, moans, o that so many pitchers of rough clay Should prosper and the porcelain break in two! (46) It is an act of selflessness that Brand, on the mountain top, is unable to make. He is unable to do that which he thinks will damn his soul, and therefore he loses his soul.

Cathleen, forced to sell her soul to the enemy, saves both the people and herself.

Her heart broken from selling out, Cathleen dies almost immediately. But her death throes are more poetic and saintly than Brand's plaintive questioning of God, and we feel her death to be a noble thing:

Bend down your faces, Oona and Aleel; I upon them as the swallow gazes Upon the nest under the eave, before She wanders the loud waters. Do not weep Too great a while, for there is many a candle On the High Altar though one fall. Aleel, Who sang about the dancers of the woods That know not the hard burden of the world, Having but breath in their kind bodies, farewell! And farewell, Oona, you who played with me, And bore me in your arms about the house 60

When I was but a child and therefore happy, Therefore happy, even like those that dance. The storm is in my hair and I must go. (47)

Yeats is obviously not concerned with giving us a realistic death scene; rather, he wants to use her words to show her

as a figure of hope, even if only a slight hope. All around

clung to her words, their only hope of salvation, even though their hunger is still unrelieved despite her

sacrifices. Aleel, angered, cries:

And I who weep Call curses on you, Time and Fate and Change, And have no excellent hope but the great hour When you shall plunge headlong through bottomless space. (49)

He sees her sacrifice, her sell-out, as a futile gesture.

Hope, however, is gleaned when Aleel questions the

Angel about Cathleen's post-death fate, and it is

interestingly like the response God gave to Brand during the

avalanche:

The Light of Lights Looks always on the motive, not the deed, The Shadow of Shadows on the deed alone. (50)

It is, after all, a God of Love, and Cathleen's actions do

inspire hope in those around her, not through her strength

of will but through her faith in a forgiving and just God.

Her sacrifice, made in a Christian and unselfish spirit,

pleased God, where Brand's lack of Christianity angered Him.

The final message is that the ends do justify the

me~ns, a message that is often used by revolutionaries, 61

which is exactly what Cathleen becomes. Her despair drives her to extremes, and she works for those around her, in a way that Brand never had. She is involved personally, where

Brand only points the impossible way. True, she is forced to sellout to the enemy. But she does so as a revolutionary, in order to prevent the rest of the people from having to do so as well. She has no glee over the riches she receives, but only sorrow at her betrayal of her ideals.

Cathleen reflects the Irish dilemma, a dilemma which

Yeats took very much to heart. Faith, on the one hand, says that God will take care of things, and that constant, fervent prayer will be the ultimate salvation. Despair, on the other hand, says that the only true hope for the country is to sellout to the enemy, England. The revolution must be for the people, not for the individual. Martyrdom is a pervasive condition in Ireland, far more so than in Norway.

Brand was never a martyr, dying for his beliefs; he died as a punishment for his failings. Cathleen was a martyr, dying

"at the hands" of her enemy in a sacrifice of her beliefs in order to save her people.

The mythic structure here is, as it is for Ibsen, the struggle for survival and independence. Obviously, the entire plot of "The Countess Cathleen" is mythic, from

Cathleen posing as the savior to the merchants acting as 62

Satan's representatives. Throughout, Yeats draws from the superstitions of the people, as in Teigue's perception of omens everywhere, to show how susceptible and naive they are. The very fact that Cathleen is trying to find her way home and is lost in the woods becomes mythic. Only when she encounters Mary, who points out the way home, does she find her vocation to help those who are starving. Her vocation then is her home in a very mythic way. Yeats revels in myth where Ibsen hides the mythic underneath realism.

Aleel, the musician, is the personification of the mythic within the play. He reminds his audiences, through his songs and his tales, of the connection with myth that always runs through Irish life. Rather than confessing to

Cathleen that he has fallen in love with her, he tells her the tale of Queen Maeve and her lover, who died nine centuries ago.

And now, when the moon's riding at the full, She leaves her dancers lonely and lies there Upon that level place, and for three days Stretches and sighs and wets her long pale cheeks. (17)

He explains that she only cries because she has forgotten the name of the man who loved her. Cathleen realizes that

Aleel is trying to tell her that he loves her and that he is

afraid that she too will forget him. His communication with her is very much clothed in myth as if he speaks to her from the ancients, never more poignantly than after she has sold her soul. He crawls out from where the merchants had kicked 63

him, after witnessing Cathleen's sacrifice. In a bitter speech, he recalls all the betrayal that the country has been forced to endure throughout its long history, knowing that the two merchants are on a par with the great traitors of Irish past.

The brazen door stands wide, and Balor comes Borne in his heavy car, and demons have lifted The age-weary eyelids from the eyes that of old Turned gods to stone; Barach, the traitor, comes And the lascivious race, Cailitin, That cast a Druid weakness and decay Over Sualtim's and Old Dectora's child; And that great king Hell first took hold upon When he killed Naoise and broke Deirdre's heart; And all their heads are twisted to one side, For when they lived they warred on beauty and peace With obstinate, crafty, sidelong bitterness. (45)

These evil characters from Irish past betrayed the country and its ideals for selfish ends. They include the people who sold Ireland to England. We see that the sale of

Cathleen's soul is just another episode in the saga of betrayal and despair, and that Cathleen, having sacrificed her soul to the evil representatives of Satan, is yet another victim in a long line of victims.

Interestingly, the play seems to prophecy the events of Easter, 1916, when the revolutionaries took over the

General Post Office in , demanding freedom from

England. After the bloodbath, and after the leaders were arrested and killed as traitors, Ireland finally got her first constitution and a small amount of independence, as the Republic of Ireland was created. There is hope; all is 64 not despair. The decision, as it had been so often before, was to sellout and to salvage what could be salvaged, so that Ireland could survive.

Of course, the leaders who died in 1916 were martyrs much like Cathleen, and the sell-out was the six northern which remained in England's control and jurisdiction, but, to quote Yeats's poem, "Easter 1916", "A terrible beauty is born."

Many of Yeats's friends were killed in the aftermath of the Easter Rising, and Maude Gonne's husband, John

McBride, was one of the leaders mentioned in Yeats's poem.

Yeats was powerfully affected by the events and tried to convince Gonne to put aside the violence. She, of course, was more firmly entrenched than ever.

Yeats's play, "The Dreaming of " (1919) is set just after the Easter Rising. It is strangely mythic and bitingly powerful, reflecting his emotions regarding the revolution. There is no question that Yeats condemned the course of events, although he certainly understood the motivation behind them. In the play, he chooses a setting where a contemporary man, one who was involved in the

Rising, meets two figures from Ireland's past. As they walk along through a remote area, they discuss treachery and forgiveness, past and present, pointing out the similarities between the two and the inability for many people to see the 65 connection.

In the hour before dawn, a Young Man with a lantern wanders over the rocks in a lonely, desolate area. "He

stumbles wearily, and stumbling prays" (434). He is Ireland

in much the same way that Haakon is Norway; where Haakon is strong and victorious in the opening scene, the Young Man is praying and stumbling, unsure of his way and begging for

guidance from God, very much the situation Ireland was in

after the Rising.

The Stranger and the Young Girl appear over the

of a hill, and the Young Man panics, uncertain of their loyalties and knowing that it is unsafe to trust

anyone. He asks them to identify themselves. Rather than

doing so, the Young Girl blows out the lantern so she and

the Stranger cannot be seen. The Young Man has completely

lost his way now, and has no choice but to trust the two.

He admits to them that he was part of the Rising, that he was actually in the Post Office, and that if he is found he

will be shot as a traitor. He is on his way to meet someone

at daybreak

...at the rocky shore Under Finvaragh, but would break my neck If I went stumbling there alone in the dark. (435) This is Yeats's first warning in the play to the

Irish revolutionaries: history has certain lessons from

which Ireland must learn and proceed, and to ignore those 66 lessons would be folly. It echoes Duffy's warning that history does indeed repeat itself and the repetition of disaster can only be avoided if we know history and let it guide us.

As the Young Man walks with the couple, he begins to talk about the Rising and his part in it, making clear his contempt for those he thought of as traitors:

In the late Rising I think there was no man of us but hated To fire at soldiers who but did their duty And were not of our race, but when a man Is born in Ireland and of Irish , When he takes part against us -- (436)

It is the first we see of the Young Man's total hypocrisy and blindness. Throughout the play, he thoughtlessly condemns the characters in tales from the past, but remains unable to see how the tales, and his condemnation, relate to himself. He is trapped in the inability to understand history as something real. He can neither learn from it nor perceive that the mistakes he is making are the same mistakes that have already been made. Thus Yeats indicts the violence of the times and bitingly echoes Ibsen's own concern about intolerance and fanaticism. At no point does the Young Man, so angered by the possibility that there were

Irishmen taking arms against him, consider the fact that he himself is wanted as a traitor. Later he is even more contemptuous, when the Stranger points out the tomb of

Donogh O'Brien, who 67

.Wore fine clothes and knew the secrets of women, But he rebelled against the King of And died in his youth. (439)

The Young Man, characteristically blind to the connection to himself, responds:

And why should be rebel? The King of Thomond was his rightful master. It was men like Donogh who made Ireland weak-­ My curse on all that troop, and when I die I'll leave my body, if I have any choice, Far from his ivy-tod and his owl. (439)

In all his pomposity and self-righteousness, he does not realize that he too has just rebelled against his master,

England, and that he did so in order to make Ireland strong, not weak. Like so many of the Irish, he fails to see that his actions do not coincide with what he claims are his beliefs, the beliefs that allow him to condem those in the past. Nor does he guess that the approaches that have failed throughout history might also fail here. Although it is right in front of him, he cannot see it any more than

Skule could see that Haakon had a calling and he did not.

The Young Man only knows that he is right and those others in the past were wrong.

As the three characters walk through the countryside, they discuss the land around them. The

Stranger mentions that they are walking among the bones of the dead, people who are doing penance for their old lives, and that the bones are dreaming in various forms. As day breaks, they begin to see the ruins around them, 68 particularly the Abbey that is destroyed, and the Young Man comments:

Is there no house Famous for sanctity or architectural beauty In Clare or Kerry, or in all wide Connaught, The enemy has not unroofed? (439)

It is the same destruction that took place in The Pretenders, when all sanctity appeared to be lost and not even the churches or the convents would serve as sanctuary from the power-hungry.

The Young Girl explains that the rebels of King

Thomond are buried in the unholy ground, for they were luckless and lonely .

... those that are buried there Warred in the heat of the blood; if they were rebels Some momentary impulse made them rebels, Or the commandment of some petty king Who hated Thomond. ... These are alone, Being accursed. (439-440)

Still, the Young Man does not hear the warning any more than the revolutionaries in Ireland heard Yeats's warnings, anymore than Skule heard Sigurd's warnings.

As the Young Man and the Young Girl continue to discuss the spirits, she tells him of a pair of who suffer terribly, lovers near to heart break for 700 years.

"Though eyes can meet, their lips can never meet" (441).

The Young Man is intrigued and asks why it is that they may not kiss. Upon hearing that it is because of the memory of a crime in their old lives, he assumes that it is 69

the crime of adultery, as if it were the only crime of which he could conceive. It is no accident that the crime that

comes to his mind is a crime of treachery. She assures him,

however, that adultery is not sUfficiently evil to keep the

pair wandering in a state of torment through 700 years,

doomed to forever be alone together and yet apart. Even

Helen of Troy did not pay that price for her treachery. The

crime committed by the unhappy pair was that her lover, in

order to steal her from her husband, brought a foreign army

over to capture her.

Appalled, the Young Man exclaims,

You speak of Dermot and Dervorgilla Who brought the Norman in? (442)

The Young Girl, seemingly anticipating his horror, answers:

Yes, yes, I spoke Of that most miserable, most accursed pair Who sold their country into slavery; and yet They were not wholly miserable and accursed If somebody of their race at last would say, "I have forgiven them". (442)

The legend is that Dervorgilla was married to

Tiernan O'Rourke, Lord of Breffini, who treated her badly.

Dermot MacMurrough, a scandalous and rapacious young hood,

had already stolen several young women, including the Abbess

Kildare from her cloister, when he decided that he wanted

Dervorgilla. He fought her husband for her and was beaten,

so he returned with a Norman army, taking her with her

consent. However, the army never left, and Ireland has been 70

an occupied country ever since. Obviously, Dermot and

Dervorgilla, lovers though they be, were not a very popular couple among the Irish, considered to be the epitome of treachery even 700 years later.

The Young Man cries:

0, never, never Shall Dermot and Dervorgilla be forgiven. (442)

She pleads with him for mercy, reminding him of their misery and of how little it would take to release them from their torment; he refuses. Even after he realizes that she is

Dervorgilla, and the Stranger is Dermot, he cannot bring himself to forgive. Looking down upon the ravaged lands below him, he can only recall that were it not for the couple, the land would still be Irish, and would not have been destroyed in war.

I can see The Aran , Hills, And in the breaking light; there too The enemy has toppled roof and gable, And torn the paneling from ancient rooms; What generations of old men had known Like their own hands, and children wondered at, Has boiled a trooper's porridge. That town had lain, But for the pair that you would have me pardon, Amid its gables and its battlements Like any old admired Italian town; For though we have neither coal, nor iron ore, To make us wealthy and corrupt the air, Our country, if that crime were uncommitted, Had been most beautiful. (443)

He does admit that her words, told so sweetly,

almost tempted him into forgiving. The land, real and

destroyed, convinced him that it could not be done, must not 71

be done. He must stand firm in his rigidity, guarding against understanding and comprehension. If for one moment he is led by her words into believing her story, then the walls between present and past must crumble, and he must realize that he is connected after all. Such could be the power, the awesome power in which Yeats believed so strongly, of simple words. The words "I forgive," words that Brand could not utter either, would free the couple from torment and would free Ireland from the blindness that was allowing them to repeat past mistakes. A new understanding would dawn, an understanding of just how connected to its history a nation really is. Yeats knew, as did Ibsen, that narrow-mindedness and intolerance would lock them into incomprehension forever, the valley between the mountains. For Ireland, that equated to violence. The words that the Young Man denies the Young Girl, words that could offer new hope to the nation, could not now be uttered amidst such bitterness and ruin, but Yeats longed to at least show Ireland the danger of its present intolerance.

Yeats realized that the nation was riding the crest of its glory, proud of its role in the Rising, and would therefore not be very receptive to his warning.

Acknowledgement of the past would only be negative. As the

Musicians sing at the conclusion of the play:

They dream that laughed in . Dry bones that dream are bitter; 72

They dream and darken our sun. (445)

Having just won a battle, Ireland did not require the mythic as an escape to glory, and certainly did not want it as an object lesson for the present, as long as the present was somewhat acceptable.

Nor did Ireland want to admit that, for even a moment, Dermot and Dervorgilla were sympathetic characters, much like Ibsen allowed Skule to be a sympathetic character.

In fact, Dermot and Dervorgilla come out looking somewhat better than the Young Man does, which is terribly scandalous if the Young Man is representing Ireland. Dermot and

Dervorgilla presented their argument well, and we saw their pain and torment as they experienced it in their dance. We would be heartless is we could fail to be moved. But this was exactly Yeats's point, as it was Ibsen's. They longed to wipe out the notion that good and evil are directly related to nationality, or to the stereotyped averages. As

Yeats said, again in the "Irish Dramatic Movement":

Instead of individual men and women and living virtues differing as one differeth from another in glory, the public imagination is full of personified averages, partisan fictions, rules of life that would drill everybody into the one posture, habits that are like the pinafores of -school children. (61)

It is the same sentiment that Ibsen phrased somewhat more succinctly in a letter to Bjornsterne Bjornson in 1879, when he was lamenting the lack of thought that was so evident in the general public: 73

In the whole country there are not more than twenty­ five free and independent persons. (178)

Yet through their dramas, both Ibsen and Yeats have shown us that to be nationalist is not to be fanatical, bigoted, or naturalistic, but to be tolerant and open- minded. Centuries of oppression should serve to teach a country how to be individual without in turn oppressing anyone else. Only through understanding would their nations ever be truly free, which is the ultimate goal for each of them. With politics, myth, folklore, and character, Ibsen and Yeats both succeeded in founding effective national dramas that lent glory to their countries. Works Consulted Alver, Brynjulf. "Folklore and National Identity." Nordic Folklore. Ed. Reimund Kvideland and Henning K. Sehmsdorf. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989. 12-23.

Asbjornsen, Peter Christen. Norwegian Folk Tales. New York: The Viking Press, 1960. Fairy Tales from the Far North. Trans. H. L. Braekstad. New York: A. L. Burt Company, 1897. Bradley, Anthony. William Butler Yeats. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, 1979. Byer, Edvard. Ibsen: The Man and His Work. New York: Taplinger Publishing Company, 1978.

Cusack, Mary Frances. The Illustrated History of Ireland. New York: Crescent Books, 1987. Duffy, Charles Gavan. "The Revival of Irish Literature." The Revival of Irish Literature. 1894. New York: Lemma Publishing Company, 1973. 9-60.

Ellis-Fermor, Una. The Irish Dramatic Movement. London: Methuen and Company, Ltd., 1939.

Fjelde, Rolf. Ibsen: A Collection of Critical Essays. New : Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1965.

Gregory, Lady. Cuchulain of Muirthemne. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970. Journals. Ed. Lennox Robinson. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1947. Holtan, Orley I. Mythic Patterns in Ibsen's Last Plays. Minneapolis: The University of Minneapolis Press, 1970. Hyde, Douglas. "The Necessity for De-Anglicising Ireland." The Revival of Irish Literature. 1894. New York: Lemma Publishing Company, 1973. Ibsen, Henrik. Brand. 1865. Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1960.

74 Letters and Speeches. Ed. Evert Sprinchorn. New York: Hill and Wang, 1964. The Pretenders. Trans. Michael Meyer. London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1964. Jeffares, A. Norman. W. B. Yeats: A New Biography. New York: Farrar and Straus Giroux, 1988. Knight, G. Wilson. Ibsen. and London: Oliver and Boyd, Ltd., 1962. McFarlane, James Walter. Ibsen and the Temper of Norwegian Literature. London: Oxford University Press, 1960. "Introduction." The Vikings at Helgeland. London: Oxford University Press, 1962. Meyer, Michael. "Preface." Brand. Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1960.

O'Driscoll, Robert. Theatre and Nationalism in Twentieth­ Century Ireland. London: Oxford University Press, 1971. o lAodha, Michael. Theatre in Ireland. New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield, 1974. Setterquist, Jan. Ibsen and the Beginnings of Anglo-Irish Drama. New York: Oriole Editions, 1951.

Squire, Charles. Celtic Myth and Legend. Newcastle PUblishing Company, Inc., 1975.

Ure, Peter. Yeats and Anglo-Irish Literature. : Barnes and Noble, 1974. Yeats, William Butler. "Appendix IV." Plays: Enlarged and Revisited. New York: MacMillan and Company, 1919. 522-533. "The Countess Cathleen." 1892. Plays and Controversies. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1924. 3-50.

"The Irish Dramatic Movement." 1901. Plays and Controversies. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1924.

75 76

The Senate Speeches of W. B. Yeats. London: Faber and Faber, 1960.