Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), Norwegian dramatist, whose realistic plays dealing with psychological and social problems won him recognition as the creator of modern drama.

Ibsen was born on March 20, 1828 in Skien. For a short time he was assistant to an apothecary and began medical studies before beginning a lifetime association with the theatre. He was stage manager-playwright at the National Theatre in Bergen from 1851 to 1857 and later director of the theatre at Christiania (now Oslo) from 1857 to 1862. During these years of practical theatre work he wrote his first plays. From 1863 to 1891 Ibsen lived chiefly in Italy and Germany. He subsisted first on a travelling scholarship and later on an annual pension, granted by the Storting, the Norwegian parliament. In 1891 he returned to Christiania; he died there on May 23, 1906.

Ibsen's early work included two verse dramas. The first, Brand (1866; first produced in 1885), dramatized the tragedy of blind devotion to a false sense of duty; the second, Peer Gynt (1867), related, in allegorical terms, the adventures of a charming opportunist. With Pillars of Society (1877), an attack on hypocrisy and eulogy of individualism presented in the story of an unscrupulous businessman, Ibsen began the series of plays that brought him worldwide fame. A Doll's House (1879), Ghosts (1881), and Hedda Gabler (1890) are probably the most frequently performed of his plays. The first, which provoked a major literary controversy, tells of a woman's rebellion against the confines of a loveless marriage; the second deals with hereditary insanity and the conflict of generations; the third portrays the relationships of a strong-willed woman with those around her and the consequences that follow a denial of her lust for life. Among the other plays written by Ibsen are An Enemy of the People (1882), The Wild Duck (1884), Rosmersholm (1886), The Lady from the Sea (1888), The Master Builder (1892), and When We Dead Awaken (1900). The dramatic action usually revolves around an individual in conflict with the strictures of contemporary society and is triggered as past events gradually become known.

Although Ibsen's plays shocked contemporary audiences, they were championed by such serious critics as George Bernard Shaw and William Archer in England and Georg Brandes in Denmark. Ibsen's characters, the critics pointed out, were recognizable people; their problems were familiar to the audience. Ibsen's plays marked the end of the wildly romantic and artificial melodramas popular in the 19th century. His influence on 20th-century drama is immeasurable.