"Behold, to us a second growth there fares
That with the first like hemp with silk compares;
And stalks and rubbish 'midst the leaves we see;
This is the blackened tea--
It fills the market."
Ibsen has simply given further development to the simile and invested
it with the solid mould of verse.
It is a well-known fact, that there is nothing clear in "Love's
Comedy" except its mockery. The play presents a satire on marriage
which imparts to the reader as little sympathy for the defenders of
the conventional standard, as for its assailers, and from which it is
impossible to detect whether in the poet's opinion it is better to
maintain the present practices of society or to overthrow them. The
only thing that is certain is his misanthropic view of the betrothals
and marriages that have come under his observation. I remember a
conversation with Ibsen in reference to this drama, which revolved
about the ideal of love among betrothed couples in general. I said,
"There are blighted potatoes and there are sound potatoes." Ibsen
replied, "I very much fear I have never seen any of those potatoes that
were sound."
Nevertheless, there runs through Ibsen's works a continually increasing
faith in woman, and tendency to glorify woman. At times this appears
in a rather revolting, dogmatic way, as when Solveig, in "Peer Gynt"
after the traditional style of Goethe's "Faust" and Paludan-Müller's
"Adam Homo," through her faithful love, saves the soul of her
lover,--in this instance an altogether too unworthy being; but this
faith in woman, with which Ibsen evidently desires to counterbalance
his contempt for man, is ever present, and has been productive of a
series of true and beautiful female characterizations, such as Margrete
in "The Pretenders," who is represented by a few delicate strokes in
imperishable beauty; or Selma in "The Young Men's Union," who may be
regarded as the first draught of Nora. When this figure was new, I
remarked in a review that the drama did not afford sufficient play for
it, that an entire new drama should be written expressly for it. This
was done in "Et Dukkehjem" (A Model Home).
As far as I can judge, the idea of woman's emancipation, in the modern
acceptation of the phrase, was far from being familiar and dear to
Henrik Ibsen at the outset of his career. On the contrary, he did not
originally possess a large amount of sympathy for woman. There are
authors who have a peculiar affinity for women, who have, indeed, a
decided feminine element in their own natures. Ibsen does not belong
to this class. I am quite confident he takes far more pleasure in
conversation with men than with women, and he has certainly passed much
less time in the society of women than is the wont of poets. Moreover,
the attempt of modern literature to prove the justice of a change in
woman's social status, was at first far from finding an enthusiastic
admirer in him.. Mill's book on the woman question was, if I mistake
not, actually repulsive to him in the early days of its appearance,
and Mill, as a writer, inspired him with no sympathy whatever. Indeed,
to Ibsen, with his marked individuality, Mill's statement, or rather
confession, that he owed much in his writings, indeed the best they
contained, to his wife, seemed absurdly ludicrous. "Only fancy," he
said, smiling, "what it would be to read Hegel or Krause with the idea
that it was quite uncertain whether we were following the thoughts of
Mr. or of Mrs. Hegel, of Mr. or of Mrs. Krause!"
It does not seem to me that this aversion on the part of Ibsen was
wholly without a connection with the poet's sentiments in regard to the
woman question. I am rather inclined to think there was in his mind an
opposition to the latter during its early stages, partly owing to the
influences of his education, partly owing to a natural irritation at
the caricature forms of female emancipation, but an opposition whose
destiny it was to give place to passionate adherence. It is Ibsen's
reason that has wrought the change in his emotional nature. Like a true
poet, he is capable of becoming, with his whole soul, the organ of an
idea which once had left him cold, the moment he feels this idea to be
one of those battle-thoughts of the period that are fraught with rich
meaning for the future. And when we read those words, that fall like
sword-strokes, in the last scene of _"A_ Model Home," Helmer's--
"There is no one who yields up his honor for those whom he loves,"
and Nora's--
"'Tis what hundreds and thousands of women have done,"
words in which a more hideous abyss yawns between the husband and
wife that sit opposite each other at table than the nether world ever
opened in the old dramas of romance, we feel, indeed, that Ibsen
has not merely filled his soul with the thoughts of the age; he has
fashioned them on a grander scale than any one else, he has ground
them until they are sharper than in the hands of others, so that with
his consummate art he can make them penetrate even the most hardened
hearts. This drama produced a powerful, although alarming effect.
For centuries society, through its priests and poets, had conceived
of marriage, founded in love and undisturbed by the influence of a
third person, as a sure haven of bliss, and had celebrated it as such
in song. Now it was discovered that this haven was full of rocks and
shoals. It actually seemed as though Ibsen had extinguished all the
beacon lights.
"Gjengangere" (Apparitions) followed. Here, again, as in "A Model
Home," a marriage was analyzed, the opposite of the one in the
last-named drama. The grandeur and exquisite delicacy of "A Model Home"
consisted chiefly in the fact that Ibsen had conceded so much to the
husband. For what had he not conceded to this man! He is a thoroughly
honorable, conscientiously upright man, an excellent provider for
his family, a man who is properly jealous of his independence in his
dealings with strangers and subordinates, a strict and loving father, a
good-hearted, highly cultivated man,--and yet! Yet this man's wife was
a victim, and his marriage a whited sepulchre.
The man into whose marriage we gain deep insight in "Apparitions"
is a person of a totally opposite character; he is a coarse-natured
drunkard, is recklessly dissolute, yet is endowed with so many of
those qualities licentious men often have at their command with which
to win hearts, and knows how to make himself so agreeable, that it
is possible for his wife to screen his life and save appearances. By
remaining with him, by giving herself to him, she not only sacrifices
her own welfare and happiness, she also becomes the mother of a being
whose life is wrecked from birth, a son who is overtaken by deadly
impotence, despair, insanity, and idiocy, as he crosses the threshold
of manhood,--and yet! Yet that portion of the community which is
represented by Pastor Manders deems her sacrifice of herself and her
son her simple duty, and her attempted revolt at her hideous fate a
crime.
This is the pathos of the play, and this same pathos it was that
terrified the great Philistine world more than "A Model Home" had done.
This time it seemed as though the stars had been extinguished by
Ibsen. "Not the faintest ray of light appears."
The relation between man and woman in "Apparitions" is placed in a
totally new light, inasmuch as it is measured by responsibility to the
child. The drama treats, in a poetic form, the thought of heredity,
represents, on the basis of that determinism which is the latest word
of modern science on the question, the dependence of the child's
destiny on the parents, and gives this fact a background of a nature
calculated to arouse profound thought and feeling by indicating the
more universal fact to which the title points; namely, the hereditary
transmission of emotions (and through these of dogmas) whose essential
conditions are extinct, and have given place to others at variance with
these emotions.
In close relation to Ibsen's psychological development there is
associated a principal interest in this grasp or choice of themes,
inasmuch as we here for the first time see the great dramatist break
the circle it has been the wont of his disposition to cast about the
single individual. In a letter of the year 1871, Ibsen wrote me the
following words, which are indicative of much in his character:--
"To tell the truth, I have never had a very great fancy for solidarity.
I have, indeed, only taken it into my cargo as a matter of traditional
dogmatism. If we only had the courage to leave it entirely out of
consideration, we might possibly become rid of the ballast that weighs
most heavily on personality...."
Now, ten years later, his eyes are opened to the significance of
solidarity; he has become thoroughly convinced that "courage" is of no
avail in the attempt to cast it overboard, and that we are all from our
birth consolidated with persons and things in a way we ourselves cannot
control. Evidently, as years pass on, Ibsen enters into a more and
more intimate relation with the fundamental ideas of the age.
Thus we see him, who at first, with almost all the now living older
writers of the day, stood waist-deep in the romantic period, gradually
work his way out of it, and become more and more modern, until finally
he grows to be the most modern of modern writers. In my estimation,
this is his imperishable glory, and will invest his works with enduring
life. For the modern is not the ephemeral; it is the vital flame
itself, the life-spark, the ideal soul of an age.
The ill feeling aroused by "Apparitions" in many circles, and the
coarse criticism aimed at the drama, could have no power to repress
Ibsen's literary productivity, but at first it had a very depressing
effect on him. He wrote of it:--
"When I think how sluggish and dull and stupid affairs are in
Norway, when I observe how superficial, how shallow, the entire mode
of contemplation proves itself to be, a profound melancholy takes
possession of me, and I feel inclined to put an immediate end to
my literary activity. There is no demand at home for poetic works
proper; people have all that is required in the "Storthing" organ and
in the Lutheran weekly journal, and, besides, they have the party
newspapers. I have not the least talent either for citizenship or
for orthodoxy, and that for which I feel no talent I avoid. To me,
freedom is the highest and first life requisite. At home, however,
people do not concern themselves much about freedom; they care only for
special liberties, for some more, for some less, according to party
standpoint. Most painfully am I moved by this crude state of affairs,
this vulgarism in our public discussions. Under the very laudable
endeavor to transform our people into a democratic community, quite a
long stretch of the road is being traversed that leads to plebeian
conditions. The intellectual aristocracy seems to be on the decline at
home...."
The storm aroused by "Apparitions" could exercise no other influence on
Ibsen than one that strengthened him in his conviction of the stupidity
of the majority. He wrote to me about this, Jan. 3, 1882, as follows:--
"Björnson says, 'The majority is always right,' and for a practical
politician this is the proper thing to say. I, on the contrary, must
necessarily say, The minority is always right. As a matter of course,
I do not refer to that minority of people who are in a state of
stagnation, and who are left in the lurch by the great intermediate
party, with us called liberals; but I mean that minority which is the
advance guard in the forward march toward a goal the majority is not
yet in a condition to attain."[4]
A good omen for the future works of Ibsen is the fact that, in the
same ratio that he becomes modern, his greatness as a literary artist
increases. The ideas of the new era have not assumed the forms of
symbols or of types with him, but of individuals. In his younger years,
he had a proclivity for great symbolic ideals,--Brand, Peer Gynt, etc.;
but, singularly enough, the more his store of thoughts increased, the
clearer they became and the more artistic his presentation of them.
His mastery of technicalities, of late years, has increased from work
to work. In "A Model Home," he surpassed the _technique_ of the most
celebrated French dramatists; and in "Apparitions" (notwithstanding
certain unsatisfactory points), he displayed a dramatic firmness,
simplicity, and delicacy, which recalls the antique tragedy in the
hands of Sophocles (especially King Œdipus).
This continual progress is a matter dependent on Ibsen's artistic
earnestness, his conscientious industry. He labors very slowly, writes
and re-writes his works, until they appear in a neat-looking manuscript
without a single correction, each page as smooth and as firm as a
marble plate, on which the tooth of time can leave no impression. This
never-ceasing ascent in perfection depends, too, even more closely
on the fact that Ibsen is solely and entirely a poet, and has never
wished to be anything but a poet. True, it may give the impression of
coldness and undue reserve, when an author can be led by no outward
recurrence whatever to mingle his voice in the universal debate;
when nothing that occurs can irritate or inspire him to an outburst.
The only newspaper articles Ibsen has written during the past five
years are probably a few that bore on his rights in reference to his
publishers, or his griefs in regard to the plunderings of his foreign
translators,--therefore, on his personal and private interests; but it
should not be forgotten that this reserve of his has permitted him to
hold the mastery in his art unwaveringly before his eyes as a fixed
idea, an ideal of which he never loses sight; and this mastery he has
attained. A sharper contrast can scarcely be imagined than that which
is presented by this poet, who remains alone in the South, shut off
on every side from the surrounding world, free from all distraction,
shaping and fashioning his artistic master-works; and his brother-poet
in the North, who with full, perhaps too full hands, pours into the
press his great and small articles on political, social, and religious
questions, who is never afraid to let his name appear anywhere, who,
paying no heed to the ordinary laws of prudence which prescribe that
one should allow one's absence to be felt occasionally and one's
presence to be desired, writes poems, makes public speeches, causes
agitations, travels from one public gathering to another, and is most
at his ease on the speaker's platform, with a thousand friends and a
hundred enemies about him, holding them breathless with his daring and
consummate art.
Henrik Ibsen bears no likeness to any other living poet, and is
influenced by none. As minds that bear a somewhat distant relationship
to him, may, perhaps with some justice, be mentioned the late German
poets, Otto Ludwig and Friedrich Hebbel, both of whom, however, are
far less modern in their tendencies than he. In the severity of his
satire, too, there may be said to be a reminder of Dumas and Sardou.
With Björnson, whose name almost insensibly falls from the pen when it
busies itself with Ibsen, he has, notwithstanding all dissimilarities
of nature, those things in common which naturally follow in the track
of compatriots and contemporaries whose development has proceeded
side by side, and who have been roused to emulation in the treatment
of the same themes. That Ibsen had written "De Unges Forbund" (The
Young Men's Union), gave Björnson an impulse to write dramas on civil
conditions. When Björnson had written "En Fallit" (The Bankrupt), Ibsen
was impelled to vary the subject in "Samfundets Stötter" (The Pillars
of Society). Björnson was obliged, as he has informed me, to strike out
a passage in the manuscript of his "Stöv" (Dust), because it appeared
almost word for word in Henrik Ibsen's "Gjengangere" (Apparitions),
which was issued before the story was printed. The fact is, the two
poets have traversed an almost parallel path of development. Henrik
Ibsen succeeded rather earlier than Björnson in working his way out of
the old historic, legendary, and fantastic materials; for in the freer
position he held, tom loose from home and standing amid the breakers
of contemporary ideas, he had less to hold him back from following the
call of his age, less naïveté, less reverence. But the difference
in time between the transition of the two poets from the period when
their materials were viewed from the standpoint of romance, to that
where the realistic point of view predominated, was confined to a few
years, and is lost sight of entirely, when we consider the remarkable
uniformity of the stages of their poetic career. Björnson and Ibsen
may be compared in this respect, as it seems to me, to the two old
Norse kings, Sigurd and Eystein, in the famous dialogue furnished by
the saga, and of which Björnson has availed himself in his "Sigurd
Jorsalfar" (Sigurd the Crusader). The one has remained at home and
there civilized his fatherland; the other has tom himself away from
home, has journeyed far and wide, and in his bold, adventurous courses
has won honor for his fatherland. Each has his admirers, each his
martial suite, who elevates the one at the expense of the other. Still,
they are brothers, even though for a season they were hostile brothers,
and it is simple justice that the kingdom--as it is done in the drama
of Björnson--should peacefully be divided between them.[5]
[1] Let me here take the liberty of referring the reader to this essay
(Æsthetiske Studier, 234-286), as I consider it in the main correct,
and will not here repeat its statements. A few individual sentences,
however, I have felt compelled to reproduce.
[2] Let me here call the reader's attention to my work, Sören
Kierkegaard, Copenhagen; German edition, Leipsic, 1879.
[3] In the preface to the second edition of Gildet paa Solhaug, issued
in 1883, after the work had been out of print some twenty-seven years,
Ibsen offered a protest against this suggestion of the influence of
Henrik Hertz.
[4] In these words lie the germ of the later production, "En
Folkefiende" (An Enemy of the People).
[5] To the list of the dramas of Henrik Ibsen furnished in this essay
may be added "Vildanden" (The Wild Duck), 1884, and "Den Ensomme" (The
Lonely One), 1886.