at the beginning of the century by Germany. They speak, in various
modified forms, a language which the rest of the world have regarded
as little more than barbarous, and are looked upon generally as an
innocent and primitive folk. Yet they contain centres of intense
literary activity; they have produced novels of a peculiarly fresh
and penetrating realism; and they possess, moreover, a stage on which
great literary works may be performed, and the burning questions of the
modern world be scenically resolved. It is natural that Norway, with
its historical past and literary traditions, should be the chief centre
of this activity, and that a Norwegian should stand forth to-day as the
chief figure of European significance that has appeared in the Teutonic
world of art since Goethe.
To understand Norwegian art--whether in its popular music, with
its extremes of melancholy or hilarity, or in its highly-developed
literature--we must understand the peculiar character of the land
which has produced this people. It is a land having, in its most
characteristic regions, a year of but one day and night--the summer a
perpetual warm sunlit day filled with the aroma of trees and plants,
and the rest of the year a night of darkness and horror; a land
which is the extreme northern limit of European civilization, on the
outskirts of which the great primitive gods still dwell; and where
elves and fairies and mermaids are still regarded, according to the
expression of Jonas Lie, as tame domestic animals. Such an environment
must work mightily on the spirit and temper of the race. As one of the
persons in Björnson’s “Over Ævne” observes--“There is something in
Nature here which challenges whatever is extraordinary in us. Nature
herself here goes beyond all ordinary measure. We have night nearly all
the winter; we have day nearly all the summer, with the sun by day and
by night above the horizon. You have seen it at night half-veiled by
the mists from the sea; it often looks three, even four, times larger
than usual. And then the play of colours on sky, sea, and rock, from
the most glowing red to the softest and most delicate yellow and white!
And then the colours of the Northern Lights on the winter sky, with
their more suppressed kind of wild pictures, yet full of unrest and
forever changing! Then the other wonders of Nature! These millions of
sea-birds, and the wandering processions of fish, stretching for miles!
These perpendicular cliffs that rise directly out of the sea! They are
not like other mountains, and the Atlantic roars round their feet. And
the ideas of the people are correspondingly unmeasured. Listen to their
legends and stories.”
So striking are the contrasts in the Norwegian character that they have
been supposed to be due to the mingling of races; the fair-haired,
blue-eyed Norwegian of the old Sagas, silent and deep-natured, being
modified, now (especially in the north) by the darker, brown-eyed Lapp,
with his weakness of character, vivid imagination, and tendency to
natural mysticism, and, again (especially in the east), by the daring,
practical, energetic Finn.
However this may be, among the Norwegian poets and novelists various
qualities often meet together in striking opposition; wild and
fantastic imagination stands beside an exact realism and a loving
grasp of nature; a tendency to mysticism and symbol beside a healthy
naturalism. We find these characteristics variously combined in Ibsen;
in Björnson, with his virile strength and generous emotions, amid which
a mystic influence now and then appears; in Jonas Lie, with his subtle
and delicate spirit, so intimately national; in Kielland, a realistic
novelist of most dainty and delicate art, beneath which may be heard
the sombre undertone of his sympathy with the weak and the oppressed.
Of these writers, and others only less remarkable, one alone is at all
well known in England, and even he is known exclusively by his early
work, especially by that most delightful of peasant stories, “Arne.” In
Germany the Scandinavian novelists and dramatists have received much
attention, and are widely known through excellent and easily accessible
translations. Yet our English race and speech are even more closely
allied to the northern; our land is studded with easily recognizable
Scandinavian place-names and Scandinavian colonies, whose dialects
are full of genuine Scandinavian words unknown to literary English.
It is not likely that this indifference to the social, political, and
literary history of our northern kinsmen can last much longer.
About 1720 a Danish skipper, one Peter Ibsen, came over from Moen[8]
to Bergen and settled there. He married the daughter of a German who
had likewise emigrated from his own country: these were the poet’s
great-great-grandparents. Peter Ibsen had a son, Henrik Petersen Ibsen,
who was also a ship’s captain. He married a lady whose name is given as
Wenche Dischington, the daughter of a Scotchman naturalized in Norway.
This Henrik Ibsen settled in Skien, and had a son of the same name who
married a German wife. All these Ibsens were sailors. Henrik Ibsen’s
son, Knud Ibsen, the dramatist’s father, like his father married a
wife of German extraction, Maria Cornelia Altenburg, the daughter of a
merchant who had begun life as a sailor.
[8] This island, I may note in passing, is the home of a black-haired
race, very unlike the typical Norsemen, and which has been identified
with those “black strangers” spoken of by the Irish chroniclers who
described the Viking invasions.
This ancestry is very significant. It will be seen that Ibsen is
on both sides predominantly German, and that in his German and
Danish blood there is an interesting Scotch strain. The tendency
to philosophic abstraction and the strenuous earnestness, mingling
with the more characteristically northern imaginative influences,
are explained by this German and Scotch ancestry; it explains also
the peculiarly isolated and yet cosmopolitan attitude which marks
Ibsen--why it is that his works have been so enthusiastically received
and so easily naturalized in Germany, and why, now that they are
beginning to be known, they promise to make so deep an impression in
our own land.
Ibsen’s mother possessed a shy, silent, and solitary nature, which she
imparted to her son. One of her daughters thus describes her: “She
was a quiet, lovable woman, the soul of the house, devoted to her
husband and children. She was always sacrificing herself. There was no
bitterness or reproach in her.” The father was of cheerful disposition,
a man of sociable tastes, popular in his circle, but also feared, for
he had a keen wit, and, like his son, he could use it unmercifully.
Knud Ibsen’s eldest son, Henrik,[9] was born at Skien, a busy little
town of some 3,000 inhabitants occupied in the timber trade, on
the 20th March, 1828. “I was born,” the dramatist writes in some
reminiscences published by Mr. Jaeger for the first time, “in a house
in the market-place, Stockmann’s house it was then called. The house
lay right opposite the church with its high steps and large tower.
To the right, in front of the church, stood the town pillory, and to
the left the town-hall, the lock-up, and the ‘madhouse.’ The fourth
side of the market-place was occupied by the Latin school and the town
school. The church lay free in the middle. This prospect was the first
view of the earth that presented itself to my eyes. All buildings;
no green, no rural open landscape.” It was in the church tower that
the baby Henrik received his first conscious and deep impression. The
nursemaid took him up and held him out (to the horror of his mother
below), and he never forgot that new and strange vision of the world
from above. Ibsen goes on to describe the attractions which were held
for him in the gloomy town-hall and the pillory, unused for many years,
a red-brown post of about a man’s height, with a great round knob which
had originally been painted black, but which then looked like a human
face. In front of the post hung an iron chain, and in that an iron
ring which seemed like two small arms ready to clasp the child’s neck
on the least provocation. And then there was the town-hall. That, too,
had high steps like the church, and underneath it was the gaol with its
barred windows: “inside the bars I have seen many pale and dark faces.”
And then there was the “madhouse,” which in its time had really been
used to confine lunatics. That also was barred, but inside the bars the
little window was filled by a massive iron plate with small round holes
like a sieve. This place was said to have been the abode of a famous
criminal who had been branded.
[9] Many books and pamphlets dealing with his life and works have
appeared in Denmark, Sweden and Germany. The chief of these are
Vasenius’s “Henrik Ibsen, ett Skaldeporträtt,” Stockholm, 1882;
Passarge’s “Henrik Ibsen: Ein Beitrag zur neusten Geschichte der
norwegischen Nationalliteratur,” Leipsic, 1883; and H. Jaeger’s “Henrik
Ibsen, 1828-1888,” Copenhagen. The last-named, now translated, is by
far the best.
These early impressions of the dramatist--the church tower, the
pillory, the barred windows, the pale criminals--are of no little
interest. They help to explain for us the sombre and tragic cast,
purely human and reflective, of Ibsen’s character. They explain, too,
the absence in his work of the sea and the forest, of those things
which give such a sweet, wild aroma, now and again, to the work of
Björnson and Lie. The little town, with its active commercial life and
its equally active religious life--for Skien was a centre of pietistic
influence--was such a place as is brought before us in “De Unges
Forbund” and in “Samfundets Stötter,” and it was a fit birthplace for
the author of “Brand.”
Knud Ibsen belonged to the aristocracy of Skien, and his house was a
centre of its social life. When Henrik was eight years old there was an
end of this, for his father became a bankrupt. After the catastrophe
the family retired to a small and humble home outside Skien, where they
lived with a frugality which was in marked contrast with their former
life. There can be no doubt that this sudden change of circumstances,
and the insight which it brought into the social cleavage of a
provincial town, counted for much in Ibsen’s development. It is certain
that at this period his marked individuality began to be perceived.
He did not play like the other children; while they romped in the
yard, he retired into a little inclosure in an alley that led to the
kitchen, and barricaded himself against the heedless incursions of the
younger members of the family. Here he kept guard, not only in summer,
but in the depth of winter. It is clear that even at this early age
Ibsen had reached the point of proud isolation and defiance of his
fellow-citizens which Stockmann ultimately attained. One of his sisters
describes how they used to throw stones and snowballs at his retreat
to make him come out to join their play, but when he could no longer
withstand the attack and yielded to the assailants, he could display no
skill in any kind of sport, and soon retired again to his den. Reading
appears to have been one of his chief occupations there, and Jaeger
assures us that the words which many years afterwards Ibsen put into
the mouth of the little girl Hedwig, who is so pathetic and tender a
figure in one of his latest dramas, “Vildanden,” contain a reminiscence
of childhood. “And do you read the books?” asked Gregers. “Oh, yes,
when I can. But most of them are English, and I can’t read those. But
then I can look at the pictures. There is one big black book, called
Harryson’s ‘History of London;’ it must be a hundred years old, and
that has such a number of pictures in it. First there is a picture of
Death with an hourglass and a girl. I think that is hideous. But then
there are all sorts of other pictures, with churches and castles and
streets and great ships that sail on the sea.” He also amused himself
with pencil and colour-box. Meanwhile he went to school, going through
the usual course and learning a little Latin; he appears to have taken
a special interest in the Biblical instruction. At fourteen he was
confirmed, and the time came for him to make his way in the world.
At this period he wished to become a painter; he devoted himself with
zeal to drawing, and an interest in painting has remained with him, the
formation of an excellent little collection of Renaissance pictures
becoming in later life one of his chief hobbies. In the existing state
of the family means, this career was out of the question, and he was
sent to an apothecary at Grimstad, a little town containing at that
time not more than 800 inhabitants. The apothecary’s shop, Jaeger
remarks, is the place where all the loungers meet in the evening to
discuss the events of the day, and doubtless the apothecary’s shop was
an element in the education of the future dramatist. In his interesting
preface to the second edition of “Catilina” he has himself described
the five years of development that he went through in this little town.
He did not wish to become a chemist; he would become a student and
study medicine. At the same time his poetical activity and the eventful
year of 1848 came to arouse in the silent, solitary boy a healthy
interest in the outside world.
It was while reading Sallust and Cicero for his matriculation
examination that he conceived, and wrote at midnight, his first
play, “Catilina.” With the help of two enthusiastic young friends the
tragedy was published and some thirty copies sold--a result which
did not permit of the proposed tour in the East on which the three
friends had decided to expend the profits of the sale. Ibsen was now
in his twenty-second year, and he came up to Christiania to carry
on his studies at the school of Heltberg, who seems to have had a
singularly stimulating influence on young men, and at the university.
Here Ibsen was the comrade of Björnson, Jonas Lie, and others who have
since become famous. At a later date Björnson condensed his youthful
impression of his friend in two vigorous lines:
“Tense and lean, the colour of gypsum,
Behind a vast coal-black beard, Henrik Ibsen.”
The period now arrived at which Ibsen’s career was definitely
settled. He had been making several unsuccessful literary attempts at
Christiania, having finally abandoned the intention to study medicine,
when, in 1851, the famous violinist, Ole Bull, who has done so much
to give artistic shape and energy to the modern Norwegian spirit,
gave him an appointment at the National Theatre which he had recently
established at Bergen. Ibsen’s prentice hand was now trained by the
writing of several dramas not included among his published works;
and, like Shakespeare and Molière in somewhat similar circumstances,
he here acquired his mastery of the technical demands of dramatic
form. In 1855 his apprenticeship may be said to have ended, and he
produced “Fru Inger til Östraat” (Dame Inger of Östraat), an historical
prose drama of great energy and concentration. In 1858 he married
Susanna Thoresen, the daughter of a Bergen clergyman, whose second
wife, Magdalene Thoresen, is a well-known authoress. At the same
period he was appointed artistic director of the Norwegian theatre
at Christiania, a post previously occupied by Björnson, who had
just inaugurated the Norwegian peasant novel by the publication of
“Synnöve Solbakken.” In 1864, having acquired the means, Ibsen found it
desirable to quit the somewhat provincial and uncongenial atmosphere of
his native country, and has since lived in Rome, in Ischia, in Dresden,
and at other places, but mainly at Munich, producing on an average a
drama every two years. In 1885 he revisited Norway. Time had brought
its revenges, and he was enthusiastically received everywhere. At
Drontheim he made a remarkable speech to a club of working-men. “Mere
democracy,” he said, “cannot solve the social question. An element of
aristocracy must be introduced into our life. Of course I do not mean
the aristocracy of birth or of the purse, or even the aristocracy of
intellect. I mean the aristocracy of character, of will, of mind.
That only can free us. From two groups will this aristocracy I hope
for come to our people--from our women and our workmen. The revolution
in the social condition, now preparing in Europe, is chiefly concerned
with the future of the workers and the women. In this I place all my
hopes and expectations; for this I will work all my life and with all
my strength.” In private conversation, it is said, Ibsen describes
himself as a Socialist, although he has not identified himself with any
definite school of Socialism.
In personal appearance he is rather short, but impressive and very
vigorous. He has a peculiarly broad and high forehead, with small,
keen, blue-grey eyes “which seem to penetrate to the heart of things.”
His firm and compressed mouth is characteristic of “the man of the iron
will,” as he has been called by a fellow-countryman. Altogether it
is a remarkable and significant face, clear-seeing and alert, with a
decisive energy of will about it that none can fail to recognize. It is
far indeed from the typical “pure, extravagant, yearning, questioning
artist’s face.” In middle age it recalled, rather, the faces of some of
our most distinguished surgeons; as is perhaps meet in the case of a
writer who has used so skilful and daring a scalpel to cut to the core
of social diseases. In society, although he likes talking to the common
people, Ibsen is usually reserved and silent; or his conversation
deals with the most ordinary topics; “he talks like a wholesale
tradesman,” it has been said.
Ibsen’s dramas (excluding two or three which have not been published)
may be conveniently divided into three groups, but the division is a
rough one, for the groups merge one into another; Ibsen’s artistic
development has been gradual and continuous.--1. Historical and
Legendary Dramas, chiefly in Prose: The youthful “Catilina” (written
in 1850, but revised at a later period), which stands by itself, and
contains the germ of much of his later work; “Fru Inger til Östraat”
(Dame Inger of Östraat), 1855, an effective melodramatic play of
great technical skill; “Gildet paa Solhaug” (The Feast at Solhaug),
an historical play of the fourteenth century, written in 1855, and
reprinted in 1883, with a preface explaining its genesis; “Hærmændene
paa Helgeland” (The Warriors at Helgeland), 1858, a noble version of
the Volsunga-Saga, here brought down to more historical times, so as to
present a vivid and human picture of the Viking period; “Kongs-emnerne”
(The Pretenders), 1864, dealing with Norwegian history in the twelfth
century; “Keiser og Galilæer” (Emperor and Galilean), finished in
1873, but begun many years earlier. 2. Dramatic Poems: “Kjærlighedens
Komedie” (Love’s Comedy), 1862; “Brand,” 1866; “Peer Gynt,” 1867. 3.
Social Dramas: “De Unges Forbund” (The Young Men’s League), 1869;
“Samfundets Stötter” (The Pillars of Society), 1877; “Et Dukkehjem”
(A Doll’s House), 1879; “Gengangere” (Ghosts), 1881; “En Folkefiende”
(An Enemy of Society), 1882; “Vildanden” (The Wild Duck), 1884;
“Rosmersholm,” 1886; “Fruen fra Havet” (The Lady from the Sea), 1888.
“Hærmændene paa Helgeland” is Ibsen’s first great drama; it has,
indeed, been called the most perfect of his plays. The antique form
and substance which he imposed upon himself compelled him to a severe
self-restraint; the style also of the drama, which is in prose, is
austerely simple and strong. Yet there is at the same time a curious
and undisguised modern note about this work, and we feel throughout the
presence of that spirit which gives life to Ibsen’s plays of to-day.
The strong, passionate figure of Hjördis fills most of the field,
however finely the lesser figures are moulded. She is the Brunhild of
the ancient story, yet she is the same woman who is the heroine and
the hero of all Ibsen’s social dramas; a strong and passionate woman,
instinct with suppressed energy to which the natural outlets have been
closed, and which is transformed into volcanic outbreaks of disaster.
“A woman, a woman,” she says to Dagny, who is shocked at a remark about
using the armour and weapons of a man, and mixing among men, “there
is no one who knows what a woman can do.” Her father having been
slain, she is brought as a young girl into the conqueror’s household.
She finds a temporary satisfaction in the exercise of her physical
strength. When the mild and honourable warrior Sigurd comes with his
feeble friend Gunnar, both fall in love with her, and she, without
speaking it, returns Sigurd’s love. She promises to give herself to
him who can perform the greatest feat of strength, and Sigurd, by a
ruse, wins her for his friend Gunnar, himself taking to wife the gentle
Dagny. Henceforth there is something strange and incalculable in all
the deeds of Hjördis, and a concentrated bitterness in her words. When
afterwards she learns that Sigurd had once loved her, the proud and
reserved woman offers in vain to put on helmet and breastplate and to
follow him through the earth. “I have been homeless in the world from
the day that you took another to wife. Ill was that deed of yours. All
good gifts may a man give to his trothful friend,--all, but not the
woman he holds dear. When he does that deed, he breaks the thread that
the Norns have spun, and wastes two lives.” Hjördis is the woman of the
social dramas, but it has not yet occurred to her that she has a life
of her own.
“Emperor and Galilean,”[10] although historical and written in prose,
is very unlike “Hærmændene paa Helgeland”; it belongs, indeed, in date
as well as in character, almost as much to the second group. It is
made up of two five-act dramas, presenting a series of brilliant and
powerful scenes in the life of the Emperor Julian, lacking, however,
dramatic unity and culminating interest. It is probable that the
disconnected character of the work, and its undue length, is owing to
the long period which intervened between its commencement in Norway and
its completion at Rome. It is, in its parts, undoubtedly a fascinating
work; we trace Julian’s life from his youth as a student of philosophy
to his death as Emperor conquered by the Galilean. The interest of
his life lies in his various relations to the growing Christianity
and decaying Paganism by which he is surrounded. Julian realizes the
possibility of a third religion--“the reconciliation between nature
and spirit, the return to nature through spirit: that is the task for
humanity.” But he imagines that he is himself the divine representative
of this new religion. His friend Maximus prophesies at the end “The
third kingdom shall come! The spirit of man shall take its inheritance
once more.” Julian failed because he was weak and vain, and because
the age was against him; he dies with the cry on his lips, “Thou hast
conquered, O Galilean!”
[10] It may be noted that this was the first of Ibsen’s dramas to be
translated into English, by Miss Catherine Ray, in 1876. To Mr. Gosse
belongs the honour of having first introduced Ibsen to English readers,
in an article in the “Fortnightly,” in 1874. The first of his social
dramas to be translated into English was “The Doll’s House” (under the
title of “Nora”), by Miss Frances Lord in 1882.