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Bourgeois tragedy: The Ibsen synthesis.
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Content
BOURGEOIS TRAGEDY: THE IBSEN SYNTHESIS
by
John Calvin Pearce
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(Comparative Literature)
August I960
UMI Number: DP22517
All rights reserved
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789 East Eisenhower Parkway
P.O. Box 1346
Ann Arbor, Ml 4 8 1 0 6 -1 3 4 6
UNIVERSITY O F S O U T H E R N CA LIFORNIA
GRADUATE SC H O O L
U N IV ER SITY PARK
LOS A N G E L E S 7, C A LIFO R N IA
’ Pht D Q a t I P3Sf
This dissertation, written by
John Calvin Pearce
under the direction of h.xs...Dissertation Com
mittee, and approved by all its members, has
been presented to and accepted by the Graduate
School, in partial fulfillment of requirements
for the degree of
D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y
Dean
Date August i960........... ...
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
Chairman
PREFACE
I believe the chief duty of the scholar in comparative
literature is to discover the background of a literary event and
bring it forward to use in understanding both the event and
present conditions related to it. Thus a large part of this dis
sertation concerns the interdependence of literatures that became
part of Henrik Ibsen's heritage, and the last chapter is a dis
cussion of his connection with our time.
I wish to acknowledge my debt to the United States Govern
ment for a Fulbright Grant that allowed me to complete research
for this dissertation in Scandinavia. My greatest thanks must go
to my teachers of literature, in particular Paul E. Hadley, with
whom I began my study of Ibsen.
to Bachel DeNiok
CONTENTS
Page
PREFACE....................................... ii
INTRODUCTION ....................................... 1
Chapter
I. IBSEN'S TRAGIC STATURE ....................... 3
II. THE RISE OF BOURGEOIS D R A M A ................ 13
III. COSMOPOLITAN DENMARK . .................... ^9
IV. ECLECTIC NORWAY............................. 73
V. IBSEN ABROAD, 1852 ........................... 89
VI. SYNTHESIS............. 123
VII. IBSEN AND AMERICA, I960..................... 15^
LIST OF WORKS CITED ..............'. . 158
INTRODUCTION
’ ’Henrik Ibsen, the father of the modern drama . . . ” is a
phrase found in one variation or another in many histories of
drama. It is followed, customarily, by a list of performances of
Ghosts at opening nights of various avant-garde theaters of the
l880's, '90's, and early 1900's. Mention follows of the once
shocking subject matter and consequent controversies in print.
And all is set forth, purportedly, to establish Ibsen as the
founder, through Ghosts, of a drama that is particularly of. our
time. The unsupported use of the cliche "father of the modern
drama” is, however, begging the question. For if Ibsen were such
he would have presented the modern theater with a prototype drama
— this he did not do.
Ghosts, so often called the prototype modern serious drama,
is more akin to George Barnwell or Miss Sara Sampson, or, for
that matter, to Oedipus Tyrannos, than it is to Die Koralle,
R.U.R., The Great God Brown, and Murder in the Cathedral— I am
listing from the contents of a modern anthology that opens with
the phrase beginning this paper.Ibsen himself did not claim to
have sired anything new in drama. He believed instead he had
brought a great movement to a close, and that something new was
about to emerge, something for which he, perhaps, had provided a
foundation.
Whether that something new has been born is a topic for
future research and debate. But whether Ibsen's work is the cul
mination of a movement of the past is a question that surely may
■^Alan S. Downer and S. Marion Tucker, Twenty-five Modern
Plays (New York, 1953). The anthology is arranged chronological
ly, opening with Ibsen's Rosmersholm.
2
See Ibsen's speech in Stockholm, Sweden, of September Zk,
1887, printed in the fifteenth volume of the definitive hundredth
anniversary edition of his works, Henrik Ibsens Samlede Verker,
ed. Francis Bull et al (Oslo, 1952), pp. 410-^11.
1
2
be answered now, more than fifty years after his death. One of
the chief problems of this dissertation is to try to answer this
question, at the same time testing the thesis that Ibsen's work
is the foundation of modern drama.
I. IBSEN'S TRAGIC STATURE
"It has been the function of criticism, from the Renaissance
almost to the present day, to analyze and debate the validity of
Aristotelian and pseudo-Aristotelian principles," write Fred
Millett and Gerald Bentley in The Art of the Drama Three of
the principles they list are traditionally involved in the evalu
ation of tragedy, namely, "the validity of the three unities,"
"the meaning and process of catharsis," and "the nature of the
2
tragic hero."
To the student of comparative literature, the generalization
about the history of the Aristotelian debate is quite familiar,
as is the further assertion that dramatists and critics of various
times have misinterpreted or misrepresented Aristotle's state
ments on tragedy. At other times— and these often productive of
great tragic works— there has been considerable "growth, ex
pansion and extension of the principles inherent in Aristotle"
(p. 131). Millett and Bentley repeat yet another commonly ac
cepted belief, that the outstanding periods of the extension of
Aristotelian principles; are the Renaissance in England— producing
the incomparable Elizabethan tragedies— and recent times in
Europe— producing what the authors term "modern tragedy" (p. 67).
At this point in their analysis they draw a thoughtprovoking
parallel between modern and Greek tragedy, which they find in a
■^■(New York, 1935)* P* 131*
2
Aristotle defined tragedy as "an imitation of some action
that is important, entire, and of a proper magnitude— by language
embellished and made pleasurable . . . in the way, not of nar
ration, but of action." It should lead to catharsis among the
observers, "effecting through pity and terror the correction and
refinement of such passions." The plot should have no incon
sistencies in logic. The hero ought to be "someone of high fame
and flourishing prosperity," preferably of well-known, legendary
family so that the catastrophe would seem to come by fate rather
than the poet's art (Poetics, tr, Thomas Twining [New York,1957],-
passim). 5
4
marked similarity of form— though in regard to protagonists, the
two are entirely different. The essential difference is that
heroes of modern tragedy "are more likely to be sailors or book
keepers than princes" (p. 69).
They make no attempt to trace the history of the use of
heroes of low station, but limit their term "modern tragedy" to
"the plays written since the advent of Henrik Ibsen, the plays
from 1880 to the present day" (p. 67)* Here the student must
pause, for the truth of their assertion is not self-evident. In
1880 Ibsen began Ghosts, and to us of a generation who find even
expressionistic plays sometimes old-fashioned, Ghosts hardly
seems modern. Yet there are a number of authorities— scholars,
critics, and dramatists alike— who call Ibsen "father of the
modern drama" and Ghosts the first modern tragedy. There are, on
the other hand, equally respected authorities who deny that
Ibsen's works are tragic at all, rather they see them as the
ultimate product of an outmoded dramatic tradition they feel was
incapable of producing tragedy, that of bourgeois drama.
To illustrate the differences of opinion, let us look first
at the argument of classicist Edith Hamilton. She characterizes
Ibsen's bourgeois protagonists as "small souls" capable of evok
ing in the audience only "shuddering horror and cold anger against
society"; hence "Ibsen's plays are not tragedies," for tragedy is
3
concerned with the suffering of one who can suffer "terribly."
This is not to say that bourgeois protagonists are invariably
non-tragie, she concludes, for "outside trappings" do not matter;
but we do not "go to Main Street" for tragedy (p. 168).
Ibsen's contemporary, Henry James, thought his bourgeois
characters unworthy of tragic treatment. He found Ibsen's art
meagre, but nonetheless intense* ahd observed that Ibsen's plays
had a remarkable way of fascinating contemporary audiences, the
fascination appearing "quite independent either of the merit of
the interpretation or of the place held by the play in the Ibsen
3The Greek Way (New York, 1956), pp. 170-171.
5
k
list.” He thought the spell developed in spite of the use of
bourgeois protagonists, and was related to a "rare mastery of
form." He sensed that the careful structure of Ibsen’s plays al
lows an almost immediate identification of audience with protago
nist— a ready "surrender of the . . . imagination" to Ibsen's
microcosm. The bourgeois world of his dramas is confined, James
concluded, but completely constituted— exhibiting a fascinating
closeness in "the tissue of relations between the parts and the
whole" (p. 289).
A critic of our time, Francis Fergusson, has also declared
against Ibsen as a tragic dramatist, though he finds his work
"of really poetic scope." He likens the form of Ghosts to the
tragic rhythm of Oedipus Tyrannos, a "single fated action moving
to an unmistakable catastrophe [defining] an action.'l5
denying Ibsen is a writer of tragedies, he nevertheless uses the
terms "tragic" or "tragedy" to describe a number of elements in
Ghosts. He calls the play a "thesis thriller," but finds a
"tragedy behind the thesis." He writes that Ibsen "rediscovered
the perennial basis of tragedy [and] accurately sensed the tragic
rhythm of human life," but feels the "tragic progress" of his
work is "brutally truncated" by the limitations of the realistic,
bourgeois theater, a "moral void" that inhibited the tragic per
ception of the protagonists (passim)..
It is evident, then, that Fergusson's ultimate reason for
denying Ibsen's bourgeois dramas are tragedies is exactly the
same as Hamilton's and James's: to use Fergusson's words, they
suffer from "the limitations of the bourgeois parlor as the scene
^The Scenic Art, ed. Allan Wade (New Brunswick, 19^8),
pp. 289-290. Actors of James’s acquaintance preferred Ibsen's
works to Shakespeare's, finding them most effective in capturing
the imagination of the audience and maintaining the dramatic il
lusion. Confer Arthur Miller's statement of having been en
grossed only once in his life in a production— "when Ruth Gordon
played in the Jed Harris production of "A Doll's House" (Arthur
Miller's Collected Plays [New York, 1959]» p. 17)• He discusses
his debt to Ibsen in some detail in the introduction tothis book.
^The Idea of a Theater (New York, 19^9)* pp. 163-16^.
6
of human life" (p. 170). (T?hus the Aristotelian principle of the
nature of the tragic hero is the focal point of the debate over
Ibsen's tragic stature. Aristotle limited the tragic action to
noble figures (Poetics, p. 238), yet the majority of modern
critics find Ibsen's bourgeois dramas tragic^ It is puzzling,
though, that few who place Ibsen among the tragic dramatists
dwell on his use of the "bourgeois parlor" as the setting for
what they consider his most tragic plays. They tend, rather, to
praise him--as did James and Fergusson— for his mastery of drama
tic structure and his profound effect on audiences.
Among them are outstanding dramatists, such as Maurice
Maeterlinck and Luigi Pirandello, and the poet Rainer Maria
Rilke. Maeterlinck, for example, declared Ibsen to have broken
forth in his fateful dramas "the most terrible mysteries of
6
human destinies." Pirandello "unhesitatingly" placed Ibsen
7
second only to Shakespeare. And Rilke described the emotion of
Ibsen's work as "great, deep, essential . . . doomsday" (Bentley,
p. 102).
Scholars of international reputation have found qualities of
tragedy in his work. Konstantin Reichardt finds a catharsis that
!ennobles society b^ "freeing men's minds and purifying their
8
wills." Brian Downs declares Ibsen "wrote very little which
9
does not fit into the tragic category." And perhaps the fore
most Ibsen scholar of our time, Theodore Jorgenson, ascribes to
him the creation of "tragedy [of] a depth beyond which it [is]
hardly possible to reach.
^Barrett H. Clark, European Theories of the Drama (New York,
19 W , P. ^15.
7
Eric Bentley, The Playwright as Thinker (New York, 1957),
p. 75-
g
Cleanth Brooks, ed., Tragic Themes in Western Literature
(New Haven, 1955)» P» 102.
^A Study of Six Plays of Ibsen (Cambridge, 1950), p. 17^.
^History of Norwegian Literature (New York, 1933), P« 265*
Even among hardheaded professional theatrical critics, both
of Ibsen's time and oar own, there has been much praise for the
tragic impact of his works.. George Bernard Shaw, for one, char
acterized Ibsen as a great poet, and called his dramas "appalling
ly tragic.""^ And in our time Eric Bentley has declared Ibsen's
bourgeois dramas "the crowning glory of tragedy in modern dress"
(p. 93). Now we.come again to the question implied in the criti-'
cism of Hamilton, James, and Fergusson: Is it possible for
dramatic protagonists to wear "modern dress" and be in truth tragi
ic figures?
"Tragedy" is, after all, a Greek word, originally applied to
a religious festivity. Perhaps modern critics are wrong to apply
it to recent works. This is the argument of Joseph Wood Krutch,
who tries to explain Aristotle's insistence on noble heroes, and
at the same time despairs of modern tragedy:
Modern critics have sometimes been puzzled to account for
the fact that the concern of ancient tragedy is almost ex
clusively with kings and courts. They have been tempted
to accuse even Aristotle of a certain naivete. . . . Yet
the tendency to lay the scene of a tragedy at the court
of a king is not the result of any arbitrary convention
but of the fact that the tragic writers believed easily
in greatness just as we believe in meanness.^
Krutch contends that modern man has lost his "tie with the natu
ral and supernatural" and has discovered that humanity is "rela
tively trivial" (p. 522). He concludes that tragic force is
practically unknown in modern drama, for tragedy depends on a re
ligious response in the audience— a response which the Greeks
were capable of giving, but which "all moderns must fail when
they attempt" (p. 525).
^■*"Shaw uses the phrase "appallingly tragic" in describing
the final scene of Ghosts. Oddly, he regrets the tragic impact
of the scene because it seems to take the attention of the audi
ence away from the social significance of the drama, or, as he
puts it, "it prevents the meaning of the play from being seized
and discussed" (5?he Quintessence of Ibsenism [New York, 1908],
p. 91, my emphasis).
12
The Krutch quotations are from selections from The Modern
Temper, as reprinted in Clark, pp. 51? ff. ”
8
I do not accept Krutch's contentions, and feel Ibsen would
have rejected them. In the first place, Greek literature and his-
s
tory show many heroic figures who were also mendacious, treacher-
ous, and even petty-i In the Iliad we see Agamemnon as a covetous
fool no less than a warrior king. The Jason of Euripides* Medea
is a conscienceless opportunist. Themistocles' integrity surely
was not of a level with his military talent. And even Pericles'
life was not free from scandal. As for modern man's lacking ties
with nature and God, I wonder whether this is not the same as
saying that spirituality is not a basic human attribute, that it
appeared only accidentally among the ancients. If human beings
had a soul in the fourth and fifth centuries B.C., surely they
still do, and thus are fundamentally no less capable of religious
response than were the Greeks.
Admittedly, the setting of many Greek tragedies is the court * •
of a king--but often the pragic action grows out of family con
flicts rather than political clashes.. In this respect the
Oresteia, the Oedipus cycle, Antigone and Medea are essentially
like Ghosts♦ They are domestic dramas. Ibsen's play is set in a
bourgeois parlor, and this perhaps limits the perception of the
chief figure, Helene Alving. But does it limit her torment in
seeing that she alone is guilty of the destruction of her son?
Would the Aristotelian critics place her agony in a lower category
than, for example, Jason's in Medea? What of Ibsen's mastery of
form, treatment of human destinies, doomsday emotions, and
catharsis? These are the main essentials of tragedy cited by
Aristotle. Do they make his plays tragedies--did he intend to
make his dramas tragic? ■
We should profit at this point from a comparative survey of
Ibsen's and Aristotle's theories. Unfortunately, however, Ibsen
never wrote a lengthy exposition of his ideas on dramatic art—
though on occasion he said he planned to do so. We do have ref
erences to his artistic goals in notebooks, letters, newspaper
articles, public speeches, and prefaces to his plays, and certain
9
comments from them will be brought together here under three of
the major topics of the Poetics; the purposes, means, and ob-
13
jects of imitation appropriate to tragedy.
Ibsen's declared purposes in writing were both ethical and
personal, the ethical in keeping with Aristotle's goal ofiuniting
"tragic effect with moral tendency" (Poetics, p. 2*f6)> In a
rhymed letter to Georg Brandes, in 1875, he uses the symbol of
humanity as passengers on a darkened ship laden with a corpse in
the hold. He implies it is the job of artists and writers to
stir the emotions of fear and foreboding about the deadly ele-
1*+
ments xn socxety, an apparent modification of Aristotle's
catharsis through "pity and terror" (Poetics, p. 237). He viewed
his own artistic gifts as "a duty," not "a property."^ "I am a
poet," he wrote, and "no poet lives through anythihg isolated"
(Letters, p. 1^6). He conceived of his audiences as approaching
with him "the highest attainment possible . . . to realize one's
self" (Bentley, p. 100).
This, would be achieved by depicting "human destinies," and in
keeping with this goal he,declared at times his intention to write
a tragedy*— though he never called a finished work tragic. "There
is no stability in the world of ideas," he wrote, "I believe that
the dramatic categories are elastic and that they must accommo
date themselves to the literary facts— not vice versa" (Letters,
p. 327). Yet A Doll's House was planned as a "Modern Tragedy" and
16
Ghosts on the ancient tragic theme of "nemesis" in a familyv
^ Letters of Henrik Ibsen, tr. John Laurvik and Mary Morison
(New York, 1908), contains a letter dated May 31, l880, addressed
to his publisher in Copenhagen, mentioning his intention to write
the story of his artistic development. The work never material
ized, but as late as 1898 he still had in mind to write it. Thus
he had a philosophy of drama he felt could be organized in a book.
l ^ j .
Henrik Ibsens Samlede Digter Verker [Standardutgave], ed.
Didrik Arup Seip (Christiania, 1918), VI, k06.
15
Speeches and New Letters of Henrik Ibsen, tr. Arne Kildal
(London, 1911), p. 50.
Henrik Ibsens Efterladte Skrifter, eds. Halvdan Koht and
Julius Elias (Christiania, 1909), II, 327, and III, 5.
(This is not to say that Ibsen accepted the fatalism Aristotle al-
ludes to in the Poetics (p. 238). He did, though, adhere to the
dialectical philosophy of Friedrich Hegel, who saw the individual
as subordinate to the eternal evolution of the universe. Accord-
ing to Hegel, the world advances through perennial conflicts and
reconciliations of antithetical forces, each stage of history in-
„ 17
validating the previous one which then serves as a foundatxon.
Emperor and Galilean, the dramatic embodiment of Ibsen's view of
life, was designed to show "a struggle between two irreconcilable
powers in the life of the world— a struggle which always repeats
itself" (Letters, p. 235)* It is this theme Theodore Jorgenson
18
calls "all but Hegelian." Ibsen said he had become something
of a fatalist while writing the play, and he explained its mean-
. - 1 19
ing as, simply, "[one] is free — under necessity." Certainly
there is an element of fatalism in this concept..
The means he settled on to communicate this serious view of
life was realism, the representation on the stage of the "really
natural, authentic, and credible" (Letters, p. 4l6). The dramatic
illusion would come best, he reasoned, where the incidents of the
plot were carefully structured to appear quite logical. The
author must not appear, and must create the impression on the
mind of the observer that he is witnessing "something real"
(p. 352). These are practically the ideas of Aristotle (Poetics,
p. 234), who further advised that actors speak in "a meter most
colloquial" (p. 228). Ibsen advocated that prologues, epilogues,
declamations of any kind, be "banished from the stage"— and so too
must verse, which is "most injurious to dramatic art" (Letters,
P. 367).
17
Hegel, Auswahl und Einleitung, ed. Friedrich Heer (Hamburg,
1955}p. 114.
18
Henrik Ibsen, A Study in Art and Personality (Northfield,
Minn., 19^5), p. 293-
19
Breve fra Henrik Ibsen, eds. Halvdan Koht and Julius Elias
(Christiania, 1904), II, 25* Notes and cross references in this
work are perhaps the most thorough of all sources I have seen.
11
Cjielieving as he did in realism, it was inevitable that he
would find contemporary life the best source of objects of imita
tion for modern serious drama. There is an indirect precedent in ^
the Poetics, for Aristotle had advised a "resemblance" of the
protagonist to members of the audience, who become what they ima
gine (p. 238). Ibsen found the substance of his works in his own
life experiences (Letters, p. 198), though he did not believe
mere imitation of actions and objects from life was sufficient to
give meaning to drama. He believed, rather, that the poet was
capable of deriving from externals "an ideal vision which ele
vates reality into the sphere of the . . . highest truth" (p.190)•
The poet will thus "awaken" men's minds by presenting "real men
and women" whose human emotions he will depict upon a groundwork
of "the social conditions and principles of the present day'O
(p. 190).
This last assertion returns us to the crux of the debate
over Ibsen's tragic stature. It is in his insistence on repre
senting "the present day" on the non-comic stage that he differs
significantly from Aristotle and other traditional arbiters of
tragedy. Otherwise his theories and theirs are practically alike.
Look for example to one of the most conservative periods of criti
cism, the Italian Renaissance, and the words of perhaps the most
conservative critic of the time, J.G. Scaliger. He wrote of the
structure of tragedy, "The events themselves should be made to
have a sequence . . . as to approach as near as possible to truth"
(Clark, p. 62). A contemporary, Daniello, asserted that the
tragic illusion gains effectiveness from the use of "humble
speech," for it does not seem right for one who is suffering
"to use pompous and proud words to other people" (p. 55) • Yet
another of that period, Minturno, thought the highest goal of the
tragic poet is to create "before our eyes the image of life"
(p. 58).
The list could be continued, covering a period of four hun
dred years and including such famous names as de la Taille,
Jonson, Boileau, Dryden, Gottsched, and their words would not be
found essentially different from Ibsen's on the purposes and
means of tragedy. But we would find that they and Ibsen disagree
on the matter of the object of imitation appropriate to tragedy.
In Scaliger's words, the tragic dramatist ought to employ "kings
and princes" and depict "the adversity of a distinguished man"
(p. 6l). We must not forget, however, that Aristotle had stressed
the importance of "resemblance" of protagonist to audience; and in
modern times, until the eighteenth century, European theatergoers
were predominantly noble. The social changes following the
Industrial Revolution completely altered the character of the
atrical audiences. When we consider how closely Ibsen adhered to
tradition in most respects, we must assume that his choice of
bourgeois protagonists in serious drama was a deliberate attempt
to extend the Aristotelian principle of "resemblance" to suit his
nineteenth-century audiences.
He admired Greek tragedy immensely, and hoped to "bring [its]
understanding to bear upon [his] own work" (Letters, p. 82). But
he could not, as he said, "make out its connection with my own
time." He felt the works of antiquity were rooted in the time
that produced them, and consequently were not proper models for
modern artists (p. 78). In this regard, he was fond of saying
that modern Europeans are a far cry from ancient Greeks, and that
an imperative in any modern drama is "The establishment of an
intimate connection with the movements of our own time" (p. 2^8).
The process of bringing modern protagonists to the tragic
stage is seen by Millett and Bentley as inevitable. They acknow
ledge that classical tragedy was a religious event, but find the
mythological, highly idealized characters an outgrowth of the
principle of "resemblance." They represented a "common denomi-
nator"for members of an audience ranging from "the meanest citi
zen to the priests of Dionysus and Pericles himself" (Art of
Drama, p. 68). The physical nature of the modern theater has
also had a great deal to cfco with the coming of modern objects to
13
the tragic stage. In Aristotle's time there was considerable dis
tance from the average member of the audience to the orchestra,
which discouraged the use of realistic movements and speech. The
modern theater, on the other hand, is a relatively comfortable
and intimate place which discourages "the ranting speeches and
constant action" necessary to hold the attention of audiences of
earlier times (p. 73). Moreover, the technical developments of
the modern theater, the electrio light, sound effects, the cur
tain, etc., abet realism— which is in turn demanded by the down-
to-earth taste of the essentially bourgeois modern audiences, and
the marked tendencies of modern playwrights— like other modern
thinkers— to be preoccupied "with social and domestic problems"
(p. ?6). Thus, conclude Millett and Bentley, the modern theater,
audience, and playwrights make it inevitable that our scene will
be "a familiar one" (pp. 76-77)*
There can be little doubt that Ibsen's familiar scenes aided
him in achieving the identification of his bourgeois audiences
with his protagonists, and consequently securing the desired
emotions of fear and foreboding. His success is attested to by
many contemporaries. German theatrical producer Otto Brahm,
writing in the Neae Freie Presse of May 10, 1904, tells that they
felt themselves "for the first time in the presence of fictitious
characters of our own age in whom we could believe." They could
believe because Ibsen had preserved in his work that essential
Aristotelian element of "resemblance," along with the other tradi
tional devices for capturing the imagination of the tragic audi
ence. As a consequence, we may assert here that Ibsen was at;base
a tragic playwright— not a writer of classical tragedy, however,
but of bourgeois tragedy. This is, though, a term that has
echoes in it of a time long before Ibsen's, and thus certain
questions rise inexorably in the mind of the student of compara
tive literature: "Where did Ibsen find the elements of the syn
thesis of bourgeois tragedy?" "How did he go about accomplishing
the synthesis?" "Is the bourgeois genre appropriate to our time?"
The last two questions may be answered only toward the end of this
dissertation, after the important elements of bourgeois drama
have been analyzed and evaluated. But the first question may be
answered at once in a historical context, and the next four chap
ters of this paper are designed to provide the answer*
II. THE RISE OF BOURGEOIS DRAMA
Long before Ibsen ever wrote a play, bourgeois drama had
reached a high degree of development through the efforts of cer
tain outstanding— and sometimes quite banal--European dramatists
and critics. The genre first gained wide favor during the eight
eenth century"*" in England, the adjective "bourgeois" suggesting
it differed from traditional serious drama at least in subject
matter. The fact id that the advent of middle class subjects in
serious drama accompanied profound changes in European society
resulting from the Industrial Revolution. These changes were a
long time in reaching Ibsen's homeland, Norway, but had appeared
in the British Isles as early as the end of the seventeenth
century.
In England on the eve of the Industrial Revolution a new
trading class was emerging, developing concurrently with the
change in the economy of Great Britain from what H.G. Wells
terms "traditional patch agriculture and common pasturage" to
2
"the manufacture of commodities." The merchant class, general-
3
ly called bourgeois, became ' - i n the eighteenth century a new sort
"*"Even earlier, plays on themes close to problems of middle-
class audiences appeared in Europe. At least as long ago as the
fourth century B.C., the Greek playwright Menander employed such
themes and used tragic structure for his serious "New Comedy"
(Eugene 0'Neill, ■ Jr., The Complete Greek Drama [New York, 1933],
II, xlix). The most significant early modern attempts to repre
sent bourgeois protagonists in calamity occurred in the Tudor-
Stuart era in England, the first example of what Tucker Brooke
calls "unmitigated tragedy of ordinary life" being Arden of
Feversham (1592), a play sometimes attributed to Shakespeare.
Its author, whoever he was, called his. work "a true and home-born
tragedy" (Albert C. Baugh et al, A Literary History of England
[New York, 19^8], p. **69).
^The Outline of History (New York, 1929)» p. 823.
^Emile Legouis and Louis Cazamian, A History of English
Literature (New York, 1957), p. 770, apply the term to English
society in general after the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
15
16
of power in the state because of their capacity for accumulating
capital with which to finance trading and industrial ventures,
and even government enterprises (Wells, p. 825)•
Although these changes in economic and social life occurred
first in modern times in England, they were not confined to the
British Isles for long, and were not essentially different from
those of Continental society. We might, then, gain considerable
insight into the effects of the Industrial Revolution on Euro
pean drama after observing some of the changes in England that
proved of special consequence in the development of British
drama.^
The first of such changes was an increased attendance at the
theaters as more and more of the middle class moved into London.
Toward the beginning of the eighteenth century, new theaters had
to be built to accommodate the bourgeois playgoers, as following
the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 only two royal patents
for theaters had been allowed— for Drury Lane and Covent Garden.
Both patent theaters catered to the nobility; commoners usually
found their entertainment in vaudeville shows in the reign of
Charles II. But by 1737, the situation had changed entirely and
London was supporting five major theaters and a number of lesser
$
ones.
k
G.M. Trevelyan, History of England (New York, 1952), III,
Chapter One, passim, points out the similarities in English and
Continental developments, though he feels England's isolation
predestined her to be the birthplace of the Industrial Revo
lution. There was a free trade area throughout the British Isles,
in contrast to innumerable customs barriers then dividing Italy,
France, and Germany. England enjoyed practically unlimited ac
cess to American, Oriental, and European markets. And certainly
not least important, the British nobility were in close personal
relationship with the mercantile and industrial class.
^H.A. Taine, History of English Literature (New York, 1900),
III, ^3-^5* draws comparisons between the eighteenth-century
French and British bourgeoisie, as seen in literature.
^Allardyce Nieoll, A History of Early Eighteenth Century
Drama (Cambridge, 1925), pp. 271-273. Besides the patent houses,
there were three regular theaters at Lincoln's Inn Fields, The
Hayraarket, and Goodman's Fields producing legitimate drama.
17
They were very well attended, in fact close to two per cent
of the London population went to the theater during an average
week in the mid-eighteenth century. During the years 1758-60,
this percentage totalled an impressive weekly attendance of
7
nearly 12,000 individual playgoers., The audiences were socially
8
heterogeneous, though by far the largest single group repre
sented was the upper-middle class that made up a significant
portion of the total population of England at that time (Pedi-
cord, p. 43). The divisions of society in mid-century England
have been determined as follows:
Aristocrats 3.0 per cent
Traders and Employers
5.3
Professional Class 3.6
Innkeepers and Publicans
3.1
Freeholders and Farmers 21.0
Working Class 64.0
(p.
21).
Traders, employers, professional people, and the prosperous inn-
7
Harry W. Pedxcord, The Theatrical Public in the Time of
Garrick (New York, 1954), p. 16.
8
In Prance before the Revolution, the court remained the
focal point of drama, which continued through the greater part of
the century to follow the rigid patterns of the French classical
tradition. The development of drama of the bourgeoisie was in
hibited by strict laws of censorship, providing penalties as se
vere as death for authors whose works tended "a emouvoir les
esprits." Indignant bourgeois playwrights resorted to many sub
terfuges to avoid penalties of the censor, and small theaters
flourished, catering to the bourgeoisie, presenting plays that
had first to receive the approval of (1) the police, (2) la
Gomedie-frangaise, (3) le Theatre-italien. Certainly F. Gaiffe,
who collected these facts, was justified in declaring the actions
of the regime that instituted such controls "les raffinements du
despotisme oriental" (le Drame en France au XVIIIe Siecle [Paris,
1907], p. 112).
German censors, too, often ruled with a heavy hand, but the
"Sonderwesen der Stadte" provided German playwrights with nearby
places of refuge if they chose to defy the authorities in their
works. The tradition of bourgeois theater in Germany is one of
the oldest in Europe, and the frequency of attendance of the Ger
man burgher rivaled that of his English counterpart (Wilhelm
Scherer, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur [Berlin, pp.
428-435).
A similar situation prevailed in Italy, where Carlo Goldoni
made great strides in modernizing drama, under French influence.
18
keepers would qualify in the scale as upper-middle class, making
up approximately ten per cent of the total population of England
as a whole, and doubtless an even larger percentage of a center
9
of trade such as London.
If the two per cent of London's population that regularly
attended the theater were primarily upper-middle class, who in
turn made up ten per cent of the total population of the'city,
then approximately twenty per cent of the London bourgeoisie
were habitual theatergoers. Thus the scholar who compiled the
statistics above, Harry W. Pedicord, is justified in calling the
mid-eighteenth century London theater essentially bourgeois
(p. 43). The importance of the statistics in the development of
modern drama is emphasized by Allardyce Nicoll, who writes that
the rise of middle class drama in the eighteenth century is
"more fully explained by a reference to the audience than to any
other thing" (Early Eighteenth Century Drama, p. 25)•
The court had been the focus of English drama during the pre
ceding century, but now held little attraction to the average
playgoer, generally a busy, sober tradesman. The time had come
for a new object of focus in drama, the bourgeois himself. He
was traditionally serious, Adam Smith tells us, industrious,
sober, frugal and of "good conduct" in his "universal, continual,
10
and uninterrupted effort to better [his] own condition."^
9
In France, just before the Revolution, the dominance of the
middle class is evidenced in the high percentage of representa
tives of the Third Estate at the opening of the Estates-General
of May 5, 1789- They outnumbered the combined clergy and nobili
ty 58k to 561 (Victor Buruy, A Short History of France [London,
1918], II, 306-307).
lOfhe Wealth of Nations (New York, 1909), pp. 276-278. The
rise of the bourgeoisie in France was inhibited by the nobility
in efforts to preserve the waning power of the monarchy. Never
theless, writes Gustave Lanson, the middle class of France, like
England, possessed very strongly "le sentiment de sa superiority
intellectuelle, morale, [et] economique" (Histoire de la llttera-
ture frangaise [Paris, 1912], p. 62*0.
The moral strength of the German middle class was character
ized by narrow religious prejudices, writes Friedrich Stieve, but
their economic strength allowed them to take considerable politi-
Though comedy was the traditional genre of the lower and
middle classes, it would obviously not be completely satisfactory
to the upright bourgeois of the eighteenth century. "Puritan
stock" was dominant in his character, writes literary historian
Louis Cazamian, diffusing through the whole society of the time
"a fondness for piety, simplicity, and sentimental moralism,"
qualities peculiarly middle-class (Legouis and Cazamian, p. 770).
Thus a change was inevitable in dramatic repertoires, and in
England the long list of bawdy Restoration comedies came to an
end and was replaced by new plays with strong elements of morali
ty and sentimentality. The manifesto of the moralistic middle
class was issued appropriately enough by a minister, Jeremy
Collier, in 1698.11
Entitled "A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of
the English Stage," it condemns the obviously unregenerate
12
writers of Restoration comedy for their use of profanity in
stage dialogue, their unfavorable portrayals of clergymen, and
their general tendency ;to ward licentiousness. The conclusion
repeats the classical tenet that drama should correct vice, not
encourage it. Though Collier’s declaration is not the first of
its kind, it came at a time of high feeling about the direction
drama was taking.1^ Cecil Moore summed up its effect as "the em-
cal power away from the nobles (Geschichte des deutschen Volkes
[Berlin, 19443* p. 340).
11
The standard work on the Collier controversy is Joseph
Wood Krutch's Comedy and Conscience after the Restoration (New
York, 1924).
12
Collier directed his attack chiefly against Dryden, Con
greve, Wycherly, Vanbrugh, D'Urfey, and Otway. Pietists Spener
and von Zinzendorf led a similar movement in Germany at the same,
time (Werner P. Friederich, German Literature [New York, 19513*
P. 55).
^In 1668 Thomas Shadwell had included in the preface of his
first play, The Sullen Lovers, a protest against the use of dis
reputable lovers in comedy. Even one of the playwrights Collier
attacked, John Dryden, had condemned in his "Ode to Mrs. Anne
Killigrew" (1686) the "lubric and adult'rous" plays that in
creased "the steaming ordures of the stage" (Dryden's Poetical
Works [London, 19113* pp. 338-34-3).
20
bodiment of a public conscience which was no longer to be denied,"
the conscience of "the puritanic section of society. . . . the
1^
conventional middle classes."
The subsequent reform of drama, in conformity with the de
mands of "the conventional middle classes," marks the beginning
of popularity of sentimental, or tearful, comedy. The immediate
ly successful writers, Colley Cibber and Richard Steele, show
all too well in the titles of their works the nature of the move
ment : Love *s Last Shift, The Careless Husband, Love Makes a Man.
The Conscious Lovers, The Lying Lovers, The Tender Husband, etc.
Ashley Thorndike characterizes their work as "sugared realism":
. . . suffering abounds, ruin is imminent, there is much
weeping, and a salient moral lesson. The suffering
usually is confined to loss of fortune or temptation of
virtue. . . . The situation is ghastlyenough , but all
comes out happily.
tA
Twelve Famous Plays of the Restoration and Eighteenth
Century (New York, n.d.), p. xiv. Allardyce Nicoll asserts
"The whole of sentimentalism," characterized by excessive moral
izing, "is, of course, to be associated with [the] rise of the
middle classes" (Early Eighteenth Century Drama, p. 3).
^ Tragedy (Boston, 1908), p. 320. Thorndike attributes the
vogue of sentimental comedy to the demands of the middle classes
for "sentimentalizing and moralizing [which] sent them home con
tented," but which made comedy incapable of presenting a serious
study of life and of "tracing out character and incident to any
thing like a logical conclusion."
In France there was a concurrent development, encouraged by
the importation of English sentimental comedies. It, too, writes
F. Gaiffe, grew out- of bourgeois demands for "un genre plus
serieux qui cherchera moins a divertir qu'a toucher et a moralise*"
which became the model for later French serious drama. "Ce
caractere bourgeois et ce role social . . . constituent , . . les
caracteres essentials du Drame" (Drame, p. 32). Gustave Lanson
attributes the initial success of comedie larmoyante to La
Chaussee, who led a revolution in French drama in 17^+1 with Mela-
nide— in which "exigeait, assez puerilment . . . le melange du
comique et du pathetique" (Histoire, p. 660).
In Germany, sentimental comedy was introduced by Christian
Gellert through Die Betschwester (17V5) and Das Loos in der Lot-
terie (17^6), which he designed to further moral ends (J.G.
Robertson, A History of German Literature [New York, 1930], p.
236). For a more detailed discussion of this period, see G.
Belouin, De Gottsched a Lessing (Paris, 1909).
21
The long-lived popularity of the form is evidenced in the outcry
of Oliver Goldsmith against performances of "this species of
bastard tragedy," seventy years after it was introduced.^ In
our time, however, it is all but forgotten.
The success of the tearful comedies nevertheless stimulated
thinking along lines that led to bourgeois drama without the
"sugared" ending. For a while, though, most attempts to present
plays on serious middle class themes were confined to revivals
17
and revisions of Tudor-Stuart works. The first drama after the
Restoration with a fatal conclusion involving middle-class people
18
was Thomas Southerne's The Fatal Marriage (169^)* The first
eighteenth-century drama with all middle-class characters that
involved death in the end was Aaron Hill's The Fatal Extravagance
19
(1721). But the play that began the new era of bourgeois drama
did not appear until ten. years later. In 1731» George Barnwell,
20
The London Merchant was written by a London merchant, George
21
Lillo (a jeweler). It was inspired by an old ballad, printed
probably for the first time about 1650, but based on an actual
happening of a hundred years earlier in the reign of Elizabeth I.
16
Clark, Theories, p. 237* Voltaire had used the phrase
tragedie batarde earlier in the century.
1 7.
This writer.’ s unpublished master's thesis has a chapter sur
veying the extensive publication of Tudor-Stuart plays throughout
the eighteenth century. See John C. Pearce, "Swinburne and the
Drama of the English Renaissance" (Univ. of So. Calif., 193^)*
pp. 6 ff.
18
Allardyce Nicoll, Restoration Drama (Cambridge, 1928),
p. 1^4.
19
Allardyce Nicoll sees the play as an example of fate drama
in which the outcome is dependent upon "some unseen and tremendous
cosmic force" (British Drama [New York, 1933], p. 297)./
20
Unless otherwise noted, all references are to the Adolphus
Ward edition (Boston, 1906).
21
According to Allardyce Nicoll, it was not at all unusual
during the early part of the eighteenth century for a tradesman
to write a play and enjoy considerable success with it on the
London stage; in fact about half the plays of the time were by
non-professional playwrights— a great number of whom chose to be
anonymous (Earlv Eighteenth Century Drama, pp. 7-8).
22
The title of the printed version of the ballad serves as a sum
mary of the play: ’ ’An Excellent Ballad of George Barnwell, an
apprentice of London, who thrice robb'd his master and murdered
his uncle in Ludlow."
In the dedicatory letter accompanying the play, Lillo out
lined his intentions in presenting tragedy of middle-class life,
and they are approximately those we have seen Ibsen was to hold
22
a century later. He acted on the premise that excellence in
tragedy depends on the usefulness of the moral, that tragedy is
"august in proportion to the extent of its [moral] influence,"
that consequently it is far from losing dignity "by being ac
commodated to the generality of mankind":
If princes, etc., were alone liable to misfortune, arising
from vice or weakness in themselves or others, there would
be good reason for confining the characters in tragedy to
those of superior rank. (pp. 3-^0
But the highborn alone do not suffer such misfortunes, and the
moral influence of a play will be enhanced where Jrhe audience
recognize the problems of the dramatic protagonists as like their
own. Hence it is desirable to represent characters of the social
status of the average playgoer, as
Plays founded on moral tales in private life may be of ad
mirable use, by carrying conviction to the mind with such
irresistible force as to engage all the faculties and
powers of the soul. (pp. ^-5)
Lillo went on to state his intention to carry his theories
to their logical conclusion and present a drama of middle-class
people in tragic circumstances, then discussed means of securing
the tragic illusion in such a play. Ironically, he invoked the
classical principle of the logical progression of incidents in
the plot. He also advocated colloquial speech to complete the
illusion, for to use the "moving strains" of the creations of
Southerne, Rowe, or Otway., would be inappropriate for humble pro
tagonists :
22
See the first chapter of this dissertation, pp. 9-11*
23
A London 'prentice ruined is our theme. . . .
Forgive us, then, if we attempt to show,
In artless strains, a tale of private woe. (pp. 5» 8)
These tenets are not unlike Ibsen's, but Lillo's attempts to
put them into practice were wanting in.the art of which Ibsen was
a master. His chief protagonist, for example, is labeled "a
London 'prentice," and the drama is set chiefly in a bourgeois
house with a merchant's office where news is brought of the arri
val of packet boats and other matters of daily concern to a mer
chant. But unlike Ibsen's, Lillo's characters never come to
life. Many have humors-comedy names, such as Thorowgood, Trueman,
Blunt, etc., and the plot in which they are supposed to develop
is equally bald. It depends on what Frederick Boas calls
23
"cock-and-bull" stories, coincidences completely beyond belief,
and a most awkward murder scene. Here the victim wanders across
the stage soliloquizing about the ominous aspect of the sky as
the masked murderer creeps up on him.
Of all the elements tending to weaken the tragic effect of
George Barnwell, perhaps the "artless" language is most damaging.
There are some incredible lines, often ridiculous coming from the
24
characters who speak them. For example, this is how a house
maid describes Barnwell's reaction to a harlot's suggestion that
he murder his uncle to secure an inheritance, and thereby her
.love:
Speechless he stood; but in his face you might have read
that various passions tore his very soul. Oft he, in
anguish, threw his eyes toward Heaven, and then as often
\ bent their beams on [the harlot] . . . at length with
horror not to be express'd, he exry'd: "Thou cursed
Fair, have I not given dreadful proofs of love? What
drew me from my youthful innocence, to stain my then
unspotted soul, but love? . . . What fills my eyes with
tears, my soul with torture, never felt on this side of
death before? Why, love, love, love!"(pp. 62-63CIII*iv])
An Introduction to Eighteenth Century Drama (Oxford, 1953)*
p. 240.
24
Alexander Pope saw the first performance of the play, and
approved of the moral tone, but not the "elevation of language"
(Eighteenth Century Plays, ed. John Hampdon [London, n .d.] , p. xv).
2k
Barnwell murders his uncle, but the old man has a great deal
to say before he dies, concluding his remarks with a blessing on
the murderer. The agonizing of the repentant '"prentice", over
his victim's body runs to twenty-five lines of prose, concluding
with six lines of verse. The characters often speak in rhymes in
moments of stress, Barnwell in particular being addicted to this
practice. When at last he is led out to be hanged, he says to
the penitent harlot,
From our example may all be taught to fly the first ap
proach of vice; but, if o'ertaken
By strong temptation, weakness or surprize
Lament their guilt and by repentance rise I
Th'impenitent alone die unforgiven;
To sin's like man, and to forgive like
Heaven, (p. 110f.tV.xi])
Apparently Lillo felt Barnwell's tortured rhymes were not lesson
enough for his audience, and let Trueman underline the message in
the concluding couplets,
With bleeding hearts and weeping eyes we show
A humane gen'rous sense of other's woe,
Unless we mark what drew their ruin on,
And, by avoiding that, prevent our own.
(p. lll,[V.xii] )
Obviously George Barnwell suffers from Lillo's modest talent
as a dramatic poet. It is infected with the very worst features
of sentimental comedy, in particular the awkward and abundant
moralizing. The declamatory passages are more appropriate to the
regular tragedies of the period than to this "tale of private
woe." The diffuse structure of the play, and its improbable
actions and events deprived it of any tragic force that might
have lain in the subject. Nevertheless, the regular tragedies
with their heroic characters and grand actions are nearly all for
gotten now, while Lillo's work receives much recognition in
histories of modern drama. His practical, if not poetic, genius
--that of a bourgeois tradesman— ‘ led him directly to the middle-
class theme. And it is the freshness of the therne that gave the
play not only its initial success, but its permanent significance
as the first widely successful attempt to produce modern bourgeois
tragedy. Lillo's own evaluation of the play will serve as a
recommendation to students of modern drama:
Though art be wanting, and our numbers fail,
Indulge th'attempt in justice to the tale.
Tucker Brooke writes that
[Lillo] became more important as an influence than for
absolute achievement. He illustrates well . . . the
turning from aristocratic to middle-class material.
It was, for the most part, unorthodox people like
[Lillo] who, writing somewhat eccentrically, kept
alive true theatrical instincts in the face of crush
ing traditionalism. (Baugh, Literary History, p. 897)
Among the "unorthodox" who championed his drama and theories were
Rousseau, Diderot, and Marmontel in France, Lessing, Goethe, and
Schiller in Germany. But in England, paradoxically, only one other
play of merit resulted from Lillo's example, Edward Moore's The
Gamester (1753)- John Hampdon cites this as proof of a languish
ing in England of bourgeois tragedy, "driven from [the] stage by
sentimental comedy, melodrama, and romantic plays" (Plays, p.
xvii). But bourgeois drama was to return to prominence in
England a century later, writes Hampdon, when "Henrik Ibsen
brought back domestic tragedy to English drama, with unpre
cedented power" (p. xvii). Ibsen, though, was a Norwegian, and
Norway had no public theater until 1827, the year before his
25
birth. If we are to determine how bourgeois drama came to Nor
way, we must first trace the progress of the prototype George
26
Barnwe11 and its successors on the Continent.
25
0yvind Anker, Christianias Theaters Repertoire, 1827-99
(Oslo, 1956), p. 3, tells of the founding of the first theater.
26
Standard sources on the influence of Lillo on the Continent
are A. Kunze, Lillos Einfluss auf die englische und die deutsche
Literatur (Magdeburg, 1911), and T. Benn, "Notes sur la fortune
George Barnwell de Lillo en France," Revue de la Litterature
comparee, 6:682-687, 1926. An excellent account in English is
given in Adolphus Ward's introduction to his edition of George
Barnwell (see above).
The first appearance of the play in Europe in print was in
a French' translation of five scenes in the periodical Pour, et
Contre, in 173^- It was probably the work of l'abbe Prevost, who
was editor and chief contributor of the journal (Benn, p. 683).
I The complete play appeared first in print in Europe in 17^+8,
in a French translation by Pierre Clement of Geneva (Boas, p.
that soon came to the attention of Denis Diderot. He too be-
27
lieved that tearful comedy, comedie larmoyante, could never equal
tragedy in moral force among the bourgeoisie, and that classical
;tragedy was practically without power to affect middle-class
28
Audiences. He sought an intermediate form with subjects drawn
from bourgeois life, and as early as 1755 began outlining a plan
for the reformation of the tragic theater.
1
His first step was an avtitaiok on classical tragedy, and a
strong recommendation of George Barnwell as a model for the young
French playwrights:
II faut fouler aux pieds toutes ces vieilles puerilites,
renverser les barrieres que la raison n'aura point
posees, rendre aux sciences et aux arts une liberte qui
! leur est si precieuse, et dire aux admiratears de
l'antiquite: Appelez le Marchand de Londres comme il
vous plaira, pourvu que vous cqnveniez que cette piece
etincelle de beautes sublimes.
27
Gustave Lanson describes comedie larmoyante as an xnter-
:mediate genre between comedy and tragedy, "qui introduit les
personnages de condition privee, vertueux ou tout pres de l'etre,
dans une action serieuse, grave, parfois pathetique, et qui nous
excite a la vertu en nous attendrissant sur ses infortunes et en
■nous faisant applaudir a son triomphe." Obviously there is no
significant difference, then, between French and English tearful
comedies (see Thorndike's definition above).
28
Felix Vexler, Studies in Diderot's Esthetic Naturalism
(New York, 1922), p. 11.
^Vexler, p. n. Diderot was to translate George Barnwell
!into French in 1760, and it was either adapted or imitated by
'certain other French playwrights, notably Mercier (Jenneval ou
,le Barnevelt franpais, 1769), and La Harpe (Barnevelt, 1778)*
Another play of English origin was to be an important model in
the development of native French bourgeois drama, Edward Moore's
The Gamester, adapted in 1768 by Saurin (Beverley) (Clarence D.
'Brenner and Nolan A. Goodyear, Eighteenth Century French Plays
[New York, 1927], p. 37*0.
Not all French playwrights shared the enthusiasm for
bourgeois drama, and the classicists took pleasure in attacking
what they called "le genre noir." They prided themselves in
"le bon gout et la sensibilite qui [le] trouvaient detestable"
'(Benn, p. 682 ) .
The new sort of tragedy conceived of by Diderot was part of a
scheme of dramas he had devised, ranging from burlesque to heroic
tragedy, the intermediate range being classified as le drame.
This new genre he further analyzed, chief of the parts being "la
tragedie domestique et bourgeoise." His reasoning concerning the
legitimacy of bourgeois tragedy was precisely the same as Lillo's
Pourquoi n'y rapprocherait-on pas davantage les moeurs
theatrales des moeurs domestiques? Dans la tragedie [on dit
que] on n'a mis jusqu'a present sur la scene que des rois,
des princes. Pourquoi n'y mettrait-on des particuliers?
Quoi done? N'y a-t-il que la condition souveraine qui soit
exposee a ces revers terribles, qui inspirent la commisera-,_
tion ou l'horreur? Et L'on fait des tragedies bourgeoises.
The purpose of such tragedies is "pour attendrir et moraliser la
bourgeoisie," which would best be accomplished bjr presenting "un
tableau de leurs propres aventures et de leur propre milieu.
The tragic illusion depends on the identification of the audience
with the milieu; therefore representations must be true to life—
"Voila sa regie. Plus ces cas seront rares et singuliers, plus
il lui faudra d'art, de temps, d'espace et de circonstances com
munes pour en . . . fonder l'illusion" (VIII, 389 ff.). Part of
the stage realism is careful plotting to give consistency and
credibility to the actions of the characters, according to their
nature as presented to the audience by the playwright. Thus no
deus ex machina need be used in bourgeois tragedy, where "II faut
que les hommes fafesent . . . le role que font les dieux dans la
tragedie [ancienne]" (VII, 330).
In this way Diderot hoped to prepare the way for a dismissal
of classical tragedy as a model for contemporary playwrights—
30
Les (Buvres de Diderot , ed. Assezat and Tourneux, VIII
(Paris, 1875)* 156. He used the terms drame and genre serieux
interchangeably; their components are comedie serieuse, drame
moral and philosophique, and tragedie domestique et bourgeoise.
31
Gaiffe, Drame, p. 78. Diderot repeatedly demanded veri
similitude in objects appearing on the stage, and in other ways
showed in his critical writings that he was well in advance of
his time.
28
though there are Aristotelian principles embodied in his criti
cism. Unlike Aristotle, however, Diderot put into practice the
principles of dramaturgy he avowed. The results were two plays,
le Fils naturel (1757) and le Pere de famille (1758), both ob
viously prophetic in their titles of the bourgeois theater of the
following century. Since the latter is the better of the two, let
us focus briefly on it to determine its value as an example of
32
bourgeois drama.
It is basically a protest against the supposed rights of
birth and wealth. Diderot presents a contrast between a man who
would push these rights to the extreme, le Commandearv d1 Auvile,
and a loving father, M. d'Orbesson, who will not be swayed by con
vention to deny his son and daughter marriage to people of lesser
rank whom they love. The soliloquies are often stilted, very
long, and depressingly didactic, even though the realistic milieu
has bourgeois, and quite topical, elements. An example of this
inconsistency occurs in the second scene of the second act where
M. d'Orbesson agonizes and moralizes over the prospect of depart
ing this life "sans avoir vu le bonheur d'aucun de mes enfants."
Consecutively in this single scene he recites three passages, the
shortest being twenty-five lines, and the total of the three
eighty-seven lines.^ An interesting touch of topical realism
is a popular card game in progress on stage during the first
scene of the first act. Bather realistic, if trivial, dialogue
32
The earlier play, le Fils naturel, is the more serious in
content. As the title suggests, it treats of the problems of the
illegitimate child, in this instance those of Dorval, engaged to
Constance, but secretly in love with Rosalie— who is in turn en
gaged to Clairville. It happens Rosalie loves Dorval, quite un
known to him, and she tries to hide her feelings. But because of
her secret passion she presents a cold aspect to her fiance.
Poor Clairville asks his friend Dorval to intercede for him with
Rosalie, and in the course of negotiations the boy and girl make
their feelings known to one another. Dorval's nobleness of mind
nevertheless leads him to sacrifice his love to friendship— which
is just as well, for Rosalie turns out to be his long-lost sister.
33
References to le Pere de famille are to the edition of
Brenner and Goodyear in Eighteenth Century French Plays.
29
revolves around the trictrac table:
Le Commandeur. Six-cinq.
Germeuil. II n'est pas malheureux.
Le Commandeur. Je couvre de l'uhe, et je passe l'autre.
Cecile. . . . je marque six points d'ecole. . . . Six, et
quatre que j'avais, font dix. (p. 377)
In general, though, Diderot did not apply logically the theories
he had so carefully expounded. Had he developed them in the play
with more consistency, he might have arrived at the synthesis he
advocated, tragedie bourgeoise; but as it was, the drama merely
illustrated what Frederick Hawkins calls Diderot's ineptitude as
34
a playwright. As the closing lines of the play have it, "il
35
est cruel . . . il est doux"--but it is not tragedy.
The play enjoyed a moderate success in a time of rising
democracy, and as its theme is more serious than anything that
had appeared in comedies larmoyantes we may call it a worthy
gallic successor to Lillo's George Barnwell. In a land still
dazzled by the brilliance of an incomparable repertoire of classi
cal dramas, even the moderate success of an irregular, radical
bourgeois drama must be accounted significant. Yet in spite of
Diderot's efforts, France had no true bourgeois tragedy in the
eighteenth century. Hundreds of drames bourgeoises came in the
wake of his play, yet not one survives as a worthy fulfillment of
his principles. They are, to use F. Gaiffe's adjectives, ridi
culous, insipid, and bizarre parodies of Diderot's works (Drame,
p. 162).
The French Stage in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1888),
II, 171.
35
Le Pere speaks to his children, "Ohl qu'il est cruel . . .
qu'il est doux d'etre pere," and the curtain falls as "tous
marquent le transport de la joie" (p. 413), certainly no tragic
ending.
*^F. Gaiffe attributes the success of Diderot's play to a
public willing to be moved "par le spectacle d 'infortunes voisines
de la vie reele" (Drame. p. 162), but blames the pathetic tone of
Diderot's model for the failure of his imitators to create true
tragedy of middle class life. Le Pere de famille was too close
to tearful comedy. Following it instead of Diderot's theories,
later playwrights kept comedy as the basic medium (p. 163).
30
It must be remembered that though Diderot had coined the
phrase tragedie bourgeoises he did not call le Pere de famille by
that designation. G.E. Lessing was first to place "bourgeois
tragedy," "ein burgerliches Trauerspiel," after the title of an
2<7
important European drama— Miss Sara Sampson (175^-)* As early as
October 17^9, in the preface to Beytrage zur Historie und Aufnahrre
des Theater, he had stated his belief that the proper models of
the developing German national drama were English plays rather
38
than heroic or classical French works. This is not to say that
he rejected Aristotle's principles, for he frequently defended
them while condemning pseudo-classical misapplications of his
39
words. But he felt that the Aristotelian principle of the re
semblance of audience to protagonist demanded changes in the sub
ject matter of modern drama.
37
Despite numerous generalizations of authorities on the debt
of Lessing to Diderot's ideas, so much of Lessing's work either
precedes or coincides with Diderot's on bourgeois tragedy that I
adhere to the tenuous position that developments in France and
Germany are discrete, both having devolved from the common source
of Lillo. Lessing said he "would rather be the author of The
London Merchant than of [Gottsched's] The Dying Cato" (Ward,
Barnwell, p. xi). He used English themes and sources--Shadwell
and Richardson as well as Lillo--as the title Miss Sara Sampson
suggests. In later years Lessing translated some of Diderot's
works on bourgeois drama, acknowledged the ideas they held in
common. I am not convinced, however, of an initial dependence on
Diderot, and invoke the authority of F. Gaiffe to my aid. I agree*
with him that "II est indeniable que Diderot a exerce une influence
. . . sur Lessing," but accept as most probable that both men's
work in the bourgeois genre was, as Gaiffe put it, a direct out
growth of "1'etude des memes modeles anglais et le desirsemblable
de creer une forme dramatique en rapport avec un nouvel etat
social" (Drame, p. 6l).
.
I have used the edition published in Berlin in 1770.
39
See letters eighty through eighty-nine of the Hamburgische
Dramaturgie, particularly the eighty-first letter. To some de
gree, Lessing's bourgeois efforts are a continuation of Gellert's
ideas on middle-class drama. Gellert--Goethe's composition
teacher— had introduced middle-class drama in Germany (see note
fifteen of this chapter), and Lessing thought his rather insipid
plays were nevertheless "a true reflection of German family life"
(Thomas Moody Campbell,_ed., German Plavs of the Nineteenth
Century [New York, 19302, p. TV. : --------
31
In 1756, shortly after finishing Miss Sara Sampson, he wrote
Friederich Nicolai that it was essential to tragic effect that
the audience identify with the dramatic protagonists. The effect
does not come first from stirring, emotional scenes, but from their
recognition of the protagonists as like themselves. Only after
if 0
this may they feel the emotions of pity and fear. The develop
ment of such sympathy comes through illusion— "ohne Tauschung wir
5l
unmoglich sympathisieren konnen.1 ’ Basic to illusion, of course,,
is careful plotting, for "Furcht und Mitleid . . . aus der Ver-
knlipfung der Begebenheiten selbst entspringen." But the plot
must for strongest effect show the protagonists as experiencing,
thinking, and acting exactly as would members of the audience in
similar circumstances:
. . . alles das finden wir mitleidswiirdig, was wir furchten
wlirden, wenn es uns selbst bevorstunde. . . . Moglichkeit
. . . konne zu einer grossen Wahrscheinlichkeit erwachen,
wenn ihn [the protagonist] der Dichter nicht schlimmer
mache, als wir gemeinlich zu sein pflegen, wenn er ihn
vollkommen so denken und handeln lasse, als wir in seinem
Umstanden wiir.den gedacht und gehandelt haben. . . . kurz,
wenn er ihn mit uns von gleichem Schrot und Korn schildere.
Aus dieser Gleichheit entstehe die Furcht, dass unser
Schicksal gar leicht dem seinigen eben so ahhlich werden
konne. (Werke, IV, 237)
Thus the subjects appropriate to developing the tragic illusion in
modern times are most certainly not alone the heroic and highborn,
Die Namen von Fiirsten und Helden konnen einem Stlicke Pomp
und Majest&t geben; aber zur Ruhrung tragen sie Nichts bei.
. . . wenn wir mit Konigen Mitleiden haben, so haben wir es
ihnen als mit Menschen, und nicht als mit Konigen. (IV,
The proper subject matter of modern drama is, then, not the
troubles of a king, but problems closest to the average member of
kZ
the audience— who in Lessing's time was a pious burgher.
k-0
Jacob Minor, ed., Lessings Jugendfreunde (Berlin, n.d.),
p. 328.
4l
Lessings Werke (Leipzig, n.d.), IV, 36.
Zf2
Prefacing his translations of Diderot’s writings in 1781,
Lessing acknowledges his debt to the Frenchman in realizing the
universal worth of bourgeois themes in modern tragedy (V, 201-202).
32
In Miss Sara Sampson he attempts to synthesize his principles
as a "griindlichen Vertheidiger . . . [fur] das btirgerliche
Trauerspiel" (Werke, IV, kk). He introduces protagonists exclu
sively of 1he bourgeoisie:
Sir William Sampson, an English merchant
Sara, his daughter
Mellefont, Sara's lover
Marwood, Mellefont's former mistress
Arabella, Marwood's daughter by Mellefont
Waitwell, Sir William's manservant
Norton, Mellefont's servant
Betty, Sara's maid
Hanna, Marwood's maid
An innkeeper.
The drama is set in surroundings not unfamiliar to middle-class
audiences:
Act One: "Der Schauplatz istein Saal im Gasthofe."
Act Two: "Der Schauplatz stellt das Zimmer der Marwood."
Act Three; "Ein Saal im erstern Gasthofe."
Act Four: "Mellefonts Zimmer."
Act Five: "Das Zimmer der Sara."
Actions are carefully prepared to make them as logical and
credible as their setting is familiar. This may be seen readily
in a summary of the main incidents of the plot, which is generally
highly economical— almost every scene bearing directly on the
central plot as well as preparing for the following action. The
opening scene of the play illustrates this very well.
Sir William and his servant, Waitwell, dressed in traveling
clothes, enter the inn conversing about their reason for being
there:
Sir William. Hier meine Tochter? Hier in diesem elenden
Wirthause?
Waitwe11. Ohne Zweifel hat Mellefont mit Fleiss das aller-
elendeste im ganzen Stadtchen zu seinem Aufenthalte gewahlte.
Bose Leute suchen immer das Dunkle. . . . Ach, Sie weinen
s&hon wieder, . . . Sir.'— Sir!
Sir William. Lass mich weinen, alter ehrlicher Diener . . .
Waitwell. Das beste, schonste, unschuldigste Kind, das
unter der Sonne geliebt hat, das muss so verfiihrt werden . . .
ij.'Z
References to the play are to Lessings Werke, I, 278 ff.
33
Sir William. O schweig.' Zerfleischt nicht das Gegen-
wartige mein Herz schon genug?' . . . Ich kann sie langer
nicht entbehren; sie ist die Stiitze meines Alters. . . .
Ich wiirde doch lieber von einer lasterhaften Tochter,
als von keiner geliebt sein wollen.
Waitwell. Trocknen Sie Ihre Thranen ab, lieber Sir!
Ich hore jemandemkommen. Es wird der Wirth sein, uns
zu empfangen. (I, 2?9)
The language is somewhat stilted, but there is nevertheless an
admirably analytical quality about the lines. Essential informa
tion is only gradually, and most logically, exposed through con
versation rather than soliloquy and aside. This continues when
the innkeeper enters and tells the two old men of an unhappy young
female guest who sits crying in her room through the day. And so
the plot progresses, rapidly, as each of the protagonists reveals
to the audience his part in the drama.
The play concerns the efforts of Mellefont to marry Sara,
though they are faced with a number of obstacles. The first is
that Mellefont will not come into his inheritance unless he
marries a cousin, whom he loathes. He has agreed to a marriage,
on the condition that it be dissolved at soon as he can secure
the inheritance. Once he has the money, he will marry Sara and
thereby legalize their presently illicit relationship. The plan
is foiled by Marwood, the former mistress who has a child by
Mellefont. The unhappy young man loves the child, but resolves
not to support her and her mother, rather to return to Sara. This
decision enrages Marwood, who betrays a vicious nature by lunging
at Mellefont— she does him no harm, though, and resolves to have
revenge another way.
Meanwhile Sir William has found his daughter, Sara, and has
begged her to come home with him. She feels her disgrace too
keenly to return, but promises to make amends when her lover's
financial state is secure. Next Marwood seeks out Sara and
states her claim to Mellefont, emphasizing her demands with
references to her helpless daughter. Poor Sara, incredulous at
first, at last finds out the truth of Mellefont's relationship to
Marwood, and decides to give him up.
34
Marwood, however, does not want him— she wants only revenge.
She substitutes a deadly poison in headache powders to be used
by Sara, and flees the country. Sara takes the powders, weakens
rapidly, but does not die until after she hears the reading of a
letter in which Marwood expresses her joy in vengeance. Sara
collapses and dies before the eyes of her father and lover. The
despondent Mellefont stabs himself to death, commending his
daughter, Arabella, to the care of the bereaved Sir William.
Although the complexity of Mellefont's affairs tends to
make the background of the play confusing, every action repre
sented in the course of the drama leads logically and swiftly to
a subsequent action. Sir William's pride is reflected in his
opening statements about his daughter, whom he loves despite her
sin. Sara shows that she recognizes her father's uprightness and
exhibits some of the family pride in refusing to return to her
father's house until she and Mellefont have married. The vicious
lunge of Marwood against Mellefont gives insight into her vindic
tive character, making her subsequent action of murder credible.
Thus by careful plotting of the incidents of the story, Lessing
accomplished the illusion of necessity--of what Max Winkler has
called "a relationship of cause and effect" in all conditions and
44
incidents which bring about the catastrophe.
Lessing's work is a significant contribution to the develop
ment of credible plotting and analytic dialogue in bourgeois
drama. Yet though these factors make it far superior to anything
else produced in its time, as Allardyce Nicoll points out, it
unquestionably is tainted with sentimentalism. It is too often
dependent on long, moralizing soliloquies for exposition, and the
language of the protagonists is often quite stilted. Furthermore
the circumstances bringing about the death of the chief figures
are not such as are found commonly in any level of life, and the
death scenes are downright melodramatic. But, for better or
44
In the introductory discussion of Lessing's dramas in
Winkler's edition of Emilia Galotti (New York, 1893)* p. xii.
^World Drama (London, 1949), PP* 414-415.
35
worse, the most popular German dramatists of the generation after
Lessing used his pattern of bourgeois drama (see Nicoll, World
Drama, pp. kjk f £. ) .
Most of them were far from distinguished, and there was a
marked slowing down in the development of true bourgeois tragedy.
At this time, however, bourgeois drama suffered no decline in
popularity anywhere in Europe, due principally to the efforts of
,the remarkable playwright, August von Kotzebue, then called the
"German Shakespeare."
It was principally from Lessing that Kotzebue took the idea
of using bourgeois protagonists and carefully contrived plots for
close control over the emotions of his audiences--all he seemed to
care about (Campbell, German Plays, p. 3)- His success is evi
denced in the immense vogue of his plays, not only in Germany, but
1+6
all over Europe and even in the United States. By no means are
his plays to be considered tragedies, however. For while they
show their author to be what T.M. Campbell calls "versatile . . .
talented . . . [and] perhaps the greatest pure virtuoso in drama
tic writing Germany has had" (p. 3), they are simply melodrama.
The most that may be said for Kotzebue was phrased by German
literary historian Wilhelm Scherer:
Niemand verstand sich so gut auf die gemeinen Instinkte der
Masse, niemand. wusste ihnen so geschickt zu schmeicheln, und
niemand legte dem Schauspieler die Effekte so bequem zurecht
wie Kotzebue .^7
1+6
Goethe produced a number of his plays at Weimar, a total of
eighty-four performances, and he praised them for their effect
among contemporary bourgeois audiences (Robertson, German Litera
ture , p. 385)» The most popular American playwright of the end of
the eighteenth century, William Dunlap, adapted at least thirteen
Kotzebue plays (Arthur Hobson Quinn, Representative American Plays
[New York, 1917], p. 8l).
47
Deutschei.Literatur, pp. 609-610. Allardyce Nicoll has said
nothing good came of Kotaebue's literary powers (World Drama, p.
4-32), but Goethe defended Kotzebue on the grounds that "What has
kept its place for twenty years, and enjoys the favor of the
people, must have something in it." He especially praised his
scenes of "common citizens' life" (see Conversations with Ecker-
ma.nn [New York, 1901], pp. 26-27).
36
No better illustration exists of Kotzebue's instinct for
audience reactions than what is probably the most popular German
play ever to appear on foreign stages, Menschenhass und Reue
(1789)- It is pure melodrama, characterized by W.F. Thrall and
C. Addison Hibbard as "based on a romantic plot and developed
sensationally . . . with constant appeal to the emotions of the
audience." Its design is to keep the audience "thrilled by the
i f 8
awakening, no matter how, of strong feeling." T.H. Dickinson
listed the essential qualities of melodrama as follows:
1. The characters are types, representing the most rudi
mentary moral divergencies, the struggle always being
between good and bad.
2. The story is developed by action, circumstances, and
.machinery rather than by the tracing of motives of
personal revelation.
3. The a ction is constantly alternating, requiring rapid
changes of scene in order that the audience be kept
constantly in a state of excitement. *
Kotzebue's Menschenhass und Reue exhibits in abundance each of
these elements.
The two chief characters, Eulalia and Meinau, represent the
good and bad implied in the title, in English Misanthropy and
50
Remorse. The protagonists were happily married until a
treacherous friend of the family seduced Eulalia away from her
husband and children. After he deserted her, she turned to a
life of remorse and good deeds. The naturally benevolent Meinau
was twisted by his loss, and lived a life of outward misanthropy,
mitigated by quiet acts of charity. The story of the reunion of
this unhappy pair is presented in a highly economical plot, with
constantly changing scenes employed to characterize the protago
nists, while stirring the emotions of the audience. An excellent
Aft
A Handbook to Literature (New York, 1936), pp. 249-250.
49
The Contemporary Drama of England (London, 1920), p. 96.
The categories listed are my own, being summaries of Dickinson's.
50ihere was a Kotzebue mania in London between 1790 and
1800, when thirty-six of his plays were translated into English
(Nicoll, World Drama, pp. 432-433)* Under the title The Stranger?
Menschenhass und Reuetgained wide popularity in America, too.
37
example is a series of scenes in the beginning of the play de
signed to establish the dual personality of Meinau.
As the play opens, it is announced that the old steward of
the estate on which Meinau rents a lodge is about to lose his
son to the army. He considers this a great misfortune, but when
51
Meinau hears of it he snears, "Futter fur Pulver, ha! ha! ha!"
He nevertheless provides money to hire a substitute for the boy,
all of which is underlined for the audience by Meinau's servant,
Immer meine ich, . . . Fur ihn hat die sch'dne Natur keinen
Reiz und das Leben keine Freude. . . . Ein guter . . .
braver, wunderlicher Herr I immer schimpft er auf die
Menschen, und doch geht kein Armer hilflos von seiner Thur.
. . . Ein Menschenfeind. Aber ich wette, seine Mutter- hat
ihn nicht dazu geboren. Der Menschenhass istin seinem
Kopfe, nicht in seinem Herzen. .(I,. 7^-75 [I.iii])
When Eulalia comes on the scene, speaking to herself, we dis
cover she lives a cloistered life on the- very estate where Meinau
is— and she gives hints of a dark secret in her past that makes
her weep with remorse at times:
. . . Ich hatte mich so gewohnt an die stille Einsamkeit.
Ruhe wohnt freilich nicht immer in der Brust des Einsamen
. . . aber ich konnte doch weinen, wenn mir der Kummer
das Herz hagte, und niemand sah mein rothgeweintes-Auge.
Cl,-'85' [I.viii])
After this exposition, the steward comes on the scene to
tell Eulalia of the generosity of "Der Unbekannte," as Meinau is
known. She is very well pleased with Meinau's action, and agrees
to help the steward determine the identity of the inconsistent
misanthrope. In the next few scenes the principals rapidly
divulge their backgrounds, Meinau to his servant and Eulalia to
her landlord's wife— the obvious parallels in their stories pre
paring the audience for tie inevitable meeting of the pair. This
comes just after Eulalia recognizes from a description by the
landlord that "Der Unbekannte" is the husband she betrayed. The
landlord insists that the two meet again, goes to see Meinau to
try to persuade him to assent, but finds him adamantly opposed.
^References are to Theater von August von Kotzebue (Leip
zig, 184-0), I. 74-75*are pages of the scene summarized above.
38
Not to be thwarted, the landlord devises a plan for a meeting
that has all the essentials for the coup de theatre necessary in
melodrama.
The children of Eulalia and Meinau are brought to the estate
unknown to their parents. Though Meinau has refused to meet her,
Eulalia is persuaded to walk in on him in his cottage, which
leads to the following exchange:
Meinau. (mit sanfter, zitternder Stimme und stets abge-
wandtem Gesichte). Was willst du von mir, Eulalia?
Eulalia. (sehr erschiittert}. Nein— um Gottes willen!—
Darauf war ich nicht vorbereitet--0, dieser Ton schneidet
mir d'urck's Herz.' . . . Ach! wenn Sie mein Herz erleichtern
— wenn Sie sich herablassen wollten. . . .
Meinau. Es sey auf ewig vernichtet! Nein, Eulalia! du
allein hast in meinem Herzen geherrscht . . . (Er wendet
sich zu ihr. Sein Ton ist weder rauh noch sanft, weder
fest noch weich. . . . tief erschUttert, bleibt stumm im
Kampfe mit Ehre und Liebe.) (I, 182-183 [V.ix])
Kotzebue might have let the two fall into one another's arms and
therewith closed the drama, but his talent for melodrama afforded
him yet one more trick for involving the emotions of the audience.
The pair begin to pull away, Meinau unable to forget his former
pain. Suddenly Eulalia begs him to let her see their children.
Just then the landlord and lady walk in with the children,
finding Meinau and Eulalia standing indecisively,
Beyder Hande liegen in einander, beyder Blicke beg'egnen
sich wehmiithig, sie stammeln noch ein Lebewohl und tren-
nen sich. Aber indem Jedes sich abwendet, stosst Eulalia
auf den. kleinen [Sohn] und Meinau auf [die Tochter],
Tochter. Vater!
Sohn. Mutter!
(Vater und Mutter drucken sprachlos die Kinder in ihre Arme.)
Sohn. (zu dem Vater laufend). Lieber Vater!
Tochter. (zu der Mutter laufend). Liebe Mutter!
(Meinau und Eulalia reissen sich los von den Kindern, sehen
einander sprachlos an, breiten zitternd ihre Arme aus, und
stiirzen sich Eines in des Andern Arme.)
Meinau. Ich verzeihe dir! -p
(Der Vorhang fallt).
52
Of the two editions of the play I read, I prefer the con
clusion as given in Theater von August von Kotzebue (Vienna,
1831), XL, 89-90 (V.x), and have used it here.
39
Such scenes have made Kotzebue "one of the most despised
figures of literature" (Robertson, German Literature, p. 386),
as well as one of the most popular. Certainly Menschenhass und
Reue exemplifies the esthetic degeneracy of bourgeois drama in
the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, yet there is
no question that the play exhibits Kotzebue's brilliance— of
technique, not art. In fact the play shows little but technique,
closely controlled plotting to provide rapid exposition of the
situation, forcefully designed scenes to characterize the pro
tagonists and at the same time involve the emotions of the
audience. And even though it is lacking in tragic force, it cer
tainly treats a serious situation in an exciting way.
This serious element, combined with the popularizing of
representations of bourgeois life, gives Kotzebue's work an im
portant place in the ctevelopment of bourgeois tragedy, though his
employment of middle-class elements had little to do with any
dramaturgical philosophy— other than eclecticism. He simply had
determined one of the more effective devices for securing strong
emotional reaction from an essentially bourgeois audience was to
use bourgeois themes. This notion was to grow among European
dramatists, but was not the only "trick" of their craft that
Kotzebue taught them. In fact, his influence has been called the
greatest of his time in "the subsequent development of European
drama" (Robertson, p. 386). His followers in Germany may be dis
missed as completely inferior to him in execution— though their
53
number is legion. In France, however, melodrama was cultivated
with great success.
A French playwright, even more prolific than Kotzebue,
Eugene Scribe, was to bring melodramatic technique in bourgeois
drama to near-perfection. Because of his influence on Henrik
Ibsen, he must be allowed an especiall-y prominent place in this
paper— as he must in the whole history of the rise of bourgeois
53
Kenneth Macgowan and William Melnitz, The Living Stage
(Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1956), pp. 327-331*
4o
drama. Allardyce Nicoll sums up Scribe's importance, citing at
once his debt to Kotzebue and his subsequent influence on Ibsen:
Before any further advance in dramatic writing could come
there was needed a fresh approach to the purely theatrical
devices which might be put to the use of the playwrights—
and here precisely [Kotzebue gave] suggestions of a vital
kind. . . . What [he] gave to the stage was taken over by
Scribe [who] brought the mechanics of play production almost
to a sciencd; and, although the distance from Scribe to
Ibsen is indeed a far cry, technically the later author
could not have composed his dramas with such ease had his
undistinguished predecessor not made the path smooth for
him. The melodrama may have nothing to give us of depth
of thought or intensity of emotion, but it exerted a
potent force in the development of the modern stage [and]'
the line of development toward Ibsen proceeds from the
fount of melodrama. (World Drama, p. 438)
French melodrama, like German, was essentially bourgeois in
character despite the romantic extremes that rocked France in the
Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods. It was not particularly
serious, which is perhaps explained by Victor Moulin’s obser
vation, "[Scribe] se consolait des desastres de la patrie en
Rif
cultivant le plaisir de toutes ses forces." Whatever Scribe
hoped to do artistically, he certainly was successful in pro
viding his contemporaries with entertaining pieces, reflecting
not only bourgeois taste, but bourgeois life itself. The comedy
of Scribe, writes Victor Moulin, is a mirror of bourgeois manners,
des moeurs de cette aristocratie nouvelle, un peu melee,
joignant pas mal d’esprit a beaucoup d'argent, aspirant
de toutes ses forces a l'elegance, affairee plutot qu'am-
bitieuse, sans passions reeles si ce n'est pour son interet,
au demeurant tres-indifferente et tres-pretentieuseq voila
la societe que Scribe a peinte. (p. 3)
This society could hardly be expected to produce models of
depth for Scribe to portray. For that matter, he never tried for
depth— as Neil Cole Arvin tells us, he conceived of the theater
55
as "a financial institution." And having a "business ability
R i f
Scribe et son Theatre (Paris, 1862), p. 2.
5 5 -------- --------------------------------------------— -t
Eugene Scribe and the French Theatre (Cambridge, Mass.,
1924), p. 7.
kl
second only to his dramatic talent” (Jlrvin, p. 9)» he produced
what pleased the public, which was just what he saw:
. . . une superficie de moeurs qui n'a pas une ligne d'e-
paisseur des demi-caracteres formes d'elements contradict-
oires, des egoxstes philanthropiques, des debauches moral-
istes, des gens a la mode tres-occupes du trois pour cent.
(Moulin, p. 3)
The immediate result was what Rene Doumic has called a steriliza
tion of the art of drama. We may then reproach Scribe for his
lack of profundity, the insufficiency of his characters, the
feebleness of his style, and the mediocrity of his thoughts. But
we must nonetheless admire one aspect of his talent, the ability
to involve the emotions of his bourgeois audiences with his pro
tagonists' actions: "[II pris] l'attention et la complicite du
public," arranging his plays to keep the spectator breathless from
56
excitement and curiosity. It was, writes Doumic, by almost
mechanical means that Scribe accomplished this, and at his best he
'is an obvious master of "l'art d'introduire de la simplicite, de
la clarte, de la logique et de la cohesion dans la vie que est
complexe, obscure, inconsequente et incoherente" (pp. 10-11).
But the works of Scribe are a wholly unsatisfactory culmi
nation of the principles of le drame bourgeois so bravely an
nounced by Diderot. They cannot rise to tragic heights even when
they treat of fatal circumstances, for, as Gaiffe writes, they are
characterized "par une psychologie rudimentaire et conventionelle,
une intrigue puerilement compliquee, un style d'une solennelle
platitude" (Drame, p. 550). They deserve only the barest mention
in histories of modern drama. On the other hand, their mechanics
are of fundamental importance. The devices perfected by Scribe
for involving his audiences in the drama were to become a founda
tion for modern drama through their influence on the work of Hen
rik Ibsen. In combination, of course, they form the dramatic
machine known as la piece bien-faite, the well-made play.
56
De Scribe a Ibsen (Paris, 1.893)» PP» 5-7•
k2
Alan S. Downer has emphasized the mechanical aspects of
the well-made play, and suggested a profound connection of the
type with modern society,
. . . one can hardly avoid pointing out that the immediate
effect of the mechanization of early nineteenth century
society was the mechanization of the drama. The machine
age produced the machine-made play. . . . Economy and
precision were the watchwords of the new industrialists,
and economy and precision are the watchwords of the
well-made playwright. (Modern Plays, pp. xi-xii)
Scribe wrote, or collaborated in writing, hundredls of such plays,
and the devices were used by dramatists all over Europe, the
framework remaining always the same:
1. Exposition--the play begins with a clear presentation
of the background, implanting in the audience's mind
knowledge of the facts upon which subsequent episodes
are founded.
2. Development to Climax— intrigue holds the attention of
the audience once the plot is set in motion, and the
audience is stirred by various coups de theatre, ex
citing curtains, in particular, and the inclusion of
material taken from contemporary life.
3. Denouement— the conclusion is a true "untying" of the
various threads of intrigue knotted during the develop
ment of the play.^
Such dramas are not without assets, as is pointed out by Prlofes:s,or
Downer:
1. Within the rigid framework, the story is told without
waste motion, subsidiary or parallel incidents, with .
all elements of the play contributing to the main
action.
2. The dramatist begins at the end of his story, giving
an absolute logic to the plot by working backward^,
planting the clues and complications heading inevi
tably to the denouement
Unfortunately, however, early nineteenth-century recipes
< 01ten' called for other ingredients— liberal portions of chance,
coincidence, intrigue, sentimentality, melodramatic mistakes in
57
The numbered items are my summaries of the discussions of
Nicoll (World Drama) and Downer (Modern Plays), passim.
58
Again, the numbered items are my summaries of Downer's
statements in Modern Plays, pp. xi-xii. See also preface to Un
Pere prodigue by Dumas fils outlining assets of Scribe's work.
^3
identity, misunderstood letters falling into wrong hands, and so
forth. Another failing of the well-made play framework is its
monotonous facility* as Storm Jameson puts it,
The servants or friends of the family discuss the chief
puppets while the audience listen at the keyhole. . . .
the principal characters [have] lesser ones to discuss
them, to tell their life-history, to jerk the action
towards the little tragedy at the end when one puppet
shoots the other. . . . Wives and maids retreat into
bedrooms for the sole purpose of being discovered there.
The aside is rampant. Incident upon incident is manu
factured to keep up the stupid intrigue amid the babble
of the characters. It is neither life nor an illusion of
life, neither thought nor its appearance. The strings are
pulled, the figures move.59
Because of these failings, plays on bourgeois life fell far short
of bourgeois tragedy. As H.L. Mencken has it, the well-made play
lacked the tragic essentials of necessity and probability, for
everything was sacrificed — "reason, probability, human nature" —
60
to make the machine run. It could, then, hardly be called a
picture of life, even though dramatists of Scribe's time were
careful to write prose dialogue and surround their characters
with "the trappings of everyday existence." It was, writes Alan
S. Downer, "a machine that worked smoothly but produced nothing"
(Modern Plays, pp. xi-xii). Obviously, the well-made play was
often a very ill-made play, indeed.
An example is Scribe's ingenious Adrienne Lecouvreur (18^9),
dramatizing the love story of Adrienne, an actress of la Comedie-
frangaise in the eighteenth century, and Count Maurice de Saxe,
son of the king of Poland.^ The plot is set in motion by the
vengeful actions of a jealous former mistress of de Saxe, the
Princess de Bouillon.
59
Modern Drama in Europe (New York, 1920), pp. 2-3.
^°"Ibsen, Journeyman Dramatist," Dial, 73:323, October 11,
1917*61
The play is founded on an actual event. It was written in
collaboration with poet and novelist Ernest Legouve, Scribe being
responsible for theatrical aspects of the work. All references
are to the edition published in Paris in 1871.
V*
It opens on the elegant boudoir of the princess, stage
directions calling for realistic furnishings— "Une toilette a
gauche, une table a droite, et une console, du meime cote." The
initial exposition comes in conversation between the princess and
an unscrupulous, scandal-mongering priest, 1 *abbe de Chazeuil.
They make clear to the audience that the princess loves de Saxe,
that he loves somebody else, as yet unknown. The princess knows
that her husband has provided a little house for an actress of
la Comedie-frangaise, la Duclos, with whom the princess is in
league to control the affections of her husband. It is mentioned
that the Prince de Bouillon is an amateur scientist, involved in
the manufacture of a deadly powder, one breath of which is suf
ficient to cause violent and painful death. Just as all this has
been disclosed to the audience, a bouquet of flowers is delivered
for de Saxe from the princess's unknown rival. Intercepting the
flowers, the princess swears she will discover who her rival is.
The intrigue multiplies when in the next scene I * abbe meets the
prince, and we find he has been in his employ to find out whether
de Saxe is his wife's lover. Act I closes as the prince announces
a plan to embarrass de Saxe by catching him in a secret meeting
with the actress, la Duclos, a plan that will take the prince
and 1 'abbe to la Comedie-franyaise.
Act II opens on the actors' foyer of the theater, with its
details well known to French audiences--a bust of Moliere, por
traits of patrons, chandeliers, armchairs, divans, etc. The
actors are found strolling about practicing their various roles,
and exchang-ing inconsequential though somewhat realistic banter:
Mile Dangeville. Michonnet, avez-vous du rouge?
Michonnet. Oui, Mademoiselle, la, dans ce tiroir.
Poisson. Michonnet!
Michonnet. Monsieur Poisson!
Poisson. La recette est-elle belle ce soir?
Michonnet. Adrienne et la Duclos jouant ensemble dans
Ba.jazet pour la premiere fois! plus de cinq mille livres!
Poisson. Diable!
Mile Dangeville. Michonnet! A quelle heure commencera la
seconde piece, les Folies amoureuses!
Michonnet. A huit heures, Mademoiselle. (pp. 10-11)
45
The Prince de Bouillon soon enters the scene, planning to invite
the actors, among them Adrienne, to a party at the house he has
provided for la Duclos— hoping, of course, to surprise his mis
tress there with de Saxe. It is disclosed that the prince has
intercepted a letter from la Duclos to de Saxe, which has made him
suspect they are having an affair. The note, however, was writ
ten at the behest of the Princess de Bouillon, who is waiting to
see de Saxe at la Duclos' house. Act II closes with the prince's
inviting all the actors there.
Act III opens on a room at la Duclos' where the princess
sits alone, but is soon joined by de Saxe. They argue, and the
count admits guardedly that he loves another. The prince and
party soon arrive, making it imperative that the princess depart
unseen. Dramatic interest is intensified when de Saxe asks
Adrienne, his secret love, to help her escape. Before the
princess leaves, however, she and Adrienne talk, and she dis
courages the actress by asserting that de Saxe loves only her.
She makes good her exit with the help of Adrienne, but does not
know who helped her because they met in the dark. Act III closes
as the prince bursts into the room his wife has just left. He is
satisfied that he is not being deceived by la Duclos— though he
still mistrusts his wife— and he good-naturedly invites all to
join him for supper at his home.
Act IV is set in the prince's dining room. Inevitably in
the course of the supper the two rivals for de Saxe's affections
recognize each other. Adrienne is asked to recite some verses
from Racine's Phedre, and while reciting steps toward the
princess, who is coquettishly whispering into de Saxe's ear, points
to her rival and says in her despair,
. . . je sais ses perfidies, . . .
et ne suis point de ces femmes hardies. . . .
Qui, goutant dans le crime une honteuse paix,
Ont su se faire un front qui ne rougit jamaisJ
(p. 40 [iV.ix])
Tension builds as she moves closer to the princess, pointing
directly to her as the other guests watch her every movement. At
^6
last the princess can stand the tension no longer and calls out,
"BravoJ Bravo. admirablei" Others applaud with her, but
Michonnet speaks excitedly to Adrienne, "Malheureusei— qu'as-tu
fait?" She replies, "Je me suis vengee!" And the princess
hisses, "Un tel affrontJ--je le lui ferai payer cherl" (p. 40
[iV.ix]). The climactic fourth act ends at this highly dramatic
moment when the two rivals have discovered one another and stand
impassioned, face-to-face, the princess promising to avenge her
self .
The last act is quite brief, the denouement jprovided by the
revenge of the princess. The opening scene discloses the apart
ment of Adrienne. The actress is conversing with her friend,
Michonnet, who is director of the theater. He offers her his
love, and there seems hope that life will hold much for the girl.
She cries out: "Je triompherai d1une passion insensee dont
maintenant je rougisl" But just as she speaks her maid enters,
bringing a box with the very flowers which— as we saw in the
first act--she had sent to de Saxe, but had been intercepted by
the princess. She believes the return of the flowers to be de
Saxe's token of rejection, slowly takes them up, kisses them, and
throws them into the fireplace.
As might be guessed, de Saxe had never received the flowers.
Instead of giving them to him, the princess had poisoned them
with that remarkable deadly powder of her husband's invention
that we heard about at the beginning of the play. The powder is
quick to act on poor Adrienne. Just as she begins to lose con
sciousness, de Saxe arrives to ask her to marry him. But before
he can speak, Adrienne falls into his arms. Michonnet rushes
back into the room (having gone out just before de Saxe's arrival)
to tell he has discovered the flowers are poisoned. It is too
late, the men can do nothing, and Adrienne sinks rapidly to death
as the two who love her moan helplessly.
It is evident in this summary that Scribe's work contains
many of the elements of the well-made play, both desirable and
deplorable. On the one hand, it presents more or less faithful
k?
portraits of people and places of its time. It also has a dis-e
tinct unity of action and a carefully rapid development of plot.
Yet it suffers from the highly complicated intrigues and improba
bilities that abound in it. Nevertheless, it is an exciting
play, and one must agree with Arvin's remark that it has an air
of plausibility about its improbable situations (Scribe, p. 230).
The weakest element of the play is its melodramatic denouement,
which though cleverly prepared for is achieved, as in most of
Scribe's plays, by a "breathless rush" resulting in paleness
of characterization (p. 230). This flaw, characteristic of the
well-made play, is only too evident in the closing scene.
After Adrienne falls into de Saxe's arms and begins to lose
consciousness, the count cries to God for aid; then Michonnet
returns,
Michonnet (entrant vivement). Ge qu'on m'a dit est-il
vrai? Adrienne en danger.'
De Saxe. Adrienne se meurt'!
Michonnet (approchant le fauteuil de droite, qu'il place
au milieu du theatre, et sur lequel [de Saxe] depose
Adrienne a moitie evanouie). Non— non— elle respire en
core.'
De Saxe (s'approchant de 1'autre cSte du fauteuil).
Elle ouvre les yeux!
Adrienne . Ah.' quelles souffranees. ' Qui done est pres
de moi? (Avec joie.) Maurice.' Ah.' le mal redouble.
Vous qui m'aimez tant, sauvez-moi, secourez-moi. Je ne
veux pas mourir! Mon DieuJ exaucez-moii mon DieuJ
laissez-moi vivre— quelques jours encore— quelques jours
pres de [Maurice]. Je suis si jeune, et la vie s'ouvrait
pour moi si belle]
De Saxe. Ah.' e'est affreuxJ
Adrienne . La vie J— la vie.' Vains efforts]— vaine priereJ
mes jours son comptes]— je sens les forces et l'existence
qui m'echappentJ (a Maurice.) Ne me quitte pas— bientot
mes yeux ne te verrontplus.--bientot ma main ne pourra plus
presser la tienne.'
, f - De Saxe . Adrienne.' Adrienne]
Adrienne. 0 triomphes du theatre] mon coeur ne battra
plus de vos ardentes emotions] Et vous, longues etudes
d'un art que j'aimais tant, rien ne restera de vous apres
moi. (Avec douleur.) Rien ne nous survit a nous autres—
rien que le souvenir. Adieu, Maurice— adieu mes deux amis,
(pp. [V.v])
k&
She dies, and Michonnet falls at her feet crying, "Morte— mortel."
The last lines of the play belong to the count:
De Saxe. 0 noble et genereuse fillei si jamais gloire
s'attache a mes jours, c'est a-toi que j'en ferai hommage,
et toujours unis, meme apres la mort, le nom de Maurice de
Saxe ne se separa jamais de celui d'Adrienne J (p. V?
CV-v])
Perhaps the name of Maurice de Saxe never will be separated
from that of Adrienne Lecouvreur,. but the name of Eugene Scribe
will always be separated from true bourgeois tragedy just because
of such plays. Although the heroine is not of noble status and
although she comes to a sad end, she is no more than a puppet
manipulated by her creator. Her plight has no real significance
to bourgeois audiences. It is merely the difficulty of a poor
girl who comes to a bad end in aristocratic circles, retold aiter
countless presentations. Compare this denouement with that of
Ibsen's Ghosts, written thirty-two years later, where a mother
is faced with the mercy killing of her diseased son, and the con
trast between Scribe and Ibsen stands in bold relief. Then again,
however, trace in Ghosts the presentation of the background, the
planting of the clues concerning subsequent developments in the
plot, the devising of exciting curtains, and Ibsen's debt to
Scribe becomes equally evident. Yet Norway is some distance
from France, both geographically and temperamentally, and the in
fluence of French literature there has generally been indirect.
How, then, did Henrik Ibsen come to master la piece bien-faite,
a step in his career we shall find was of great importance in the
ultimate synthesis of bourgeois tragedy?
III. COSMOPOLITAN DENMARK
Most of the new ideas reaching Norway in the first half of
the nineteenth century came by way of Denmark. There are two
reasons. Denmark stands geographically as a bridge between
the European continent and the rest of Scandinavia. And until a
few years before Ibsen's birth, Norway had been under Danish
political control for about 400 years. As late as the l850's
both Norwegian language and literature were still dominated by
Danish forms.^ The Danes were characteristically cosmopolitan in
taste, and their writers were dependent on literary models of the
leading European schools, principally German and French. It was
as a result of the preference of Danish theatergoers for well-
made plays that Eugene Scribe's works came to Norway in the form
of Danish translations, adaptations, and emulations. But though
his plays proved a very strong influence in Danish drama, they
were by no means the only foreign models.
Danish literature in general was experiencing a "Golden Age"
under the leadership of Adam Oehlenschlager, and the best writing
of the period has the obvious coloring of German romanticism.
When Oehlenschlager died in 1850 the "Golden Age" was considered
officially ended— in reality it had culminated during the l840's
with the victory of the rather French neo-classical theories of
Johan Ludvig Heiberg. There were several strenuous efforts made
^I believe a word should be said here about the similarities
in the Danish and Norwegian literary languages. Even today the
written languages differ only superficially— in phonetics of
spelling and certain localisms. Norwegian books are popular on
the Danish market, and vice versa. In the middle of the nine
teenth century there was no appreciable difference in the lang
uages, and the work of Norwegian writers was considered to be
written in Danish. Toward the end of the century, however, more
and more distinctions arose, and by the time Ibsen was writing his
later dramas he chose to use a somewhat synthesized language he
termed "Nordisk." At the same time the Norwegian countryfolk's
language, "Landsmal," gained some currency in literature.
49
50
to combat the superficial elements of his esthetic notions and to
2
stress new ideals of the ascending bourgeois culture. In fact
some of the foremost Danish artists and thinkers of the time set
themselves the task of salvaging and redirecting the gradually
degenerating literary spirit. But their efforts were of little
avail, at least insofar as Denmark is concerned, for from 1§50 to
about 1870— with the "breakthrough" of the school of Georg
Brandes— practically no Danish writers appeared whose work was of
more than local importance.
Before this antithetical stream ran shallow, it produced
significant writers in four areas: in the novel, Melr Gold
schmidt; in the lyric, Emil Aarestrup; in the epic, Frederik
Paludan-MIiller; and in philosophy, S/ren Kierkegaard. All were
widely read in Scandinavia during the 18^+0's, but by far the most
important were Kierkegaard and Paludan-Miiller. H.G. Topsoe-
Jensen draws a direct line from Kierkegaard's ideas to those of
3
Paludan-Miiller and on to Ibsen, and Jorgenson judges the entire
era to have been "Of momentous importance in the intellectual
life of Norway, J --t©ve.:n though the great writers of the time were
Danes (Ibsen, p. 27)*
As Ibsen was born in 1828, he was steeped in the traditions
of the "Golden Age," and his youthful intellectual development
coincided with the critical lS^fO's. It is obvious, then, that
one who would understand Ibsen's artistic development must be
familiar with the Danish literary milieu of the time he was grow
ing up. Therefore, this chapter contains a summary of literary
events in Denmark which may well have influenced Ibsen. In
another sense, it is a continuation of the history of the idea of
bourgeois drama as it progressed northward.
2
See P.M. Mitchell's chapter "Bourgeois Eclecticism" in A_
History of Danish Literature (Copenhagen, 1957)•
^Scandinavian Literature from Brandes to Our Day (New York,
1929), p. 5* Paludan-Miiller's chief contribution is in the form
of the epic Adam Homo (l&kl) which to a £great extent satirizes
contemporary bourgeois life.
51
Although the period before 18*4-0 was most cosmopolitan, it was
not a mere reflection of French or German literary currents. The
best literature of the preceding hundred years, from the renais
sance of Danish letters in the first half of the eighteenth cent
ury, shows fundamental local and national elements. This is true
especially of the drama, which according to Danish theater his
torian Frederik Schyberg has nevertheless always been dependent on
foreign influences. In the eighteenth century, for example, was
a very strong French movement, as seen in a statistical analysis
of authors represented on the Copenhagen stage*; 189 were French,
as opposed to 61 German, *4-7 Italian, 15 English, and 1 Spanish.
Of the 131 Scandinavian, practically all were followers of French
models or of the dominant local dramatist, Ludvig Holberg, who had
learned his craft in Paris.^
Even before the advent of Holberg there had been considerable
growth of French taste in Denmark, as in much of Europe, due
principally to the political absolutism in vogue during the reign
of Louis XIV of France. French became the common language of
Danish higher society, and the rules of French neo-classicism
6
pervaded all of the Danish arts. Slavish copies of French models
and inferior Danish translations of vapid French works had in fact
reduced the Danish language to a state of indignity, thought by
many to be unworthy of use in serious literature. Danish poets
Dansk Teaterkritik (Copenhagen, 1938), p. 11.
5
Alfred Bates, Scandinavian Drama (London, 1903), p. 2* 4 -, cites
Moliere as Holberg's principal model, but sees some influence of
Italian commedia and the works of Plautus and Terence. There is
considerable debate among Scandinavian scholars as to his models
and the extent of their influence. If the reader cares to pursue
the subject, he might look into the following works, each giving
an opposite point of view: A. Legrelle, Holberg considere comme
imitateur de Moliere (Paris, 186*4-), and Georg Brandes, Ludvig
Holberg (Copenhagen, l88*f).
Statistics above are compiled from Peter Hansen, Den d anske
Skueplads (Copenhagen, 1900), I.
£
Giovanni Bach in Frederika Blankner, ed., History of the
Scandinavian Literatures (New York, 1938), p. 172"^
52
favored the hexameter, especially the alexandrine, and deliberate
ly avoided the simplicity of statement to which their language was
best suited (Bates, p. 24).
Plays were often performed in French— in fact two years went
by after the opening of the first public theater in Copenhagen,
on May 17, 1720, before a play in the Danish language was pro-
n
duced, a translation of Moliere*s 1*Avare♦ When at last native
plays appeared, the cosmopolitan quality of Danish drama re
mained, for the works of Ludvig Holberg became models for new
playwrights.
His cosmopolitanism is not to be attributed simply to his use
of French models. He was no Dane. He was born in Bergen, Norway,
in 1684, son of an army officer. Though he was supposed to fol
low a military career, it soon became evident that he was not cut
out for army life and he was sent to Latin school in Bergen and
later to the University of Copenhagen. While in Denmark he saved
money earned as a tutor and used it to travel abroad (Jorgenson,
Norwegian Literature, pp. 144-146). He went first to Holland,
then to England, where he attended Oxford University for two
8
years, supporting himself by giving instruction in languages.
After returning to Denmark in 1708, he worked as a tutor to the
son of a wealthy government official. Later he and his young
charge traveled through Germany together. In subsequent years,
he continued to develop his cosmopolitan tastes by spending con
siderable time abroad, principally in Italy and France, arriving
in Paris in 1714, at the height of the final efforts of the neo-
classicists .
7
The first Copenhagen public theater was opened by a French
actor, fitienne Capion, member of a traveling company that had been
performing at court. His royal patent authorized him, if he
pleased, to exclude any foreigners from presenting plays in Den
mark, though some plays were given in German by traveling actors
(Hansen, I, 94). On September 23, 1722, the national theater was
inaugurated with the Moliere play, Gnieren in Danish (I, 103).
g
Elias Bredsdorff, and others, An Introduction to Scandi
navian Literature (Cambridge, 1951)» p. 46.
53
During that year in Paris, he observed very closely the
activities of la Comedie-frangaise, a fact that was to prove of
great consequence to the development of Danish drama. Some time
after he returned to Denmark he was asked by the operators of the
new public theater to write the first native Danish comedy, Den
politiske Kandestjzfoer [The Political Tinker]. It was first per
formed on September 23, 1722, just two days after the premier
performance of 1 ♦Avare in Danish translation (Hansen, I, 116).
But in spite of his debt to French drama, he did not hesitate to
point out the folly of the Danish tendency to ape French manners.
He declared his chief purpose in writing plays was to help re
store the Danish language to its ancient dignity (Blankner,
p. 172). If, as is generally asserted, he succeeded, it was in
some measure due to his cosmopolitanism. As a Norwegian living
in Denmark, he could observe Danish culture dispassionately,
marking the ridiculous and petty distortions which a native Dane
might not see. This quality in his character has been called a
highly significant force in Danish letters. The Norwegian liter
ary historian Illit Gr^ndahl writes that he stood "a little aloof
9
from life, in order to see the play so much the better." In
using his knowledge of foreign dramaturgies to bring home the
ideas he had gathered in his travels abroad, he showed himself
to be more than cosmopolitan. He was an eclectic, just as his
fellow-countryman and admirer, Henrik Ibsen, was to be a century
later— displaying what Edmund Gosse calls "no imitation [of his
models] but a general similarity of method."
Q
Illit Gr/zfndahl and Ola Eaknes, Chapters in Norwegian Litera
ture (London, 1923)* p. 31* Though Holberg lived in Copenhagen
most of his life, and was a professor at the University of Copen
hagen, he seems always to have felt himself primarily Norwegian,
and repeatedly placed the words "Norvagus" or "Norvegus" after his
name and called Norwegians "my own compatriots" (p. 17).
^Northern Studies (London, 1890), p. 182. Halvdan Koht and
Sigmund Skard agree that Holberg's eclecticism represents "a
national tradition" (The Voice of Norway [New York, 19Vf], p.l83)«
This tradition will be the focal point of the next chapter of
this dissertation.
5^
Cosmopolitanism in Banish literature in the eighteenth cent
ury was not limited to predilections for French models, especially
during the latter half. Lillo's George Barnwell was translated
into Danish in 1759* and Moore’s The Gamester and some of its
11
French counterparts were translated in the following decades.
The Lillo work was never performed in Denmark, and the other works
gained only a very limited popularity for "den borgerlige
Tragedie"--sentimental comedy found more favor-T-until Kotzebue
conquered Danish audiences toward the end of the eighteenth and
in the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. From 1801 to 1825*
seventy of his plays were performed approximately 700 times in
Danish theaters (Hansen, II, 203).
Some of the outstanding Danish literary figures of the time
followed the lead of the German romantic movement. Among them
were Johannes Ewald--usually called the greatest Danish lyric
12
poet— who was influenced principally by the work of Klopstock*
and Jens Baggesen, who wrote now in German and now in Danish, and
actually left Denmark in the beginning of the nineteenth century
.to settle in Germany, trying, unsuccessfully, to become recog
nized as a German poet (Blankner, p. 179)* Foremost of these
Danish romanticists was the previously mentioned poet and drama
tist, Adam Oehlenschlager. Though a native of Copenhagen, he be
longed to a family of German organists and schoolmasters and was
himself strongly German in feeling (Bates, p. 35)» He too was
13
anxious to be recognized as a German author, but failed. In
his travels in Germany he met Goethe and Tieck, and learned a
1/f
great deal about the culture of that country from Mme de Stael.
■^F.J. Billeskov Jansen, Danmarks Digtekunst, II (Copenhagen,
19^7), 233 ff.
12
Frederik Winkel Horn, History of the Literature of the
Scandinavian North (Chicago, l&8*f), pp. 215-217*
^See Ejnar Thomsen’s Omkring Oehlenschlagers tyske Q.ui.joti-
ade (Copenhagen, 1950).
14
Friederich, German Literature, pp. 118 and 121. Scherer
says Oehlenschlager brought back saga themes to Germany (p. 7k7).
55
But it was not from her that he was to learn most about German
thought— or from Goethe or Tieck--but rather from Henrik Steffens,
a Norwegian.
Steffens had been a student of dialectical philosophy at the
University of Jena, and was especially attracted to theories of
his teachers, Johann Fichte and Friedrich Schelling. Fichte
taught that all development proceeds according to the formula
thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Schelling, who was much concerned
with the issue of human freedom under this formula, taught that
synthesis might be achieved only by a free agent, an untrammeled
15
genius. These ideas were later incorporated in Hegel's philo
sophy, but even before Hegel began teaching at Jena (in 1803),
Steffens brought them from Germany to Denmark. On November 11,
1802, he began a series of lectures on dialectical philosophy to
■ l£
a group of Copenhagen students, among them Oehlenschlager. The
young man at once provided the watchword of a new movement in
Danish literature in his poem "Guldhornene" ["The Golden Horns"]:
"Giv et Glimt tilbage" ["Look to the past"].^
In true romantic fashion, Oehlenschlager was fascinated with
the prospect of building a modern national literature on an
ancient foundation— which in Denmark was the sagas. The eight
eenth century, with its French taste, might well be ignored by a
nineteenth-century Danish genius who wanted to synthesize a truly
native modern literature. The genius, as he saw him, is under no
constraint of tradition. Rather, he is "Naturens S^Cn" ["Nature's
son"], a free soul such as Steffens had described, who ranges out
13
over his time to shape a new era. He is nevertheless attentive
15
-'See Anathon Aall's survey, "Filosofien i Norden," Edda,
5:175 ff., 1916.
16
Kr. Arentzen, Baggesen og Oehlenschlager (Copenhagen, I872),
II, 1-19» discusses Steffens' influence on Oehlenschlager.
17
Mitchell, pp. 108-109, sees the entire poem as "a trans
lation into dramatic incident of the new German philosophy."
iS
In Steffens' introductory lecture he asserted the complete
freedom of the genius from contemporary rules. See Morten Borup,
ed., Dansk Litteratur i Udvalg (Copenhagen, 1933), I, 152-153.
56
to the inspiration of the past,
. . . som sine Faedre
Kraftig og star,
Dyrkende sin Jord.
[. . . like his fathers
Strong and great, iq
Cultivating his earth.]
And apparently Oehlenschlager himself was such a genius, for what
he continued to achieve in the course of a few months is astonish
ing.
The principal early work is a romantic lyrical drama, Sant-
hansaften. He turned next to tragedy, and produced the finest of
his plays, Hakon Jarl (1805). Next was a dramatic rhapsody on
the divine gift of genius, Aladdin (1805), which he followed with
Baldur hiin Gode (I806), Axel or Valborg (1808), and, in German,
Corregio (1809). The basic concept of dialectical philosophy was
that a "World Spirit" controlled the course of history, and it is
an irrefutable law that all things must necessarily go through a
process of decadence and decline. In the end, they are replaced
by a new phenomenon, which uses the old as a foundation, but none
theless goes through the same cycle (Hegel, p. 114-). It is this
concept that is basic to Oehlenschlager's historical tragedies,
and they became models throughout Scandinavia. The best of them,
Hakon Jarl, concerns the struggle of paganism and Christianity in
tenth-century Norway. It is the eternally repeated struggle of
an old hero, Hakon Jarl, the heathen, and the champion of a new
20
order, Olaf Tryggves/n, who is crowned on the tomb of Hakon.
Of course many of the old, French school of dramatists were
enraged by Oehlenschlager's romantic products, but his influence
prevailed for the time being and he "carried the whole of the
younger generation with him" (Bates, p. 38). There is, however,
19
Peter Hansen, ed., Nordiske Digtere i vort Aarhundrede
(Copenhagen, 1870), p. 9.
20
Oehlehschlagers Tragoedier, ed. F.L. Liebenberg (Copen
hagen, 157951 I, 3 ff * 1 is the source of the summary and quota
tions given above. Ibsen said Oehlenschlager was practically the
only modern dramatist he knew before 18^9 TJorgenson, Ibsen, p.76).
57
a seeming French influence in his work, as his plays are general
ly classified for their structure as well-made plays. He dis
avowed Scribe's influence, calling the Frenchman's works mere
schematic plays, incapable of representing feelings (Schyberg,
p. 201). In this connection he expressed a preference for the
works of Kotzebue, which he felt to be more honestly emotional
than Scribe's (p. 200). But here Oehlenschlager shows himself a
representative of a passing order, for a strongly antithetical
force was growing up in the taste of Banish theatrical audiences.
As Hansen describes it, "I det fremmede Repertoire gik Hegemoniet
uigjenkaldeligt fra Tydskladd over til Frankrig. Kotzebues Tid
var omme; Scribes begyndte" ["In the foreign repertoire hegemony
went over irrevocably from Germany to France. Kotzebue's time
was over; Scribe's began"] (Skueplads, II, 529)*
Scribe's time had begun about l82C7» and the next forty years
in the history of Danish drama is primarily a history of perform
ances of his plays or works by imitators. Chief of the proponents
of his methods was the son of a famous Danish exile in Paris, who
had spent considerable time there observing the French theater.
Scribe's champion was J.L. Heiberg, who gave his name to the new
movement in Danish drama: Heibergianism.
The movement is described by Schyberg as
. . . udelukkende "aestetisk," . . . konservativ, dens hoved-
interesse er Kunst. . . . den f/rste kritiske "Bevaegelse" i
Danmark. . . . Den er betegnende [at] samme Saeson dan nye
Skole afgj^rende sejfer paa Teatret, samme Saeson, Scribe for
Alvor introduceres i Danmark bearbejdet af Heiberg, (p. 263)
[. . . exclusively "esthetic," . . . conservative, its chief
interest is art. . . . the first critical "movement" in Den
mark. . . . It is significant that the season the new school
secured victory in the theater is the same season Scribe was
introduced in earnest in Denmark, adapted by Heiberg.]
Although Heibergianism and the well-made play emerged in Denmark
at the same time, Heiberg wished to make a break with French es
thetics and establish a typically Danish drama. But he soon be
came the official representative of the "rules of old," like Hol
berg, standing for neo-classical French taste in Danish cultural
58
life.
Heiberg deliberately planned a reactionary course to combat
the influence of Oehlenschlager. As a younger man, he had been a
follower of the romantic poet and a passionate believer in the
idea of the freedom of the genius. But gradually detecting in
Danish art what he called a nbarbariske Ghaos,1 1 he turned against
Oehlenschlager. He accepted dialectical philosophy— in fact had
21
studied with Hegel --and reasoned that to seek a foundation for
nineteenth-century Danish drama in saga times was to do violence
to the continuity of history. The necessary foundation of the new
literature, according to Heiberg, was the work of the preceding
century--principally the comedies of Holberg.
He believed that French vaudeville was an ideal genre for
carrying on the tradition of the eighteenth century, and in
praising it saw himself very clearly as a reactionary:
Digteren maa nu betragte en Gjaering, son den naervaerende,
enten som en Overgang til en ny Kunstform, eller som en
temporaer Afgivelse fra de engang bestaaende; i begge fil-
faelde maa han benytte sig af den, men i det firsts Til-
faelde for at lede den fremad, i det andet for at lede den
tilbage. Jeg tilstaaer, at jeg har valgt det sidste 0ie-
med, da jeg ikke vel kunde indsee, hvorledes der af det
nuvaerende barbariske Chaos skulde kunne udvikle sig noget
Fornuftigt.
[The poet must now observe a fermentation, like the pressent
nne# either as a transition to a new form of art, or as
a temporary surrender of the former order; in either
case he must avail himself of the situation, but in the
first case to lead it forward, in the second to lead it
back. I confess that I have chosen the last purpose, as
I have not been able to perceive how anything reasonable
could develop out of the modern barbaric chaos.]
21
He described his conversion to Hegelian philosophy in terms
reminiscent of a religious conversion. See "Autobiographiske
Fragmenter,f l Johan Ludvig Heibergs Samlede prosaiske Skrifter
(Copenhagen, 18£>1), XI, 500-501.
22
The quotation is from the manifesto of Heibergianism, "Om
Vaudevillen som dramatisk Digtart" ( 71, 67)* published in 1826.
Ibsen knew it at least as early as 1851* judging from terminology
and references of his article on vaudeville for the Christiania
student paper Samfundsbladet (Efterladte Skrifter, I, 228 ff.).
59
One of the first steps he took toward the past was an attempt to
separate the dramatic genres along neo-classical lines, deempha
sizing tragedy as it did not seem to him to be significant to
modern audiences. The foundation of modern drama, according to
Heiberg, must of necessity be the traditional genre of the middle
classes, comedy,(VI, 28).
The well-made play was particularly suited to the^esthetic
philosophy of Heiberg, who felt "Illusion'* was far more important
than "Inspiration" in drama (III, 2*f9)--a cause and effect rela
tionship among the parts of greater worth than moralizing content.
The dramatist has no concern with the question "What has the poet
given us?" wrote Heiberg, only "How has he given it to us?"
(Schyberg, p. l63)« The modern dramatist's watchwords must be:
"Simplicitet, Simplicitet, Simplicitet. . . . Perfectibilitet,
Correcthed og Praecision" (p. 172). Careful structure, "den
skj^nne Form," is the source of the dramatic illusion, insisted
Heiberg, who went on to advise modern playwrights to look to the
puppet theater for evidence— there one can often find a greater
illusion than living people can bring forth (p. 172). On a more
reasonable level he advocated that in addition to careful plotting
there be a natural atmosphere about the setting— that contemporary
themes and characters be presented, that the protagonists use
language that sounds natural to the ears of Ibhe audience, and that
the characters be disclosed through analytical dialogue rather
than monologues and asides (p. 169).
Schyberg suggests Heiberg took these ideas directly from
Lessing and Diderot, even though he found the naturalistic ele
ments of their dramaturgies repugnant (pp. 169-171). He found
the whole idea of bourgeois tragedy distasteful, and thought it
impossible to create true tragedy in modern times, for modern man
lacks the religious faith fundamental to securing tragic effect
on ancient audiences (Prosaiske Skrifter, III, 2^6). If the poet
believes it his duty to instruct audiences in moral and religious
matters, let him tear down all the theaters and build up churches
instead (VI, 79).
Heiberg probably took his thesis about tragedy from the dis
cussion of the religious nature of classical tragedy in Hegel's
23
Aesthetik. The reasoning behind his choice of comedy for the
modern stage was also Hegelian, for he saw the comic as ideal in
dramatizing the dialectic (VI, 67)— the representation of the
fleeting moment being the realization of the immediate, contemp
orary synthesis (VI, 293)• In a controversy with Oehlenschlager
over his use of saga themes to dramatize dialectical philosophy,
Heiberg asserted that the true dialectic springs out of something
immediate, and the immediate can never be without the reflection
of itself, as otherwise it would have no meaning (III, 200). Thus
as comedy is most suitable to representing the immediate time and
place of its origin, it is truly more dialectical than historical
tragedy can ever be.^
His stand against moralizing in drama was somewhat complica
ted by Holberg's tendencies, but he excused the older dramatist
on the grounds that his audiences expected and responded to it.
The moral usefulness of a contemporary play is comparatively in
direct, he asserted; in so far as it gives nourishment to the in
dividual's and nation's peetic talent, it -belongs to a "moralske
Totalitet" {^noral totality "3 (VI, 79)• But, as was established
in the second chapter, bourgeois mentality is essentially moral
istic, and even while Heiberg was gaining considerable power over
Danish drama as bensbr of the Royal Theater in Copenhagen, the
whole of Danish culture was moving "towards the realization of
bourgeois ideals" (Mitchell, p. 124). It was doubtless something
of an embarrassment to him that over the proscenium of the very
theater he controlled were four words prophetic of the inevitable
challenge to Heibergianism: "Ej blot til Lyst," the drama existed
"Not merely for pleasure" (Gosse, Studies, p. 197 )•
^(Berlin, 1838), III, 540-544. Heiberg was first to trans
late Hegel into Danish, having introduced Hegelian philosophy to
Danish readers in the essay "Om den menneskelige Frihed" (1824).
24
See similar argument in his critique of Ibsen's Gildet
pa Solhaug (VII, 401-402).
61
Regardless of Heiberg’s contrary belief, meaningful content
in drama was important to bourgeois audiences. But his expert
opposition made serious dramas on bourgeois themes very slow in
developing in Denmark, and consequently in Norway. It happened,
though, that in the 184-O's Danish cosmopolitanism was giving way
temporarily to eclecticism, a studied attempt of Danish writers
to meet the particular needs of the bourgeoisie, rather than to
conform to alien, outmoded "rules.” Perhaps it ™as this rising
"Bourgeois Eclecticism," to use Mitchell’s term, that stimulated
Heiberg to set forth his ideas in the most extreme statements.
The first is a closet drama, En Sjael efter Dj^den (l84l) [A Soul
after Death], which harks back to his earlier debate with
Oehlenschlager over the freedom of the genius under the necessity
of the dialectic. The play satirizes weaknesses in contemporary
Danish character by representing efforts of a mild Copenhagener
to find his proper sphere in the afterworld. He encounters a
number of problems, and having been turned away from Heaven and
Elysium, he is at last received by Mephistopheles as a guest in
Hell. Here he can continue through eternity as dull an existence
as he knew on earth. Among the secrets of life that are revealed
to the Soul as he wanders is the answer to the question of human
freedom. This comes in an explanation by Mephistopheles that
even the genius is merely a tool in the hand of the "World Spirit"
— typical Heibergian dogmatism—
. . . den lid, som i hans Begeistring braender
Er ei hans egen; kun inspireert
Han lyder en Magt, han ikke kjender;
Og derfor, naar han har fremmet Maalet
Som Middel, bliver han selv casseert.^
[. . . the fire that flames in the genius
Is not his own; he is merely inspired,
And sounds a power he does not fathom;
Therefore, when he has furthered the goal
As a means, he is himself discarded.3
25
Johan Ludvig Heibergs Samlede poetiske Skrifter (Copen
hagen, 1862), X, 233 (Ill.i). Henning Kehler sees the theme as an
influence in the conception pf Ibsen's Kaiser og Galilaeer("Studi-
er i Ibsenske Drama," JEiidat 4:200, 1915-
62
Another of Heiberg's extreme works of this period is an essay
entitled "Skuespilleren, Publicum og Critiken" ["The Actor, Pub
lic, and the Critic"] which reasserts that comedy, not tragedy, is
the proper genre of modern drama. It is little more than a trans
lation of portions of Hegelian esthetician Heinrich Rotscher's
26
Die Kunst der dramatischen Darstellung (Berlin, 18^1)• He had
outlined a rigid system of classification of dramatic genres
based on Hegel's lectures on esthetics, and Heiberg praised him
as the first who had been able to bring dramatic art into a com
plete, coherent system in accord with dialectical philosophy
(Prosaiske Skrifter, VI, 289). One of the ideas he particularly
recommended was that the dramatic artist is entirely dependent on
the present, "denne er hans Gudinde, og hvad hun ikke indr^mmer
ham, kan intet tr^stende Blik paa en tilkommende Tid erstatte
ham" ["this is his goddess, and what she does not give him, no
trusting look to future time will supply him"] (VI, 292). For
the moment in Copenhagen, however, there was considerable oppo
sition to these ideas.
Criticism grew even among his friends— Frederik Paludan-
Miiller, for example, advised him to moderate his position and
complained that ideas of the younger generation were becoming
27
little more than Hegelian categories under Heiberg's dominatxon.
He vwas attacked in newspapers as no champion of honest Danish
comedy, but responsible instead for a widespread dilettantism,
characterlessness, and complete lack of sympathy for the great
ideas of tbhe time. Now on Hegelian ground in their own right,
the critics insisted Heiberg's work was neither national nor im
mediate, as he claimed,
26
Heiberg's article appeared in Copenhagen's Intelligens-
bladene, 18^2, No. 13- The Hotscher book was widely used in Nor
wegian theaters in the l840's.
27
Breve fra Fr. Paludan Muller, ed. H. Martensen-Larsen (Cop
enhagen, 1928), p. 30. The letter, dated January 23, l84l, is ad
dressed to the writer's brother and mentions Heiberg's newly pub
lished En_jSjae^_£fter_D^den .
63
Tiden fordrer nationals Capaciteter, hvorimod Hr. Heiberg
naermest er en franciserende Nullitet, der ved at inf^re paa
vor Scene medens han endnu var Noget for denne det moderne ^
franske Theaters trivielle, obscoene og fordaervede Producter.
[The time 'demands national capabilities, whereas Herr Heiberg
is little more than a Frenchified nonentity bringing the con
temporary French theaters trivial, obscene and degenerate
products to corrupt the Danish stage.]
And in 18^3, within a year after the essay on Rotscher’s ideas
had appeared, two works were published in Copenhagen that were to
become of the highest importance in the development both of
modern philosophy and modern drama; each was a direct contradiction
of Heiberg’s principles.
The first was an attack on esthetic life in general, as op
posed to ethical life, and contained pointed statements of the
need for ethical content in modern drama. It also had practical
advice for bringing bourgeois audiences to identify with dramatic
protagonists. It gained wide currency in Scandinavia during the
l840’s and *50's, and subsequently became known throughout the
world— S^ren Kierkegaard's Enten-eller [Either-or]. The second
work was a forthright case for the creation of modern tragedy. It
too gained some currency at the time, thanks mainly to Heiberg's
bitter counterattacks, and in our time it is held a basic docu
ment of the history of modern drama— Friedrich Hebb^el's "Ein Wort
29
uber das Drama."
28
Sejer Kuhle, Frederik Paludah-Muller (Copenhagen, 19^2),
II, 33.
29
There has been much debate whether Ibsen knew Kierkegaard's
work. For the moment, I submit the evidence of Christopher Due,
a friend of Ibsen's teens, who said tha$ Ibsen had read the philo
sopher in the 18^-0's (Christiania's Aftenposten, 190^+, No. 588).
Ibsen's mother-in-law, who met him first in Bergen in 1852, was the
popular authoress, Magdalene Thoresen. She thought him overly de
pendent on Kierkegaard (Ibsen, Breve, I, 305-306).
As to his knowledge of Hebbel's work, it must be assumed he
read Hettner's exposition in Das moderne Drama in 1852, and he had
access to Heiberg's collected prose works in the early l850's that
included the polemics against Hebbel, with many long quotes. Koht
and Elias date Ibsen's study of Hebbel from an even earlier time,
the late lS^O's before he wrote his first play (Efterladte Skrift-
£X, I, lxxvi-vii).
64
Kierkegaard published Enten-eller in February 1843 under the
pseudonym ' ‘Victor Eremita," but it was recognized at pnde to be
his work. ’It purported to be a correspondence between two men,
the younger designated "A” and the elder "B." In reality it is a
collection of loosely connected essays on esthetics and ethics,
some notes from the diary of a seducer, and a sermon by a Jutland
priest. This apparantly unrelated material is combined into a
rather indirect, though nonetheless passionate, attack on estheti-
cism. "A," for example, praises the life of immediacy, but at the
same time reveals in his comments the emptiness of sucji existence.
The activities of the seducer illustrate the most extreme aber
ration of living for the moment, underlining the utter dissatis
faction that results. "B" and the Jutland priest, however, rep
resent fulfillment of ethical ideals in life*^
Although the overall ethical character of Kierkegaard's book
makes it an ironic attack on Heiberg, there are some passages
directed specifically against "en Skole af iEstetikere" £"a school
of estheticians"] who have been fostering misconceptions about
drama. They claim to be following Hegel in emphasizing the form
of drama over content, but in reality they are ignoring the moral
basis of the philosopher's esthetic studies where he pointedly em
phasized the importance of ethical content in drama (I, 136).
Drama is action, continues Kierkegaaard, and deeds are always of
ethical significance. Furthermore it is only by his deeds that we
know the dramatic protagonist. Consequently, the form of the play
is admittedly of importance, but mostly in providing enough back
ground for his actions to make them comprehensible to the observer
and the idea of the drama quite clear (I, 36-37)*
Ethical content has always marked tragedy, notes Kierkegaard,
again citing Hegel in proof. The philosopher had by no means ex
cluded tragedy from the modern stage in marking the outmoded re
ligious basis of classical works; Hegel had instead emphasized
30
References are to Enten-eller, Et Livs-fragment (Copenha
gen, 1950), 2 vols.
65
that the tragic may be measured by but one criterion— its effect.
It must arouse sympathy in the beholders— like feeling:— for the
misery of the protagonists Kierkegaard reasons that such
feeling will develop out of modern tragedy by different means
than ancient. The classical hero was shown to fall as a conse
quence of the anger of the gods or the opposition of fate to him
or his family. Modern audiences do not, however, believe in such
"substantielle Bestemmelser" ["substantial determinants"]; there
fore the modern hero must be shown as responsible for his own
downfall, by his own choice of action. In modern tragedy, then,
the hero's fate is the fruit of his own actions and he must see
his guilt clearly in his final agony" (I, 139)* Thus, concludes
Kierkegaard, there is a stronger basis for modern than for ancient
tragedy, for the modern hero's pain is the greater:
Det er forfaerdeligt at falde i den levende Guds Haand, det
kunde man sige om den graeske Tragedie. Gudernes Vrede er
forfaerdelig, men dog er Smerten ikke saa stor som i den
moderne Tragedie, hvor Helten lider hele sin SkyId. . . .
Den bittreste Smerte er ny aabenbart Angeren, men Angeren
har ethisk, ikke sesthetisk Realitet. (I, 138-139)
[It is frightful to fall into the hands of the living god,
witness the Greek tragedy. The anger of the gods is ter
rifying, but the pain inflicted is not so great as in
modern tragedy where the hero suffers full responsibility
for his guilt. . . . The most bitter pain is now ob
viously Remorse, but remorse has ethical, not esthetic
reality.]
The modern hero's agony is thus defined by Kierkegaard as re
morse for having chosen a wrong course of action. Logically, he
emphasizes, there could be no agony of remorse where a man was a
helpless tool of a divine power. Remorse is a consequence of
choice, and choice exists only where there is freedom (I, 150).
To dramatize the dialectic is not, then, to follow Heiberg's pat
tern of securing the illusion of immediacy through comic present
ations. Mere topicality is, in fact, quite inadequate, for any
work of art has within it a moment of the past, and is consequent
31
I, 137* Hegel's assertion occurs in the Aesthetik , III ,
531.
66
ly never truly immediate (I, 1^3)* There is, though, immediacy
in the audience's sympathy with the modern tragic hero's remorse,
for they recognize themselves as being like him. The dialectic
lies within the drama, in the decision of the hero, in his choice
leading to the moment of synthesis when he recognizes his error
and consequent responsibility for his own fate. Thus dramatic
form does not exist merely for illusion as Heiberg had maintained
in a number of essays, but rather to make the hero's moment of
remorse utterly clear to the audience. Therefore, concludes
Kierkegaard, the synthesis in modern tragedy is an ethical event,
giving meaning to the past and anxiety about the future (I, 1^5) •
Kierkegaard went on in Enten-eller to discuss the means of
securing the dramatic illusion. He did this, paradoxically, in
an essay in praise of a well-made play, Scribe's The First Love^
Though he finds fault with Scribe's superficialities, he never
theless thinks his works far superior to older forms of comedy.
One of the most praiseworthy qualities is the realism of the dia
logue, wherein the protagonists disclose themselves and the situ
ations through conversation rather than monologue. There is as
well a wonderful virtuosity in plotting the situations, which
inevitably wins the belief*-of the audience (I, 241-2^2). He
then provides a twenty-nine page analysis of the play, scene by
scene, to illustrate what he feels to be the sources of its
dramatic interest. And he closes the essay with the judgment
that above all other virtues the play has economy, with every
part closely related to every other. Thus is it, concludes
Kierkegaard, with Scribe, as with all great artists— God inclu
ded (I, 272). And thus was the well-made play recommended by
perhaps the most influential Scandinavian philosopher of the time
33
Ibsen was seeking a dramatic method.
32
Ibsen possibly saw this play at the Christiania Theater
when it was performed there in 1850 (Anker, Christianias Heper-
toire, p. 16* 0 .
^Schyberg finds the extreme praise idiosyncratic but illus
trative of Scribe's dominating role in that era (p. 203).
67
Young Friedrich Hebbel, who was to join the attack against
Heibergianism begun in Kierkegaard's book, once defined a crisis
34
as a breaking point in the state of things. Surely the year
1843 was such, not only for Danish but for European drama in
general. Both Enten-eller and "Ein Wort iiber das Drama" were
written by younger men than Heiberg, relatively insignificant
figures in the literary world of the time. There certainly is
irony in the fact that a good deal of their subsequent fame re
sulted from their attacks on the long-established dictator,
whereas if his name is worth mention in histories of drama nowa
days it is chiefly because he was attacked by them. Hebbel, in
particular, profited from Heiberg's counterattacks, and it is of
considerable importance that their controversy occurred in Copen
hagen. Because of Danish cosmopolitanism, Hebbel surely received
a better hearing there than he would have had if he had published
in London, Paris, or even Berlin. The Danes, as we have seen,
35
had a tradition of letting foreign influences come i n — Heiberg
himself had complained about the Danish tendency to love anything
foreign. And thus it was a result of Danish cosmopolitanism that
Copenhagen became the site where, as John Gassner put it, Hebbel
"stood at the crossroads" between older forms of drama and modern
social drama, thereby foreshadowing "the analytic modernism of
Ibsen."36
34
G. Brychen Bees, Friedrich Hebbel as a Dramatic Artist
(London, 1930), p. 17.
35
Though Hebbel was German in culture, he was- a Dane in
nationality, having been born in 1813 in Wesselbrun, Holstein.
The essay in question was written for Stuttgart's Morgenblatt,
and was translated into Danish and published in Copenhagen's
Faedrelandet (No. 1261) when Hebbel came there to petition the Dan
ish king for a travel stipendium. By intercession of his friend
Adam Oehlenschlager, he received the grant after a second peti
tion (Edna Purdie, Friedrich Hebbel [London, 1932], p. 62).
36
A Treasury of the Theatre (New York, 1955)» I» 634. Rob
ertson also places Hebbel as "the most original German poet of
his time, a pioneer and innovator . . . as no other European
dramatist between Kleist and Henrik Ibsen" (German Literature,
The thesis of "Ein Wort iiber das Drama" was bound to bring
down the wrath of J.L. Heiberg:
Das drama stellt den Lebensprozess an sich dar. . . . Nur da-
durch, dass es uns veranschaulicht, wie das Individuum im
Kampf zwischen seinem personlichen und dem allgemeinen Welt-
willen, der die Tat, den Ausdruck der Notwendigkeit, modifi-
ziert und umgestaltet, seine Form und seinen Schwerpunkt ge-
winnt und dass es uns so die Natur alles menschlichen
Handelns klar macht, das bestandig, sowie es ein inneres
Motiv zu manifestieren sucht, zugleich ein widerstrebendes,
auf Herstellung des Gleichgewichts bereohnetes ausseres ent-
bindet— nur dadurch wird das Drama lebendig.-^?
Thus, if the struggle of the individual with the "World Will" is
the proper focus of drama, historical tragedy is most appropriate
to the modern stage. Historical accuracy is not, however, the
goal of the poet, who is only concerned with reproducing the
atmosphere of an historical period (VIII, 37)*
This idea was especially antagonistic to the theories of
Heiberg of immediacy in drama, and it was principally on this
ground that he challenged Hebbel. Writing in Intelligensbladene,
18^3, Ho. 31, he points up Hebbel's lack of clarity, and calls
the essay positive evidence of philosophical bankruptcy (Pro-
saiske Skrifter, V, 329-330). The dramatist is necessarily a pro
duct of his own age, writes Heiberg, and can reproduce the atmos
phere of no time other than his own: ". . . i denne Atmosphaere
ere vi Alle uden Undtagelse neddukkede" [". . . in this atmosphere
are we all submerged, without exception"] (V, 337). Thus, con
cludes Heiberg, Hebbel's attempt to delineate a modern philo
sophical-historical drama is an utterly empty abstraction (V, 332).
The attack necessarily called for an answer, in which the
younger man was forced to clarify his ideas and provide more con
crete evidence for his theory of dramatizing the dialectic. In
the essay in reply, "Mein Wort uber das Drama," he freely ex
tended the Hegelian principle that tragedy is to be measured by
its effect, and asserted that any time or place of crisis is ap-
37
Hebbel references are to Hebbels Werke, ed. Theodor Poppe
(Berlin, n.d.); VIII, 35-36, is the source of the quotation above.
Confer Hegel's Aesthetik. Ill, 551*
69
propriate to tragic drama— fifth century B.C. Athens and Re
naissance London being designated outstanding examples, and con
temporary Europe being suggested as an excellent source of modern
tragedy (VIII, 45).
Heiberg was of course completely at odds with Hebbel on the
issue of modern tragedy, and refuted him in another lengthy essay
(Intelligensbladene, 1843, No. 37-38). He repeated his one-sided
theories in favor of comic immediacy, but in quoting long passages
from Hebbel ironically gained far more readers for the younger
man's ideas than they would otherwise have :had at the time. The ul
timate irony of this dialectic within the history of modern drama
came in the form of a tragic drama synthesizing dialectical philo
sophy and modern topic and setting, Hebbel's famous Maria Magda
lene (1844).
The work was begun while Hebbel was still in Copenhagen in
1843, and was finished after he arrived in Paris on a stipendium
38
received from the Danish king. It is an apparent effort to prove
a contention of Hebbel's earlier essay, "Ein Wort uber das Drama,"
that a tragic hero need not be of noble stature.- (VIII, 36), as
well as the later thesis of the appropriateness of modern tragedy.
His plan is evidenced in the subtitle he gave the drama, "Ein
biirgerliches Trauerspiel." In preparing the play he had\in mind
that the dialectic would arise within the domestic world and be
peculiar to it, showing the conflicting attitudes of the gener
ation who adhered to tradition and the younger generation who
represented a,new stage of historical development (VIII, 79 ff•)•
The plot is quite simple. An old cabinetmaker.would rather
die than lose the respect of his fellow burghers, and he constant
ly emphasizes this attitude before his daughter. She has a strong
sense of duty to her father's ways, but has become pregnant by her
fiance and feels she will disgrace her father if she is not mar
ried immediately. The fiance has a stronger interest in the dowry
7 O
'The play was dedicated to Denmark's Christian VIII, and was
published with a dedicatory poem--a rather bad one (see Werke,
III, 45-48).
70
than in the girl, and when he finds the father has given the
money to a bankrupt friend, refuses to marry the pregnant
daughter. In accord with her concept of duty to her father, she
tries to cover the fact of pregnancy by committing suicide in a
way that will make her death seem accidental. She is observed,
however, and disgrace comes to the family anyway. The closing
lines are spoken, significantly, by the father: "Ich verstehe
die Welt nicht mehrj" (III, 96).
Such is the basic plot of the play Eric Bentley describes as
"at once the continuator of the eighteenth-century middle genre
and the starting point of Ibsenism" (Playwright as Thinker, p. 30).
As for the bourgeois elements in the work, they are manifold.
The title, of course, is symbolic of the ostracized girl. Other
wise the drama is entirely and realistically of the middle class.
The protagonists, in addition to the cabinetmaker’s family and
the fiance, who is a clerk, are a secretery, two bailiffs, a
local businessman, a messenger boy, and a serving maid. The set
ting is in keeping with their social level— all but one scene
take place in the livingroom of the cabinetmaker's house, the ex
ception being the rented room of the clerk. Everything the char
acters do in the course of the drama is contrived to preserve the
illusion that a tragedy is occurring inevitably to common people.
In the opening scene, for example, the mother and daughter work
on the mother's wedding dresssto try to make it suitable for the
daughter's use. Some of the most effective scenes are framed in
such simple actions as setting the supper table, clearing away
dishes after supper, reading the evening newspaper, and bickering
over such petty matters as who will take his hat off to whom and
who may call whom by the familiar foism "du."
There are yet other realistic details underlining the bour
geois milieu— the family's hiding the key to the front door in a
rat hole, counting the dowry, and, especially important, using
39
colloquial dialogue. There are also the father's discourses „
39 o
See especially the children's conversation, Actlll,Scene o.
71
on middle-class morality, which were all too familiar to audiences
of earlier bourgeois drama--but which in Hebbel's work are meant
to do more than instruct in conventional morality. They are in
cluded in such a way as to illustrate what Hebbel thought the es
sential tragic force in modern life: the struggle of the indi
vidual against utterly overpowering social forces. The father
speaks to the daughter,
Werde du ein Weib, wie deine Mutter war, dann wird man
sprechen: an den Eltern hat's nicht gelegen, dass der
Bube abseits ging, denn die Tochter wandelt den rechten
Weg, und ist alien andern vorauf. . . . Und ich will das
meini^e dazu tun, ich will.dir die Sache leichter machen,
als den ubrigen. In dem Augenblick, wo ich bemerke, dass .
man auch auf dich mit Fingern zeigt, werd* ich ... mich
rasieren, (III, 73 [II.i])
She betrays the hopelessness of her situation when she answers,
"Barmherziger Gott, was soil ich tun? . . . Erbarme dich uber den
alten Mann! Nimm mich zu dirJ Ihm ist nicht anders zu helfenJ"
(III, 73, 75 [Il.i-ii]).
To Hebbel, then, the tragic force in modern life is the move
ment of society, the dialectic of the generations. This concept
has often been repeated since his time, and may or may not be
valid. Whatever the case, it did lead a very practical— if highly
philosophical— dramatist to champion the cause of bourgeois
tragedy, though he preferred older historical themes. If Hebbel's
case,has a flaw in it, it is that the illustration, Maria Magda
lene , is too philosophical. It is too much of a reflection of the
period when Hebbel was growing up— when, as F.W. Kaufmann puts it,
ifO
the "idealistic tradition" prevailed. Hebbel's efforts never
theless distinguish the bourgeois milieu as worthy of tragic
treatment, and show that serious attempts to dramatize bourgeois
life do not have to be limited to petty, external conflicts.
He undoubtely points the way to Ibsen.
ifO
German Dramatists of the Nineteenth Century (Los Angeles,
19^0), p. 135* Kaufmann stresses Hegelian influences in the ideas
of Hebbel, and the dramatist repeatedly cites Hegel in his diary,
at least once in connection with the Heiberg debate (WSrke, IX,
J.Li. Heiberg retained his hold on Danish drama long after
the controversies with Oehlenschlager, Kierkegaard, and Hebbel,
becoming virtual literary dictator in Denmark upon his appoint
ment as director of the Royal Theater in Copenhagen in 18^-9 • By
that time Danish drama had gone into a period of marked decline,
and many of the younger writers seemed to have lost interest in
attempting anything new in thought or style. Mitchell writes
that their "reverence for what had been [became] greater than the
curiosity about what might come" (Danish Literature, pp. 170-
171), and Gosse notes that this situation continued for twenty
years or more. Heiberg had made the cultivated Dane of the time
"wholly incapable of creating new forms of art" (Studies, p. 19*0*
On the other hand,’ a number of works were published in Copenhagen
in that period which were to gain world-wide recognition. These
were by Norwegians, whose homeland could not sustain them and who
consequently turned to Denmark to find publishers and large
audiences. Among them were Bj^rnstjerne Bj^rnson, Jonas Lie, and
— foremost— Henrik Ibsen. But we must remember that in spite of
their dependence on Danish audiences, it was their chief purpose
to shape a truly national literature for their newly independent
country— an eclectic process that led to the weeding out of un
desirable Danish elements, and the introduction of valuable ideas
and methods from many sources.
IV. ECLECTIC NORWAY
At this time when Danish literature was suffering from lack
of inspired leadership, Norwegian authors, as suggested, were
taking a prominent place in world literature. Their inspiration
was not accidental. It was, in fact, closely connected with the
happy political situation of their country, which on May 17* l8l*+,
had achieved independence from Denmark after "^+00 years of night."
The awakening of Norwegian literature of real worth did not
come immediately. A generation born and raised in a free society
had to grow up and take their place among its leaders. Conse
quently, an awakening of national consciousness came about l8*f0
that has been called "of the greatest importance to literature"
(Gr^ndahl and Raknes, Chapters, p. 91)• To understand this,
writes a Norwegian authority, Illit Gr^ndahl, "it is necessary to
take a bird's-eye view of the historical conditions of Norwegian
society, and then see how these conditions and the general Euro
pean currents of ideas combined to produce a renewal of Norwegian
literature" (p. 91)* This chapter is intended as such a view.
The method of Norwegian writers of the nineteenth century was
eclectic— "selecting what seems best from various systems" — as
Gr^ndahl shows us in his summary of purposes expressed generally
among post-independence writers:
Norway must develop along her proper lines, founding her civi
lization on national tradition and national characteristics,
borrowing freely from abroad whenever she needs it, but only
when she needs it and is able to absorb what she borrows,
without doing violence to her national organism. (p. 98)
They had an obstacle to overcome in that the literate class was
hardly national in culture, the center of their civilization
being Copenhagen. The country people, on the other hand, were
sharply differentiated from the bourgeoisie by their customs,
^Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (1956). See the out
standing survey of Ibsen's eclecticism in Efterladte Skrifter, I,
v f f.
73
7h
2
language, and general views and sympathies. And Norwegxan
writers, looking about for models for the desired national cul
ture, turned first to the country folk.
Though this nationalist movement was the first truly effect
ive attempt in literature to lift the Danish yoke, it was not the
first. There had been other efforts early in'the eighteenth
century, nothbly by pastoral poet Christian Baumann Tullin (1728-
65) and historian Gerhard Schoning (1722-80). Later the national
movement was so closely connected with the flourishing romantic
movement of the rest of Europe that the two terms were joined and
from that time forward onekhearg of "National Romanticism"
(Grjzfndahl and Raknes, p. 99) • The coming of this synthesis
coincides with the founding of the Norwegian Society in Copen
hagen in 1772. It was made up mostly of Norwegian students who,
for lack of a university at home, had to attend the University of
Copenhagen. This was not a satisfactory arrangement for the
Norse, and the struggle for a Norwegian university became a
national cause, before the Danish king made provisionsfor one in
l8ll (Gjerset, II, 3^8). In the following year the Society was
dissolved, and subsequently some of its members became part of
the faculty of the new University of Christiania (II, 401).
The literary work of members of the Society is character
ized by "a somewhat bombastic patriotism" (Bredsdorff, Scandi
navian' Literature, p. 128), but there were few writers who were
truly capable of writing in honest Norwegian. Generally they had
lived abroad for a long while, came from the Danish-speaking
class in Norway, and really knew very little of their own people
(Gjerset, II, *t02). The first writer of worth who may be classi
fied as Norwegian in culture, Henrik Wergeland, was not born until
1808.
His life and work symbolize the national renaissance. Under
his leadership the National Romantic movement reached complete
2
Knut Gjerset, History of the Norwegian People (New York,
1913), II, ^65.
75
preponderance in Norwegian artistic life (Bredsdorff, p. 135)-
Yet it never ceased to be eclectic, as is seen in Wergeland's own
works. For example, he chose themes from Polish, Spanish, Eng
lish, and Hebrew sources as well as from old Norsk.''* He toured
Norway, giving lectures, organizing reading clubs and free lib
raries, changing the outlook of the people of both the city and
the country, bringing new ideas home to them (Koht and Skard,
Voice of Norway, p. 203). But most important here is that he be
lieved ah essential force in developing a national culture would
be the establishment of a Norse theater (p. 203). Consequently
q.
when a new public theater was opened in Christiania in 1838 his
drama Campbellerne was performed at the dedication (Gjerset, II,
472).
This highly romantic drama represented principles directly
opposed ,_to those of yet another eclectic and powerful figure in
Norwegian letters, J.S. Welhaven. He may be characterized as
more conservative than Wergeland, representing the continuance of
Danish culture in Norwegian life— particularly Heibergianism
(Topsoe-Jensen, Scandinavian Literature, p. 10). He was given to
calling attention to provincialism in Norway and tended to satir
ize the National Romantic extremes.
A direct clash between the opposed ideas of Wergeland and
Welhaven occurred at the opening of the Christiania Theater, when
Welhaven's followers tried to shout Campbellerne off the stage,
considering their leader to have been slighted in not being rep
resented at the dedication. The Ifergeland faction counterat
tacked, driving the danophiles from the building (Eriksen, p.
153)• Though Welhaven lost what is generally called the "Camp-
.beller battle,'1 the fight for continuing Danish drama on the Nor
wegian stage was won by default. The repertoire of native plays
was altogether too small and insignificant.
3
A.E. Eriksen, Dansk og Norsk Literaturhistorie (Christiania,
•1-884), p. 149. ! ------------- ! ----; -----
L l
The capital reverted to its Norse name Oslo in 1923*
76
Danish directors were imported along with Danish dramas, and
Christiania's Theater soon became thoroughly Danish. In 1851
another theater was erected in the capital for the express pur
pose of combatting Danish influence, and a leader of the movement
was nine teen-year-old. Bjjzfrnstjerne Bjj^rnson. Even Christiania's
Norske Theater began to follow the path of the earlier one, when
under the pressure of competition the management hired a Danish
actor. A riot followed, led by Bj/zfrnson, involving a mob of 600
students. The young man explained the violence in terms illustra
tive of Norwegian eclecticism:
A theater in the capital is an outpost of nationalism against
foreign supremacy! The capital witnesses the most severe
clashes between that which is foreign and that which is ourt
own. It has to wage«an important fight; it has great respons
ibility, and needs forces and vigilant sentinels. . . . We
have made rapid progress, but in regard to theater we have
lately been a dependency. . . . We are grateful to Danish ar
tists, and we are not yet prepared to lose them. . . . But
new foreigners, always new ones, result not only in the de
struction of what we are doing and have done, but [are] an
insult, not against us alone, but against the power which is
above us all, our country. . . . Our beloved Henrik Werge
land should have seen an evening like that of last Tuesday^
. . . We have progressed possibly faster than he expected.'7
Another artist had been showing interest in developing a
6
national drama, the violinist Ole Bull. In 1851 he had founded
the first National Theater at the ancient historical city of Ber
gen. It was self-sustaining, housed in a rather small frame
n
building,and offered only two or three performances a week.
^Gjerset, II, 520-521. Wergeland had died in 18^5*
Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians describes Bull as
having "an eminent position among modern violinists [because of]
his technical proficiency." His nationalistic spirit was "the
ruling passion of his life" and he was continually involved in
schemes for the betterment of his countrymen (1910 ed.).
n
rBernt Lorentzen, Pet f/zfrste norske Teater (Bergen, 19^9),
passim. There was also a school for actors at the theater (p. 32).
National Theater is a popular title, it received no support from
the national government. The official title was Pet norske Theater
which was also the title of the national theater opened in Chris
tiania in I85I. I will hereafter use National Theater to distin
guish the earlier, Bergen, theater from that of Christiania.
77
Since Ole Bull had established the theater at Bergen ex
pressly to combat Danish influence in Norwegian drama, he would
allow no one but a Norwegian to hold an important position in the
direction of the theater. He did accept Danish dancers and tech
nicians, but wanted a Norwegian for the post of stage manager,
in charge of setting the stage and seeing to it that the qctors
were natural in dress, dialogue, and stage movement. An old-
fashioned taste for declamation and idealization was quite strong
among Bergen playgoers, and he knew he was going to have to fight
to change it (Lorentzen, p. 26). He also realized that he needed
help from a fellow countryman firmly attached to the cause of the
national theater movement, and fortunately he did not have to
wait long to find him.
In the fall of 1850 young Henrik Ibsen saw for the first
time one of his plays performed, at the Christiania Theater.
8
The work, Kaempeh^.jen [The Warrior's Barrow], was highly nation-
g
alistic in content and Ole Bull read and liked it. He did not at
that time connect Ibsen with the national theater movement. But
in June 1851 Ibsen came to his attention again as the author of
two songs composed for the Scandinavian Students' Convention held
in Christiania. The songs were so successful that Ibsen became
the logical choice to write a prologue for a choral work for male
voices composed by Bull, to be performed the following September
to raise funds for the Bergen theater.^ Again young Ibsen
proved his worth as a poet; the prologue was a great success. It
was delivered by an actress dressed in old Norse costume who pro
claimed great future accomplishments for the land. Significantly
for Bull, in view of his quest for a truly national drama, the
g
Ibsen had gone to Christiania from Grimstad in the Spring of
1850 to try to have his first play, Catilina, performed (Janko
Lavrin, Ibsen. An Approach [London, 19503, p. 6).
9
Lavrin, p. 6. It was a revision of the earlier Normanherhe♦ ■
■^A.E. Zucker, Ibsen, The Master Builder (New York, 1929),
p. k?. The Be rgen theater was constantly in financial trouble dur-
hng six years Ibsen worked there (Lorentzen, p. 32).
78
work closed with these lines:
Thi Kunsten er en Harpes Sangbund lig,
Der laegger Kraft i *'olkesjaelens Strenge,
For at dens Tone, svulmende og rig,
Kan klinge kraftigt og vibrere laengeI
(Efterladte Skrifter, I, 113)
[For art is like the sounding board of a harp,
That puts strength in the strings of the
people's soul,
So that its tone, swelling and rich,
May ring powerfully and vibrate long.3
Ole Bull asked to meet Ibsen, and a mutual friend, Aasmund Vinje,
introduced them. Bull invited Ibsen to visit the Bergen theater,
with a view to hiring him as dramatist as well as stage manager.
Ibsen went to Bergen, arriving October 4, 1851* observed pro
ductions there for about a month, and on November 6, 1851* signed
the contract that bound him to his formal apprenticeship in the
drama.
Regardless of its title, National Theater, and of all the
efforts of Bull to make it truly Norwegian, very few native plays
were staged at Bergen during Ibsen's six years there— he left in
June of l857--and most productions had the stamp of Copenhagen on
them. As we have seen, mid-century Danish drama was dominated by
Heiberg and Scribe, so it was inevitable that Ibsen's earliest
practical experience as a playwright and stage manager was in
vaudeville and the well-made play.
In his time at Bergen, fifty-eight Scandinavian works were
presented. Twenty-six were vaudevilles, six by Heiberg; se£vve;nteen
were comedies, often with musical interludes, four by Holberg;
ten were dramas, including Heiberg's Elverhjzf.j and Oehlenschlager’s
Axel og Valborg and Vaeringerne i Miklagard. Ibsen provided five
plays for founders' day programs: Sankthansnatten, Kampehj^jen ,
Fru Inger til 0strat, Gildet pa Solhaug, and Olaf Lil.jekrans.
There were, as well, thirteen German plays, mostly comedies,
two by Kotzebue; four English plays, including As You Like It;
"^A.M. Wiesener, "Henrik Ibsen og Det norske Theater i Ber-
gen.1 1 Bergens Historiske Forening Skrifter. 3^J 8, 1928.
79
and one Spanish comedy. But by far the greatest number were
French--eighty-one in all— mostly well-made comedies, twenty-two
by Scribe either alone or in collaboration with other writers.
The Scribe works, with years of performance, are as follows:
Scribe, 1'Ambitieux, comedy, 1852
. . . , Une Chaine, comedy, 1857
. . . , Mon Etoile, comedy, 1852
. . . , la Famille Kiquebourg, drama, 1851
. . . , le Parti du diable, vaudeville, 1855 and 1857
. . . , la Pension bourgeoise, comedy, 1852
. . . , le Verre d'eau, comedy, 1855
. . . and Brulay, la Gastronome sans argent, comedy, 1857
. . . and Delavigne, la Diplomate, comedy, 1857
........... la Somnambule, comedy, 1851
. . . and Duport, les Independents, comedy, 185^ and 1855
, le Quaker et la danseuse, comedy, 1855
......... . . . , la Tutrice, comedy, 1853
. . . and Legouve, Adrienne Lecouvreur, drama, 185^ and 1855
• ••••••* 1 la Bataille de dames, comedy, 1852 .
................ , les Contes de la Reine de Navarre, comedy,
1&5^ and 1856
. . . and Leuven, la Chanteuse voilee, vaudeville, 1857
. . . and Locroy, la Marraine, vaudeville, 1853
. . . and Varner, les Deux maris, comedy, 1852
.................. le Plus beau .jour de la vie, vaudeville,
1852
............ Tou.jours, comedy, 185^ 12
. . . and Xavier, Babiole et Jablot, comedy, 1853*
As the. greatest number of plays performed at Bergen from
I85I to 1857 were French well-made plays, it is logical to assume
they influenced Ibsen's development as a playwright. Whether
this was due to his deliberate study of them or merely to an ec
lectic selection of certain of their elements, there is no doubt
that he was master of the well-made play— and no work better
12
The principal source for statistics on the Bergen theater
is T. Blanc, Norges f^rste nationale Scene (Christiania, 188^),
pp. 3^5-381. Blanc gives only Norwegian or Danish titles, but
the French may be found in repertoire lists of theaters in Chris
tiania and Copenhagen that used the same translations as the Ber
gen theater. In compiling the details given above, I used Anker,
Christianias Theaters Repertoire and Kristianias Norske Theaters
Repertoire, 1852-63 (Oslo, 1956); A. Aumont and E. Collin, Pet
danske Nationalteater, 17^8-1889, En statistisk Fremstilling, 2
voIs. (Copenhagen,1897-99).
8o
illustrates this than Fru Inger til 0strat [Lady Inger of OstraatJ
(185*+)* It is interesting to note that the drama was written in
the year Scribe 's Adrienne Lecouvreur was first produced at Ber
gen (March 19, 185*0* The French play was next produced on
January 17, 1855, just fifteen days after the premier of Fru
Inger (Blanc, pp. 3*+5 and 555)* As we saw in the second chapter,
Adrienne Lecouvreur is a typical well-made play, with all the
fahlts of the type— and with its few virtues as well. Let us now
look at Ibsen's play to see whether it is like Scribe's.
It concerns a mother's plunging into intrigue and crime to
advance her son, only to find at the denouement that she has
killed him, unwittingly, through a mistake in identity. The
woman is a sixteenth-century historical figure, Inger Ottisdatter
R0mer. She is involved in a plot to place the son of Norwegian
hero Sten Sture on the throne and drive the Danes from Norway.
To accomplish her aim she must outwit the Danish envoy, Nils
Lykke, who is tracking down Sture's son and at the same time try*
ing to find a way to weaken Inger's power among the Norwegian
people.
Inger's own son was exiled as an infant to Sweden and has
been away from home for some years. Inger hoped by exiling him
to hide from the people that she had an illegitimate child,
fathered by Sten Sture. Subsequently she married, and at thettiime
the play begins she is a widow with one living daughter, Eline—
another daughter died under mysterious circumstances before the
play began. Yar t another character is prominent in the drama, an
agitator for Norwegian independence, Olaf Skaktavl, who constant
ly presses Inger to work harder to free Norway of Danish oppres
sion.
In the tradition of the well-made play, it opens on a scene
showing a banqueUsing. hall in the castle of the heroine, where
two servants sit by the fireplace polishing armor. As they work
they talk— in fact they talk for four pages about the problems of
Norway, the relationship of Inger to those problems, the marital
status of Inger, the problems of her daughters, and so on. Their
dialogue seems very contrived, aas apparently both men know the en
tire story already. Whatever else they know that the audience
ought to be informed of is exposed in the next four pages of dia
logue after Inger's daughter Eline enters the scend and quizzes
one of the servants. Just as she extracts the last bit of back
ground information from him, Inger enters to announce the immi
nent arrival of a mysterious stranger, and orders everybody out
of the banqueting;: hall. Once Inger is alone, there is of course
nothing but for the mysterious stranger to appear, and so he does*
He comes up behind her and says, "Hil eder, fru Inger Gylden-.
l^ve["Hail to you, Lady Inger Gyldenl/ve.'"]. She turns, sees
him, and screams, "Ah, fri mig Krist i himlenJ" ["Ah, save me
13
Christ in heaven I"], then falls back into a chair as the griz-
zeled intruder stands gazing at her, motionless, leaning on his
sword. The curtain falls, and an effective curtain it is. Sure
ly it brought audiences scurrying back to their seats for the
second act. That romantic stranger, described by Ibsen asfsfefcrxmg-
ly built, with graying hair and beard and rusting weapons,
promises to have something very important to say. But here Ibsen
falls below Scribe, who seldom introduced an irrelevancy, for the
stranger neither appears again in the drama nor is so much as
mentioned again.
14
The second act opens on the same scene as the first. Inger
and Olaf Skaktavl are disclosed, engaged in heated discussion as
they await the arrival of another mysterious stranger with a mes
sage from the revolutionary leader Peter Kanzler. (Remember, the
mysterious stranger of this act is not the same as in the first
act.) Their discussion lays on more pages of exposition, mostly
about Inger's married life. They are interrupted by the sound of
13
References are to the edition of the play in Ibsen's
Digter Verker, I. The quotations above close the first act (p.
w , -i*
The setting remains the same throughout the play, due pro
bably to Bergen's limited budget, not Ibsen'sifaith in unity of place.
82
a rider entering the courtyard, and though it may be the stranger
they have been awaiting so anxiously, Inger inexplicably leads
Olaf but to refresh himself hefore the intruder enters. Here
again Ibsen shows an immaturity as a writer of well-made plays,
for the movement is not logical and makes the characters seem like
■puppets in the dramatist's hands— but it also provides the visit
or with an empty stage from which he can explain his presence to
the audience. He is Inger's old enemy, Nils Lykke, the Danish en
voy, accompanied by a confederate to whom he divulges his reasons
for coming to jZSstrat. They then learn from a servant that a
stranger with an important message is expected, and Lykke con
ceives of a plan to pose as this stranger.
There are still a few loose ends that need to be taken care
of before the drama can proceed, however, and Lykke orders his
comrade out of the room so he may complete the job by soliloquy.
He tells the audience that he is the betrayer of Inger's dead
daughter and is thereby responsible for her death two years
earlier. He also divulges an interest in the surviving sister,
whom he has never seen but understands to be very beautiful.
He then braces himself for the meeting with Inger, and she walks
in.
In the conversation that follows he unconsciously uses the
phrase "hemmeligt band" ["secret bond"] in reference to their re
lationship (I, 14-9). He is referring to his love for her dead
daughter, but she thinks he has discovered the secret of her il
legitimate son. Lykke notices her agitation.and decides he has
a powerful weapon to use against her in this, yet he has no idea
what she is hiding. He feels somewhat secure at the castle and
begins to put his plan into action for capturing Sten Sture's son
and ruining Inger's influence in the land. His first step is to
pretend to Inger that he is on Norway's side. But she finds him
out when Skaktavl reenters and she serves the two men drinks.
When both have drunk she cries out, "Men nu ma I vide,— det ene
baeger indeholdet en velkomst-hilsen for min forbundsfaelle, det an-
83
det— d^den for min uven!" ["Now you must know,--one cup holds a
welcome for my friend, the other,— death for my enemy I1 *]. Lykke
betrays himself by throwing down the goblet and crying out, "Ah,
jeg er forgiftet!" ["Ah, I am poisoned!"] (I, 15^).
Inger is triumphant. Her words were only a trick to discov
er Lykke's true feelings. He quickly recovers himself and tries
to laugh off the ruse. But this is not a moment of sufficient
suspense for the second act curtain to fall, for the audience
know quite well he plans treachery— he has told them in detail in
conversations, soliloquies, and asides. To increase audience in
terest Ibsen brings in at this point Inger's beautiful younger
daughter, Eline. Lykke is enchanted. He marvels in asides to
the audience how fair the girl is, and she in the same way ex
presses curiosity about the handsome stranger. Both are sure
that this meeting will have extreme consequences, and Lykke
speaks the last lines of the second act: "Guds hellige blod,
hvor hun er stolt og fager!" ["God's holy blood, how proud and
fair she is.'"] (I, 133).
The curtain rises on the third act to disclose Eline and
Lykke alone in the banqueting' hall. They remain alone through
nine pages of dialogqe, developing their romance unhindered.
When at last Eline leaves, she goes just in time to miss a young
man crawling through a window into the hall. The intruder hap
pens to be the mysterious stranger all have been expecting to
come with a letter for Inger with secret plans for the revolu
tion. Mistaking Lykke for Skaktavl, the young man hands him the
fateful document, which Lykke proceeds at once to read aloud for
the benefit of the audience. The letter introduces the young in
truder as the son of Inger whom she has not seen since he was a
baby, and tells that the other son of Sten Sture, the rightful
heir to the throne, is dead. Lykke dupes the son into keeping
his identity secret, promising him the kingdom, then cries out
melodramatically, "Aha,— hvilket brev! Det er guld vaerd!"
["Aha,— what a letter! It is valuable as gold!"] (I, 171).
Sk
As the curtain rises on the fourth act, Inger, Skaktavl, and
Lykke are found together in the banqueting halli- Lykke presenting
the letter— less the portion identifying the messenger and tell
ing of the death of the legitimate heir to the throne. Lykke
claims that he•is the mysterious stranger all have been expecting
and that his holding the secret plans for the revolution proves
he is with Norway in the fight. But Inger feels he has deceived
the revolutionary leader and is still the rogue he had earlier
shown himself to be. He tries to calm her, telling her he knows
she has a son by Sture and offering to help her put the boy on
the throne if she will help him carry out some of his plans. She
continues to mistrust him, but finds the idea of her son becoming
king most attractive.
Of course Lykke has no intention of putting her boy on the
throne, as he informs the audience. He intends rather to stop
her revolutionary activities by holding her son hostage in Den
mark, thereby coming into favor with the Danish king and receiv
ing a mission to France. But to do this he must get out of the
castle with the son he has hidden there. He tells Inger of a
young man of no consequence whom he wishes to proceed on a mis
sion to stir revolt among the peasants in the area. He plans to
accompany him, but Inger is not to be taken in completely and
holds Lykke while allowing the young man to go. Lykke is frantic
at the prospect of the son's being killed by some Danish soldiers
stationed in the neighborhood and tries to send a message telling
them to capture him alive. But Inger intercepts it, locks up the
messenger with Lykke— and the curtain falls on the climactic
fourth act.
The fifth act opens on the banqueting hall, as usual, with
■everything prepared for the denouement. It begins at once, with
Eline's helping Lykke to escape. The enraged Inger tells her he
was the seducer of her dead sister, and the poor girl goes off,
apparently to commit suicide. Just as she leaves, Inger's son
rushes in. He is still bound by his promise to Lykke not to di
vulge his relationship to Inger. As Lykke is not there to free
him of his oath, the noble boy has no alternative but to hold
back his secret while hinting the truth to his mother as he begs
her to hide him from the pursuing Danish soldiers. Inger re
assures him and sends him into a room off the banqueting hall.
Misunderstanding his hint as a subtle threat to betray her secretfc,
she sends Skaktavl in to murder the boy. Just as the son is
killed, Nils Lykke rushes in with his men. The body is carried
in in a coffin. One of the soldiers finds a ring around the neck
of the corpse, a ring which identifies the boy as Inger's son.
She rushes to the soldier, snatches it from him and cries out in
horror, "Sten Stures ring.' . . .0, Jesus Krist,— min sj^n!"
["Sten Sture's ring] . . . 0, Jesus Christ,— my son."1] (I, 210).
A servant hears her screams and comes rushing up to catch her as
she falls, asking her what is to be done. In agony, she replies,
"Hvad der fattes— ? En kiste til. En grav hos mit barn" ["What
is to be done--? Make one more coffin! And .a grave with my
child"] (I, 210). The curtain falls as Fru Inger collapses over
the corpse, the treaeherous Lykke rushes out of the room, and
there is general agitation among the survivors.
There is little need to review in detail the ingredients of
the well-made play that abound in Fru Inger til 0strat. The plot
9
obviously teems with complications and surprises; telling en
trances and effective curtains; improbable expositions through
soliloquy, aside, and awkwardly elaborate conversation; intrigue,
mistakes in identity, letters getting into wrong hands, and so
forth — all the transparent dramatic machinery of "Sardoodledum"
that produces nothing. Otto Heller points out that
. . . the intricacies are so great as to interfere with the
intelligibility of the dramatic process; the mind of the
spectator is hopelessly confused by the continual quid pro
quos and cross purposes. . . . And surely it is our curio
sity and excitement that wax frdm scene to scene rather
than our human sympathy. . . . Ibsen manipulated the plot
in a decidedly sensational manner. The intrigue is far
fetched, the catastrophe— a mother causing her own son to
be slain, through ignorance of his identity--harrowing
86
rather than tragical, because it lacks a sound psycho
logical .foundation.- ‘ -5
Yet Heller, like many other critics, finds evidence in this play
of Ibsen's potential as a poet, which shows already in a mastery
of dramatic movement.
This movement, so often discussed by students of Ibsen's
drama, is usually attributed to his grasp of "intensely concen
trated and therefore intensely moving dramatic form" (Grjz(ndahl
and Raknes, Chapters, p. 186), the well-made play. It was this
form that later was to give him suc|r a powerful command over the
imagination of hmdiences of his bourgeois dramas. Yet the ethical
content of the later works, as well as their perfection of tech
nique, makesthem of far greater significance than orthodox well-
made plays--of which Fru Inger is such a glaring example. Where,
then, did he conceive his passion for ethical content in drama?
Perhaps the answer to this question lies in the prevailing
spirit of Norway at the time Ibsen was growing up, when ethical
considerations were paramount among Norwegian youth. It was,
writes Professor Gjerset, a time when
. . . great political struggles stirred the Norwegian
people to intense thoughts and feelings, and roused them
to a new national life. . . . they had become active parti
cipants in events which involved their most vital social
and national interests. The newborn independence had
brought increased privileges and opportunities, but it had
also made new demands on the vigilant intelligence of the
individual. Every boy had begun to consider himself a
politician; in every household the conversation centered
on the great issues. (Norwegian People, II,
Such intellectual stimulation was bound to bring into question
certain long-cherished views, as it would foster new develop
ments in all walks of life in Norway. Nowhere was this spirit
more evident than in literature, for, as Gosse tells us, Nor
wegian poets,"where they have been poets worth considering, have
been politicians" (Studies, p. 2).
“ ^ Henrik Ibsen (New York, 1912), p. 31«
87
In the years from 183A, drama had proved of considerable
value in focusing the attention of the Norwegian people on cer
tain national issues, but it had done so for the most part by re
presenting the heroic past. Whenever it treated of contemporary
life it exhibited, as Professor Horn points out, a marked super
ficiality. There was need for a national drama with "its roots
in the life of the nation [reflecting] the character of the
people” (Scandinavian North, p, 300)* This was Ole Bull's belief
when he founded the National Theater in Bergen, and certainly it
was the belief of his young stage manager, Ibsen. It was be
coming increasingly evident that the repertoire of heroic dramas
did not reflect or meet the.priehfeimgL needs of the essentially
bourgeois culture.
The solution of this problem lay in the characteristic
eclecticism of contemporary Norwegian artists, which Grjzfndahl
sums up as follows:
Norway, having received her civilization from abroad, but
not having assimilated it in a satisfactory way, must or
ganize what she has acquired and complete it from the best
sources, be they foreign or national, taking care not to
absorb indiscriminately what is offered, neither from with
out, as she may thereby lose her individuality among na
tions, nor from within, as she may thus either break up
her cultural organism or isolate herself and consequently
stagnate. (Chapters, p. 98)
It was in keeping with this prevailing philosophy that the man
agement of the Norwegian National Theater in Bergen decided to
send their young stage manager abroad in the spring and summer of
1852 to observe activities of Danish and German theaters. Ibsen
was to bring home to Norway new ideas for the development of his
country's drama, ideas gleaned from foreign sources (Lorentzen,
Norske Teater, p. 102).
Most biographers of Ibsen agree that his trip abroad in 1852
had far-reaching consequences in the development of modern drama,
as well as in Ibsen's own.development as an artist. Yet no work
on his life I have read provides more than the briefest account
of what he saw and did while away from Bergen. Since I agree
88
that the trip of 1852 is of considerable importance, I have de
signed the next chapter of this dissertation as a detailed ac
count of his first sojourn abroad.
V. IBSEN ABBOAD, 1852
For a number of reasons 1852 was ideal for an artist of
Ibsen's eclectic frame of mind to travel in northern Europe. The
revolutions of l8^f8 generally had marked the end of political ab
solutism, and consequently the end of the struggle of the Euro,-
pean bourgeoisie to achieve recognition on the basis of indivi
dual merit rather than nobility of birth. But though the mid-
century victory was theirs, they had by no means decided what to
do with it. This became the great debate topic of the l850's and
o-f subsequent decades as well, when all over Europe there were
vigorous analyses of the bourgeois victory and suggestions as to
the proper direction to follow to fulfil the ideals of the revo
lutionary period.
The confident idealism of the 18^0's carried over into the
next decade and gave its literature an air of optimism. This was
due, perhaps, to seeming evidence of scientific, industrial, and
political movements bringing human society closer to the reali
zation of the Hegelian ideal--an ultimate perfect synthesis."*"
"Der Weltgeist," declared Hegel, "sucht eine Vereinigung, und in
der Vereinigung liegt das hohere Prinzip. . . . Dieser Prozess
. . . ist die Geschichte" (Hegel, p. 9^). There was a marked
faith among many writers in the special ability of bourgeois
society to keep the world moving towards that fulfilment. There
was, though, less desire to do away with the past, and again un
der the aegis of Hegel came a rising interest in synthesis.
Vtfhat was good in the old might be kept, and the new built upon
a foundation from the past. In this connection, the rationalism
and realism of eighteenth-century letters came again into high
^For example, Comte's Positive Polity appeared between 1851
and l85^» and Spencer's and Darwin's most important treatises ap
peared during the 50's, these works in particular tending to re
inforce the Hegelian concept of universal evolution just as they
reflected a faith in that idea. 89
90
regard, at the expense of escapist romantic literature so popular
early in the nineteenth century. The new literature returned to
moralizing and depicting realistically the bourgeoisie that sup
ported it. In France, this confidence in the perfectibility of
society and the realistic literary method as a means of reform
was best expressed by Balzac, though in drama Dumas fils led the
way. In Germany were Gustave Freytag and Friedrich Hebbel. In
England wqs the ’’Christmas Philosophy" of Charles Dickens, though
the critical tone of the period is best evidenced in sociological
works, particularly those of John Stuart Mill.
This critical, realistic spirit came somewhat later to Den
mark and Norway, due to the stand of Heiberg and his followers
against serious contemporary themes in literature. An important
voice favoring the new realism was not heard until the early
l870's, when Georg Brandes gave a series of provocative lectures
2
on the subject at the University of Copenhagen. He had in mind
a synthesis of eighteenth-century rationalism and nineteenth-
century realism which would give Denmark a modern social reform
literature. His ideas spread throughout Scandinavia, proving
especially attractive to the eclectic Norwegians, and practically
overnight a bourgeois literature began to grow up in what had
3
been deep romantic soil.
If the new literature had a bourgeois stamp, it was only in
evitable in the face of the widespread conquests of the middle
classes at mid-century. An excellent summary of the nature of
the victory-is given by William Norvin and Albert Olsen in
Gyldendals Verdenshistorie, a standard Danish source:
2
These famous lectures were well known to Ibsen, as was
Brandes himself. They have been published in English under the
title Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature (New York,
1923).
3
An invaluable record of Brandes' personal contacts with
various Scandinavian artists exists in the collection of letters
to and from him and his brother, Edvard, Brevveksling med Nor-
diske Forfattere og Videnskabsmaend, ed. Morton Borup , 10 vols.
(Copenhagen, 1939-^2).
91
Den materielle Kultur havde et afgjort borgerligt praeg,
og det same blev Tilfaeldet med Aandslivet. Efterhaanden
soa Borgerskabet paa naesten alle vigtigere Felter traengte
den gamle Feudaladel tilbage, erobrede det den ene Gren af
Kulturlivet efter den anden gennem Oprettelse af Privat-
skoler, Privatteatre og private Kunstsamlinger o.s.v.
Dette skete under Devisen om det private Initiative og den
gamle privilegerede Adel mistede snart sin Betydning som
Kulturbaerer, mens det voksende Proletariat rundt om i de
nyopdukkede Storbyer endnu ikke bet^d noget kulturelt.
Det var derfor Troen paa Friheden i Livets forskellige
Forhold, der kom til at beherske Aandslivet. . . .
socialt blev Maalet en Spraengning af Slaegtens og Standens
snaerende Baand, og moralsk gjaldt f^rst og fremmest Kravet
om Personlighed. . . . Filosofisk og kunstnerisk sejrede
Individualismen; det blev det enkelte frigjorte Individs Ud-
vikling, der kom til at staa Interessens Braendpunkt. . . .
Den kosmopolitiske Karakter, som Individualismen paa et
tidligere Tidspunkt havde, svandt bort i denne Periode.
Mens Borgerskabet tidligere reagerede mod Absolutismen
ved at sj^ge Idealitet i et Verdensborgerd^mme, hvori den
enkelte taenktes frigjort for alle samfundmaessige For-
pligtelser. . . . Baggrunden herfor var stadig Borger-
skabets Kampstilling mod Absolutismen, som med sit stive
Statssystem og sine unaturlige Dynastigraenser var en Hem-
sko paa dets /konomiske Bevaegelsesf rihed. . . . Kunsten
samtidig aendrede sig fra Empire . . . til Biedermeier-
Stilen, der helt og holdent tilh^rer Borgerd^mmet, og som .
kom til at praege Tiden f/r og omkring Aarhundredets Midte.
[Material culture had a decidedly bourgeois character,
and the same was the case in intellectual life. Gradually
as the bourgeoisie forced the old feudal nobility back in
nearly all important fields, they took for themselves one
area after another of cultural life through establishment
of private schools, private theaters, private art col
lections, and so forth. This occurred under the name of
private initiative, and the old privileged noble soon lost
his significance as the culturebearer, while the growing
proletariat around the newly-emerging large cities had as
yet no cultural significance.
It was, therefore, the belief in freedom in life's
various stations which came to control intellectual life.
. . . the social goal was to jump the bonds of family and
condition, and morally the demands of personality were
valued first and foremost. . . . Individualism triumphed
philosophically and artistically; and it was the single free
individual's development which became the focus of interest.
. . . The cosmopolitan character of individualism of an
L
1936 edition, IV, 73-76.
92
earlier period dwindled away in this period. But the
bourgeoisie earlier had reacted against absolutism by
seeking the ideal of a world-wide bourgeois society, in
which one was considered free of all social liabilities.
. . . The background of this was the continuing bourgeois
struggle against absolutism, which with its rigid political
system and its unnatural dynastic barriers was a hindrance
to the development of economic freedom of movement. . . .
At the same time, art changed from Empire to Biedermeier-
style, which belongs entirely to the bourgeoisie, and
which came to characterize the time just before and around
the middle of the century.l
Thus the prevailing mood at mid-century was, in a word, eclecti
cism. And there was a great deal to choose from, some of it of
considerable worth to an individual and a nation— much of it
dangerous.
Without the class distinctions of the period of absolutism,
the bourgeois individual could rise to positions of economic and
pblitical leadership. He could impress his taste on the arts
and, especially if an artist, influence society through his per
sonality. In fact for the first time since the Renaissance, the
highest value was placed on individual personality. But there was
danger here of egoism, cf destructive individualism. In jumping
"the bonds of family and condition" a person might lose touch with
deep-rooted culture standards and act on motives of profit and
personal advantage alone. What is worse, if such an individual
became a symbol of success in the new bourgeois order, he could
mislead generations by standing between the yonng and the founda
tion upon which they must build anything that is to last. Hegel
had taught that if society is to advance steadily, individuals
within must never lose their view of themselves in the course of
history. Though free in an abstract way, they are subordinate to
the universal progress, "die Notwendigkeit ist . . . die wahrhafte
Gerechtigkeit" (Hegel, p. 196). Ibsen,too, believed man subordi
nate to the dialectic, though each is free to choose the course of
his efforts and thereby risk error and personal responsibility for
defeat. In the critical l850's a wrong choice could stifle new
forms of art struggling to be born— he had a grave responsibility.
93
When twenty-four-year-old Ibsen went abroad in 1852, he
traveled as a free agent, with the assignment— almost the mandate
of his countrymen— to bring home elements that could be used in
the creation of a worthy native Norwegian drama. The eclectic
basis of the trip is evidenced in the checklist of things to re
member given him by the Bergen theater management the day before
he left Norway;
« 3
1. help the accompanying actors, Hr. and Fru Brun, in
their artistic development. g
2. Seek out J.L. Heiberg in Copenhagen and J.C. Dahl in
Dresden to secure their guidance and assistance.
3. Secure books on costuming.
k. Hire a dancing instructor to help for a few months in
polishing the dance repertoire at Bergen.
5. Purchase some varied examples of orchestral music.
6. Secure manuscripts of the latest successes at the
various theaters abroad.
7. Seek information on instruction of actors, direction
of dramas, costuming, stage design, and anything else
which in either an artistic or technical way could be
of interest to the National Theater.^
He left Bergen on April 13* destined first for Copenhagen.
5
Johannes Brun, then a young man of twenty, became Norway's
foremost comic actor, specializing in Holberg as well as Ibsen's
lighter roles. His nineteen-year-old wife, Louise, became the
principal interpreter of Ibsen's early romantic heroines, e.g.
Fru Inger, before her death in 1866 at the age of thirty-five
(see Ibsen, Breve, I, 295-298).
6
Dahl lived in Dresden, but was a native of the Bergen re
gion and had taken an active interest in the establishment of the
National Theater during a trip to Norway in 1850. He is usually
judged the outstanding Norwegian painter of the nineteenth cent
ury (Wiesener, Bergen, p. 1*0.
7
The numbered items are my summaries of similarly numbered
items in the checklist, as given in Wiesener, pp. 13-l*t-
8
The management gave Ibsen a travel allowance equal to ten
months pay. In return he signed a contract to remain in their
employ for at least five years. He was to have a new position
when he came back, "Scene-Instructeur, " supervising the move
ments of the actors on stage so as to give them a speed and logic
conforming to the changing situations of the drama,(Shdoseeing
that their mannerisms answer strictly to the words and character
of the role (see the travel contract in Wiesener, 11-12, and the
definition of the new position, pp. 29-31)-
9^
He found there mostly the old patterns of drama and theatri
cal presentation, already familiar to him from his work in Nor
way. Heibergianism pervaded the arts in spite of the efforts in
the l8^0's to counteract it, and Heiberg himself held sway at the
Royal Theater. But,the spirit of the 18*4-0's had not disappeared
entirely from the Danish scene. On the contrary, S^ren Kierke
gaard was fighting the last and greatest battle of his life
9
against the reactionary spirit in Danish life. Nikolaj F.S.
Grundtvig had only just won his long war against dogmatic theo
logians, and practidally single-handedly had gained complete re
ligious freedom for all Danes.His folkeh^.jskole movement,
which was to have great influence on the cultural development of
Denmark's middle classes, was only in its infancy. ^ And the
fiery Meir Goldschmidt carriaad on his radical cultural message in
12
the monthly review Nord _0£_S£d.
9
A great controversy grew up around Kierkegaard's Indpvelse
i Christendom [Training in Christianity] (1850) which progressed
until his death in 1855* His last works were mostly attacks on
"official Christianity," orthodox clergymen and professors of
theology, whom he considered gross hypocrites. An excellent
treatment of this critical time in the spiritual life of all
Scandinavia is Georg Brandes' S^ren Kierkegaard (Copenhagen, 1877)*
^H. Rosendal sees Grundtvig as a product as well as a lead
er of his time (N.F .S. Grundtvig, Et Tidsbillede [Copenhagen, 19133^
■^The first folk high school had been raised in 184*4-, but
the movement did not progress with any real strength until after
the establishment of the school at Ryslinge, Fyn, in I85I. The
movement is undoubtedly basic to the swift political and social
advances of the Danes toward the end of the nineteenth century,
and at that time became a topic of nationwide controversy. (This
is reflected in Henrik Pontoppidan's classic novel Det forjaettede
Land. ) See A.H. Hollmann, Die danische Volkhochschule und ihre
Bede utung flir die Entwicklung einer volkischen Kultur in Danemark
(Berlin, 1909).
12
Goldschmidt had been a political radical in the l840's, for
six years deceiving the Royal Censor through wittily ironic criti
cisms of the regime in his first journal, Corsair. The new jour
nal, Nord og Syd, continued to present radical views through the
l850's, tending to be less political than Corsair., due perhaps to
King Frederik VII's having foresworn absolutism and allowed a con
stitution to be adopted in 1849.
95
It is not known whether Ibsen came into contact with these
outstanding Danish thinkers during his stay in Copenhagen in
1852, but he did meet Hans Christian Andersen, with whom he dis
cussed the latest Andersen play (Meer end Perler o r Guld) which
13
was currently enjoying considerable success in Vienna. He also
made the acquaintance of J.L. Heiberg, now a man of sixty years.
Heiberg gave Ibsen an unusually warm greeting, invited him
to dinner, and saw to it that the young Norwegian and his entour
age received free access to all performances at the Royal Theater
for the remainder of the season (ffiesener, p. 17)- He had been
informed of Ibsen's coming in a letter from the management of the
Bergen theater--containing a greeting from a friend of Heiberg's
younger days and requesting that Ibsen be helped in order to ad
vance the cause of the national drama movement in Norway (p. 17)•
The idea of rebellious Norwegians coming to him in Copenhagen
amused Heiberg; and though he smiled ironically at Ibsen, whom he
14
called one of "the rebels," he expressed concern that the young
man would not find the end of the season so instructive as the
beginning (Neiindam, p. 10).
He introduced Ibsen to Thomas Overskou, a popular dramatist
as well as technical director of the Royal Theater. Overskou
summed up the impression Ibsen made on him when he wrote to his
daughter of "En lille, sammenbidt Nordmand med vaagne 0jne"
["A little, close-mouthed Norwegian with wide-awake eyes"]
(p. 9)» The two got on well together, though Ibsen was not im
pressed with the machinery at Copenhagen-— he looked forward to
finding better mechanical devices in Germany (Wiesener, p. 22),
Overskou advised the younger man on certain theatrical matters,
one in particular being close to the heart of every director:;
that actors have their parts memorized before the first rehearsali
13
Robert Neiindam, "Henrik Ibsens f/rste Bes^g i Kj/zfoenhavn,"
Politiken. 89:11, December 29, 1928.
i q .
Heiberg's phrase was "L^sriverne," those who have broken
away (Neiindam, p. 10).
96
Ibsen, was so impressed with this authoritative advice that he en
thusiastically wrote it down and sent it to the management at Ber
gen (Wiesener, p. 24). Of course he met some of Overskou's adver
saries, the actors, who incidentally were in revolt just then
against Heibergian principles of characterization— especially the
tendency to idealize speech and movement. Their leader, Frederik
H^edt, demanded more realism in stage setting as well as delivery.
He was a fine actor, a dramatist in his own right, and a trans-
15
lator of Scribe's plays.
The repertoire at the Boyal Theater was light, showing
Heiberg's cosmopolitan taste even though the majority of plays
were by Scandinavians. The following is a list of Danish plays
Ibsen probably saw in Copenhagen; titles preceded by an asterisk
were later performed at Bergen while Ibsen worked there:
Beyer, Flugt og Fare, vaudeville
Buntzen, For ti Aar siden, comedy
Hartnack, Den bevaegede Tid, comedy
*Heiberg, J.L., Mei.', vaudeville
*. . . . . . ., Recensenten og Dyret, vaudeville
Heiberg, Fru Johanne Luise, Abekatten, vaudeville
*..........1 .............. .. En S/ndag paa Amager, vaudeville
*Hertz, Kong Renes Patter, drama
*• • •* Scheik Hassan, comedy
. . ., Stedb^rnene, comedy
Holberg, Barselstuen, comedy
. . . ., Henrik og Pernille, comedy
. . . ., Pernilles korte Frj^kenstand, comedy
. . . ., Den Vaegelsindede , comedy
*Hostrup, Master og Laerling, vaudeville [at Casino]
*. . . ., Soldaterl^jer, vaudeville
Nielsen, Henriette, Slaegtningene, vaudeville
Ploug, Et Besjrfg, comedy [at Royal Court Theater]
Ritchardt, Deklarationen, vaudeville [at Royal Court Theater]
Oehlenschlager, Hakon Jarl, drama.
English drama was well represented, with four of Shakespeare's
works being presented: *As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet,
and King Lear. Of four French plays performed, three were by
Scribe: la Bataille de dames, comedy; les Contes de la Reine de
^Ibsen bought Hj^edt's translation of la Bataille de dames
for use in Bergen— Melr Goldschmidt had reviewed it favorably in
Nord og Syd just before Ibsen's visit.
97
l6
Navarre, comedy; and la Dame blanche, opera libretto.
Of the works Ibsen -probably saw performed in Copenhagen in
1852, he purchased at that time three: Buntzen's For ti Aar
slden, Hertz's Scheik Hassan, and Scribe's la Bataille de dames.
He also bought another Scribe play, the drama Bertrand et Baton,
Sheridan's comedy The Rivals, and a collection of Overskou's
17
works. He also brought back to Bergen a play of his own compo
sition, the comedy Sankthansnatten [St. John*s Eve], which he had
begun in Copenhagen. While there he purchased a little paper-
bound book by a personal friend and disciple of Friedrich Hebbel,
Hermann Hettner's Das moderne Drama. It had been receiving some
attention among people interested in drama, and as a result it was
advertized daily in a popular journal during Ibsen's visit as be
ing for sale at a bookstore not far from where Ibsen was staying
^Neiindam, p. 10). He did not, however, find time to read the
book in Copenhagen, and probably began his study of it during his
three-day trip by steamer and train to Dresden, from June 6 to 9,
1852 (Wiesener, p. 2b).
When he arrived in Dresden he did not find the help he had
received in Copenhagen. The Bergen management had informed J.C,
Dahl of his coming, but the artist was out of town. He had a
free pass for Ibsen to the Court Theater, but did not give it to
him until he returned a week after Ibsen's arrival. Meanwhile
Ibsen attended performances at the Court Theater, where he found
paying his own way expensive. He so advised Bergen, telling them
at the same time that he was finding the repertoire interesting,
though not of much value to them in Norway (Wiesener, p. 16).
The Dresden repertoire was extremely varied, and there was aa
strong trend to realism in setting and characterization. While
Ibsen was there, a number of important figures in the history of
German drama were connected with the Court Theater: Eduard, Carl,
References to the Copenhagen repertoire are compiled from
data in Overskou's Den kongelige danske Skuepladses Historie (Cop
enhagen, 1876), VI, 116-118, with additions from Neiindam, pp. 10-
11 .
98
and Emil Devrient; Bogumil Dawison, Friedrich Dettmers, Karl
17
Gutzkow, and Ludwig Tieck, among others. In general, the spirit
of German drama was that of such artist-thinkers as Otto Ludwig,
Karl Gutzkow, Ludwig Anzengruber, and Friedrich Hebbel, whose
works were becoming the foundation of middle-class serious drama
in Germany (Jameson, Modern Drama, pp. 6-7)• But the Dresden
repertoire was by no means limited to bourgeois dramas, as a sum
mary of the productions of the season of Ibsen's visit will show.
In fact, there was in the early l850's a decided movement at the
Court Theater to restore the romantic repertoire rather than
lS
allow Tendenzdrama to dominate as it had in the 18^0's.
The repertoire of German classics included six by Schiller,
three by Goethe, three by Lessing, and one by Kleist. Shakes
peare was presented with great pride, for later in the year of
Ibsen's visit the Dresden company performed Shakespeare in Lon-
19
don and proved outstanding. Their repertoire included A Mxd-
summer-Night's Dream, Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, Antony
and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet.
In the season of Ibsen's visit, thirty-five new productions were
prepared, including twenty-two plays, eight vaudevilles, two
operettas, and three grand operas. And while he was in Dresden
there were twenty-nine new plays under preparation for the fol
lowing season— of which he saw one month. Among these were
Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, a Goethe play, and two dramas by
Iffland. There were modern plays as well in this group, by Top-
fer, Gutzkow, and Eduard Devrient. Also, two comedies by Kotze
bue were given that season, and five works by Scribe.
17
Alexander Sincerus, Das Dresdner Hoftheater und seine
gegenwartigen Mitftleider (Zerbst, 18^2), passim. The pseudonym
ous author has not been identified, though it is positive that he
was someone closely connected with the Court Theater and Devrient
brothers.
18
Robert Pr'dlss, Geschichte des Hoftheaters zu Dresden (Dres
den, 1878), p. 581.
19
Wilhelm Kosch, "Emil Devrient," Deutsches Theater-Lexikon,
1953 ed., I, 320.
99
Ibsen must have been quite interested in the preparation of
these works for the stage, yet very few of them or of the older
repertoire of the Court Theater were produced later at Bergen
while Ibsen worked there. Rather, Danish vaudeville and the;air
most universally popular French well-made plays persisted, as we
saw in the preceding chapter. Of the German plays he may have
seen, only two were subsequently performed at Bergen: Gutzkow's
20
comedy Zopf und Schwerdt and Topfer's drama Per beste Ton. It
may be assumed, however, that the other German plays given at
Bergen from 1853 to 1857 had some connection with Ibsen's trip,
for every German author represented at Bergen in that period had
been performed in Dresden in 1852. In that same season there
were four non-German plays given in Dresden that subsequently
were performed at Bergen: Moretto's comedy Donna Diana, Bayard's
Un changement de main, Duval's la Jeunesse de Henri V, and Scribe's
21
le Verre d'eau— the French works all well-made comedies.
There has been a good deal of speculation about the influence
of all these plays Ibsen saw abroad on his later work. My judg
ment is that they made little difference, excepting perhaps from
the standpoint of staging. I discussed the matter with two emi
nent Scandinavian theater historians, Professors 0yvind Anker
of Oslo University and Torben Krogh of Copenhagen. Both agreed
with my generalization, Professor Anker adding that Ibsen's know
ledge of German in 1852 was adequate for reading and light con
versation, but not for following a dramatic performance very
closely. Professor Krogh showed me; from the archives of the
Royal Theater in Copenhagen set designs from 1852 that were used
later by Ibsen in Bergen.
20
Ibsen had seen a Danish translation of Gutzkow's play in
Christiania in 1851- His review of it in Andhrimner shows dis
satisfaction with Scribesque superficialities as well as a Ger
man trend to write closet dramas rather than real stage pieces.
It is reprinted in Samlede Vaerker (Copenhagen, 1902), X, 319 ff*
21
References to the repertoire of the Dresden Court Theater
are compiled from data given in Sincerus, pp. 291-299*
100
There is further evidence that he was not greatly influenced
by the plays he saw during his trip of 1852 in the fact that he
produced very few of them after his return to Bergen. He might,
for example, have chosen Hamlet or King Lear or Romeo and Juliet,
but he did not. Hei might have brought back from Germany some of
the serious bourgeois dramas that were receiving so much atten^
tion there— but he did not-bring them back either. Instead, he
chose only two serious dramas of the dozens he had seen: the
Danish dramatist Henrik Hertz's Kong Benes Patter and the German
Topfer's Per beste Ton. One other work he brought home was mild
ly serious, but was not subsequently performed at Bergen:Scribe's
Bertrand et Raton. On the other hand, practically all the plays
he knew from his trip that were later performed at Bergen were
vaudevilles or light comedies with musical interludes.
The choice of Hertz's play seems a logical one, for the
Danish author was already quite well known and that particular
22
play had received praise throughout Europe. It was also a his
torical tragedy, and as we have seen there was considerable de
mand for such works in Norway. Ibsen's audiences also had in
terest in light comedy, which explains Ibsen's bringing home so
many comic works. But we certainly cannot assume he learned to
write either historical tragedy or comedy during his trip of 1852.
He had already written two historical dramas and one light play
with musical interludes before he left, and he was familiar with
Danish vaudeville and Scribe before he went to Bergen. What, then,
if anything, did Ibsen learn from his first trip abroad that had
an influence on his subsequent development as a dramatic arti&t?
I believe the answer lies logically in the works he wrote im
mediately after his return. One play in particular ought to pro
vide a clue, for he actually commenced it while away— the comedy
22
P.A. Rosenberg evaluates Kong Renes Patter as the single
Danish drama that has won world-wide recognition, putting Hertz on
a par with H.G. Andersen in that respect. See the introduction to
his edition of Hertz's Udvalgte Skuespil (Copenhagen, 1926), I, 12.
101
Sankthansnatten. The next play Ibsen wrote is Fra Inger til
0strat, the historical drama we discussed earlier. But before we
analyze these works for any qualities which may have come of his
experiences abroad, we should turn our attention back to one event
in particular of this trip, the reading of Hdttner's Das moderne
Drama . Halvdan Koht says the book was Ibsen.'s major interest
23
abroad. And the opinion is shared by such eminent authorities
as Jorgenson and Downs that Hettner's book had a profound in-
24
fluence on Ibsen's later work.
As might be anticipated, judging from Ibsen's special inter
est in comedy and historical tragedy, Hettner's book deals in
part with these genres. It was designed as a challenge and an
admonishment to young German playwrights to take their work more
seriously than they had been doing, and to strike for a higher
literary standard. In the introduction, the author states his
intention to give young poets "jene feste Sicherheit," without
which it is not likely that they will produce significant drama.
He,.further asserts his belief in the Hegelian principle of the
eternal progression of the universe, which we have seen was a
prevalent idea in the l850's, and goes on to connect the drama
with the dialectic:
Wir haben die grossen Muster Goethe's und Schiller's nicht
einmal annahrend erreicht. Und doch konnen wir nicht mehr
nach ihnen zuruck. Alles drangt rustig vorwarts nach einem
unbekannten, nur dunkel geahntem Neuen. . . . Ich bin emsig
bemiiht gewesen, diesem hohen Ziele nach Kraften nachzu-
streben.^
23The Life of Ibsen (London, 1931), I, 8l.
24
Jorgenson writes in his biography of Ibsen that Hettner's
book was Ibsen's', : , constant companion while abroad" (p. 79), and
makes repeated references to the influence of Hettner's ideas on
Ibsen's later development as a dramatic artist. Brian Downs says
Hettner "must be taken into account in tihe?formation of Ibsen's
mind" (Ibsen, The Intellectual Background [Cambridge, 1946],
p. 49). Koht states further that Hettner's work "gave fresh im
petus to the ferment within [Ibsen]" (Ibsen, I, 80).
25
Das moderne Drama, Aesthetische Untersuchungen (Braun
schweig, 1852), pp. v-vi.
102
As Ibsen's chief interest while abroad was comedy, we might
look first at Hettner's discussion, "Die Komodie," which is divi
ded into three parts: "Das Wesen der Komodie," "Die Komodie der
Gegenwart," and "Die musikalische Komodie und das musikalische
Drama tlberhaupt." He opens the discussion deploring the condi-
'tion of comedy in Germany in 1852, "Wir haben keine einzige
deutsche Komodie, die von allgemeiner und nachhaltiger Wirkung
gewesen ware" (p. 159)• So poor is native comedy that lately the
German theater has been dependent upon French models and there
seems little prospect of creating a native comedy that may be
placed alongside that of England, France, or Spain. This is due
to the German character itself,
. . . aus der vorwiegenden Ernsthaftigkeit unseres Naturells,
aus der Pruderie unserer gesellschaftlichen Sitten, und be-
sonders auch aus dem Druck unseres Staatslebens, das uns alle
wirksamen Stoffe und Figuren entziehe und zu guterletzt so-
gar polizeilich alle Magnisse drastischer Darstellung
hindere. (pp. 139-1^0)
Not only must comedy arise from the nature of the people, contin
ues Hettner, but it must as well be topical: "Freilich wissen
wir mit Bestimmtheit das hochste Ziel der komischen Poesie ist
uns unter den jetzigen Verhaltnissen verschlossen" (p. 1^3)*
This is a very important principle for the dramatist to remember,
especially the dramatist who would create a truly modern native
comedy--such comedy "vom Wesen der Gegenwart jetzt jeder neuen
komischen Schopfung gestellt sind" (p. 1^5).
Although comedy must have a topical aura, this is not to say
it has no lasting significance, for it is as closely connected
with a people, as is tragedy— "In der Tragodie stellt sich die
innere Nothwendigkeit der sittlichen Weltordnung dar. . . . [Aber]
' i
Die Welt der Komodie ist die Welt der Willkiin und des Zufalls"
(p. 1^6). There are, furthermore, two types of comedy, the fan
tastic and the realistic, of which only the latter is appropriate
to modern times. The former, represented most effectively in the
work of Aristophanes, is constructed around a magic stroke which
does away with all laws of reality and allows us to laugh at "die
103
Menschen unter uns und die G'dtter liber uns" (p, 1^8). But modern
comedy must depend for effect on reality both in the objects rep
resented and in the plot:
Die ganze neuepe Kunst hat naturnothwendig diesen Zug nach
Naturlichkeit; denn die moderne Welt kennt ja in letzter
Instanz gar keine anderen Gotter als die Gesetze und Be-
dingunden der Natur und des Menschenlelgens. (p. 157)
There is, though, one element which Aristophanic comedy can
offer the modern comic dramatist, asserts Hettner: the subject
ive element. The ideal modern comedy would develop like charac-s-
tor tragedy, along the lines of the modern French well-made play,
but it would combine the humorous subjectivity of the poet. The
perfect comedy would be, then, a synthfesis, "Aristophanischer In
halt in realistischer Form, das ist die Zukunft der modernen
Komodie" (pp. 159-180).
The idea of employing the form of the well-made play for
modern comedy is developed further by Hdttner, who calls Scribe
the master of such "Intriguenlustspiels," and sees in the French
man's works the essence of dramatic life and movement— and there
by a principal source of the identification of the audience with
the protagonists of the drama:
In diesem Augenblicke herrscht auf alien Btihnen der gebild-
eten Welt das franzdsische Intriguenlustspiel. Und dies
wird bei uns so lange herrschend bleiben, bis die Gunst der
ausseren Umstande unsr i eine tiefere, eine mehr nationale
Komodie moglich macht. . . . Der Ausgangspunkt dieser Scribe
schen Lustspiele ist immer eine angesponnene Intrigue [die]
rolit sich dann mit einer so geschaftigen Hast und mit einer
so wunderbar kecken Schlauheit des Minirens und Gegenminir-
ens auseinander und verschiebt sich dann wieder unversehens
und verwickelt sich immer auf's Neue in so ganz unerwartete
Windungen. . . . Freilich giebt es hie und da gar arge Ver-
stosse gegen das Wahrscheinliche . . . aber was verschlagt
es . . . die Raschheit der Handlung lasst uns nicht viel
Zeit zu kaltem Besinnen. (pp. 168-169) ‘
But though Scribe is king in the contemporary theater, admits
Hettner, his works have many faults— most prominent among them
being the mechanical way in which he develops his plots. He is
like "der Marionettenspieler mit seinen Marionetten" (p. 171)*
And most unfortunate of all, German imitators of Scribe are often
104-
more purely external and mechanical than their French master
(p. 171)* Yet for all the faults of the well-made play, in its
form lies the means of presenting the subjective content which
makes for excellence in modern comedy; for above all else, the
content of comedy must be meaningful to audiences— -"dass das
Lustspiel einen bedeutenden Stoff habe" (p. 175)-
Reviewing Hettner's ideas-) of the essentials of modern com
edy, we find principally they are topicality, subjectivity,
meaningful content, and well-made structure. As Ibsen was making
a close study of these ideas while writing Sankthansnatten, there
ought to be Hettnerian elements in the play. There may, though,
have been other influences operating to make the work what it is.
So we should look briefly at a similar play Ibsen saw while
abroad in 18^2, and judging from the title it would seem A Mid-
summer-Night's Dream is the model. I cannot believe, however,
that anyone who has read the plays would find much more than the
titles similar, for Ibsen's work is as modern and subjective as
Shakespeare's is baroque and fantastic. Actually, Ibsen's play
is a fair example of vaudeville coimedy so popular in his time--
and which he knew so well. It is sometimes compared to one he
saw in Copenhagen, Christian Hostrup's Maester og Laerling [Master
and Pupil]— Henrik Jaeger cites the Hostrup play as a probable
source for Sankthansnatten. In order to determine just how
much of Ibsen's work is attributable to Hostrup's influence and
how much to Hettner's, let us look briefly at both plays.
Hostrup uses the theme of a human being caught by elves and
27
taken to the world below the surface of the ground. While in
elf land he comes across an inhabitant who also is human— having
been kidnapped as a baby and adopted by the elf king. The prince
Henrik Ibsen (Chicago, 1901), p. 84. Hostrup remains to
this day one of the most popular of Danish dramatists.
27
All references to Maester og Laerling are to the edition of
Hostrup's Komedier (Copenhagen, 1918), II, 1-102. Elves, trolls,
and woodland fairies abound in Danish vaudeville of the time.
105
wants to see the human world where he was born, and the visitor
makes an agreement with the elf king to take his adopted son to
Copenhagen to show him what life is like up where the sun shines.
Of course he will be well paid for undertaking the enlightenment
of the prince, as the elves have an immense gold mine at their
disposal. The prince is delighted with human society, and is so
enthusiastic about all he sees and hears that he is a constant
source of embarrassment to his master. The comic situations
arise mostly from the unaffected boy's contact with local places,
■customs, and types well known to contemporary Danish audiences.
An example occurs when the boy kneels before his master to praise
him after he sees the wonders of jZistergade, Copenhagen's smartest
shopping center. The nonplussed master tries fumblingly to get
the boy off his knees, as he is creating a "Skandale" (II, 26
[II.i]).
This sort of business is repeated until at last the elf
prince hears of the custom of engagement, and decides he must ex
perience the sensation. The master has other plans for him, such
as learning French, but once the boy meets a pretty girl who has
been waiting for just such an unspoiled creature of nature, they
fall in love and become engaged. All this delights the elf folk,
who dance and sing about the lovers— and everybody is happy but
2 8
the frustrated master.
Hostrup's play obviously has a number of topical and local
references, but the content is far from substantial, with the pos
sible exception of a mildly satirical element in the first act.
The master is introduced as the editor of a daily newspaper with
cultural pretensions--designed to instruct the middle classes in
matters of taste. Though it is called "Folkevillien" (II, 10
[I.iii]), Hostrup is obviously satirizing Faedrelandet. The elf
king, incidentally, had become acquainted with the master's ideas
2g
Typically in vaudeville, songs come at the end of acts or
important scenes. The music usually is not original, but is
taken from popular or folk tunes and fitted with new lyrics suit
ing the plot--so$ewhat like England's Beggar's Opera.
106
through his paper. Considering his opinions veryvwise, he chose
him as tutor for the prince.
Ibsen's play, too, is a tale of love between a human being
and a fairy creature. This time the girl is an unspoiled wood
nymph and the boy a fragile esthete who thinks he wants to live
as a hardy Romantic Nationalist, close to nature. But he finds
that his esthetic tastes inhibit fulfilment of nationalist
theories. For a while his idyllic love seems to be helping him
develop the rugged nationalist ways, but then he discovers his
beloved wood nymph has a tail— a most unesthetic appendage. This
startling discovery demands that he either compromise with his
theories, br^forswear marriage with his wood nymph. Though it
pains him to lose her, he resolves to marry more prosaically.
Engagement and marriage, he explains, are af£er all practical
matters--and in practice one cannot always carry out one's
theories.
Even this brief summary shows an essential difference be
tween Hostrup's and Ibsen's approach to comedy. The satirical
element in Hostrup's work is quite incidental, merely a means of
getting his Maester down among the elves at the expense of the
paper. Once he gets him below, the satire is forgotten., Ibsen,
on the other hand, uses the topical satirical element constantly
as a base foir developing the plot. Everything he introduces into
the play bears on the ridiculous estheticism which was.character
istic of many would-be nationalists. And what is more, everything
has the mark of Ibsen's strong feelings about the disparity be
tween the two ideas— here is the essential subjective element Hfett-
teera tod stressed. Sankthansnatten is well worth analyzing for
this and other Hettnerian elements, as will be seen in the fol
lowing survey.
Ibsen's subjectivity in ho way interferes with a clear view
of the false elements in the National Romantic movement, and his
attack remains direct, incisive, and masculine throughout the playy.
Its topicality is evident in that the hero, Julian Paulsen, is
107
introduced as well known in Christiania as the founder of a
society to restore the ancient Norse tongue. Because of his ap
parent belief in natural life, he has suddenly become very at
tractive to Juliane Berg, whose mother is delighted because she
supposes Paulsen's organization to be a temperance society.
Paulsen's chief antagonist, a student named Birk, assures Fru
Berg that the society may not properly be called temperate. In
fact, even members do not find it easy to explain the organiza-
29
tion because it has as yet no program. This information is dis
closed in the orthodox fashion of the well-made play, with an
elaborate opening discussion of the principal character who has
been invited to lunch at the Bergs'. Now that he is known to be
intemperate, impractical, insignificant— though ardent in the
National Romantic movement— there is nothing left but for him to
appear. And so he does.
The superficial Paulsen is seen at once to have no sincere
element in his character. He has grasped the newly-popular
National Romanticism as a fetish, hoping that his connection with
it will give him significance in the eyes of other people. The
popularity of the movement in contemporary Norway satisfies Hetfe-
heri^cdemand for topicality, and Ibsen shows his audience the sil
liness of the extremists as Paulsen enters the Bergs' farmyard,
ironically chattering romantic cliches:
Hvad skal det sige? . . . det maa vaere nogle gemytlige Men-
nesker her paa Gaarden— oprindelige rimeligviis og uden
Reflexion— men lad gaa Oprindeligheden— det— det Primi
tive har jo ogsaa sin Berettigelse— det er ialfald nation-
alt--og--og--Men hvis jeg nu kommer her og ved mit m/rke,
senderrevne Vaesen bringer en Misklang ind i dette stille
huuslige Liv— og at det vil skee, det er jeg nses ten visppaa. '
. . . Det er maaskee bedst, at jeg lister mig bort igjen,
medens det endnu er Tid. Men see der! en ung Pige og et
opdaekket Spisebord.' — lister jeg mig bort, saa kommer jeg til
at anrette Ulykken paa et andet Sted; thi jeg veed, jeg kan
ikke undgaae min Skjaebne; altsaa, det er afgjort, jeg blive.'
Tyshun synger . . . det er den rene uforfalskede Klang
fra Graneskoven. . . . Naa! nu er jeg da endelig ved mine
29
References are to the edition of the play in Efterladte
Skrifter. I, 371-^32, the above to p. 380.
108
jZJnskers Maal— her i den stolte, vilde Natur. . . . skal
jeg nogensinde finde min Oprindelighed igjen, saa maa det
vaere her. (I, 384-383 [I.vi])
[What shall I say? . . . there must be some pleasant
people here on the farm— original in all probability, and
not given to reflective thought— but never mind J Origi
nality— the— the primitive has its rights--it is, after
all, national--and— and— But if I come here now and with
my dark, distracted ways bring discord into this quiet life
--and I am almost certain that this will happen! . . .
Perhaps it is best that I leave while there is yet time.
But see thereJ a young girl and a decked table!--if I leave,
I merely bring misfortune on another place; for I know, I
cannot escape my fate; thus is it decided, I stay! Hush!
she sings . . . it is the pure genuine ring of the spruce
forest. . . . At last I have reached the goal of my de
sires— here in the proud, wild nature. . . . if ever I am
to find my originality it must be here,]
The "proud* wild nature" which Paulsen has been rhapsodizing
is merely the garden of the Bergs’ farm; and here Ibsen creates a
skilful and knowing contrast between the unspoiled country people
who are objects of the esthete's devotion, and the nonsensical
Paulsen himself. At first his hosts find his ideas interesting,
though they insist it is merely the garden he finds so pristine.
He is especially hurt by his down-to-earth antagonist, Birk, who
continues to point out the realities of life. He says to Birk,
Jeg beder Dig, Birk, saar ikke mine Fj^lelser. . . . For-
resten er det saamen ikke venskabeligt af Dig at svare mig
i den Tone, naar Du seer, at jeg en enkelt Gang er bleven
muntert stemt;— Du veed, hvor lidet der skal til for at
gjjzJ’ re mig m/£rk og bitter. (I, 387 [I.vii])
[Please don't wound my feelings, Birk. . . . Furthermore
it is not kind of you to answer me in that tone when you
see I am for once becoming cheerful;— -you know how little
it takes to make me gloomy and bitter.]
This is all Birk can stand, and he replies,
Hjzfr, veed Du hvad— nu er jeg kjed af den evindelige Snak om
dine lidelser, dit m/rke Hum/r og alt det Vr^vl--det er lut-
ter Affectation. (I, 387 [I.vii])
[Listen, do you know what— I'm tired of that endless chat
ter about your sufferings, your low spirits and all that
drivel— it's nothing but pretense.]
The manly challenge takes Paulsen aback, and all he can stammer
109
out is that he had never really known he was artificial. Just
then Eru Berg comes to the rescue with dinner call.
Thus does Ibsen instil the substantial content thpough
topical allusions, as Hettner had advised. He also introduces
catch phrases of the esthetes and has one of them recite a silly
poem on a romantic theme. At the same time the country people
are happily going about the business of building a St. John's Eve
bonfire. And under the spell of the midsummer night and simple
atmosphere of the countryside, Paulsen at last admits to himself
that he is a romantic sham. He cannot hold back, and confesses
all to Juliane, who does not really know what he is talking
about:
Paulsen. De anseer mig for vild--original, om jeg self
skal sige det — jo, jo, nsegt det kun ikke! Jeg veed det
bestemt, for det Indtryk gjjzfr jeg paa Alle— det er min
Ulykke— men det forholder sig virkelig saa--De forskraekkes
for mig— ikke sandt? [De tror at der gaar] en Aand, der
har brudt med Samfundet— der har sat sig ud over de saed-
vanlige Forholde--der kjaemper for en Idee, som Ingen for-
staar, og som derfor maa gaae tilgrunde— ikke sandt, saa-
ledes taenker De? . . . Nu vel! jeg er ikke den jeg synes
at vaere.
Juliane. Gudbevares! hvem er De da?
Paulsen. Jeg er ikke dette vilde— dette s/nderrevne
heiniske Vaesen, som Verden anseer mig for— viid, jeg elsker.
Juliane. Men Hr. Paulsen! (afsides.) Gud, hvor mit
Hjerte banker!
Paulsen. Et Ideal!
Juliane. Smigrer!
Paulsen. Eller rettere, jeg har elsket hende.
Juliane. Saa!
Paulsen. Ja, for nu er hun d^d.
Juliane. D^d!
Paulsen. D/d for mig! Nu veed De det.
Juliane. Men om hvem taler De da?
Paulsen. Jeg skal s^ge at forklare mig tydeligere; men
f^rst . . . jeg vil laere Dem, hvad Kjaerlighed er!
Juliane. Nei, jeg beer! (I, 396-397 [I.xiv])
[Paulsen. You look upon me as wild— original, whether or
not I say so— yes, yes, don't deny it! I know it positively,
for that's the impression I give everybody— that is my mis
fortune— but that's the way it is— -you are afraid of me,
aren't you? [You believe I am] a spirit who has broken with
society--who has set himself above ordinary circumstances—
110
who straggles for an ideal, which nobody understands, which
therefore must go to ruin— isn't that so? Isn't that the
way you think? . . . Now you must know, I am not what you
think I am •
Juliane. Heavens! Who are you then?
Paulsen. I am not this wild— this torn creature which
the world views me as— know that I love.
Juliane. But Herr Paulsen! (aside.) Oh, how my heart
pounds!
Paulsen. An ideal!
Juliane. Flatterer!
Paulsen. Or rather, I have loved her.
Juliane. What?
Paulsen. Yes, for now she is dead.
Juliane. Dead!
Paulsen. Dead for me! Now you know.
Juliane. But who are you talking about?
Paulsen. I'll try to make myself clear presently; but
first . . . I will teach you what love is!
Juliane. No, I beg of you!]
Poor disappointed Juliane then hears the whole story of the
wood nymph— which affords Ibsen many opportunities to ridicule
the grotesqueries of super-nationalism among the esthetes. When
the girl understands that the woodland creature had a tail, she
exclaims, "How crude!" and Paulsen agrees, telling how national
ism and esthetics fought for life and death in his breast. But
discipline was victorious over nature, and he gave up his wood
nymph. As he concludes his story, Ibsen deals some telling blows
to the extreme National Romanticists on topical matters they con
sidered quite serious— the matter, for example, of using lower
case letters for common nouns, a characteristic supposed to dis
tinguish Norwegian from Danish spelling! Paulsen tells how he
always spelled nouns with lower-case letters, carried a sheath
knife, and so forth, but his case seemed hopeless, his primitive-
!ness was lost. No matter how negative he was in his theatrical
criticisms for the provincial press, no matter how Byronesque his
po.se, he could not achieve the pristine state. He is at that
moment, he informs the sympathetic Juliane, in a condition almost
like what the Germans call "Weltschmerz." But she has stirred
hope in him. Then he shocks the proper girl by inviting her to
Ill
the St. John's bonfire, to "sink down" with him— into "immediate
ness." But he calms her by asserting it is an artistic immediate
ness, and off they go.to seek Paulsen's happiness in the life of
the country people (I,' 398-399 [I.xiv]).
His fulfilment comes in an unexpected way, when a benevolent
■elf makes him suspect for his dealings with Juliane. A marriage
is arranged, and though the strife between Paulsen's national
self and esthetic self is not entirely resolved, the circum
stances in which he finds himself are such that he is ready at
least to lay aside his theories— if not dismiss them entirely:
Mine Theorier? . . . jeg lader vaere at anvende dem, det
forstaar sig. I Forlibelsestiden tager man Kjaerligheden
theoretisk;--Forlovelse derimod og ASgteskab --seer I, det
er praktiske Forholde, og id det Praktiske veed man nok,
strsekke ikke altid Theorierne til. (I, 432 [Ill.viii])
[My theories? . . .1 won't use them any more, that is
understood. When one is in love he takes love theoreti
cally;— engagement and marriage, however, are practical
circumstances, and in practice, one should know well enough,
theories don't always work.]
Ibsen has made good use here of Hettner's criteria of modern
comedy— well-made structure, topical situations, subjective pre
sentation, and significant content. Furthermore, the play is ■ *
funnier than plays such as Hostrup's Maester og Laerling— probably
because there are, to use Ibsen's phrase, more "real men and
women" involved, the elves being kept minimal. I believe, then,
Ibsen's reading of Hettner's book while he was writing Sankthans
natten accounts for many of the best qualities of the play—
particularly the substantial, meaningful content. Of course the
work is comedy, not bourgeois drama, regardless of its somewhat
serious bourgeois satire. Bourgeois drama did not seem to inter
est Ibsen for some time after he wrote this comedy. His serious
plays of the decade following his first trip abroad were histori
cal dramas, and his guide in comedy, Hermann Hettner, had a good
deal to say about the historical genre as well.
Hettner's chapter in Das moderne Drama on historical drama
is divided into three essays: "Das historische Drama und die
112
Gegenwart," "Shakespeare und die historische Tragodie," and "Das
Wesen der historischen Tragodie." He opens with the assertion
that contemporary playwrights are trying to pass off as historic
al tragedy something that is no more than dramatized historical
incident. Consequently, their dramas are lacking in tragic
effect:
Hier ist in der Theorie sowohl wie in der dichterischen
Praxis ein wahrhaft babylonisch.es Gewirr der verschiedensten
und widersprechendsten Meinungen. . . . Unterscheidet [histor-
isches Drama] sich von den librigen Arten des Drama nur durch
seinen Inhalt, der der Geschichte und deren grossen Kampfen
entlehnt ist? Oder ist es auch in der Form eine durchaus
eigene specifisch abgesonderte Gattung, mit auschliesslichen,
nur ihr gehorigen Gesetzen und Bedingungen? (p. 13)
It is only in subject matter that historical tragedy differs from
other kinds. In every other respect it is subject to the laws of
dramatic poetry— which follow the laws of nature itself (pp.l^-
15). Where modern poets fail in creating t^rue historical tragedy
is in adhering to "schamloseste Dilettantismus":
. . . nirgends wuchert so wie hier die allertr iibseligste
Verwirrung. . . . Ein Jeder dieser sogenannten Dichter
schreibt sich in langen Vorreden eine eigene, dilettant-
ische, der eigenen Willkur und Ohnmacht allerbestens ap-
pretirte Aesthetik. (p. 13)
This unfortunate condition of modern tragedy has come about
through the contemporary poet’s awkward and entirely uncritical
deference to Shakespeare, who, though he is "fur das historische
Drama das absolute Muster," was himself cognizant of certain de
ficiencies in his own work which he later corrected. For example,
his historical tragedies fall into two categories— the early
English and later Homan:
Die spateren Stiicke sind die Fortbildung und Verbesserung
der friiheren. . . . diese englischen Dramen Shakespeare's
. . . sind und bleiben mit Recht eines der stolzesten Be-
sitzthlimer Englands. Mit Ausnahme der Griechen kann sich
kein Volk von Seiten seiner Dichter einer gleichen nation-
alen Verherrlichung riihmen. . . . Aber trotz alledem dUrfen
wir uns . . . nicht liber den wesentlichen Mangel dieser
englischen Historien tauschen. . . . Die Komposition dieser
Historien ist nicht dramatisch-q sie ist episch, oder wen4
igstens episirend;*, (pp. 17-20)
113
According to Hettner* the progress of modern drama has been
impeded by the poets' use of Shakespeare's English instead of
Roman models. It is in the latter that Shakespeare exhibits the
eternal laws and ideals of drama, the basic law being "dass die
Zeichnung der Situationen und Charactere zwar die eine, sehr be-
deutende Seite des Drama" (p. 19). But situation and character
design are not the whole drama by any means. The natural law of
dramatic poetry is that there be a struggle, "ein Kampf zweier
Gegensatze vorhanden," and this appear an inevitable consequence
of the characters' meeting the situations presented in the drama:
. . . durch diesen inneren Streit und Widerstreit, . . .
mit innerster Nothwendigkeit hindrangt, unterscheidet sich
die dramatische Handlung von der blossen Begebenheit, die
der Gegenstand des Epos . . . ist. Je packender und inner-
lieh nothwendiger diese Handlung, um so vollendeter ist das
Drama. (pp. 19-21)
The epic quality of Shakespeare's work disappeared, insists
Hettner, the moment the English poet became master of his craft
(p. 26). The later Roman plays, though they treat of historical
subjects, are not merely historical plays, but psychological
tragedies too— Charaktertragodien--having to do with the inner
necessity of the tragic hero's actions. In such tragedy the
modern historical dramatist has his best model (p. *1-0). Psycho
logical and historical tragedy are one in their dependence on
"die tragische Idee, die Schuld uhd deren Siihnung" (p. *45).
Therefore the accuracy of the historic content is of little con
sequence (p. *f?). It is more important that the witnesses of the
drama be able to identify with the hero, even though he might not
be of their nation. This would come about by the dramatist's
creating a parallel in the events of the audience's time and the
time of the heroic action (pp. *4-8—*+9) - In this connection, Hett
ner quotes from and summarizes Friedrich Hebbel's polemic with
J.L. Heiberg, particularly emphasizing Hebbel's idea of the
Hegelian dialectic operating in history as the source of dramatic
necessity. The fate element in modern drama is the principle of
the eternal forward movement of the universe, the Idea in .the
llA
process of realization. A historical tragedy illustrating this
process, "das Schicksal der Geschichte," would be more than mere
ly a single people's drama, it would be "eine Welttragodie"
(p. 38).
Ibsen was seeing some of the most important Shakespeare
plays while he was reading Das moderne Drama, so Hettner's re
marks about Shakespeare must have impressed him considerably.
When he went home to Bergen he probably gave an address to a
literary society on Shakespeare's influence in Scandinavian
literature (Neiindam, "Bes^g," p. 10). A number of critics have
30
seen Fru Inger as a character study after Shakespeare's model,
but I find evidences of more peculiarly Hettnerian influences in
it. There is, for example, a close attention to dramatic move
ment which we saw in the survey of the plot. This must have come
from Scribe, however, as Ibsen knew Scribe's techniques before he
read Hettner. Second, there is the deliberate focus of interest
on the character of Inger rather than on the historical inci
dents— even though the protagonist was modeled after a historical
personage. Third, and especially interesting for its implica
tions in regard to bourgeois tragedy, the play is seen by Jorgen
son to be a deliberate attempt under Hettner's aegis to get away
from the saga patterns made popular by Oehlenschlager— this in
order to give the audience someone close enough to their own time
to believe in (Ibsen, p. 1^3). But the most important of Hett
ner's ideas reflected in Fru Inger til 0strat is also a rather
minor aspect of the play— the parallel of events in the drama and
in contemporary Norway.
Inger was engulfed in the struggle to secure freedom for Nor
way, her fate occurring, however, as a result of her overwhelming
ambition for her son. It must not be forgotten that when Ibsen
wrote the drama, in 185^, Norway had only recently ceased to
battle against Danish political control and was still at war on
■^See Francis Bull's discussion, "Fra Ibsens og Bj^rnsons
Ungdomsaar i Bergen," Edda, 10:159-16^+, 1919*
115
the cultural.field. Fru Inger til 0strat is, then, a virtuoso
historical piece after Hettner's.design, but not a fulfilment of
his high ideal of "World Tragedy," showing not only a parallelism
of events and problems ancient and contemporary, but illustrating
as well the eternally recurring conflicts of irreiconcilahle
forces. Ibsen was not to reach this goal until a decade later.
It was in Kongsemnerne [The Pretenders] (1862) that he almost
perfectly satisfied Hettner's demands for historical tragedy.
There is in this play an impressive concentration of all
characters and actions on the theme of the drama, and all -ele
ments blend in such a way as to make the protagonists truly
human. Their actions seem honestly motivated, and their -feelings
humanly complex. But more important for our purpose here in
seeing the play as an example of "Welttragodie" is the universal
theme dominating the action and settings. Though the play is set
in medieval Norway and deals with an actual series of historical
events, Ibsen's genius gives it a broad human significance rather
than a merely local or regional. He accomplishes this by very
subtly implanting references to the Hegelian principle of the
dialectical movement of history. This can be seen in the. dia
logue, but even the characters are symbolic representatives of
various facets of the.Idea.
As the title implies, the drama is concerned with a conflict
between claimants to the Norwegian throne— after the reign of the
crippled Inge Bardss^n, who died in 1217 (Jorgenson, Ibsen, p.
1^8). During the last years of Bardss/n's reign the true power
of government was held by his brother, Skule Jar! (Earl Skule).
At the same time, Hakon Hakonss^n, an illegitimate son of a
former king, was being put forward as rightful heir to the throne,
though his opponents insisted there was no way of knowing whether
he was truly the son of the old king. His mother, Inga, consent
ed to be tested through ordeal by fire in order to prove her son%
claim, and as the play opens the test is taking place within the
Church of Christ in Bergen, the fapade represented on stage.
116
Churchbells are ringing, soldiers are lined up on either
side of the churchdoor— those of Hakon on one side and of Skule
on the other. The tenor of the play is established immediately
in the words of Skule as he looks expectantly toward the church,
"En stor time for Norge" ["A great hour for Norway"].^ Just
then the churchdoor swings open and Bishop Nikolas emerges, de
claring Inga's success in the ordeal and asserting that God has
declared in favor of Hakon. Skule will not accept the test as
final and demands an immediate election according to ancient laws
of the land. Hakon agrees, and is elected at once by acclamation
of the nobles present. He then asks Skule for the hand of his
daughter, hoping to bring their conflict to an end. Skule agrees
to the marriage, but at the same time shows bitter resentment to
ward the young man who has just taken the kingdom.
When the curtain falls on this brief, rapidly developed
first act, there can be no doubt in the mind of the observer that
Ibsen is dramatizing the dialectic. Time and again references
are made to the importance of the moment in the ultimate history
of Norway. There are repeated allusions to the conservative
character of Skule and the radicalism of Hakon, who tells the
older man that he feels his mission is God-given,
Var det min ret alene, som her handledes om, sa kunde det
0 0
haende,:at jeg ikke havde k/bt den sa dyrt; men vi far se
hjzfjere op; her gaelder det kald og pligt. . . . jeg alene er
den, som kan styre landet frem til det bedste i disse tider;
— kongef^dsel avler kongepligt. (II, 5 [I.i]).
[If it were only my right in question here, I would not have
paid so dealy for it; but we must look higher; my calling and
my duty are involved here. . . . I alone can guide the land-
best in these times;— kingly birth begets kingly duty.]
Skule replies that the throne should be his under the fixed law of
the land:
30
References are to the edition of the play in Ibsen's Dig-
ter Verker, II, 1-116. Jorgenson discusses the importance of the
conflict between Hakon and Skule in Ibsen, pp.. 143-1^7, and
likens it to a conflict within the mind of Ibsen during the writ
ing of the play when he was in serious financial difficulties.
117
Sa kan ikke siges med sandhed; Inge var hele sin tid konge
med al lovlig magt og unden forbehold . . . jeg er kong
Inges aegtef^dte broder, og loven er for mig, nar jeg kraever
og tager fuld arv efter ham. (II, 6 [I.i])
[What you say is not true; Inge was king during his entire
reign with all lawful power and without reservation . . .
I am King Inge's legitimate brother, and the law stands for
me when I demand and take full inheritance from him.3
There follow many other reiterations of the symbolic posi
tion of the two pretenders, such as the words of Hakon showing
his submission to the flow of history: "Her er sa meget at b/de
pa i Norge" and "De levende far tage arv efter dem, som gar bort"
["There is so much to mend in Norway," and "The living must take
up the duties of those who are gone"] (II, 13» 21 [I.ii and
Il.i]). The opposed ideas of Hakon and Skule are symbolized
dramatically at the end,of the first act when Hakon sighs,
"Endelig er jeg da konge i Norge" ["At last I am king in Norway"]
and Skule takes up the royal seal, symbol of the law for which he
stands, hides it in his belt, and says, "Men jeg rader land og
rige" ["But I rule the realm"] (II, 17 [I.ii]).
Skule's character is such, however, that he is not firm in
his belief that he is destined to be king. A stronger figure
props him up throughout the play, Bishop Nikolas. He repeats to
Skule his belief in the ultimate victory of the new power, the
antithesis, trying at the same time to convince Skule that he is
that power--thereby driving him ironically to his destruction:
. . . Skule jarl,— der er forbandelsen, som har ligget
over eders liv. I vil vide hver vej aben i njzfdsfaid, --I
srbvdr*. ikke. ati bfyde alle br'oer af og kun beholde en igen,
vaerge den alene, og sejre eller falde der. I stiller
snarer for eders uven, I bygger faelde for hans fod og
hsenger hvasse sverd over hans hoved, I str/r gift i alle
fade og I har hundrede garn ude; men vil han ind i et af
dem, sa vover I ikke at traekke i traden; griber han efter
giften, sa tykkes det jer trygere at han falder for sverd;
er han ved at lade sig fange om morgenen, sa finder'I det
bedre, at det sker ved kveldsted. (II, 2k [Il.i])
[. . . Earl Skule,— there is a curse lying over your life.
You have to know every escape in case of need,— you do not
dare to break all your bridges, keeping but one open, de
fending it alone, to conquer or to fall upon it. In placing
118
snares for your enemy,' you build a trap for his feet and
hang a sharp sword over his head, in strewing poison every
where, and in having a hundred lines out; but whenever he
steps into one of them, you do not dare to spring the trap;
if he reaches for the poison, you think it safer that he
die by the sword; if he may be taken in the morning, you
find it better that it be done at night.]
Skule begs the bishop to tell him why Hakon is so success
ful, though he id no more intelligent than the bishop or bolder
. than Skule himself. The bishop answers with a question: "Hvem
gj6r den st/rste gerning i verden?" ["Who does the greatest deeds
in the world?"]. Skule replies the greatest man does— and the
bishop asks yet another question, answering at last that a great
deed in history is done by a genius, but even the genius does not
fully comprehend his role in the dialectical movement of history:
Bisp Mikolas. Men hvem er den st^rste mand?
Skule ,jarl. Den modigste.
Bisp Nikolas. Sa siger h^vdingen. En prest vilde sige,
det er den mest troende . . . det er ingen af dem, jarl.
Den lykkeligste mand er den st/rste mand. Den lykkeligste
er det, som g^r de st/rste gerninger, han hvem tidens krav
kommer over ligesom i brynde, avler tanker, dem han ikke
selv fatter, og som peger for ham pa den vej, han ikke
selv ved hvor baer hen, men som han dog gar og ma ga, til
han h/rer folket skrige i glaede og han ser sig om med
spilte ^jne og undrer sig og skinner, at han har gj^rt et
storvaerk. (II, 23 [Il.i])
[Bishop Nikolas. But who is the greatest man?
Earl Skule. The boldest.
Bishop Nikolas. So the chieftain says. A priest would
say the most faithful. . . it is none of these, earl. The
man of fortune is the greatest man. The most fortunate man
is he who does the greatest deeds, he whom the cravings of
his time seize as in passion, begetting thoughts which he
himself cannot grasp, and which point out the way for him
along paths leading he knows hot where, but which he follows
because he must, until he hears the people shout for joy
and he looks around wide-eyed and wondering and discerns
he has done a great work.]
The lines are swiftly drawn for the battle, Skule declaring
against the new king and for the old, regionally-minded Norway.
Hakon stands for a united Norway— a land that stands as yet like
an unconsecrated church, which needs the living spirit breathed
into it: "Jeg vil bringe vigselen! Forge er et rige, det skal
119
blive et folk" ["I shall bring consecration.' Noirway is a land,
and it shall be a people as well"] (II, 62 [ill.ii]). Skule is
struck by these words. Suddenly he knows that Hakon, not he, is
fortune's man, the rightful king. Yet his die is cast, and he
must act out his part, being destroyed along with the old order.
Hakon has thrown the old saga to the wind, he cries, he is God's
man, and will hereafter be as the mast of a ship,
pege rank og skinnende opad, baere gylden fljzf j pa toppen,
sla med hvide, bugnende sejl i solskinnet og synes for
folket langt, langt borte . . . masten med guldfl^j og med
bugnende sejl skal f^re det frem mod det nye, mod det u-
kendte, mod de fremmede strande og mod den vordende sagai^
[point straight and shining upward, bear the golden vane at
the top, spread billowing white sails in the sunshine and
seem to the people to be far, far away. . . the mast with
golden vane and billowing sail will lead forward toward the
unknown, toward the new, toward foreign strands and the
waiting saga.'] _ _ _ _ _
Thus does Skule envision the future, and he sees he has no
place in the coming era that will be governed by the great new
kongstanke [king's thought]. His role is to sacrifice and to be
forgotten, that the new work may be accomplished in Norway and
the land flourish (II, 7^-75 [IV.i]). He is captured, but before
he is slaughtered by the people he speaks to his son of the
king's-thought which God has given Hakon, closing with the con
cept that some men are born to live, and others to die. He is
predestined to destruction.
He and his son go willingly to their death at the hands of
the mob. Hakon hears the vicious cries and hurries to the death
scene. It is too late for him to save his adversary, and as he
attempts to leave his path is blocked by Skule's body. One of
the nobles calls out that if Hakon is to go forward he must step
over the corpse. Hakon pauses for a moment, then speaks: "I Guds
navn da!" ["In God's name then.'"]. He steps over the body of his
enemy, and a jubilant noble speaks to him of his good fortune in
31(II, 7k [IV.i] ) . I am afraid my translation does not cap
ture the lyric quality of the original, one of Ibsen's finest
images.
120
being rid of Skule. He stops, grasps the man by the arm and says,
nHver man d^zfmte ham gait; der var en gade ved ham. . . . Skule
Bardss^n var Guds stedbarn pa jorden" ["Men judged him wrongly;
there was a mystery about him. . . . Skule Bardss^n was God's
stepchild on earth"] (II, 116 [V.iii]). The curtain falls.
This is a remarkable play, the work of a confident genius,
a master of his craft, with a precise understanding both of the
historical period of which he wrote and the parallel time in
which he lived. It is also strikingly lyrical, expressing a deep
personal identification with the philosophy of progress of the
l850's. And as it traces the downfall of Skulec through his
clash with the inexorable movement of the world, it may rightly
be called a "Welttragodie" after Hettner's design. Furthermore
it shows a high degree of technical skill. The plot is carefully
designed to give the illusion of inevitability to the actions and
fate of Skule. There is an admirable integrity of technical de
vices and underlying ideas. Notice, for example, the curtain.,
scene of the first act where Hakon sighs gratefully that he is at
last king; at that moment Skule is taking the great seal for him
self. Here Ibsen shows mastery of a Scribe technique, for it is
an effective curtain in the tradition of the well-made play,
bound to hold audience interest into the next act. Yet it also
contains a highly symbolic action. Skule's taking the seal sums
up all he stands for, the old law, and at the same time reviews
the basic conflict as presented in the first act. Ibsen goes on
to make the character of Skule quite believable and complex by
showing his indecision on various occasions, and here succeeds in
making a historical tragedy a psychological drama as well, just
as Hettner had advised. And there is another element in the play
worth considering as evidence of Hettner's influence, the parallel
between events depicted in the drama and contemporary events and
problems.
The king's-thought, for example, is certainly a brilliantly
chosen device for focusing the understanding of the audience on
121
their own connection with the events of history. It was "A great
hour for Norway” in the l860's, when decisions had to be made that
were of consequence outside of her borders as well as at home. It
was a decade of "breakthrough” in the arts, and Norwegians were
gaining international fame for their works. As Jorgenson points
out, it was the second great creative epoch in the country's his
tory— the first being the era of Hakon Hakonss^n (Ibsen, p. lVj)*
In a sense, the people had gained their birthright in a democracy:
the right to make decisions affecting the future of their land.
”. . . kingly birth begets kingly duty," and the time had come in
the course of history for the bourgeoisie to take up such duty.
This is Ibsen's message to his contemporaries, and Kongsemnerne is
an optimistic exhortation. But as we shall see, it was this same
decade when he showed a startling loss of faith in the moral
strength of the bourgeoisie. None of his later bourgeois dramas
reflects the buoyant confidence in human progress of Kongsemnerne.
And Gengangere [Ghosts], written nearly twenty years later, seems
to show a bitterness against society on Ibsen's part. Consequent
ly, one must ask what conditions prevailed in those two decades to
make him change his outlook. But before we analyze them, let us
look first at the remaining portion of Hettner's Das moderne Drama
--significantly, the chapter on bourgeois drama.
Here Hettner outlines another tragic synthesis, not unlike
historical tragedy, but including certain comic elements— such as
the realistic representation of contemporary themes and protago
nists, of low estate (p. 109). The new synthesis is peculiarly
ethical,, as with historical tragedy the conflict arising from the
inexorable movement of society hypothesized by Hegel. The action
is an individual's hopeless struggle against this movement (p. 97)*
Hettner sees certain household crises as excellent examples of
such struggle, and recommends them as most meaningful to bourgeois
audiences (p. 75)*
He emphasizes that every action of the protagonists be clear
ly motivated and work harmoniously with every other to give the
122
impression of inevitability to the tragic conclusion (p. 130), and
recommends the well-made play as a model structure for modern
bourgeois tragedy. It has the admirable Aristotelian quality of
economy, allowing rapid dramatic movement as well as sharp focus
on the tragic action (p. 132). The complicated intrigues which
infect contemporary well-made plays must be cut out entirely, he
insists, for they kill the illusion of the inner necessity of the
actions, an essential in tragedy (p. 126).
The term Hettner uses for this new drama suggests the syn
thesis of ancient and modern he had in mind: bourgeois "Tragodie."
He gives a whole history of the development of bourgeois drama,
with references to Lillo, Diderot, Lessing, Hebbel, and others we
have studied in this dissertation. There is also an analysis of
the weak condition of bourgeois drama of the time he is writing,
along with incisive comparisons and contrasts of bourgeois with
historical, classical, and Renaissance tragedies and with various
types of comedy. Part of the discussion is devoted to Aristo
telian principles and their meaning for bourgeois tragedy--and,
interestingly enough, he finds a connection between the work of
fiugene Scribe and Aristotle's ideas, principally the unities. The
entire chapter is, then, a plan for a dramatic synthesis, using
older ideas of historical tragedy and comedy as a foundation for
contemporary bourgeois tragedy. And there is little doubt, as we
shall see in the next chapter of this paper, that it had a deep
effect on Ibsen when under the pressures of changing social con
ditions he turned from writing historical drama to serious
bourgeois plays. Remembering that Hettner’s little book was pub
lished in 1852, just as Ibsen left on his first journey abroad,
we are justified in repeating the thesis of this fifth* chapter of
my dissertation: "1852 was ideal for an artist of Ibsen's eclec
tic frame of mind to travel in northern Europe."
VI. SYNTHESIS
The eclectic spirit pervades Hettner's book, as does the
logical outgrowth of eclecticism— synthesis. We have seen that
in the nineteenth century the idea of synthesis had taken on an
almost religious connotation. Hegel's concept of the synthesis
essential to historical change and human progress was applied to
drama, giving an ethical tone to dramatic criticism., Hettner,
for one, introduces ethical considerations in a prominent place
in the beginning of Das moderne Drama (pp. 9-11), and the words
"guilt," "duty," and "society" are common in his discussion of
bourgeois drama. But Ibsen, regardless of his own ethical pre
occupations, was not quick to follow Hettner's suggestion for the
creation of bourgeois tragedy. Audiences during the l850's and
' 60's had something to do with this slowness for they demanded
comedies and historical tragedies. Yet we know from the analysis
of Kongsemnerne that there were probably personal reasons Ibsen
did not try to synthesize modern tragedy soon after reading
Das moderne Drama— chiefly that he was not then pessimistic
enough to see tragedy in bourgeois social conflicts.
When he began his sorties against false values in bourgeois
society, he did not turn first to tragedy, though he did look to
Hettner for guidance. His first attack”was Kaerlighedans Komedie
[Love's Comedy] (1862), written in Aristophanic verse and in
other ways reflecting the influence of Hettner's essay on comedy.
The play has substantial content. Jorgenson says it is one of
the most topical, subjective, and meaningful of all Ibsen's plays
— though it is far from pleasant reading, a "sober piece" (Ibsen,
p. 139). Ibsen presents the problem of two young people in love
being sentimentalized by friends and relations to the point of
nausea. Their intimate life is invaded by these conventional
people, who suffer from a kind of madness that has come to them
since they themselves married— or has come of their cravings to
marry or find mates for others^^When the two young lovers become
12k
aware of such results of marriage and conventional attitudes to
ward it, they decide to preserve their ideal by making a pleasant
memory of their love— in other words, they decide not to marry,
on the assumption that only disillusionment can follow. So ends
the comedy, made up unquestionably of Hettnerian substantial con
tent .
As might be expected, Kaer lighedens Komedie brought Ibsen his
first taste of the wrath of the indignant bourgeoisie. He wrote
of the reaction to his English translator, William Archer, "My
countrymen excommunicated me. All were against me."^- But his
attack— and the counterattacks of the bourgeosie— had only just
begun.
His next work, Kongsemnerne, is neither bourgeois nor
polemic; and the two plays in verse following it in 1866 and ’ 67»
Brand and Peer Gynt, are not less idealistic than Kongsemnerne♦
But in 1869 Ibsen moved again to the attack on corrupt middle-
* class practices, in the comedy De unges Forbund [The League of
Youth]. He had been sickened by commercial speculators of his
time who had been undermining the ideals of business integrity
and public service of the older, aristocratic families. And, in
particular, he had had a falling-out with Bjjirnson over the lat-
ter's implied criticism of Peer Gynt. He deliberately uses
photographic effects so as to leave no doubt in the mind of the
audience as to what and whom he is attacking: unbridled middle-
class materialism and egoistic political orators of Bj^rnson's
2
stamp. But as a work of dramatic art, De unges Forbund lacks
depth of philosophy and characterization. Ibsen himself admitted
the weaknesses, attributing them, however, to what later proved a
very important preoccupation in his development as a writer of
bourgeois tragedy— the desire to perfect a method of complete re
alism in representing contemporary settings and dialogue (Breve, I,
188) .
^~The Collected Works of Henrik Ibsen QSTew York, 1908), II, xxi.
2
The generalizations above are based on Jorgenson's discus
sion of the background of De unges Forbund (Ibsen, pp. 303-308).
He pat this admission in a letter to Georg Brandes, who, as
we know, had been leading the battle .to bring Scandinavian
literature into the main current of European realistic art. For
some time Brandes had been championing Ibsen’s plays in his pub
lic criticisms, but in his private correspondence he continually
admonished Ibsen to strive for more realism and serious social
content in his dramas. Their exchange of letters during the
writing of De unges Forbund and on into the l870's is most valu
able far the light it throws on Ibsen's growing awareness of the
need for serious topical content and realistic effects in con
temporary drama. There is a note of excitement in Ibsen's let
ters, as when he asks Brandes to tell him without delay his
opinion of his latest play, the first he had written "uden en
eneste monolog, ja, uden en eneste 'afsides' replik" ["without a
single monologue, yes, without a single aside"] (Breve, I, 188).
We must suppose from his apparent agitation that Ibsen was under
very great pressure to change his ways. This is remarkable when
we remember he had made his name in European literature through
highly idealistic declamatory historical and verse dramas--and
,that he was a successful writer of verse comedy as well. What
need had he to change to realistic social dramas?
I believe it was an outgrowth of his avowed ethical purpose
as an artist. We read above that he desired to awaken the minds
of his countrymen to serious contemporary issues and to help them
realize their individual potentials. We know as well that there
had been arguments dating back to Lillo's time for realism as a
method of moral instruction in drama. Furthermore, in the criti
cal first two decades of Ibsen's development as a playwright,
Kierkegaard, Hebbel, and Hettner had presented practical cases
for bourgeois realism as a medium of ethical instruction. And
from almost their first exchange of letters in the early l860's,
Brandes had argued with Ibsen to give up historical tragedy, just
as he had opposed all romantic escapism in Scandinavian drama.
But though these men no doubt made deep marks on Ibsen's thinking
126
and writing, perhaps the deepest impression was made by the ob
vious disintegration of the high political and social ideals of
the Norway of his youth. He detected in the l860's an increasing
political irresponsibility among his countrymen, as well as an
abiding tendency among the middle classes to prefer material ad
vantages to cultural ones. This degeneration of ideals was
focused sharply on his mind when in 1864 his countrymen refused
to fulfil a pledge to fight alongside Denmark against Prussia in
the.cause of Danish territorial integrity. The sight of victor
ious German troops spitting into captured Danish cannon, which
Ibsen witnessed in. Berlin that year, seems to have shocked him
into a direct attack on immediate problems— an attack such as is
3
contained in De unges Forbund.
Though new and ever stronger forces for bourgeois realism
pressed on him about the beginning of the l870's, he persisted
for some time even after writing the realistic comedy to use the
idealistic historical pattern. Is a matter of fact, he gave al
most an entire decade to the creation of the gigantic historical
drama Ke.jser og Galilaeer [Emperor and Galilean], which he called
a "World Drama." Brandes, in particular, continued to needle him
for contributions to the realistic movement; but Ibsen could only
apologize for his slowness and cite his "World Drama" as the
reason for the delay: "Julian har endnu et sa fast tag i mig, at
4
jeg ikke kan slippe ham" ["Julian has still so firm a grip on me
that I cannot be rid of him"], wrote Ibsen to his friendly agi
tator (Breve, I, 259).
3
Again, Jorgenson provides an excellent survey of various
forces operating on Ibsen's intellect and emotions during the
i860 *s (Ibsen, pp. 292 ff.), upon which I have based my general
izations.
4
The play concerns the futile efforts of Julian the Apostate
to weaken Christianity and reestablish paganism in the Roman Em
pire of the fourth century A.D. Hegel had •cited the conflict of
Julian's reign as evidence of the dialectical movement of world
history (Hegel, p. 154). The "Third Kingdom" motif in the play,
a synthesis of pagan and Christian worlds, is seen by Koht and
Elias as derived from Hegel (Efterladte Skrifter, I, lxxix).
127
He was always to consider this play his masterwork, but when
it appeared in 1873 it was evidently too long and diffuse in
structure to be produced effectively. It was also more philo
sophical than dramatic, being, as we have seen, an out-and-out
illustration from distant historical events of the Hegelian dia
lectic. His next work, though, is a serious bourgeois drama,
realistic in details of setting and dialogue— as we should expect
when we remember the pressures on Ibsen to attempt realism. But
four years passed after the publication of Kejser og Galilaeer be
fore the new play was ready. As early as 1875 Ibsen began writ
ing Brandes about 'det st^rre dramatiske arbejde" i^the great drama
tic work"! which he was preparing (Breve, II, 35)♦ Two years
later he was still at work on his project, which he advised his
publisher would be both topical and serious in every sense, and
which was being created with perhaps the greatest artistic care
of all his dramas (II, 226). It was completed in 1877 and given
the title Samfundets Stutter [Pillars of Society], but it hardly
exhibited in its conclusion the artistic integrity essential to
tragedy. It did though show distinct evidence that Ibsen was at
tempting the synthesis of historical and bourgeois drama that
Hettner had outlined.
The conflict of the individual with changing social forces
is illustrated in wholly bourgeois terms. Here, then, is the
practical application of Ibsen's theory that "no everyday common
place subject will be too prosaic to be sublimated into poetry."
The milieu is exclusively of the middle class, with parlors and
business offices for the protagonists to move about in and with
many workaday problems for them to talk about in colloquial terms.
Yet a summary of the plot shows that the drama has a Hegelian
idealistic base.
Konsul Bernick, a respected businessman in a small Norwegian
town, is on the verge of bankruptcy. His fortune depends greatly
on the participation of the community in his shipping enterprise;
if there is suspicion of his precarious financial state he will
128
lose local support and the business will fail. Qne of his ships
is about to sail, but is badly in need of repair. Any delay in
the sailing will endanger his solvency, so he decides to risk
sending the ship out in a condition that could lead to disaster.
The situation is complicated by the fact that some people in the
community want to bring through a railroad along the coast, a
move that would greatly weaken Bernick's traditional power in the
town. Furthermore, he has secretly purchased land with a view to
bringing in a railway from the interior. It is in this setting
that Ibsen illustrates the inexorable "struggle between two ir
reconcilable powers in the life of the world."
He attempts this principally through reiterations of the
Hegelian concept in the dialogue, much as in Kongsemnerne. In
the very opening scene of Samfundets Stutter, for example, the
local teacher expresses histhankfulness that "vi har det, som vi
har det" ["we have it as we have it?’] in his community. He says
this at a meeting of a society made up for the most -part of idle
women who wish to inculcate bourgeois morality into the town’s
lower element. Bernick's wife belongs to the group and reminds
them of their debt to her husband for keeping the coastal railway •
out. She easily persuades her friends he is an instrument of a
higher power.^
Thus, Bernick is characterized as a moral pillar of his town
--and he consciously holds this image of himself and tries to fur
ther it. His self-righteousness is exhibited ironically in his
reactions to the boisterous American crew of the ship he is send
ing out in dangerous condition: ". . . de folk har jo ikke denne
rodfaestede s^mmedlighedsfjzflelse, der holder os indenfor de rette
skranker" [". . . they certainly do not have the deep-seated
feelings of decency that keep us within proper bounds"] (IV, 2^+
[I.i]). In a way Bernick's stand is like Skule's in Kongsemnerne
— who stood for the old law— for Bernick finds it most deplorable
of the Americans to fly in the face of all that is customary and
therefore right. Unconventionality is, of course, quite foreign
129
to his community, for which he expresses great thanks (IV, 2b
[I.i]). But the new world enters the merchant's house, symboli
cally, in the form of his sister-in-law, Lona, who has been
living in America. She will not be swayed from her healthy at
titudes by Bernick or his like— his moral linen smells rotten as
a winding sheet, she says at the end of the first act, and she
prefers the fresh air of the prairies of America. She intends to
let some into the Bernick house (IV, 26).^
It is apparent even in this brief summary of the first act
that Ibsen is very swiftly and very distinctly establishing Ber
nick as the symbol of the old order and Lona as his Hegelian
antithesis. But according to Hettner's plan for Itragedy, the op
position to the rising new order is not sufficient to produce a
tragic culmination in modern drama. Rather, the representative
of the dying order must go down to defeat because of his own
choice of action against the antithesis— the drama illustrating
his fall being structured to give his actions and consequent fall
the appearance of inevitability (Das moderne Drama, pp. 79-80).
In subsequent acts, Ibsen establishes the inner necessity of
Bernick's later actions by underlining some of his earlier deeds
very blackly.^ He goes well into his past to establish that the
"pillar" is capable of gambling with human lives. Lona discovers
that he allowed an innocent man to be suspected of dishonesty to
cover up a shortage in Bernick's finances. When she confronts
him with her knowledge^, he gives as an excuse that the community
would have suffered demoralization if they had learned that their
"pillar" was corrupt. Thus it is society, he rationalizes, that
forces him to use underhanded means (IV, 53 [il.iii]). On another
5
References are to the edition of the play in Digter Verker,
IV, l-10*t.
£
Confer Kierkegaard's idea that a protagonist's actions may
be made to seem inevitable by exposing details of earlier be
havior (Enten-eller, I, 13^-135)* Arthur Miller highly respects
Ibsen's ability to "dramatize what has gone before. . . . [to
show how] the present has become what it is" and admits to copy
ing Ibsen's method (Collected Plays, pp. 20-21).
130
occasion he forces his shipbuilder foreman to disguise a rotten
keel in order to get the American ship to sea— this by the threat
to replace the old man and his antiquated methods with younger men
and ideas (IV, 30 [il.i]). And so it becomes apparent to the aud
ience that Bernick is quite capable of ruthless action.
It also becomes obvious that he is not confident of ultimate
victory and is rather, like Skule in Kongsemnerne, merely delay
ing the moment of his catastrophe by fighting the new order. Very
gradually he becomes aware of his desperate situation and talks
of fighting for his life. His moment of truth comes only at the
very end df the play. The catastrophe begins when he learns his
son has stowed away on the rotting ship about to sail out of the
harbor. Just then many of his fellow citizens gather before his
house to cheer him for an apparent good he has brought the com
munity. Bernick is distracted with worry about the fate of his
son, whom he holds dearest and hopes will someday take over his
position in the town. The boy is discovered and removed from the
ship, but Bernick is so moved by his near loss that he discloses
his awareness of moral failure in a speech to the people. He
then voices a faith in the future, symbolized in his son, con
fessing ultimately that he personally is a symbol of the decaying
past, standing at the moment of change to a new order:
Mine medborgere,— gennem Deres ordf/rer blev det sagt, at vi
iaften star foran begyndelsen til en ny tid,--og det haber
jeg skal blive tilfaeldet. Men for at dette kan ske, ma vi
tilegne os sandheden,— sandheden, som' indtil iaften gennem-
gaende og i alle forholde, har vapret husvild i dette sam-
fund., . . . Den gamle, med sin l^jede skikkelighed og med
sine jammerlige hensyn, skal sta for os som et museaeum abent
til belaerelse. (IV, 100)
[My fellow citizens,— the spokesman said that we stand this
evening at the beginning of a new era,— and I hope that is
£he case. But before it can come to pass, we must know the
truth,— truth which until this evening has been thoroughly
and in all circumstances foreign to this community. . . .
The old, with its slothful image and its wretched fear of
public opinion, will stand for us from today as a museum,
open for purposes of instruction.]
131
Bernick then confesses his fault in the deception that al
lowed an innocent man to be disgraced years before. Just after
this his son appears on the scene and the fallen "pillar'’ com
mends the boy to the future--not as heir of his father’s life-
work, but as one who has his own life and work ahead of him. As
the play closes, Bernick speaks the highly symbolic line, almost
with relief, "Mit navn lyser ikke i ildskrift laenger; alle lys
er slukket i vinduerne” ["My name is no longer written in letters
of fire; all the lights have been put out in the windows"]
(IV, 103). His antithesis, Lona, sympathetically but firmly con
cludes the drama, saying to Bernick: "... sandhedens og fri-
hedens and,— det er samfundets stutter" [". . . the spirit of
truth and the spirit of freedom,— they are the pillars of society"]
(IV, 104-).
Judging only from the lines given above, there is little
doubt that Ibsen was deliberately attempting the synthesis of
bourgeois and historical drama advocated by Hettner. But there
must have been reservations in Ibsen's mind whether the idealistic
historical base was the proper foundation of bourgeois tragedy.
Before the play was finished Ibsen seemed to lose faith in Hett
ner *s notion that the historical dialectic in operation in a
bourgeois milieu was capable of bringing the protagonist to a
tragic end...Inhis preliminary notes for the play he wrote that
the son’s sailing on the American ship would bring about a
"Spaendende slutningskatastrofe" ["Gripping final catastrophe"]
(Efterladte Skrifter, II, 264), hardly a description of the
denouement of the finished play. Furthermore, Bernick's degener
ate character is very carefully established and his symbolic
position is constantly in focus. There is, then, no esthetic
reason why the ultimate reversal could not have brought him to a
tragic culmination. If his son had drowned, he surely would have
known remorse. But his son returned from the ship, providing a
mos,t unsatisfactory denouement, a breaking off of the tragic
process. Bernick knows no remorse, only regret for having lost
132
the battle. And in spite of its dialectical base, the play fails
as tragedy.
But if the conclusion is unsatisfactory, we must remember it
is entirely in keeping with the demands and expectations of
Ibsen's audiences— and consequently his publishers and producers.
It would be reasonable to suppose the "sugared" ending was his
way of preparing his audiences to accept his new bourgeois ef
fort, and that he had a plan for gradually bringing them to ac
cept a wholly integrated bourgeois tragedy. Whatever the case,
Bernick's fate is artistically unacceptable, inhibiting true syn
thesis— though a thoughtprovoking final statement.'.suggests Ibsen
was consciously employing the principle of synthesis in the work.
It is Lona's contention that the spirit of truth and liberty are
the proper foundations of society.
Jorgenson analyzes these lines for the artist's fundamental
meaning; and his conclusion has not only the prestige of his many
years of study of Ibsen's life and work, but has as well an en
tirely sensible ring to it:
Before leaving this play, it may be well to ask the ques
tion, "Are truth and liberty the pillars of society?"
If truth is taken to mean spiritual genuineness, and
liberty the sense of an open future which gives us the feel
ing of personal choice, then no honest objection can be made
to the fundamental importance of these two states of mind.
The argument will not hinge so much on the reality of the
situation as upon the propriety of calling these intellectual
elements the linchpins that hold society together. (Ibsen,
pp. 322-323)
This projection must take us back for a moment to a statement of
Ibsen quoted in the first chapter of this paper. He said that of
all his purposes, the most important was to bring himself and his
audiences toward "the highest attainment possible . . . to real
ize one's self." And during the height of his period of realism,
in I887, he declared the conflict at the base of serious drama
ought to be that very struggle for self-realization against the
powerful forces of tradition (Breve, II, 168). The implication
here, as in Jorgenson's interpretation above, is that true tragedy
133
does not lie in the catastrophe of one who opposes the new order
of things, but in the failure of an individual to realize him
self .
The lines have an echo in them of Hettner's words bn the cansr
flict of old and new in bourgeois drama. But there is a new im
plication, one not emphasized in Das moderne Drama, that the
source of modern tragedy is the struggle of the individual with
himself against the easy life of conventionality. This, as we
know, is the basic motif of Kierkegaard’s Bnten-eller♦ The
author had even called such a motif essential to bourgeois
tragedy. There must be no compromise in ithe search for self-
realization, he insisted, no "both-and." Man must by his own
free will make a choice of action. And if he chooses the path of
estheticism, shallowness and conventionality, then he alone is
responsible for the consequent burden of tragic remorse which he
must bear. The conflict of modern tragedy, then, lies within the
individual, rather than between the individual and society; but
this conflict is objectified in drama by the protagonist's clash
with conventional social forces (I, 13^-135)• If the protagonist
succumbs to these forces, allows them to dictate to him, he alone
"suffers all guilt, is himself transparent in the misery of his
guilt." And the tragic agony of the hero of "modern tragedy" is
what Kierkegaard saw as the "bitterest pain" — "remorse" (I, 139) ♦
Though there is doubt of Ibsen's debt to Kierkegaard, there
is no question he agreed with the concepts summarized above. In
fact, Kierkegaard and his ideas have long been mentioned in dis
cussions of Ibsen's two definitive dramatic poems on the free
will motif, Brand (1866) and Peer Gynt (1867).^ The first was be
gun as an epic poem, and like many epics delineates both the
virtues and faults of an entire society as well as a hero. The
hero of the drama and his story of non-compromise are familiar to
Ibsen students, but the contemporary social significance of the
7
See, for example, Ibsen's contemporary Hansen's Nordiske
Digtere, p. 489, and Jorgenson, Ibsen, pp. 201, 207, 211.
13^
original poem is often overlooked. Ibsen's purpose is clearly-
expressed in the impassioned call to Norwegian society to accept
responsibility, this, as is traditional with epics, in the opening
stanzas:
Mit Folk, mit fagre Land, mit Hjem i Nord,
hvor Solen staenges for af Urd og Fjord —
og S jaelevingen af en vaerre Vaelde ,—
dig vil jeg synge en tungsindig Sang,
maaske, som Norges Sangers^n, min sidste;
thi ingen Digter synger end en Gang,
hvor Salmen sungen er ved Folkets Kiste.
En Digter f^lger Folkestr^mmens Retning.
Vel sandt,— i Spidsen skal hans Banner slaa;
men bent til Maalet frem han vil og maa,
hvor Tidens Gaade peger mod sin Graetning.
Han ljzfser Folkets LaengsLer med sin Sang;
han skrifter Braden, tolker lydt dets Anger;
han sukker ud dets Angst,— dets dulgte Trang
i Ord han klaeder. Derfor er han Sanger.
Se, derfor har jeg vendt mit Syn og Sind
bort fra vor Fortids sjaeledraebte Sage,
bort fra vor L/zfgndr^m om en Fremtids Dage,
og gaar i Nuets Taageverden ind.
I Granskogsensomheden vil jeg vandre,
med Regnvejrstyngsel over Kappen klam,
i H^stkveldsm^rket, som har Skjul for Skam
og S/vn for Sorg till mig, som till de andre.
(Efterladte Skrifter. II, 5-7)
[My people, my fair country, my home in the north,
where the sun is hidden by ice and peaks,
where the foot is hindered by boulder and gorge--
and the wings of the soul by worse.forces,—
to you will I sing a melancholy song,
perhaps, as Norway's poet-son,mmy last;
for no poet sings more than once
where the hymn sung is by his people's grave.
A poet feels the folk-current's direction.
In truth,— at the front will his banner strike;
but he will and must go straight to the goal
where the mystery of the time may be solved.
He frees the people's yearnings with his song;
he confesses their blame, interprets their remorse;
he sucks out their fear,--their hidden needs ■ _
he clothes in words. Therefore is he a poet.
Thus have I turned my sight and senses
away from our past time's dead-souled things,
away from our false dreams of future days,
135
and walk into the foggy world of today.
I shall wander in the regions of the spruce forest,
with the weight of rain on my damp cape,
and in the gloom of autumn evening
find shelter for shame and sleep for sorrow,
tot myself as for others.]
Thus, for the first time in a serious major work, Ibsen entered
"the foggy world of today.”
He thought deeply of the significance of martyrdom, such as
Christ's, and reasoned that a tragic hero must show an absolute
loyalty to a cause if he is to lead others to fulfillment. He
labored over the epic version of Brand for months, but could not
convince himself that in epic form the poem would be an effective
whip to the flagging will of his countrymen. After four addi
tional months of hectic work, he succeeded in transforming it in
to a drama.
In this form the focus is changed somewhat to make Brand a
tragic figure not unlike Skule, sacrificing all to an ideal, ad
monishing his countrymen to make no compromises. He finds death
on a mountain top, having left his parishioners behind as he
strives for an unattainable goal. He is a hero in the tradition
of historical drama, an unyielding idealist, not a modern tragic
hero "transparent in the misery of his guilt." And consequently
Brand does not know the agony of remorse, though this emotion is
present in both the epic and dramatic versions of his story. It
lies in the failure of his countrymen to follow him to the height
they might have reached together, but is not seen clearly by the
mob who idolize him, fail him, and finally stone him.
The social element is less apparent in the drama, the tragic
base more obvious, than in the epic. But in both Ibsen seems to
be saying there is little more a hero can do for his people than
give them his example of unyielding idealism. Perhaps his sacri
fice, like Christ's, will give purpose to those who fail him and
inspiration to the young—
Kom, du unge,— kom, du friske;
lad et livspust av dig viske
st/vet fra den skumle krog.
136
F^lg mig pa mit sejerstog!
[Come, you young,— come, you fresh;
let a breath of life brush from you
the dust of that wretched corner.
Follow me on my way to victory!]
The officials who have come to take over his church for the state
try to stop those who will go with Brand, but they cannot. Yet
before they have reached the heights the mob has turned on their
leader, and he flees their knives and stones up the mountainside.
He pauses near the top and looks back. From the perspective of
height and distance everything looks small and insignificant. He
can no longer see his country's flag flying, symbol of the vigor
and idealism of an earlier time,
9
Hvor er Norges Flag at se?
Hvor er nu de Farver tre,
Begnbueflom fra Maitrse,
de, der slog og fn/s fra Stangen
under Skrig af Folkesangen,
saa at halvrt i Skraekk en Svaermer
Splitt og Tunge skar i Flaget?
(Efterladte Skrifter, II, 76)
[Where now is Norway's flag to be seen?
Where now are the colors three,
a rainbow flooding from the Maytree,--
that struck and snorted from the mast
during the folksong,
in such a way that an enthusiast,
'half in fear,
cut a tongue into the flag?]
When he turns to continue his progress to the mountain top, he
prophesies worse failures for his people, who have forgotten that
the duty of the will does not end because a task is impossible
(Digter Verker, II, 268 [V.ix]).
8
Digter Verker, II, 233 [V.viiJ. A "sejerstog" is as much a
triumphal procession as a way to victory, implying Brand has al
ready won the battle within himself for "All, or nothing."
9
In final form, the first line, and description that follows,
is altered, the flag being any country's, not merely Norway's. An
obscure reference is made to a king's assisting the enthusiast in
cutting a tongue into the flag, an apparent allusion to Oscar I's
redesigning the naval flag to distinguish it from Sweden's. Ibsen
suggests the changes were made in vain, Norway is a failure.
137
In Peer Gynt Ibsen uses the very same principle of tragedy,
a failure of self-realization, but this time to dramatize the
tragedy of an individual rather than a community. The play is
fantastic and has a good deal of humor in it, but has neverthe
less been called tragic— and surely there is tragedy in the im
plications of spiritual annihilation and remorse seen in Peer's
last cry to his wife, Solvejg,
Min moder; min hustru; uskyldig kvinde!--
0, gem mig, gem mig derinde. (Digter Verker,
II, ^20 )
[My mother; my wife; guiltless woman!—
Oh, hide me, hide me inside.]
Then the Button-Moulder's voice is heard,
Vi traeffes pa sidste korsvejen, Peer;
o _o .
og sa far vi se, om— ;
jeg siger ikke mer. (II, **21)
[We shall meet at the last crossroad, Peer;
then we shall see whether--;
I'll say no more.]
Solvejg sings the last.r , lines of the play, and in her song is a
note of resignation, an implication that Peer's tragedy is com
plete. She can only try to soothe him until he reaches the
final crossroad and is annihilated in the Button-Moulder's
cauldron:
Jeg skal vugge dig, jeg skal vage dig;--
sov og dr^m du, gutten min.' (II, 4-21)
[I sha?ll cradle you, I shall wake you; —
sleep and dream, my little boy!]
To a great extent it was these implications of personal
tragedy that brought Georg Brandes to envision Ibsen as a future
realistic, ethical poet.^ In the face of severe criticism of
Ibsen's works in Copenhagen, Brandes championed Brand and Peer
Gynt, and gained the poet's life-long friendship. But Brandes
was not satisfied with the fantasy and verse of the works, and
tried to persuade Ibsen to changetocomplete realism in his at
tempts to reform society. Although he saw clearly the social im-
^Georg Brandes Samlede Skrifter (Copenhagen, 1900), 111,269*
138
plications of Brand, he recognized as well that it harked back to
old-fashioned idealism. "Er Brand Revolution eller Reaktion?"
["Is Brand revolution or reaction?"], he asked. And his own an
swer suggests the synthesis Ibsen was later to realize: "...
jeg skal ikke kunne sige det, saa meget har dette af begge Dele'^
[" . . . I am not able to say, as it has so much of both in it"].
What Brandes called most revolutionary in Brand and Peer
Gynt is the idea that the individual shapes his own fate, "den
sande Frihed er Viljens egen indre Frihed" ["true freedom is the
will's own inner freedom"] (Hoveds trjshnninger, I, 20), And in
Ibsen's next bourgeois drama, he allowed the free choice of the
protagonist to carry her to an inevitable catastrophe. He set
the work in a milie^u and on a theme reflecting "the social con
ditions and principles of the present day," which we remember
was one of his tenets of modern serious drama. He also chose a
conflict that was immediate and close to his bourgeois audiences,
the plight of an intelligent, spirited woman forced to deny her
human instincts, her intellect and her individuality, to conform
with conventional ideas of what a wife should be. The play is,
of course, the one that brought Ibsen immediate fame as a writer
of realistic social dramas, Et Dukkeh.jem [A Doll's House] (l8?9) •
As in Samfundets Stutter, Ibsen weaves into the dialogue of
this play a number of references to the symbolic position of the
characters. The woman, Nora, is all but frozen into the con
ventional social mold of middle-class housewife and mother, de
nied recognition for any strength of character or intellect that
does not conform with accepted patterns. Her husband, Torvald
Helmer, is conventional, aggressively so, in keeping with his
position of banker. All he desires of his wife is that she play
the role of a childish, empty-headed "canary"-— and this is the
very name he calls her over and over again in the play. This
concept of Nora is reemphasized by others entering the scene, but/
•^^Hovedstr^mninger i det Nittende Aarhundredes Literatur
(Copenhagen, 1923)» I» 20.
139
her idea of herself is not the same as theirs— and her concept is
justified. Ibsen shows in the exposition of the drama that Nora
was able to act decisively at a moment of crisis in her husband's
life when he was helpless. Her response was such, as she puts it
to a friend, that she felt she was acting almost like a man.
These allusions carry a very clear message. Ibsen builds
with them straight to the climactic moment when the conflict be
tween irreconcilable forces breaks into the open. Nora's action
was illegal. Her husband finds out about it; and even though it
saved his life, he scoffs at her, "Du taler som en barn. Du for-
star ikke det samfund du lever i" ["You talk like a child. You
don't understand the society you live in"] (IV, 186 [Ill.iv]).
Nora's earlier decision has prepared her for the ultimate action
of the drama, and she speaks boldly in reply to her husband's
charge that she does not understand society, "Nej, det g^r jeg
ikke. Men nu vil jeg saette mig ind i det. Jeg ma se at komme
efter, hvem der har ret, samfundet eller jeg" ["No, I don't. But
now I'm going to learn about it. And when I do, then I'll see
which is right, society or I"] (IV, 186 [Ill.iv]).
That Ibsen had in mind to illustrate an essential conflict
in the home and society is further evidenced in the notes he kept
while writing the play. They were translated into English by
William Archer and published in the last volume of his edition
of Ibsen's collected works, under the title "From Ibsen's Work
shop" :
There are two kinds of spiritual law, two kinds of con
science, one in man and another, altogether different, in
woman. They do not understand each other; but in practi
cal life the woman is judged by man's law, as though she
were not a woman but a man. . . . The wife in the play
ends by having no idea of what is right or wrong; natural
feeling on the one hand and belief in authority on the
other have altogether bewildered her. . . . Spiritual con
flicts. . . . Bitterness. . . . The catastrophe approaches,
inexorably, inevitably. (XII, 91-92)
12
References are to Ibsen's Digter Verker, IV, 103-189; the
statement of Nora is from p. 121 [i.ii].
I*f0
It will be remembered that Ibsen provided a bold deed in
Nora's past as both the cause of her catastrophe and the justifi
cation for her final deicision, "inexorably, inevitably," to break
with her convention-bound husband. To increase the impression of
necessity and plausibility in the actions of the protagonists, he
follows Hettner's advice and uses the highly economical structure
of the well-made play.
The plot is founded on Torvald's ignorance of Nora's illegal
act— having forged her father's signature on a note of loan. She
did it because her father lay dying, too ill to be asked for a
loan to take Torvald to Italy to save his health. She feels she
has done no wrong, but knows her husband's conventional attitude
would make him disapprove of her action if he found out about it.
As the play opens, she is about to make the last payment on the
loan with money saved from household allowances. But in the
fashion of well-made plays, the note falls into the hands of an
unscrupulous person, an employee of Torvald's bank. The machinexy
of Ihe drama starts when the man who holds the note is discharged
from the bank. He then threatens to expose Nora if she does not
persuade her husband to reinstate him.
Nora can do nothing for him with Torvald--in fact his re
placement at the bank is to be a friend of hers whom she begged
her husband to employ. True to his threat, the discharged man
sends a letter to Torvald detailing the story of the loan and
forgery. Nora tries to delay his reading it (even dances a tar
antella), but he does and explodes into a torrent of abusive
words (IV, 178 [Illiiv]). Here Ibsen ties the dramatic knot much
as he did in Fru Inger til 0strat— and much as Scribe had tied
hundreds of others, not the least of them in Adrienne Lecouvreur..
The letter comes into the wrong hands, in spite of the elaborate
intrigue of Nora with the disgruntled employee. And his dis
charge is made possible only by the chance visit of an old ac
quaintance of Nora's who can take his place. Obviously, then, the
plot of Et Dukkehjem is founded on the standard pattern of the ■
M
Scribean well-made play: ignorance, intrigue, and chance multi
ply up to the final scene. There is only one indication that
Ibsen intends to untie the knot differently from his predecessor.
He was very careful in the exposition of the drama to show Nora's
strength of purpose in forging her father's signature— suggesting
as well that her father was an unconventional person (IV, 1.78
[Ill.iv]). And when she decides to leave her husband it seems
she is acting by her own choice and in accordance with her
character as established in the drama. This denouement is a far
cry from Scribean puppeteering.
Though Nora's action is not in itself surprising, in Ibsen's
time it was nonetheless shocking. When Nora walks out, the last
thing the audience is aware of is a door slamming, with a very
final reverberation. And how the audiences then protested I They
saw in this ending a blow at the foundations of civilized moral
ity, marriage, and the family. Producers began to change the end
ing to Lbring it more in line with conventional bourgerois drama,
and this understandably angered Ibsen. The outcry was so great
that he had to compromise in some degree; he wrote an alternate
concluding scene where Torvald drags Nora to the door of their
children's room, throws it open, and demands that she do her duty
13
by them and stay. She sinks to the floor defeated. But Ibsen
was not to be defeated in his quest for complete artistic integ
rity in bourgeois drama; in his next effort he progressed all the
way to the final goal, the synthesis of bourgeois tragedy in
Gengangere [Ghosts] (l88l).
Before we begin this last analysis of a work by Ibsen, let
us for later reference sort out and underline the various ele
ments of bourgeois tragedy that he had been gathering eclectical
ly over the years. Certainly the basic element is the use of
bourgeois protagonists in serious circumstances. It will be re
membered that Lillo had introduced middle-class characters to
^Ibsen said he provided the alternate ending to stop the
"barbarous revisions" of the producers (Breve, II, 72).
142
achieve immediate identification of the audience with the drama
tic protagonists. Closely related to this purpose is the use of
the method of realism, of presenting familiar, three-dimensional
settings and using colloquial dialogue— and in other ways trying
to make the play seem "something real," as' Ibsen put it. We have
found his plays exhibit techniques of the well-made play, which
wens Recommended by the foremost authorities of his time for their
economy. They allowed swift dramatic movement, but were misused
by Scribe to develop complicated intrigues that robbed the actions
of the protagonists of the appearance of inner necessity. ,-The
tragic action should illustrate a conflict between the indi
vidual and forces of social change4-an idea Ibsen held in common
with Hebbel and Hettner. He also seems to have held the same
idea of the tragic emotion that Kierkegaard propounded— that it
be remorse, resulting from the protagonist’s failure to realize
himself. He should be shown as responsible for this failure, and
therefore the drama should exhibit the free choice of action
leading to his catastrophe. Thus the plot should expose all
relevant preliminary actions to give the impression of logic and
inevitability to the catastrophe-.
The justification for calling Gengangere the synthesis of
bourgeois tragedy lies not only in the occurrence of each of the
underlined items as a factor in the drama, but in Ibsen's skill
in integrating them artistically. For practical reasons, though,
we shall determine here how they operated separately in his play,
beginning with the use of bourgeois protagonists - and realism.
He classifies the play as "Et Familjedrama i Tre Akter" ["A
14
Family Drama in Three Acts"], and sets it in a bourgeois parlor.
In accord with the method of realism, he prescribes there be
books, magazines, and newspapers on a center table and that a
background window look out over a typically Norwegian landscape—
a fjord on a rainy day (IV, 193 [I.i]). He limits the persons of
References are to the edition of the play in Digter Verk
er, iv, 189-263. — ---------
2A3
the drama to five, all of the middle or lower-middle classes:
Fru Helene Alving, widow of Captain Alving
Osvald, their son, a painter
Pastor Manders
Carpenter Engstrand
Regine Engstrand, the Alvings' maid.
(IV, 192)
They speak in colloquial terms appropriate to their station
and the time in which they live, 1880. The rapid, conversational
style of the dialogue is readily seen in the opening lines of the
first act. As the curtain rises, Engstrand enters the parlor.
He finds Regine arranging flowers, but when she sees him she
blocks his path because he is wet with rain,
Regine. Hvad er det du vil? Bliv staende der du star.
Det drypper jo af dig.
Engstrand♦ Det er Vorherres regn, de, barnet mit.
Regine. Det er fandens regn, er det.
Engstrand. Jj^ss ' som du snakker, Regine.
(IV, 193 [I.i])
[Regine. What do you want here? Stay where you are.
You’re dripping wet.
Engstrand. That's our Good Lord's rain, that is, my
child.
Regine♦ It’s the Devil's own rain, you mean.
Engstrand. Lord how you talk, Regine.]
Their talk is quick and natural, and certainly not without sig
nificance. Even at the end of only five lines, the audience know
that Engstrand has the role of father to Regine, that she is
somewhat wilful and unconventional, and that the carpenter assumes
a pious attitude. So there is method in Ibsen's realism, though
this is evidenced even more obviously in the remainder of the
conversation. Here they accomplish a great deal of exposition of
the background of the drama and prepare for what is to come, but
they do it in a disarmingly natural wayi.
^ '
As Engstrand expresses his pious disapproval of Regine’s
words, he begins to stomp,the rain off his shoes. She tells him
to stop making such noise because Osvald Alving is back from
Paris and is sleeping late. He uses the moment to moralize on
the virtue of rising at half past five every morning, which
aM
brings the response from impatient Regine, "Ja, ja, kom dig nu
bare afsted. Jeg vil ikke sta her og hi' rendez-vous 'er med dig"
["Yes, yes, get going now. I won't stand here and have a
rendez-vous with you"] (IV, 193 [1.1] ). Apparently Regine has
been studying some French— which suggests an interest in Osvald.
And in a similar way, Ibsen continues to unfold the essential
background of the drama.'*
In the course of their talk, Engstrand and Regine divulge
that a memorial orphanage is about to be dedicated to Captain
Alving— Engstrand is there to work on it and Pastor Manders will
soon be coming to the Alvings' for last minute business connected
with it. We learn also that Engstrand thinks Osvald a threat to
Regine's chastity, but the girl is more afraid of the old carpen
ter— he increases the tension by hinting there may be some doubt
about her paternity because her mother worked at the Alving home
before RegineJs birth* But he jokingly asserts the proof of his
fatherhood is written in the baptismal book at the church, and
reminds the girl that he wants her to work for him at a seamen's
hostel he hopes Pastor Manders will help him build. Regine be
comes angered by his proposal and insists he leave. Just then
she catches sight of Pastor Manders coming to the house and
pushes Engstrand out of the parlor to leave through the kitchen
door. She goes to a mirror, arranges her hair, then picks up the
flowers once more to place them in a vase. Pastor Manders, whose
purpose in coming was announced only moments earlier, arrives by
the front door and enters to find a smiling Regine awaiting him,
though feigning surprise (IV, 197-198 [i.i]).
This long conversation between Engstrand and Regine suggests
the conventional exposition by the chatter of servants in the
older well-made plays. But there is a great deal more subtlety
and consequent realism in Ibsen's analytical exposition. For
example, the servants themselves have an important place in the
drama and have divulged their character through their’ talk.
And there are other proofs of Ibsen's superiority to Scribe in
145
using the techniques of the well-made play. Curtain scenes in
particular are masterfully conceived to be gripping yet integral,
not isolated from the progressing action of the play as in the
first act of Lady Inger til 0strat,
To illustrate the integrity of the first act curtain, as
well as the inner necessity of all preliminary actions, we mu&t
recall the books and journals Ibsen had so carefully placed in
the parlor— in fact on a table in the center of the room. After
Fru Alving comes in to greet Pastor Manders they sit at this
table to look over some papers haying to do with the orphanage.
The possibility of frankness between them is established im
mediately when she asks him to stay the night, implying that
they have been friends a long time and now are just "to gamle
mennesker" ["two old people"] (IV, 202 [I.iii]). The pastor's
utter conventionality is illustrated when he flusters at being
reminded of the earlier intimacy and he bumblingly makes excuses
for having to leave. To change the subject,.'he inquires about
Osvald. Fru Alving says her son will be down soon. Then the
pastor puts the orphanager-documents on the table. He sees the .
books there and gasps, "Laeser De den slags skrifter?" ["Do you
read that sort of literature?"]. She illustrates her relative
freedom of thought by defending the radical books (IV, 202-205
[I.iii]), thus illustrating her intelligence and connection with
new ideas of her time. But the pastor remains properly shockejdT)
When they turn to the documents, the pastor again exhibits
his complete submission to convention in suggesting that the'
orphanage not be insured— he fears people will think they lack
faith in God's protection. Mention of insurance brings to Fru
Alving's mind a fire at the orphanage the day before. She tells
him that Engstrand had discovered it and put it out, which brings
up the subject of the carpenter's connec ti on. with the building
of the nearby orphanage. The pastor had secured the job for him
against the better judgment of FruAlving, who thinks he drinks
too much and bothers Regine. The pastor is confused about these
146
facets of Engstrand's character, for the carpenter seems to be a
pious man and, after all, he is Regine's father and thus the girl
should have no fear of him. Whatever the case, replies Fru Al
ving, she has taken Regine in to live and work at the Alving
home— and here she will remain. Just then footsteps are heard on
the stairway and Fru Alving announces happily, "Der kommer Os-
vald i trappen. Nu vil ve bare taenke pa ham'1 ["There comes Os-
vald down the stairs. Now let's think only about him."] (IV,
206-209 [I.iii]).
Before going on with the analysis of the first act, we
should note the very important knowledge we now have of four of
the five protagonists. In this third scene, in particular, we
have been introduced to a gracious person of intelligence with a
mind and will of her own. In the discussion of the books, the
pastor had mentioned that Fru Alving was not always a free think
ing person, and she had admitted her former acceptance of con
servative waysj but now she is mature and better able to judge
for herself what is right and wrong (IV, 203). .There certainly
is nothing stupid about Helene Alving, and furthermore she is
capable of strong feeling— particularly in regard to her son,
which is seen in her gladness and attentiveness to him when he
enters.
He comes in smoking his father's pipe, and Pastor Manders
is struck with the resemblance of Osvald to Captain Alving. All
are reminded of the occasion when Osvald, as a child, was made
sick puffing on the same pipe. He can only barely recall his
father, though he has great admiration for him. His sharpest
memory is, however, of the man's inexplicable cruelty. His
mother at once changes the subject--during the years since the
captain's death she has tried hard to build her son's feeling of
admiration for his father-. The next subject, naturally enough,
is Paris, and the pastor wants to know about irregular marriages
among artists there— he is concerned about Osvald's exposure to
such unions. He can see only black sin in them, but Osvald has
1^7
known people who have found happiness and love regardless of ir
regularities in the legal aspect of their marriages. As the ar
gument continues, Osvald develops a sudden severe headache, which
upsets his mother even more than did the heated discussion. He
leaves the room and she takes up his side of the argument against
the pastor.
Her stand shocks Manders, who asks how she can possibly
favor irregular unions when her own marriage was so happy. He
further reminds her how she foolishly had come to him early in
her marriage and begged him to help her escape Captain Alving.
Her feelings about her action are so strong even yet that she is
compelled to tell him that her marriage was in reality a horror
and that Alving was a drunken degenerate. She tells of years
spent in mollifying him and keeping the knowledge of his vicious
ness from society and her son, and she hints as well that he se
duced Regine's mother and is therefore the girl's father. The
pastor is hardly able to comprehend all she has said in these
highly emotional moments, but before he can question her at length
they are interrupted by Osvald and fiegine, who walk through the
parlor and into the dining room to prepare the table for dinner.
As Fru Alving and the pastor begin to follow them, Regine's
voice is heard from off stage whispering excitedly, "Er du gal?
Slip mig!" ["Are you mad? Let me go!"]. Fru Alving stops short
at the dining room door and utters the word "Gengangere"
["Ghosts . " 3 . Even the dull Manders realizes her word implies
that Captain Alving's spirit is reflected in Osvald's action and
that the situation is doubly horrifying because the two young
people are probably half-brother and sister. Fru Alving stops
any further inquiry when she grips the pastor's arm, braces her
self to enter the dining room, and says, "Ja. Korn. Ikke et
ordJ" ["Yes. Come. Not a wordJ"]. And the curtain falls on the
first act (IV, 198-222).
This curtain scene is entirely in keeping with the tradi
tion of intrigue of the well-made play. But it is also the in-
3A8
evitable and wholly logical outcome of all actions preceding it.
Every element of the first act gives evidence of Ibsen's meticu
lous care in creating the illusion of necessity and absolute
clarity in the motivations of the dramatic actions. Take for ex
ample the concern of Manders that people will think him lacking
in faith if he insures the orphanage. This attitude represents
an extreme social conservatism and might not be acceptable if it
were his first action in the drama. But Ibsen makes it complete
ly credible by dramatizing the pastor's embarrassment at being
asked to stay the night at the Alvings' and his shock at finding
radical books in the. living room there. Foreshadowings of later
actions and revelations are placed strategically throughout the
first act. Engstrand hints at an irregularity in Regine's par
entage, and by the end of the act it is almost positively estab
lished that she is Captain Alving's illegitimate daughter. There
is preparation for subsequent acts as well. We learn, for ex
ample, that there was a fire at the orphanage, that Osvald has
been ill, that Fru Alving had succumbed to the demands of con
ventional society and returned,after her momentary escape, to live
with a degenerate— and that only her beloved Osvald had made her
surrender less than horrifying.
Ibsen further.increases the impression of reality surround
ing the action by a strict adherence to the unity of time. He
uses an especially interesting and even local device at the open
ing of the second act. When the audience return- after the inter
val, they find they have missed no part of the action. While the
curtain has been down the protagonists have been finishing their
dinner, and as it rises they are seen walking into the living
room. The first line is Fru Alving's, who speaks the Scandinavian
formula to signal the end of the meal: "Velbekomme" (IV, 225).
Osvald decides to take an after-dinner walk. In order to
stop Regine from following him, Fru Alving sends the girl to the
ironing room to work--going to the door to be sure the girl dees
as she is told. Once alone, she and the pastor continue their
149
discussion, which, establishes that Regine truly is the child of
Captain Alving. The carpenter was paid to marry the sediieed
serving girl. The gullible Manders practically refuses to be
lieve that a man of Engstrand's outward piety could do such a
thing for money--he is later deceived by Engstrand into believing
it a charitable act. The dialogue of the second act also under
lines the idealistic content of the drama. The conflict between
• the individual and forces of social change is voiced, for example,
when the question arises of the propriety of intimacy between
Osvald and Regine, considering their blood relationship.] The
pastor admits that incest is hardly uncommon, but nevertheless
stands rigidly for laws against incestuous marriages even though
they may be happy. Fru Alving speaks up for happiness first, and
when Manders asks what about law and order, she replies wearily,
"Ja, dette med lov og orden.1 Jeg tror mangegang, det er det, som
voider alle ulykkerne her i verden" ["Yes, law and order! I
often think it's the cause of all the misery in the world'1] (IV,
225-226 [II.i]).
Ibsen further embodies the dialectic in the drama by skilful
use of symbolic objects. The second act becomes increasingly
symbolic of the tragedy in Fru Alving's growing awareness of per
sonal responsibility for her own wasted life and the impending
spiritual and physical death of her son. Toward the end of the
act, for example, Osvald tells her that he is seriously ill with
a disease his doctor says he contracted from his father, "Han sa* :
faedrenes synder hjemsj^ges paa b/zfrnene" ["He said: the sins of
the fathers are visited oh the children"] (IV, 240 [Il.iii]).
The young man cannot believe his father corrupt, but his mother
knows at once that the doctor's analysis is probably correct.
She cannot bring herself to disclose the truth and decides in
stead to do what she can to fulfil the romance that has been de
veloping between Osvald and Regine. She invites the girl into
the parlor for a symbolic drink of champagne in anticipation of
the coming happiness of the young couple. She decides there to
150
tell them of their true relationship, and has just begun to ex
plain when Pastor Manders bumbles back into the room, stopping
the truth and condemning Regine for drinking. No sooner do Os
vald and his mother rise to the girl's defense than voices are
heard outside shouting that the orphanage is on fire. Osvald
rushes out screaming that it is impossible his father's monument
should burn. The pastor insists the fire is a judgment of God on
a wicked house. She agrees, almost with a sense of relief, and
runs with Regine after Osvald. The passtor is left alone to de
liver the almost comically ironic closing line of the second act.
He wrings his hands and cries, "Og sa ikke assurereti" ["And it
isn't insured"]— then he too runs impotently toward the fire
(IV, 248 [II.v]).
Here is another curtain in the tradition of the well-made
play, stirring excitement and curiosity about the coming act.
But the second act curtain is more. It not only announces the
destruction of the false memory of the depraved Captain Alving,
but implies as well that his offspring will be destroyed.
When the third act curtain rises, the pastor who would not
allow the truth to be spoken is deceived by Engstrand into spon
soring the seaman's home, which is to be no more than a brothel.
Then they leave and Fru Alving may at last speak the truth. In
the murky parlor, lit only by the glow of the ruins of the or
phanage, Regine learns of her illegitimacy. Her reaction is to
identify with her mother and assume herself fit for the life of
prostitution with which Engstrand has been tempting her, and she
abruptly leaves the Alving house forever. When Osvald hears of
his father's true character, he accepts his doctor's prediction
that he will soon degenerate into a state of idiocy. He tells
his mother the entire story of his illness and begs her to pro
mise thafe she will poison him as soon as he loses his mind. Thus
Fru Alving has brought about the final exposition of her tragedy.
She accedes, and the scene is set for the denouement, a culmina
tion for which she alone is responsible.
151
We have seen Helene Alving's hamartia in every phase of the
drama. For the sake of convention she made the free choice of
action that brought her back to her husband, though she knew very
well his degenerate moral and physical condition. Every product
of their union was predestined to wretchedness and destruction.
It is her tragedy to witness this wretchedness and preside over
the final destruction of her son, a catastrophe that Ibsen has
very carefully designed to have the impression of logic and in
evitability.
The mother has just promised her child to destroy him. He
turns to leave, but falls back suddenly into a chair as all his
muscles go slack. The sun has risen over the smouldering ruins
of the memorial orphanage, dissipating their glow, and he sits in
the light of morning babbling for the sun, "Gi' mig solen. . . .
Solen. Solen." His mother rushes to him in horror. She knows
she must now reach into his -breast pocket for the poison; she
recoils, tearing at her hair. The curtain descends— slowly and
mercifully--on the ghastly scene of her remorse as she shrieks in
the glare of the morning sun: "Nej; nej!" Her answer is a coo
ing of the words "Solen. Solen" (IV, 263 [Ill.v]).
We have seen from our analysis of the elements of bourgeois
tragedy in Gengangere that the principal theme is the self-dis
covery of the chief protagonist. Each phase of the discovery is
a consequence of a decision she made of her own free will. Each
decision led to another, and another, until the work was complete.'
Inevitably in the course of the drama, the number and magnitude
of her errors forced her to see her initial folly in having sac
rificed her individuality to receive the approval of a decadent
society. At last she w_as transparent to herself, solely respon
sible for the destruction of the thing she loved best. Surely
her tragedy is one of remorse, utter wretchedness, and regret for
having failed at self-realization.
Gengangere is, then, no less a tragedy than the dramas of
older times— and like them bears marks of its age. Hettner had
152
realized that all drama is rooted in the time producing it, and
began Das moderne Drama with a quotation from Ludwig Borne to
this effect:
Ich habe es immer gedacht und oft gesagt, dass kein Schau-
spieldichter sich ilber sein Volk und seine Zeit erheben
konne. Ein Philosoph, ein Religionslehrer, ein Staatsmann,
ein Naturkundiger konnen ihren Zeitgenossen vorauseilen;
aber ein dramatischer Dichter vermag es nicht. Sokrates
wurde hingerichtet, Columbus verlacht, aber Shakespeare
wurde schon von seinen Zeitgenossen erkannt und geehrt.
(p. iv)
These marks are no flaw in drama, rather they are evidence of its
vital origin. They are also reminders of the Hegelian Ide,a that
the future sees neither the present condition nor the envisioned
ideal, but a synthesis in which something of both comes together
to form a higher condition.
This is a doctrine Ibsen knew well. He not only illustrated
it in his dramas, but saw it in operation in his own career, as
he told a Swedish audience in September 1887;
Det er bleven sagt at ogsa jeg, og det pa en fremskudt
plads, har vaeret med at skabe en ng tid i landene. Jeg q
tror derimod, at den tid, vi nu star i, kunde med lige sa
god f^je betegnes som en afslutning, og at deraf er noget
nyt nu i begreb med at f^des. . . . Jeg for mit vedkommende
skal vaere tilfreds med udbyttet af min livs-uges arbejde,
hvis dette arbejde kan tjene til at berede stemningen for
den dag i morgen. Men f^rste og fremst skal jeg vaere til
freds, om det kan hjaelpe til at haerde anderne i den ar-
bejdsuge, som ufejlbarlig kommer bagefter.
(Samlede Verker [Hundredarsutgave], XV, k10-^11)
[it has been said, and in an important place, that I too
have been shaping a new era in the world. But I believe
the time we now stand in may just as well be described as
an ending, and that thereby something new is struggling to
be born. . . . For my part, I shall be satisfied with the
yield of my life-week's work, if that work can serve to
prepare the spirit of that day tomorrow. But first and
foremost I will be satisfied if it can help to temper the
souls in that week of work that unfailingly lies ahead.]
In the light of these words, the thesis of my dissertation
may be repeated as proved: In Gengangere, Ibsen brought to a
culmination the long-developing synthesis of bourgeois drama and
idealistic historical tragedy. The, higher form of drama he con-
153
tributed may, then, rightly be termed bourgeois tragedy. Now
there remains to be answered here but one more question: Is
bourgeois tragedy the proper genre of our time?
VII. IBSEN AND AMERICA, I960
By chance I begin the conclusion of this dissertation short
ly after seeing a performance of Gengangere in Oslo. The play was
exciting, really gripping in the final moments, yet there was
little question in my mind— even as I watched— that the bourgeois
milieu of the protagonists limited the grandeur of the tragedy.
It simply does not have the grand impact of Oedipus Tyrannos or
Macbeth. Yet I doubt that either of the older works could have
held the modern audience spellbound as Gengangere did. The'
spectators laughed, or gasped, or were horrified precisely where
Ibsen wanted them to be; and when they left the theater, I felt
their thoughts were focused, as were mine, on the significance to
us modern individuals of Helene Alving's catastrophe. "Why did
she sacrifice her individuality to social convention?" I asked
myself: "Why should I?"
These were not the only questions that arose in my mind af
ter that final scene. I also wondered how Ibsen had managed to
enthrall a twentieth-century audience with his old-fashioned
play. And my answer is not complicated. First, he was a master
of the craft of the playwright— and particularly the exciting de
vices of the well-made play. Second, the audience in Oslo was
made up of people who are much more like Fru Alving than like
King Oedipus or Thane Macbeth. And this similarity is not merely
a question of social status— it has to do with our living in
modern times, believing in the same gods of democracy and mater
ialism, and otherwise sharing western cultural ideals that have
grown up since the Industrial Revolution.
Furthermore, regardless of the patently old-fashioned situ
ations and milieu of Gengangere. we are not so far away from
Ibsen's time as to be able to ignore it all together. There is
a good deal of that heavily draped, fringed, and generally clut
tered environment we still must live with. But, then again, some
15^
155
of Ibsen's themes are not only old-fashioned, they are undoubted
ly dead issues now. Take, for example, Osvald's inheritance of the
fateful disease from his father— a medical fallacy held during
Ibsen's time, but since proved invalid. Fru living's and Pastor
Mander's dreqd of the stigma of divorce must make us smile pain-
ifully in these times when divorce is tragically common, and when
it is not generally considered reprehensible on the grounds Fru
Alving had. And surely the well trained twentieth-century minis
ter is more skilled at psychological analysis than were his breth
ren of the last century, as symbolized in the inept Manders. The
play therefore lacks in some measure the closeness it had to audi
ences in Ibsen's time. On the other hand, because of its precise
structure it focuses brilliantly on these issues and makes them
come alive again, if only for two hours; but more importantly the
structure clarifies the universally significant theme of Fru Al-
ving's tragic flaw.
Thus Ibsen's art gives his bourgeois tragedy an esthetic im
portance quite beyongi its issues. This is especially significant
to us in the twentieth century, who are fraught with social prob
lems --some times multiplications of those of Ibsen's time. Mater- 1
ialism and unscrupulous political schemes to submerge and even de
stroy the individual have run wild in our century. Who cannot see
that as a consequence our divorce, suicide, insanity, and criminal
statistics are appallingly high, especially in the United States?
And surely our young people need help to see their connection with
the past as well as their responsibility to the present and future.
We can use some of Ibsen's patterns for focus on weaknesses in our
time--though contemporary social dramas ought to be designed for
such mass media as motion pictures and television as much as for a
national theater. And, of course, works of our time should not be
limited strictly by the method of realism. Technical advances in
film and theater afford a much greater freedom to develop dramatic
illusion than Ibsen knew.
There are, then, aspects of "Ibsenism" we in the twentieth
156
century can accept as they are. But when we consider the peculiar
spirit of our age, our "Zeitgeist," we must recognize that
bourgeois tragedy per se belongs to the past. Ours is a far less'
confined world than Ibsen's, though often no less demanding of
conformity and destructive of the individual. Nevertheless, now
adays persons from all social levels achieve positions of leader-
ship--gain such power, in fact, that they bring to mind the great
Renaissance personalities. There are tragic potentials in de
cisions which entire peoples as well as ordinary individuals have
been called upon to make in our times. It was, for example, a
former haberdashery salesman who ordered the first atomic bombs
dropped on Japan in 19^5t a decision that took a hundred thousand
lives at once and changed the course of history. Just the other
day, a man whose recent forebears lived in serfdom announced that
the nation he leads had landed a rocket on the moon. Surely this
event marks the beginning of a new era in the life of the world.
Our present situation brings to mind what Hakon Hakonss/n
said in Kongsemnerne, that kingly birth begets kingly duty. His
particular fate was to be king at a critical time in his country's
history when hereditary monarchs shaped the future. He knew from
birth his responsibility for decision in his revolutionary age.
But though the common man of our more democratic time is born just
as much a king in potential as was Hakon, we must ask whether he
innately understands his critical kingJly duty. I do not believe he
does; but I believe his place in the course of history may be
clarified for him by coritemporary artists— though we should hard
ly expect the medium to be bourgeois tragedy, with its severely
limited perspective.
Those seeking a model for tragedy in our revolutionary times
ought not, however, to overlook Ibsen. Tragedy is of necessity
idealistic, and Ibsen's work in total is magnificent in its
idealism. It can, I believe, provide aspiring dramatists with the
inspiration as well as the methods for embodying ideas in vibrant
dramatic form. Ibsen also incorporated in his works some of the
most important cultural and intellectual streams of his century,
and thereby has an immediate interest to students of comparative
literature--he is, in fact, an excellent teacher. Certainly a
satisfying quality of Ibsen's dramas is.one they share with all
great works of art: a high degree of esthetic integrity, an un
mistakable poetic beauty. Finally, and I thinkinmost important,
they are a bulwark of ethical individualism, and in this respect
are only less fascinating than the passionate, idealistic man who
created them. There is no doubt in my mind that a study of him
and his works can bring a twentieth-century American close to
that highest of all goals, "to realize one's self."
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Pearce, John Calvin
(author)
Core Title
Bourgeois tragedy: The Ibsen synthesis.
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
comparative literature,OAI-PMH Harvest
Language
English
Contributor
Digitized by ProQuest
(provenance)
Advisor
Hadley, P.E. (
committee chair
), [illegible] (
committee member
), Belle, Rene (
committee member
)
Permanent Link (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c17-742779
Unique identifier
UC11344991
Identifier
DP22517.pdf (filename),usctheses-c17-742779 (legacy record id)
Legacy Identifier
DP22517.pdf
Dmrecord
742779
Document Type
Dissertation
Rights
Pearce, John Calvin
Type
texts
Source
University of Southern California
(contributing entity),
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
(collection)
Access Conditions
The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...
Repository Name
University of Southern California Digital Library
Repository Location
USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA
Tags
comparative literature