Books with author Henrik Ibsen Ibsen

How is this book unique? Font adjustments & biography included Unabridged (100% Original content) Illustrated About Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen The innovative dramas of Henrik Ibsen created a sensation among 19th-century audiences with their mordant attacks on social conventions. Among the finest of these ground-breaking works was Ghosts, first performed in 1881. In it, the playwright assailed the hypocrisy of moral codes, offering a daring treatment of such then-taboo issues as infidelity, venereal disease, and illegitimacy. Ibsen substituted the modern scientific idea of heredity for the ancient Greek concept of fate, exposing hidden sins of the past as the roots of corruption. The sins of the past are at the heart of the play, whose haunted heroine, Mrs. Helen Alving, has accepted her pastor's counsel and endured her husband's many infidelities in silence. Ten years after Alving's death, she is to dedicate an orphanage in his memory. Her son Oswald, kept innocent of his father's profligacy, returns home for the dedication. Oswald's attraction to the housemaid — in reality, his half-sister — conjures up the ghost of his parents' unhappy marriage. This disastrous romance, along with Oswald's increasing symptoms of the venereal disease inherited from his father, force Mrs. Alving to confront her own "ghosts." A powerful and engrossing psychological drama, Ghosts serves as an excellent entrée to Ibsen's other works and helps confirm his status as "the father of modern drama."

The play was published by Gyldendal AS, Copenhagen, in 1892 and its first performance was on 19 January 1893 at the Lessing Theatre, Berlin, with Emanuel Reicher as Solness. It opened at the Trafalgar Theatre, London on the 20th of the following month, with Herbert H. Waring in the name part and Elizabeth Robins as Hilda. The English translation was by the theatre critic William Archer. Productions in Oslo and Copenhagen were coordinated to open on 8 March 1893. In the following year the work was taken up by Théâtre de l'Œuvre, the international company based in Paris, and they mounted productions in Paris, London and other European capitals. The first U.S. performance was at the Carnegie Lyceum, New York, on 16 January 1900, with William Pascoe and Florence Kahn.

Hovstad. Don't you think the Doctor hits them pretty hard? Billing. Hard? Bless my soul, he's crushing! Every word falls like—how shall I put it?—like the blow of a sledgehammer. Hovstad. Yes, but they are not the people to throw up the sponge at the first blow. Billing. That is true; and for that reason we must strike blow upon blow until the whole of this aristocracy tumbles to pieces. As I sat in there reading this, I almost seemed to see a revolution in being.

Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) was a great 19th century Norwegian playwright who was considered one of the first prominent figures of modern theatre. Ibsen wrote many famous plays but none moreso than A Doll’s House, which was controversial in its time for its criticism of 19th century marriages and morals yet remains the world’s most performed play today.

Excerpt from From Ibsen's Workshop, Vol. 12: Notes, Scenarios, and Drafts of the Modern PlaysEven his entries in the complaint-book of the Scandinavian Club in Rome are piously included. 3 See Professor Herford's introduction to that play.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

A Doll's House, written two years after The Pillars of Society, was the first of Ibsen's plays to create a sensation and is now perhaps his most famous play, and required reading in many secondary schools and universities. The play was highly controversial when first published, as it is sharply critical of 19th Century marriage norms. It follows the formula of well-made play up until the final act, when it breaks convention by ending with a discussion, not an unravelling. It is often called the first true feminist play, although Ibsen denied this.

Nora Helmer, the naive and pretty wife of Torvald, has no opinions or talents of her own in male-dominated 19th-Century Norwegian society. Their life is comfortable and respectable, and their ideals are conventional. But when Torvald was ill, Nora borrowed money from her father's bank with a forged signature and did not tell her husband. She is desperately trying to pay back the funds now that Torvald is well and due for a profitable career appointment. When he discovers the existence of the loan, he is shocked and angry and tells her he can no longer trust her. His attempts to control her by demanding complete obedience in opposition to her compassionate feelings and behavior forces Nora to see that her entire marriage was used for Torvald's gratification. She has no right to think for herself or make worthwhile decisions on her own. He believes there is no place of authority for her if she cannot fit easily into an unexplored life of domestic satisfaction. Even though Ibsen wrote this a hundred years ago, his assessment of women's economic and emotional dependence in marriage is intensely accurate.