Other editions of book The Master Builder with a Prefatory Study

Written in 1892, later in Ibsen's life, "The Master Builder," or "Bygmester Solness," is a 3-act play that explores the conflicted thoughts and feelings of the hardened and powerful artist Halvard Solness. He is an older architect who painstakingly worked his way to professional distinction at the cost of his personal life. As he reflects on his career, Halvard is frustrated with his ambition and dreams of achieving genuine satisfaction in his life. At the same time, he fears being surpassed by a younger generation of talent, including by his own son, a younger member of the firm. A symbolic and semi-autobiographical play, "The Master Builder" portrays a creative man's confusion and downfall.

Written in 1892, later in Ibsen's life, "The Master Builder," or "Bygmester Solness," is a 3-act play that explores the conflicted thoughts and feelings of the hardened and powerful artist Halvard Solness. He is an older architect who painstakingly worked his way to professional distinction at the cost of his personal life. As he reflects on his career, Halvard is frustrated with his ambition and dreams of achieving genuine satisfaction in his life. At the same time, he fears being surpassed by a younger generation of talent, including by his own son, a younger member of the firm. A symbolic and semi-autobiographical play, "The Master Builder" portrays a creative man's confusion and downfall.

Written in 1892, later in Ibsen's life, "The Master Builder," or "Bygmester Solness," is a 3-act play that explores the conflicted thoughts and feelings of the hardened and powerful artist Halvard Solness. He is an older architect who painstakingly worked his way to professional distinction at the cost of his personal life. As he reflects on his career, Halvard is frustrated with his ambition and dreams of achieving genuine satisfaction in his life. At the same time, he fears being surpassed by a younger generation of talent, including by his own son, a younger member of the firm. A symbolic and semi-autobiographical play, "The Master Builder" portrays a creative man's confusion and downfall.

First performed in 1892, this psychological drama is one of the great Norwegian playwright's most symbolic and lyrical works. The drama explores the insecurities of an aging architect, Halvard Solness, who suspects that his creative powers have diminished with age. Solness finds strength of purpose in his involvement with Hilda — his muse, inspiration, and ardent believer in his greatness — but their association leads to a conflict between heroic myth and complicated reality.Among the most original of Ibsen's works and one of his most frequently performed plays, The Master Builder is widely read by students of drama and literature as well as other readers. The play offers audiences a thought-provoking examination of the needs of the artist in relation to those of society and the limits of artistic achievement.

The change will come. And it's not far away, I promise you that. Some figure will emerge from the dark screaming 'Get out of the way'. And not far behind others will follow... The young are waiting. In all their power. Knocking on the door. The master builder Halvard Solness has a fear of falling. A self-made man, without professional qualifications, he has achieved domination in the town but he's increasingly frightened of being displaced by the young. A woman, Hilde Wangel, appears from the mountains, claiming to have known Solness ten years previously, and telling him of a promise he made to her when she thirteen. David Hare has written a new adaptation of one of Henrik Ibsen's most complex autobiographical masterpieces - a mesmeric exploration of control, power, lust and death, which builds to a vertiginous climax. The Master Builder premiered in this English version at The Old Vic, London, in January 2016.

First performed in 1892, this psychological drama is one of the great Norwegian playwright's most symbolic and lyrical works. The drama explores the insecurities of an aging architect, Halvard Solness, who suspects that his creative powers have diminished with age. Solness finds strength of purpose in his involvement with Hilda — his muse, inspiration, and ardent believer in his greatness — but their association leads to a conflict between heroic myth and complicated reality.Among the most original of Ibsen's works and one of his most frequently performed plays, The Master Builder is widely read by students of drama and literature as well as other readers. The play offers audiences a thought-provoking examination of the needs of the artist in relation to those of society and the limits of artistic achievement.

"The Master Builder" by Henrik Ibsen (translated by Edmund Gosse, William Archer). Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

With The Master Builder-or Master Builder Solness, as the title runs in the original-we enter upon the final stage in Ibsen's career. "You are essentially right," the poet wrote to Count Prozor in March 1900, "when you say that the series which closes with the Epilogue (When We Dead Awaken) began with Master Builder Solness.""Ibsen," says Dr. Brahm, "wrote in Christiania all the four works which he thus seems to bracket together-Solness, Eyolf, Borkman, and When We Dead Awaken. He returned to Norway in July 1891, for a stay of indefinite length; but the restless wanderer over Europe was destined to leave his home no more.... He had not returned, however, to throw himself, as of old, into the battle of the passing day. Polemics are entirely absent from the poetry of his old age. He leaves the State and Society at peace. He who had departed as the creator of Falk [in Love's Comedy] now, on his return, gazes into the secret places of human nature and the wonder of his own soul."