Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen (best novels of all time .TXT) π
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Written in 1881, when melodrama and farce were still at their peak of popularity, Ibsenβs Ghosts is a three-act tragedy that explores uncomfortable, even forbidden themes. It is also a highly critical commentary on the morality of the day. The play centers around the widow of a prominent Norwegian sea captain whose son returns home and, with tragic consequences, revives the ghosts of the past that she has long labored to put to rest.
Ghosts immediately became a source of controversy for its inclusion of topics like venereal disease, incest, and euthanasia, and it was banned from being performed in England for many years. Its arrival signals a shift in the nature of theatre and, despite negative criticism, it was translated into other languages and performed in Sweden, Germany, and New York within a few years of its debut. It stands now as one of the works considered to have ushered in the era of modern drama.
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- Author: Henrik Ibsen
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Three days later (January 6) Ibsen wrote to Schandorph, the Danish novelist: βI was quite prepared for the hubbub. If certain of our Scandinavian reviewers have no talent for anything else, they have an unquestionable talent for thoroughly misunderstanding and misinterpreting those authors whose books they undertake to judge.β ββ β¦ They endeavour to make me responsible for the opinions which certain of the personages of my drama express. And yet there is not in the whole book a single opinion, a single utterance, which can be laid to the account of the author. I took good care to avoid this. The very method, the order of technique which imposes its form upon the play, forbids the author to appear in the speeches of his characters. My object was to make the reader feel that he was going through a piece of real experience; and nothing could more effectually prevent such an impression than the intrusion of the authorβs private opinions into the dialogue. Do they imagine at home that I am so inexpert in the theory of drama as not to know this? Of course I know it, and act accordingly. In no other play that I have written is the author so external to the action, so entirely absent from it, as in this last one.β
βThey say,β he continued, βthat the book preaches Nihilism. Not at all. It is not concerned to preach anything whatsoever. It merely points to the ferment of Nihilism going on under the surface, at home as elsewhere. A Pastor Manders will always goad one or other Mrs. Alving to revolt. And just because she is a woman, she will, when once she has begun, go to the utmost extremes.β
Towards the end of January Ibsen wrote from Rome to Olaf Skavlan: βThese last weeks have brought me a wealth of experiences, lessons, and discoveries. I, of course, foresaw that my new play would call forth a howl from the camp of the stagnationists; and for this I care no more than for the barking of a pack of chained dogs. But the pusillanimity which I have observed among the so-called Liberals has given me cause for reflection. The very day after my play was published the Dagblad rushed out a hurriedly-written article, evidently designed to purge itself of all suspicion of complicity in my work. This was entirely unnecessary. I myself am responsible for what I write, I and no one else. I cannot possibly embarrass any party, for to no party do I belong. I stand like a solitary franc-tireur at the outposts, and fight for my own hand. The only man in Norway who has stood up freely, frankly, and courageously for me is BjΓΆrnson. It is just like him. He has in truth a great, kingly soul, and I shall never forget his action in this matter.β
One more quotation completes the history of these stirring January days, as written by Ibsen himself. It occurs in a letter to a Danish journalist, Otto Borchsenius. βIt may well be,β the poet writes, βthat the play is in several respects rather daring. But it seemed to me that the time had come for moving some boundary-posts. And this was an undertaking for which a man of the older generation, like myself, was better fitted than the many younger authors who might desire to do something of the kind. I was prepared for a storm; but such storms one must not shrink from encountering. That would be cowardice.β
It happened that, just in these days, the present writer had frequent opportunities of conversing with Ibsen, and of hearing from his own lips almost all the views expressed in the above extracts. He was especially emphatic, I remember, in protesting against the notion that the opinions expressed by Mrs. Alving or Oswald were to be attributed to himself. He insisted, on the contrary, that Mrs. Alvingβs views were merely typical of the moral chaos inevitably produced by reaction from the narrow conventionalism represented by Manders.
With one consent, the leading theatres of the three Scandinavian capitals declined to have anything to do with the play. It was more than eighteen months old before it found its way to the stage at all. In August 1883 it was acted for the first time at Helsingborg, Sweden, by a travelling company under the direction of an eminent Swedish actor, August Lindberg, who himself played Oswald. He took it on tour round the principal cities of Scandinavia, playing it, among the rest, at a minor theatre in Christiania. It happened that the boards of the Christiania Theatre were at the same time occupied by a French farce; and public demonstrations of protest were made against the managerial policy which gave TΓͺte de Linotte the preference over Gengangere. Gradually the prejudice against the play broke down. Already in the autumn of 1883 it was produced at the Royal (Dramatiska) Theatre in Stockholm. When the new National Theatre was opened in Christiania in 1899, Gengangere found an early place in its repertory; and even the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen has since opened its doors to the
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