Henrik Ibsen achieved international fame already in his lifetime and he is not less famous today. The international Ibsen literature is immense and his plays are still being staged all over the world. Ibsen is a classic, but not a dead classic. This has to do with the fact that Ibsen takes people’s destinies seriously when creating his clear-cut and strongly individualized characters. This makes them believable and universal when Ibsen lets them stand between opposing values and leaves them to make their choices. These values and demands represent a wide spectrum and a daring combination of appetite for life and ethical idealism.

When Ibsen left his hometown Skien in 1844 he had a very strained relationship both to the town and his family. At Grimstad he got his first friends and gradually he felt freer and experienced the spiritual and revolutionary winds of the time blowing across Europe, inspired by the February Revolution of 1848. Most likely it was both this and the Latin classics he read to be able to graduate, that inspired him to write the drama Catiline (1850) about the Roman rebel of the same name. Already at this point a theme is introduced that was to reappear in Ibsen’s works later on: "The conflict between ability and desire, between will and possibility", as he himself puts it in the preface of the drama. This conflict was to mark his life and his work as an artist in all the years to come.

During his first period in Kristiania (now Oslo) in 1850-51, Ibsen had some contact with the newly founded worker’s movement. He graduated and tried his hand at journalism. But at that time a strong national romantic wind swept across Norway which also caught Henrik Ibsen who was a radical at that time. And during the years he stayed on in the country, until 1864, he wrote mostly national dramas and historical plays. The national drama, Lady Inger of Østeråt (1855) was not very well received, but his next play, a folk ballad play, The Feast at Solhaug (1856) appeared to be a success on the stage in Bergen. These were followed by Olaf Liljekrans (1857) and The Vikings at Helgeland (1857).

Ibsen married a clergyman’s daughter, Suzanna Thoresen, in 1858 and a year later their son Sigurd was born. After two years he wrote a long epical poem entitled Terje Vigen (1861) which tells the story about a poor fisherman who risks everything when he rows to Denmark to get corn for himself and his little family. At this time Ibsen had a serious crisis, he didn’t receive the recognition he needed, he was short of money and he went through a period of personal decay. In the middle of these adversaries he wrote the satirical play Love’s Comedy (1862) where he, four years after his own wedding, mocks the middle-class houses, engagements and marriages. This verse comedy received harsh reviews. After undergoing adversities of this kind it is quite understandable that Ibsen started to doubt his calling as a poet. But in a good period, during the summer of 1864, stimulated by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, a contemporary writer, he wrote the historical play The Pretenders (1863). The play was staged in Kristiania in January 1864 and it was very well received. In April 1864 Ibsen left Norway with his family to settle down in Rome where he stayed for 27 years. He had received a little travel grant and a fund raised by his friends. At this time the idea of Scandinavian unity had a stronghold on young people and while he was in Copenhagen on his way to Italy, Denmark found herself at war with her neighbour in the south. Ibsen was profoundly disturbed by the fact that neither Norway nor Sweden was willing to help "A Brother in Need" as Ibsen titled one of his poems. Ibsen regarded this as Norwegian slackness and cowardice.

This incident in addition to the powerful impressions from his new country, Italy, are important for the basis for Brand, a poetic drama published in 1866. In this drama Ibsen depicts Brand, a priest who really takes the idea of his calling in life seriously and who doesn’t accept any kind of slackness or compromise. His demand to himself and others is "nothing or everything" and he made a blistering attack on all compromise of thought and deed. Moreover, this turns out to be Brand’s own tragedy because he has not realized that God is the god of mercy and love. This drama appeared to be Ibsen’s real breakthrough. It was widely debated and discussed and was reprinted several times. At last Ibsen earnt money and the Norwegian government agreed to grant him a civil list pension. From now on Ibsen became "a new person", he was elegantly clothed, shod and barbered and he changed his handwriting and gradually turned into the most reserved sphinx.

Cand. philol. Helge Bugge Eriksen, Skien
Translated into English by Cand. mag. Astri Bjørnå, Skien.

(See also articles: The Dramatist Henrik Ibsen - a Survey; Ibsen and Skien - a Survey; Henrik Ibsen and Skien - Family, Adolescence, Memories)