The San Francisco call., 1897-03-21
HENRIK iBSEN'S NEW DRAMA.


- ers of Ibsen. The last high wave OF
realism seems to have carried him far
ashore and left him on desolate and verdure-
less land, almost out of sound of the great sea
music which thrilled US in Brand" and peer
Gynt.'
Ibsen is a terrible pessimist His is not the
fierce melancholy of youth, born often of a.
noble disconten and begetting the fine wish
TO shatter this world 10 bits land then remold
it nearer to the hearts desire"
On the contrary, his is the hopeless pessi-
mism of age, an age whose increasing years
have brought no solution of the awful prob
lens of life, and no belief that somehow good
will be the final work OF i'll. He sees with
clear-eyed and pitiless vision those moral
maladies which eat into our civilization to-
day. He exposes not so much crime and The
great obvious errors of mankind as the subtle
sins of the heart-selfshness, hypocrisy, cant.
There was enough in Ibsen's early life to ac-
countfo his temper OF mind. While he was
still lad his father, who had been the most
wealthy and influential citizen of Skien,
abruptly lost his fortune and with it his social
position. The family was compelled to move
to desolate farm, and the boy, Henrik, had
an object lesson in the insincerity of fair
weather friendships. which he never forgot.
The old, gay, hospitable life was q thing of
the past, and with it had gone the friends OF
tudL lime. his CUdUSe UeepSueQ the SlOOm
OF the boys temperament, aud began that en-
bittering process which later years were to
intensity.
The family poverty prevented him from
studying painting, as he wished, and a few
years later he was apprenticed to a chemist in
Grimstad. This little seaport town was very
hotbed OF cant. Perhaps it was here that he
grew to loathe chat particular vice, and per-
haps even then he resolved to strip off some
INN Law ffar OF
from the social conventions of his time. The
intellectual life OF Grimstad was as restricted
and The moral horizon as narrow as that of
any remote Puritan village fifty years ago.
Here the young poet soul, already tremulous
with Great tive power, felt itself fettered.
repress sed, misunderstood on every side.
1t is small wonder that, chafing
under constant repression, Ibsen be-
came an almost fran tic apostle OF individu-
alism. Years afterward in speech to the
students of Christiania he said: ''All social
and domestic institut ions which hamper the
free growth OF the individual are evil"
His first drama, Catalina published at the
expense of an optimistic frieno. COM
plete failure. After he had gone to Christiania
TO study medicine the whole edition was sold
for waste paper to buy food for an empty
stomach. His second word. "The Heroic
Mound" Jared little better and made him
pen. 1t is hard to say how he might have
Jared during the last few years had IL not been
for Ole Bull, who procured him the posi-
tion of director to the theater in Bergen. This
was Government appointment, which gave
him a small salary. He retained this position
for several years, though it must have been
lntolerably irksome to him. He was more
than ever fettered. He was servant of the
public and their TASTE had 10 be his choice.
he was 80 years old before he really began his
career as q dramatic satirist with Loves
Comedy
This drama, which discusses the question as
to whether marriage is incompatible with
love-" horrified the good people OF Cnristiania.
The poet found himself an object OF aversion
and distrust. Worst OF all he was lashed by the
critics, who failed to see sny genius even
promise of genius in his work. He felt him.
self mentally suffocated in that air of censure.
and it is not surprising that as soon MS 1t be-
came possible he shook, as he said, the dust of
that country forever from his feet Ever
since that time he has lived voluntary exile
first in Italy and later in various German
cities
After the writing of "Brand," "Peer Gynt"
and emperor and Galilean' had made him
famous, the Norwegians were proud to cele-
brate Ibsen's greatness aud to remember him
as their coun tryman. But tnat triumph was
of small value 10 the man who had come to
regard motive as the supreme test of human
conduct. A great ovation was given him
when he revisited his country for a short
time ten years after leaving it. In speech
which ne made on that occasion he said:
''What is needed is a. revolution of the spirit
of man."
The prose dramas which followed the three
poetical dramas showed a marked change in
Ibsens method. The themes we're not unlike.
He still satiriZed convention and made his
strong plea for the "divine right of individu-
atty but his manner was striklngly differ
ent. Instead of treating his subject symbol
cally, as in Brand" and 'tPeer Gynt," he
treated it with great literalness, in "The
Dolls House, and became reslist. But still
individualism is the keynote of all.
In Brand" we have the idealist and dream
er who tries to live literal Christian life and
whose creed is "al or nothing" He fails OF
his ideals and of his divine individuality be-
cause, though he sacrifices himself TO the ut
termost, he has never realized that God is "a
God of love-"
In "Peer Gynt' we have the antithesis of
Brand. The hero symbolizes the spirit OF COM
promise. He hedges even in his ethics. He
makes fortune in the slave trade, and to ease
his conscience exports Bibles and mission
aries. When he hears lion roaring in the
wilderness he trusts in the Lord" but, 'all
the same" he would like to get up tree.
His soliloquy when he sees his yacht with his
treasure and faithless friends aboard standing
out to sea is one of the bitterest satires on in
sincere religion ever penned. Peer Gynt
though thinking constant tly OF self, has never
found his true self at all
If Brand through his blindness aud Peer
Gynt through his selfshness have failed Of
their true individuality, Nora in "The Dolls
House" has been cheated of hers, because by
reason of her artificial lie she has never been
allowed to have any. She is first her fathers
pet and then her husbands. Only when she,
QUITE unwittingly, commits legal crime that
inYolves her husband in disgrace is she held
to account as a responsible human being
After this crisis in her life she resolves TO
leave he husbands home and ind-herself!
When he reminds her of her duties to her hus-
band and children she answers, 81 have other
duties equally sacred" He retorts, "No, you
have not. What do you mean?" and she says,
..Duties toward myself"
When he reminds her that before all else she
is wife and mother she answers:
81 no longer think so. l think that before
all else / am human being"
In the succeeding dramas. no matter what
the subject, we find variations of the same
theme In stGhosts ts'' the obvious motif is the
curse OF heredity, but the keystone of the
whole ethical structure is the sin OF yielding,
as Mrs. AIving did, the individual sense OF
right to the social or conventional
Those who have watched lbsenic develop
ment as the prophet OF indiyiduallsm nave