The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1908-11-15

cows tail, the Great Tortuous, the But
toumolder, the Troll King, the homely
Brat with the ale bottle. What
on earth did Ibsen mean by that devil
enclosed in nutshell Peer Gynt brought
to the, smitby' Why did Peer Gynt
the mountains and to Solveig7 &.
Then come those who find a moral les
son IN most anybody's writings, not
excluding Mark Twain IS, The present
writer once attended reading of
Maeterlinck s "The Blind" " In the
last scene young child suddenly comes
upon. group. of blind people lost in
sweet women in the audience insisted
on interpreting that child s wailing as
a symbol of the woes which betde every
reformer who comes into our world and
tries TO lead us blind Grants TO the
lights of truth. Beautiful indeed, but
if the same sweet lady had seen the
play on the stage, she would have as
cribed 70 n different cause the wailing
of tha child confronting those lumber
ing blind with their wide~open, CLASSY,
dead eyes, and their long. cropping arms.
The same remarks apply to Peer
Gynt."
"Peer Gynt" is not play which one
can see unprepared and enjoy not any
more so than a miscellaneous audience
not familiar with Greek lore and his
tory could enjoy a performance of So
phocle s plays. And for so many OF us
Scandinavian history, Scandinavian
literature, Scandinavian folklore, are
but a sealed book Or, when some one
breaks the seal for us. we behold quaint,
distressing illustrations, whose cXplana
tions are in an unknown tongue. Then
we start TO dream about the recondite
A
the same state of mind as some Mongo-
liam or Tibetau, who would try TO make
out how the cross became the symbol
of the Christian faith, without having
been told Of Jesus S death. There arc
no symbols in "Pcer Gynt. There
arc only allusions to facts unknown 10
most of us, but so familiar to Scandi-
nayian minds that "Pcer Gynt' may
be properly called the Aeneid of the
Odyssey of Scandinavia, the national
epic of the Viking nations.
Scandinavia is above all the mother
OF myths, and all the legends of Eu-
rope-Gcrman. Briton or Kelt-arc 10
he traced back TO the mysterious North
land. And we must not overlook the
fact that Ibscn had been commissioned
by the Norwegian government in 1852
10 explore the Northland. the Dovrc,
for the purpose Of collecting folksongs
and legends "Pecr Gynt' was pub.
lshcl i'm 1867, five years later. Those
five years had witnessed pOrtcpilous
events. now forgotten, but whose in
fluence on Ibscn 5 life and mental de-
vclopmcnt was deep and lasting. In
1864 Norway aud Sweden had cowardly
abandoned Denmark in her fight
against tho overwhelming forces of AUS
tria and Prussia, lbsen, indignant left
his country and voluntarily became au
exile. dividing his wandering life be
tween Italian and German cities. There
was. therefore. some of his flesh and
blood ready TO be used IN the making
of that Scandinavian Faust, of the
roaming Peer Gynt. At the same time
Peer Gynt was destined in lbsen s mind
10 embody the whole Scandinavian race,
all the defects the author found in his
fellow countrymcn, half-hcartedncss.
want Of character, cgoism. Hence, the
dualism in Peer Gynt s nature, his per
petual hedging. his determination never
so to commit himself that he cannot
draw back,
In ordcr to delincatc the moral and
natural history of that Scandinavian
type. Ibscn had TO disscct the elements
which constituted Peer s heredijY and
environment And Just as the Trojan
war tales, the medieval cpics, and more
recently the Revolutionary and Indian
wars impressed an indelIble mark upon
Greek, Gallo or American minds re.
spectively, so was all that wealth of
lore, legend or superstition hoardod in
Scandinavian memories held responsible
by Ibscn for the molding of soul of
the Peer Gynt type. And Ibscn pro-
cccdcd TO rccitc those legendary facts,