Ibsen, Petty Bourgeois Revolutionist
About this book
From "HENRIK IBSEN is unquestionably one of the greatest and most sympathetic figures in modern literature. As a dramatist he probably has no peer among his contemporaries. Of course, those critics who compare Ibsen to Shakespeare fall into rather extreme exaggeration. For even if Ibsen were possessed of Shakespeare's genius, as works of art his dramas could not attain the heights of Shakespeare. They have an inartistic—an artificial—quality which can be sensed by anyone who reads Ibsen's dramas carefully and repeatedly. And that is why his dramas, replete with the greatest suspense and interest, every now and then become dull and boring. If I were opposed to works of art expressing ideas, I might say that this artificial element in Ibsen's dramas is due to the fact that they are saturated with ideas. And a statement of this kind might even, at first glance, seem very apt. But only at first glance. More careful analysis of the problem would prove this statement to be most unsatisfactory and superficial. Rene Doumic has very acutely said of "The most striking thing about this dramatist is his love for by that I mean his moral restlessness, his preoccupation with problems of conscience, his need to bring all the events of daily existence into a singler focus."' This trait, this love for ideas, cannot be isolated and considered in itself as a defect. It is, on the contrary, a great merit. It is this very characteristic which arouses our interest, not so much in Ibsen's dramas, but in Ibsen himself. It is this trait which justifies his remark, in a letter to Bjärnson written December 7, 1867, that he was "in earnest in the conduct of his life." And it is this trait which made him, to use Doumic's expression, "one of the greatest teachers of the revolt of the modern spirit."