Ibsen context flashcards AO3

Born

20^th March 1928 in Skien, a port town in Norway

Early life

Ibsen came from a prosperous family in Norway but fell from affluence when Ibsen was 6/7 years old due to his father’s business failing. His family hid their poverty from others, demonstrating to Ibsen the nature of family secrets/disgrace.

Child

Ibsen fathered a child with a servant who was older than him. He supported the child financially but had minimal contact due to the shame.

Apothecary

Ibsen was an apothecary apprentice for 6 years.

Education

Went to Christiana (Oslo) to study to become a doctor. Here he became fascinated by culture and literature. He published his first play, Cataline, which began his career.

Interest in Darwinism/evolution

Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is translated into Danish before A Doll’s House is written. This influences Ibsen’s writing through mentions of heredity.

Bergen

Ibsen asked to go to Bergen to start National Theatre at aged 23. He was there for 5/6 years and was in charge of 120 productions that were imported (e.g. French plays)

Jobs

Playwright, journalist, director, artistic director at Norway’s National Theatre.

Left Norway

Ibsen left Norway in 1864 when he received a grant from the government to immerse himself in cultural centres. The grant was for 2 years, but he stayed abroad for 27 years. He went to Rome.

Brand (play)

1865

Laura Peterson

Wrote ‘Brand’s Daughter’ (a sequel to Ibsen’s ‘Brand’), sent to Ibsen in 1870. Ibsen nicknamed her ‘skylark’.

Peterson visited Ibsen for 2 months in 1872 and later with her husband, Victor Kieler. In 1876, Victor developed tuberculosis. Doctors told Peterson that he would die without a trip to a warmer climate. Peterson paid for the trip with loans she could not repay, so desperately wrote a novel and sent it to Ibsen to have it published. Ibsen refused and said that her work was inferior. Peterson forged a check to clear her debts. The bank found out about this and Peterson was forced to tell Victor. He had her incarcerated in an insane asylum for a month, threatened to divorce her and when released, would not let her see her children for another 2 years.

Ibsen was writing ‘A Doll’s House’ on the Amalfi Coast during this, which distressed Peterson because it revealed her forgery and she never wanted to leave her children.

Peer Gynt (play)

1876

Genesis of ‘A Doll’s House’

Happened in a café in Rome on 19^th October 1878 when Ibsen wrote down the plot, titled ‘Notes for a Modern Tragedy’

Initial run of ‘A Doll’s House’

December 1879 in Copenhagen – sold 8,000 copies.

The first performance was at Copenhagen Royal Theatre on 21^st December 1879. It sold out initially and was hugely successful but controversial.

First European staging of ‘A Doll’s House’

Germany – 1880

Ibsen wrote an altered ending to the play for German actress, Hedwig Niemann-Rabbe, who refused to act the ending as she did not accept the ending and would have never left her children. Instead, this version ends when Nora, ‘sinks to the ground’. Ibsen changed the ending to prevent a pirated version of the play from emerging, but referred to this as “a barbaric act of violence against the text”

William Archer

William Archer was the first major English translator. He spent childhood summers in Norway. He championed Ibsen in reviews and translated most of his plays by 1900.

International stagings of ‘A Doll’s House’

The play toured Australia, India, US, Egypt etc. between 1889 and 1892

First English production of ‘A Doll’s House’

1889 – London’s Novelty Theatre

Ibsen also had to alter the ending for the English staging of the play. The changed title is ‘Breaking a Butterfly’, and the revised ending reads, ‘you were a thousand times too good for me’

Death

23^rd May 1906