Ibsen, Henrik (Johan)

Norwegian dramatist and poet. His realistic and often controversial plays revolutionized European theatre. Driven into voluntary exile (1864–91) by opposition to the satirical Kjærlighedens komedie/Love's Comedy (1862), he wrote the symbolic verse dramas Brand (1866) and Peer Gynt (1867), followed by realistic plays dealing with social issues, including Samfundets støtter/Pillars of Society (1877), Et dukkehjem/A Doll's House (1879), Gengangere/Ghosts (1881), En folkefiende/An Enemy of the People (1882), and Hedda Gabler (1890). By the time he returned to Norway, he was recognized as the country's greatest living writer.

In his ‘social problem’ plays, Ibsen went beyond simply dealing with contemporary social issues and attitudes. He returned persistently to themes that had preoccupied him in Brand and Peer Gynt: the gulf between the ideal and the actual; the struggle to achieve personal integrity and fulfil one's vocation; the influence of the past and its ‘inheritance of sin’ on individuals and society generally. Nor did he reject symbolism, though he used it with great subtlety in the works written abroad, so that it did not jar with his naturalistic portrayal of contemporary life. After his return to Norway in 1891, he made a more overt use of symbolism to dramatize the confrontation of tortured and aspiring souls with their ultimate destinies, in the plays Bygmester Solness/The Master Builder (1892), Lille Eyolf/Little Eyolf (1894), John Gabriel Borkman (1896), and Naar vi døde vaagner/When We Dead Awaken (1899). His influence on European and American theatre in the 20th century has been profound.