so hilarious, so poignant, so daring, and so dense - teeming with life - the characters speaking their characterization - and such beautiful characters - and so wacko

Many find Ibsen difficult to understand. I certainly did. However, by reading The Wild Duck, I was introduced to an entire new world of symbolism and creative writing. Like the master he was, Ibsen paints a portrait of a family, representing all of us, living on a lie. Cruelty in our midst, innocent victimes and pragmatists losing to the vindictive, it's all there. The touches of comedy and tragedy just increase the impression that it does concern us, that really, he's looked into our lives and seen our lies, although hopefully in a less extreme version. And don't we all know a Hedvig, a Gina, a Hjalmar and a Gregers? Maybe there's something of the all in all of us... The book sucks you in, creeps under your skin and stays there, along with the horror, the anger and the sympathy you feel while reading. In my opinion, one of the best examples of Ibsen's less romantic period of writing.

Ibsen's philosophical "message" in this play disturbs me. I don't think I agree with Dr. Relling that each of us needs his own brand of self-deception to cope with life. Certainly Hialmar Ekdal is content enough, and hilariously funny as an lazy fool who thinks he's a creative genius in photograhy, a breadwinner to his wife and daughter, and a martyr to his father's scandalous past. Alas, his friend Gregers Werl points the way to the truth, that Hialmar is deceived about everything in his life. It would all be comical but for the fact that Hialmar's daugher Hedvig, who is probably not his daugther at all, shoots herself as proof of her love for Hialmar. So, Ibsen seems to say, here the truth has cost a young girl's life, an unbearable tragedy but for the fact that she was going blind. Well, no doubt there is cost in knowing the truth about oneself and about others, no doubt there are things we prefer not to know, and no doubt there are people like Hialmar who are impervious to truth. But there are also people like Hialmar's wife Gina, and Dr. Relling himself, who know the truth and who hold up nobly and well. For at least these, I think Ibsen should recommend truth in large doses, and perhaps he does.

There will not be a better collected edition of these plays in English translation. For both casual readers and scholars unable to read Ibsen in the original Norwegian, Rolf Fjelde's translation and supplementary materials make this volume unbeatable.

Fjelde presents Ibsen's major prose plays (which leaves out, of course, beauties like "Peer Gynt" but includes "A Doll House," "Ghosts," "An Enemy of the People," and "Hedda Gabler," among others) in fresh new translations, often altering standard misuses. He explains, for example, that traditional renderings of "Et dukkehjem" as "A Doll's House" warp its real meaning, which is simply "A Doll House." Pedantic as it may appear, this care is necessary, and evident throughout.

Even better are the almost 100 pages of extras: detailed introductions to each play, as well as minutely researched production histories. Who knew, for example, that "Ghosts" premiered not in Denmark or Norway but...Chicago, in 1882? The production notes and introduction to the volume tell a story we don't often hear about Ibsen, a tale of difficulties in Scandinavia, followed by years of exile and, ultimately, international acclaim. Reading the plays, which seem to have become more and more specifically Norwegian in setting and theme while Ibsen himself became more and more cosmopolitan, conjures memories of another exile who only ever wrote about home: James Joyce, not coincidentally one of Ibsen's greatest admirers.

For the price, you can't do better for English translations of these pieces--many of which can't be found elsewhere--whether you're a scholar in need of the historical context Fjelde obligingly provides, or simply interested in plowing through some of the foundations of 20th century and contemporary drama.

These twelve plays, written in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Ibsen himself often referred to as a cycle. Each is complete in itself, but regarded together, they form a remarkable artistic achievement.

The earlier works in the cycle achieved notoriety because of their themes, which were considered daring in those days. Nowadays, we can view these works with a greater objectivity. It is clear that Ibsen was still developing what was then a relatively new form - the realistic prose drama; and there are elements - e.g. the attempted blackmail and intercepted letter in "A Doll's House" - where we may still see remnants of the older type of melodrama from which Ibsen was attempting to break out. But they are very fine plays nonetheless, dealing with the individual's relationship with the wider society. Ibsen always remained aware of the extent to which human characters are moulded by the society they inhabit, but from "Rosmersholm" onwards, he focussed more on the characters' inner lives. He also found ways of saying more with less: his later plays are so concentrated, that not a word, not a gesture, is irrelevant.

Instead of re-using old myths, like Wagner or Joyce in their fields, Ibsen creates myths of his own: the white horses of Rosmersholm, for example, or the Master Builder who had defied God, but who dares not climb as high as he builds. A powerful poetic imagination is apparent in these plays, filling them with images of unforgettable intensity. The last play, "When We Dead Awaken", appears in part to forsake the realistic drama that Ibsen had so painstakingly developed, and return to the world of those earlier poetic masterpieces, "Brand" and "Peer Gynt".

"Hedda Gabler", "The Master Builder", "Little Eyolf", "John Gabriel Borkman" - these late plays are worthy to stand alongside the tragic masterpieces of Shakespeare or the Greeks. But a Nordic chill runs through them.

There are distinguished translations by, amongst others, Michael Meyer (Methuen), Una Ellis-Fermor and Peter Watts (Penguin), and here, usefully collected in one volume, by Rolf Fjelde. They all bring out different aspects of these works, and they are all eminently readable. (Having seen many of these translations in various performances, they also work well on stage.) Until I learn Norwegian to read these works in the original, these translations will have pride of place on my shelves.

A professor of mine told me that AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE is not a very good play, so I read it myself to find out...and I disagree with my professor! I think AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE is a powerful play on the timeless theme of the individual's relation to society. The "mob scene" in Act IV is a particularly intense piece of dramatic writing that reminded me of the "trial scenes" in such later, American plays as THE CRUCIBLE and INHERIT THE WIND. Several years ago I saw an outstanding local production of THE CRUCIBLE; I would love to see AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE onstage as well.
THE WILD DUCK, however, is my favorite play by Ibsen; I definitely agree with those critics who say that it is his masterpiece. I have read it three or four times, and each time I am amazed at Ibsen's skill. The play is a painful, poignant exploration of lost innocence, embodied in the character of Hedvig, a young girl on the verge of womanhood. If I could see only one Ibsen play onstage, it would be this one. In fact, I'd love to direct it myself someday!

While Ibsen's other two plays in this volume are great, neither can come close to the genius of, An Enemy of the People. Dr. Stockmann's battle for truth against the self-interested masses is perhaps the most agonizingly wonderful exploration into truth and individuality. Ibsen is a master.

James McFarlane's and Jens Arup's translations of Ibsen have long been classics and are arguably the best. Although they were published in England almost forty years ago, they still sound remarkably fresh and will be in print for many years to come.

In "A Doll's House" (1879), Ibsen casts us into the world of Nora Helmer, a young Norwegian housewife and Nordic Madame Bovary. Highlighting the restricted position of women in male-dominated society, the play sparked such an uproar in Scandinavia when it appeared that "many a social invitation during that winter bore the words: 'You are requested not to mention Ibsen's Doll's House!'" In fact, Hedwig Niemann-Raabe, the actress who was to play Nora on tour in Germany, was so appalled at the ending of this play -- at this female "monster" -- that she demanded Ibsen write an alternative one in German, which he did (a "barbaric outrage", in his words). McFarlane has appended this German-language ending (and a translation in English).

Based on the theme, "The sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children," "Ghosts" (1881) is one of Ibsen's most riveting plays. Like "A Doll's House", it, too, was denounced on its début ("crapulous stuff", "an open drain", one London reviewer called it -- certainly a Victorian exaggeration). As in most of his plays, Ibsen probes the hypocrisies of patriarchal society, which he deems to be rotten at its core, and stultifying provincial life ("Doesn't the sun ever shine here?"). Typically, he also casts women in a favorable light.

"A Doll's House" and "Ghosts" established Ibsen's reputation as one of the finest playwrights in Europe, but his next two plays -- "Hedda Gabler" (1890) and "The Master Builder" (1892) -- gave him undisputed international fame. As McFarlane points out, the 1890s "were the years when the publication of a new Ibsen play sent profound cultural reverberations throughout Europe and the world." "Hedda Gabler" marks Ibsen's shift away from highly controversial dramas primarily concerned with social and sexual injustice to "domestic" plays that addressed the struggle of individuals to control each other, people who "want to control the world, but cannot control [themselves]." "Hedda Gabler" is a thoroughly electrifying drama about a married woman's devouring sense of decay and confinement. "The Master Builder", which Ibsen coupled with "Hedda Gabler", is his riveting look into sexual potency and the domination of youth by age.

These plays are not as dark and dirty as they might seem. Whatever reviewers may have said about them when they came out and whatever gloomy stuff psychiatrists have written about them since, if you're at all familiar with prime-time television, they won't offend you -- in fact, you probably wont even lift an eyebrow. Still, I found myself glued to them for hours and I've read them before. Find a copy for your shelf!

Actually, I've only read two of these plays before but I did
want to list the names of the four included in this volume:

A Doll's House;
Ghosts;
Hedda Gabler;
The Master Builder.

Masterful social drama (to sound like a back-of-the-book blurb).
Seriously though, Ibsen's plays are wonderful.

Miller's version of Ibsen's famous play sets it in language and circumstances that one can connect with better than the original - which was full of allusions to things and times which are arcane - but the original's power still remains and is enhanced by Miller. The theme comes up in the newspaper every month - a community threatened by pollution, a media crusading against power - until the power threatens to pull the plug on the media - "science" being portrayed as both the question and the answer - and friends, family and enemies in couplings and cabals to work against each other "for the common good". Read it with friends and see what it does to friendships.

La obra de casa de muñecas se me hizo una obra con un gran mensaje; tristemente, siento que la sociedad en la que vivimos actualmente es muy semejante a la de aquellos tiempos, la gente se preocupa más por el que dirán que por lo que en verdad siente.

Yo creo que Nora encontró el descriptivo perfecto su vida: era una muñeca, y más que una muñeca de su padre y su marido lo era de la sociedad, y eso indirectamente ya que al serlo de su esposo necesariamente lo era de todo mundo por interesarse de lo que decían y pensaban.

A mí en lo personal me llegó mucho ya que vivimos así y no nos damos cuenta, estamos preocupados más en el que dirán que en lo que de verdad sentimos o pensamos y muchas veces actuamos según a esos estatutos marcados por la sociedad sin necesariamente haber reflexionado antes.

En cuanto a la forma de escribir del autor me pareció muy interesante la forma del mismo de transmitir las sensaciones, me refiero específicamente al momento en el cual Nora estaba muy nerviosa tratando de evitar que Helmer checara el buzón, en esas líneas, yo creía sentirme de la misma manera que ella o si no tanto así por lo menos estaba muy tensa.

En general me gustó mucho la obra y disfruto mucho leer obras teatrales ya que las considero menos confusas al no ser narradas y por lo tanto me entretienen más.

A play magnificient in scope, Emperor and Galilean examines the reign of Julian the Apostate. It is set outside of Norway. The characters are a bit more human than idea and the reader vascillates in sympathy towards them, particularly Julian. As such, this play differs from the other prose plays that most readers would associate with Ibsen. I do ask why it has been so long since this great play has been made available to an English reading audience.

This multi-volume set of Ibsen's work, edited and compiled by Chicago/Evanston author Rick Davis is a little masterpiece.

The new adaptations are marvelous, and Mr. Davis' commentaries show us how Ibsen is a master crafsperson, and how his work may be best contrasted with Strindberg -- who is anything but a master editor and foundation layer.

I think Mr. Davis shows us how important precision and planning can be to the writing process. Therefore I think this book is a must have for screenwriters, as well as fiction-writers -- not to mention playrights.

Ibsen is often regarded as a "social writer", who, in his works, highlighted contemporary social issues. This is a great misunderstanding: Ibsen was a writer of visionary greatness, to be ranked with the likes of Tolstoy or Henry James. These six volumes of plays translated by Michael Meyer (also a distinguished biographer of the great man) are mandatory reading for anyone remotely interested in great literature. The very late plays, especially - "The Master Builder", "Little Eyolf", "John Gabriel Borkman" and "When We Dead Awaken" - take us to the rarefied heights of greatness.

Theoharis' take on Ibsen is truly a step forward in literary criticism. I reccommend this title and his earlier work on Joyce.