The Life and Career of Henrik Ibsen

Henirk Ibsen is the worlds most frequently performed dramatist after William Shakespeare and the founder of modern theatre. His productions have been performed on every continent and in many different languages.

Ibsen was born in Skien, Norway in 1828. His father, Knud, was wealthy merchant and importer while his mother,Marichen Altenbergl, came from an affluent family. Henrik was the oldest of five children after his older brother died at just one and a half. The family lived in a spacious Villa living a grand life until his father in-counted financial problems which led to bankruptcy. Ibsen was seven when his family were forced into their family farm out of town. The children became detached from their father when he began to drink excessively. From this time Ibsen became increasingly introverted and was encouraged by his mother to start to stage puppet theater. He suffered from his families loss of wealth, feeling like an outsider.

In 1844, 15 yr Ibsen left Skien aboard the Coastal ferry to Grimstad, where his father arranged him to become an apothecary's apprentice, with the plan to study medicine later. Although applying himself to his medical studies, and having almost no money, Ibsen read extensively including classics by Shakespeare and Ludvig Holberg. Even though he was more interested in Literature than Pharmacy, he worked hard, and was curious, inquiring nature and studying plants effects on the body.

Later in Grimstad Ibsen began to write. He met a girl name Clara Ebbel who he worte his first love poems to. However he later fell in love with the apothecary's servant women, Else Sophie Jensdatter and in 1846 had their first child, Hans Jacob Henriksen.

In 1848, the French revolution began and this was a subject of great interest to Ibsen. Inspired by these events Ibsen wrote his first play Catiline about a Roman Rebel and conspirator Catiline. In 1850 Ibsen was getting ready to leave Grimsatd to settle in Christiania(now Oslo). In Christiania Ibsen decided to take the entrance examinations to study at the University. He failed Greek and maths, which encouraged him to follow the future path of a young playwriter.

Here after Ibsen devoted himself to his writing. He met new friends Bjornstjerne Bjornson ,Philologist Paul Botten-Hansen, and Aasmund Olavson Vinje. With Botten-Hansen and Olavson Vinje, Ibsen started Andhrimner named after the cook fro the gods in Nordic mythology. They reported on debates in parliament, theater performances and skiing competitions. These experiences as a journalist gave Ibsen valuable insights into the society which he drew on in his later writings.

In 1857, Ibsen moved to Christiania, where he was offered a job at the National Theatre, and in the following year married Susannah Thoresen. Here, Ibsen put on works such as Warriors (Vikings) at Helgeland, and he started experimenting with prose drama.

In 1864, he was awarded a grant for foreign travel and set sail for Copenhagen. The Danes were fighting Prussia and Ibsen resented the fact that Norway remained neutral and felt he could not return there.

He moved on to Rome. Ironically, in Ibsen's self-imposed exile he became aggressively Norwegian, and,, wrote, Brand in a Norwegian vernacular. By the time he completed the play in 1865 Henrik and his family were facing tough financial circumstances. However Brand proved a success and touched the conscience of Norway and helped Ibsen back up financially

Peer Gynt was published in 1867. It is often regarded as Henrik Ibsen's greatest play in verse. His reputation was now established and he gradually emerged into a new artistic phase, writing 'realistic' plays that focussed on social and political issues. These works, including A Doll's House (1879), The Wild Duck (1886) andHedda Gabler (1890), proved highly controversial and influential.

Returning to Norway in 1891, his later works, including The Master Builder (1892) were more concerned with symbolism. Henrik Ibsen suffered from strokes and in 1890 one effectively ended his literary career.

Henrik Ibsen died in 1906 in Cristiania.

Martin Seymour Smith, in his Guide to Modern World Literature, said:

"Ibsen's influence is to be seen in every important European dramatist who came after him. Pirandello was particularly affected. Acquaintance with his work makes it clear that no aspiring playwright could fail to react to it and to learn from it. Ibsen gave European drama the depth it lacked, both by his technique (the masterly recreation of the past in terms of the present; the invention of a truly realistic dialogue) and by the diversity of his approach..."

Sources:

Norwegian Writers, 1500 to 1900. Ed. Lanae H. Isaacson. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 354. Detroit: Gale, 2010. From Literature Resource Center.

Henrik Ibsen's Biography,http://www.biogs.com/famous/ibsen.html,retrieved 12 Feburary 2011.

Gray, Ronald. "Henrik (Johan) Ibsen." European Writers: The Romantic Century. Ed. George Stade. Vol. 7. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1985. Literature Resource Center. Web. 11 Feb. 2011