Teaching History (An Enemy of the People)

“Teaching History” turns to An Enemy of the People, a play that brings to life the tension between a sole truth-teller and his community. It shows that this tension is only resolved in the main character’s commitment to break with the traditions of the town and, in a Nietzschean spirit, embrace a future-oriented educational project.

Concluding Remarks

After Hedda Gabler, Ibsen wrote four more plays: The Master Builder, Little Eyolf, John Gabriel Borkman, and When We Dead Awaken. With its darker tone and dense, image-laden prose, his late work has been described as melancholy. In each of these late plays, the topic of the past, of individual and collective history, features centrally. At least two of the late plays—three, if we include ...

Losing Time (The Vikings at Helgeland)

Chapter 1 tracks Ibsen’s interest in philosophy, especially in thinkers such as Lessing and Herder. It shows how the Vikings at Helgeland draws on, but also further develops, the interplay between history and a modern mindset that had motivated mid-eighteenth-century philosophers of drama.

History Adrift; Subjectivity Probed (Peer Gynt)

Throughout the 1860s, we see a transition in Scandinavia from Sturm und Drang to Hegelianism. This transition is at the heart of Chapter 2, which discusses Hegel’s theory of art, his understanding of selfhood, and the reception of his work in Scandinavia. Ibsen relates to this reception. This is particularly clear in Peer Gynt, a play that features a character with the Hegelian name Herr Begriffenfeldt. Through his portrait of the charming, yet thoroughly self-centered Peer Gynt, Ibsen, with humor and irony, draws on, but also goes beyond Hegelian theory, especially his commitment to the notion of a historical teleology pointing the way post-Revolutionary Europe. Through Peer’s encounter with Herr Begriffenfeldt, Ibsen sheds light on Hegel’s problematic treatment of non-European cultures.

Modern Values (A Doll’s House)

“Modern Values” discusses the relationship between Ibsen’s drama and Hegel’s philosophy of art. With a focus on A Doll’s House, it shows how Ibsen, along Hegelian lines, investigates the costs of ahistorical and aestheticizing mindsets. In this way, he brings out the relevance of Hegel’s critique of naïve, romanticizing attitudes. However, with his determination to develop drama beyond its late romantic instantiations, Ibsen also points beyond the limitations of Hegel’s understanding of art.

Ruins of Antiquity (Emperor and Galilean)

“The Ruins of Antiquity” focuses on Ibsen’s Emperor and Galilean, a play that is given the subtitle “A World Historical Drama.” Along Hegelian lines, Ibsen’s work displays the strengths, but also the price of the rising Christian mindset. In particular, it shows how early Christianity was prone to overlooking the earthly beauty and joy that characterized Ancient cultures. Yet in his presentation of Emperor Julian and his increasing existential anguish, Ibsen goes beyond the Hegelian framework and sets the stage for his turn, in his contemporary drama, to a full concentration on modern life.

Introduction

The Introduction offers an overview of the relationship between philosophy and drama in the Nineteenth Century. It demonstrates how philosophy and drama share an orientation toward history and how this orientation, in turn, is related to the breakthrough of a modern mindset and a proto-modernist art and theater.

History and Existence (Hedda Gabler)

“History and Existence” investigates Ibsen’s presentation of history and historians in Hedda Gabler. It shows how Ibsen, in a Nietzschean spirit, scrutinizes the disconnect between the past and the prosaic reality of the new and educated middle classes. The discussion focuses on the two historians of the play, but also on Hedda’s fight against nihilism. For Ibsen, though, it seems that it is the task of the artist, rather than just the historians and philosophers, to mend, or at least articulate, this gap between the past and the present.

Tragedy and Tradition (Ghosts)

“Tragedy and Tradition” explores the transition from Hegelianism to Nietzscheanism among Scandinavian intellectuals. Toward the late 1870s, Nietzsche’s work gradually gained traction among Scandinavian intellectuals and poets. Ibsen is no exception. This is particularly clear in Ghosts. Borrowing from classical tragedy, Ghosts explores the possibility of breaking with the past and presents a modern family tragedy that is both tangential to and critical of Nietzsche’s call for a return to classical, tragic culture.