2028 marks the 200th anniversary of Henrik Ibsen’s birth
Born in Skien in 1828, Henrik Ibsen grew up as the eldest of five children. His childhood was profoundly shaped by his father’s financial ruin, which suddenly plunged the family from prosperity into poverty. At fifteen, Ibsen left for Grimstad to train as a pharmacist’s apprentice, and it was there that he made his first tentative attempts at poetry. In 1850, his debut play, Catiline, was published under the pseudonym Brynjolf Bjarme.
Ibsen then moved to Dresden, where in 1871 he published his first and only collection of poetry, Poems, containing 64 poems in total, among them the much-loved Terje Vigen. In 1873 came Emperor and Galilean, which Ibsen himself regarded as his major work — a sprawling, ten-act drama set in the Roman Empire of the fourth century.
In 1877, now living in Munich, he opened a new era of groundbreaking contemporary drama with Pillars of Society. Ibsen had become a leading figure of the Modern Breakthrough in European literature. In these plays, he confronted central — and at times explosive — issues in modern society: the position of women within marriage, the abuse of power, the relationship between truth and justice, freedom and duty, and the tension between minority and majority.
Ibsen then moved to Kristiania (old name for Oslo), likely intending to study medicine, though those plans never came to fruition. Together with Paul Botten-Hansen and A. O. Vinje, he launched the satirical weekly Andhrimner, all while continuing to write for the stage. The following year, Ibsen relocated to Bergen, where he took up a position as playwright and stage director at the Norwegian Theatre.
During his six years in Bergen, Ibsen wrote and staged five plays, among them The Feast at Solhaug, which became his first real success in the theatre. He returned to the capital after being offered the position of artistic director at the Christiania Norwegian Theatre. Several turbulent years followed, and the theatre went bankrupt in 1862. Ibsen then found work at the Christiania Theatre, where in 1864 his own play The Pretenders was staged.
Ibsen received a travel grant from the Norwegian Parliament, and in the summer of 1864 he settled in Rome. This marked the beginning of a 27-year period abroad — the years in which Ibsen wrote his most important works. While in Rome, he wrote Brand and Peer Gynt, works that saw him break away from the national romantic tradition to which The Pretenders and his other plays from the 1850s belonged. He now made his mark with biting satire and sharp criticism of his homeland.
With the realist contemporary dramas Pillars of Society (1877), A Doll’s House (1879), Ghosts (1881), and An Enemy of the People (1882), Ibsen largely fulfilled the influential Danish critic Georg Brandes’s call to put problems up for debate. A Doll’s House secured Ibsen’s international breakthrough. The play has had an enormous impact on the global fight for women’s rights and is likely the most performed drama in the modern era. Before returning to Norway in 1891, Ibsen wrote The Wild Duck (1884), Rosmersholm (1886),
The Lady from the Sea (1888), and Hedda Gabler (1890). These plays mark a gradual shift from socially critical, realist drama toward psychological and symbolic drama. Ibsen became the enigmatic sphinx.
Ibsen lived in Kristiania until his death in 1906. His final four plays — The Master Builder (1892), Little Eyolf (1894), John Gabriel Borkman (1896), and When We Dead Awaken (1899) — are often described as dramatic self-portraits. The protagonists in these plays are male, aging like Ibsen himself, and work in creative professions. They look back and reckon with the lives they have lived.
In 1900, Ibsen suffered his first stroke. In 1906, after several years of declining health, he died at his home on Arbins gate in Kristiania. In total, Ibsen wrote 26 plays and around 300 poems. Henrik Ibsen is one of the very greatest names in world literature. His plays have retained a strong relevance and are still performed on stages around the world. After Shakespeare, Ibsen is the most performed playwright in the world.
