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Ibsen's Concept of Tragedy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Sverre Arestad
Sverre Arestad*
Affiliation:
University of Washington, Seattle 5
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Extract

The extensive commentaries on Ibsen as a writer of tragedy are varied arid, as one might suspect, even contradictory. S. H. Butcher, for example, found Ibsen deficient as a tragic dramatist on nearly all counts. My primary purpose in this essay will be to present Ibsen's concept of tragedy through an analysis of Brand (1866), Ghosts (1881), Rosmersholm (1886), and The Master Builder (1892), with passing attention to Emperor and Galilean (1873), while my secondary purpose will be to determine how successful he was as a writer of tragedy.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 74 , Issue 3 , June 1959 , pp. 285 - 297
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1959

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References

1 Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art (New York, 1951), pp. 270–271.

2 Speeches and New Letters, Introd., Lee M. Hollander (Boston, 1910), p. 51.

3 All quotations from Ibsen's plays (except Ghosts) are from the Archer edition of Ibsen's Collected Works (New York, 1906—). The quotations from Ghosts are from the Modern Library edition. The Roman numerals indicate acts, the Arabic numerals pages.

4 A Kierkegaard Anthology, ed. Robert Bretall (Princeton, 1947), p. unnumb., follows p. xxv of Introd.

8 Butcher, Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art, p. 271.

6 I am indebted for my interpretation of Ghosts to Francis Fergusson's essay on this play in The Idea of a Theatre (Princeton, 1949), pp. 146–161.

7 Ibsen's Dramatic Method (London, 1952), p. 183.

8 Tragic Themes in Western Literature, ed. Cleanth Brooks (New Haven, 1955), p. 147.

9 Ibsen: His Life and Works (New York, 1931), ii, 302303. Throughout the greater portion of the drama Solness experiences a conflict within himself and, in so far as he does, Koht's view is eminently acceptable. I believe, however, that after Solness has resolved his conflict, has regained his “robust conscience,” and has restored his former relationship to his muse, Hilda, he again challenges God and suffers defeat. Ibsen's primary purpose in The Master Builder is to represent the reassertion of the human will and he does so through a protagonist who possesses some qualities that can be explained only in terms of the artist.

10 Master Builders: A Typology of the Spirit, trans. Eden and Cedar Paul (New York, 1939), p. 245.

11 I am indebted to several individuals for fruitful suggestions concerning my interpretation of The Master Builder, especially the use of the concept Non serviam and the identification of the stone quarry with the pit.