Ghosts/A Public Enemy/When We Dead Wake [antikvár]

INTRODUCTIONThe plays in this book show three very different aspects of Ibsen's work; they are a realistic drama, a comedy, and a piece of symbolism. People who know Ibsen only from the great social dramas of his middle period may be surprised that the 'Great Realist' should have written a symbolic play in the manner of Strindberg. Many more will not have realized that he also wrote comedies. Indeed, seeing that he is one of the half-dozen greatest dramatists that the world has known, Ibsen is surprisingly misunderstood even by the well-informed. Not long ago, even on the B.B.C. programme The Critics', a woman could state that 'Ibsen was famous for his well-made plays', without any of her male colleagues joining issue with her; and this when most of Ibsen's life was a struggle to free the European theatre from the piece bien laite of Scribe and his followers.Probably the greatest general misconception about Ibsen is the popular idea that he is dull and stodgy. Even though today most of the causes that he fought for so passionately have long ago been won, the plays are still exciting reading and superb 'theatre'. Part of the blame for this reputation for stuffiness must lie, unfortunately, with William Archer's translation. The last thing I want to do is to belittle that brilliant achievement or the devotion that brought Ibsen before the English-speaking world. Archer had spent much of his youth in Norway and knew the language intimately; all his work is studded with felicities of translation that have never been bettered, and his handling of the more difficult passages is brilliant. The trouble is that, naturally.