HENRIK IBSEN.

Otago Witness, Issue 1934, 19 March 1891, Page 31

HENRIK IBSEN.

The great Scandinavian poet and dramatist was born in 1828 in a small town in Norway ; but though he claims Norse-land as the country of hia birth, Ibsen is, as,' regards his parentage, German, with a sttain of Scotch blood derived from a great grandmother. The boy Ibsen was apprenticed early in life to an apothecary, but the \fork being distasteful, he conceived the idea of becoming a doctor. This latter project was later on abandoned for the literary, poetic, and dramatic career in which so signkl a success Has been by him achieved. i As a yonng man, Ibsen was fortunate in securing a post at the theatre in the small town of Bergen, where for an exceedingly modest salary he undertook the duties of stage manager, giving advice both helpful and valuable to the not too acbive intelligence of those with whom he had to deal. He afterwards became director of the Norwegian Theatre at Ohristiania, an establishment which was started in opposition to the chief theatre of the capital, at which Danish companies I gave performances to the exclusion of all chance for the encouragement of native art and talent. But it was in time found impossible to keep up two theatres in a place of such circumscribed area. Consequently Ibsen.at the end of some four years, found himself without a permanent position whereon to rely in the case of need. Ibsen was at this period of his career tempted by the very force of his own passionate nature to ally himself with any and every , movement which went against established ! law and usage, and he and a few devoted adherents, started many schemes for the introduction and adoption of a new order of things, wherein '• officialism," that bete noir of Ittsen's republican spirit, should be stamped out once and for ever, and ', the rights of the people should for all time become predominant in the establishment of a universal community of peace. Jbsen's child- ] hood and youth were passed in great soli- j tude, and even now shyness and a desire to withdraw from human intercourse are the prevailing characteristics of his nature, j When the boy was still young, his family suffered a sharp reverse of fortune, and Ibsen then saw, though with the eyes of a child, that misfortune does not make friends, and soon turns aside those who, when good circumstances prevail, are always to the fore. This life-lesson, taught by the bitterest experience, had much influence in the moulding of the character of the man who was hereafter to step forth and whip hypocrisy in the most merciless fashion ever conceived or imagined by the human mind. Ibsen's plays, poems, and other writings are, like the aan himself, progressive. His historical plays are in themselves so valuable as to form a permanent contribution to .the history of hig own and other lands, whilst his recently-written plays, all in the style of moqtern drama', show to any one who reads them, whether jn the original or in the excellent translations no^ being brought out by Mr Archer, that here wetjavp no mean man to deal with, no writer of even moderate calibre, but a man who has poured forth his whple soul and every yearning of a mysteriously passionate nature instinct with genius, into those works which, from their variety and masterly treatment, p]aim for him the proud titie of " the Shakespeare of the Uorth," Ibsen left Norway wh.en he felt that the close conventionalism and narrow instincts of his countrymen were fast crushing out his artistic life, and betook himself to the sunny lands of the South, where he found surroundings ~mbre in harmony with his poetic nature. JJe hajSfeVercii times returned to Norway to '

find that, after repeated and most bitter struggles, he has at last found his way to the hearts of his own people, who are beginning to realise that they have, in the person of Henrik Ibsen, one whose indomitable energy and extraordinary dramatic faculty demand the attention not only of their own little country but of all the nations of Europe.