Henrik Ibsen: The Complete Major Prose Plays (Plume Books)

Rating:
Summary: Amazing collection, great translation, great extras...
Review: There will not be a better collected edition of these plays in English translation. For both casual readers and scholars unable to read Ibsen in the original Norwegian, Rolf Fjelde's translation and supplementary materials make this volume unbeatable.

Fjelde presents Ibsen's major prose plays (which leaves out, of course, beauties like "Peer Gynt" but includes "A Doll House," "Ghosts," "An Enemy of the People," and "Hedda Gabler," among others) in fresh new translations, often altering standard misuses. He explains, for example, that traditional renderings of "Et dukkehjem" as "A Doll's House" warp its real meaning, which is simply "A Doll House." Pedantic as it may appear, this care is necessary, and evident throughout.

Even better are the almost 100 pages of extras: detailed introductions to each play, as well as minutely researched production histories. Who knew, for example, that "Ghosts" premiered not in Denmark or Norway but...Chicago, in 1882? The production notes and introduction to the volume tell a story we don't often hear about Ibsen, a tale of difficulties in Scandinavia, followed by years of exile and, ultimately, international acclaim. Reading the plays, which seem to have become more and more specifically Norwegian in setting and theme while Ibsen himself became more and more cosmopolitan, conjures memories of another exile who only ever wrote about home: James Joyce, not coincidentally one of Ibsen's greatest admirers.

For the price, you can't do better for English translations of these pieces--many of which can't be found elsewhere--whether you're a scholar in need of the historical context Fjelde obligingly provides, or simply interested in plowing through some of the foundations of 20th century and contemporary drama.

Rating:
Summary: A Nordic chill
Review: These twelve plays, written in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Ibsen himself often referred to as a cycle. Each is complete in itself, but regarded together, they form a remarkable artistic achievement.

The earlier works in the cycle achieved notoriety because of their themes, which were considered daring in those days. Nowadays, we can view these works with a greater objectivity. It is clear that Ibsen was still developing what was then a relatively new form - the realistic prose drama; and there are elements - e.g. the attempted blackmail and intercepted letter in "A Doll's House" - where we may still see remnants of the older type of melodrama from which Ibsen was attempting to break out. But they are very fine plays nonetheless, dealing with the individual's relationship with the wider society. Ibsen always remained aware of the extent to which human characters are moulded by the society they inhabit, but from "Rosmersholm" onwards, he focussed more on the characters' inner lives. He also found ways of saying more with less: his later plays are so concentrated, that not a word, not a gesture, is irrelevant.

Instead of re-using old myths, like Wagner or Joyce in their fields, Ibsen creates myths of his own: the white horses of Rosmersholm, for example, or the Master Builder who had defied God, but who dares not climb as high as he builds. A powerful poetic imagination is apparent in these plays, filling them with images of unforgettable intensity. The last play, "When We Dead Awaken", appears in part to forsake the realistic drama that Ibsen had so painstakingly developed, and return to the world of those earlier poetic masterpieces, "Brand" and "Peer Gynt".

"Hedda Gabler", "The Master Builder", "Little Eyolf", "John Gabriel Borkman" - these late plays are worthy to stand alongside the tragic masterpieces of Shakespeare or the Greeks. But a Nordic chill runs through them.

There are distinguished translations by, amongst others, Michael Meyer (Methuen), Una Ellis-Fermor and Peter Watts (Penguin), and here, usefully collected in one volume, by Rolf Fjelde. They all bring out different aspects of these works, and they are all eminently readable. (Having seen many of these translations in various performances, they also work well on stage.) Until I learn Norwegian to read these works in the original, these translations will have pride of place on my shelves.