Category:Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen - (March 20, 1828 – May 23, 1906) was an extremely influential Norwegian playwright who was largely responsible for the rise of the modern realistic drama (dubbed "the father of modern drama"). It is said that Ibsen is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare.

His numerous works include: The Master Builder (1892) which is referenced in Joyce's Finnegans Wake.

James Joyce, who was from his student days a great admirer of Ibsen's work, published a laudatory essay on the play When We Dead Awaken in the 1 April 1900 issue of the Fortnightly Review. It was Joyce's first published piece.

"If any plays demand a stage they are the plays of Ibsen. ... they are so packed with thought. At some chance expression, the mind is tortured with some question, and in a flash long reaches of life are opened up in vista, yet the vision is momentary unless we stay to ponder it. It is just to prevent excessive pondering that Ibsen requires to be acted." James Joyce—1901