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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: IBSEN AND THE ENGLISH THERE are many interesting things in Bran- des' criticisms on Ibsen: l an illuminating analysis of The Master Builder, little pictures of Norwegian society, letters from Ibsen on European politics, and, perhaps the most instructive of all, a few pages on the suffocating Philistine atmosphere which lay like a fog over the Scandinavia of the seventies and eighties. Such pages as these, though fragmentary, help the English reader to understand the environment of frigid respectabilities and humdrum orthodoxy which Ibsen defied, and later, turned to oxir profit in his dramas that criticize middle class ethics. What is really wanted is a revolution of the spirit of man wrote Ibsen to Brandes in 1870, and this saying actually reveals the source of Ibsen's power over us better than any lengthy criticism could do. It is because Ibsen is so dissatisfied with average human nature, because he pierces through its self-regarding egoism and realizes itsshallow pretentiousness that he has had the power to treat public opinion in ordinary as the Voice of mediocrity, without himself being either a superior person, or pessimist, or idealistic preacher. As a poet of insight Ibsen sympathizes with humanity, as a moralist he sets his face against the average man's pettiness and self-complacency; it is this two-sidedness that makes him formidable to our middle-class communities so naively in love with their own special limitations, so bold in developing their life on material lines, so fearful of applying to themselves unwelcome truths. 1 Henrick Ibsen; Bjornstjerne Bjornson. Critical Studies by George Brandes. London, 1899. Has English society the ability to understand him? This is the question which really concerns English people, and one which they are incapable..
| ISBN-13 | 9780217937504 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 0217937500 |
| Weight | 0.52 Pounds |
| Dimensions | 9.00 x 6.00 x 0.35 In |
| List Price | $19.99 |
| Format | Paperback |
|---|---|
| Pages | 152 pages |
| Publisher | |
| Published On | 2009-08-01 |
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