Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/484

* IBSAMBUL. 422 IBYCUS. IBSAMBUL, ^bsiimlKK)!. A noted group of ruins on lliL' Nubian Nile. See Abu-Simbel. IBSEN, Ip'sni, llENBlK (1828—). A Xor- wegiun drnnmlist, born at Skiuii, March 20, 1828, whose inllucnfc is marked in German, Freneii, English, and Italian literatures. His great-grandmother was Seoleh, liis grandmother and mother German, his grandfather's grand- father Danish. They were a family of shij)- masters. His father, Knud Ibsen, a merchant, met with reverses in Henrik's boyhood, which comiK-Ued the youth to pass six years (18,30-42) in great poverty. In the latter years of this period he attended a seientilic school at Skien, and late in 184.'J he became an apothecary's ap- prentice at Grinistad. where he remained till 1849 writing a Catiline in three acts (published 1850), and some poems. He now sought the University of Christiania to learn medicine, but in 1850 he was diverted by the successful pro- duction at Cliristiania of his The Warrior's Mound from academic studies to the drama. In 1851 he helped to found a short-lived weekly, ilan, in which appeared his political satire, Xorma. In November he was appointed stage manager at Bergen, with leave of absence for three months to study the art he was to practice. These he spent in Germany, writing the unsuc- cessful and unpublished l?aint John's Sight. In 1856 The lianijiut at Solhaug, the first of his national dramas, was produced in the theatrical centres of Norway and Sweden. It won him enthusiastic applause and national renown. In 1857 he became director of the Norwegian Thea- tre at Christiania. but five years of liis manage- ment reduced it to bankruptcy. Here were produced Ladi/ Inger of Ostraat, a saga drama (1855) ; The Vikings at Hclgeland (1859) ; and Lore's Comedy (18(i2). In this period he wrote also the longest of his minor poems. On the Mountain Plains (1860). In 1862, after the bankruptcy of the theatre, Ibsen accepted from the imiversity small grants for researches in folk- lore and in ISfi.S petitioned the Storthing for the I'oet's Pension ( about $4.'>0 ) . He received in 1SI>4 a Traveling Scholarship and the Pension in IHlili. Meantime, embittered by delay and the political situation, he left for Rome in April, 1864, whence he sent back (1866) the social satire, ISrand. In 1868 Ibsen left Rome for Dresden, where he remained till 1874. After a voluntary e.vile of ten years, he went back to Norway. In 1891 Ibsen made Christiania his home. On his seven- tieth birthday the poet-dramatist received gifts and greetings from everywhere in the worhl. A bronze statue of him was set outside the new National Theatre in September, 1899. His in- fluence has not been so widespread in the United iStates as in Europe. Besides the dramas above named, Ibsen's works include: The Pretenders (1864). an historical drama: Brnnd (1866) and Peer fliint (1867), dramatic poems: The League of Youth, a politi- cal comedy (1869) : the hnlk-y two-fold historical drama. Emperor and Galilean (1873); and. be- ginning with 1877. the yet better-known series of dramas that are more characteristic of what passes for Ibsenism : The Pillars of ftocieiy (1877) ; A Doll's House (1879) : Ghosts (1881) ; An Enemy of the People (1882) ; The Wild Duck (1884): Rosmersholm (1886): The Ladu from the Sra (1888) : Bedda Oabler (180(1) : 'fnster Builder Solness (1892); Lille Eyolf (1894); John Gabriel Borkman (1896) ; When We Dead Awaken (1900). Ibsen's dramatic work had been at first romantic. This phase culminated in the Banquet at tiolhaug. I'heu it was his- toric, but still romantic, up to the Vikings at Uelgeland. Next the psychologic interest be- comes prominent, and with it a tendency to social satire very marked in Lore's Comedy, a masteri)icce of swift action and of biting irony. The dramas from 1864 to 1867 arc ])oleniically national rather than social. The League of Youth marks the transition from political to social interests. From this time on Ibsen is a pathologist of social ills, dealing, as he does, with conditions universal to modern life, and thus winning an ever widening cosmopolitan audience. All these latter plays have been sev- eral times translated into English, best, so far as he goes, by William Ardier (6 vols.. 1890-92). Of comment there is cloud rather than illumi- nation. By some Ibsen's work is assailed as im- moral, cynical, pessimistic, unfit to be .seen or read : by others it is hailed as a new gospel of truth and emancipation. It is not wholly cither. The plays are studies in human responsi- bility under modern social conditions, which, in many points, Ibsen considers dangerously dis- eased and as threatening the whole body with a gangrene. So he has become the poet of protest, the unveiler of sophistries, the scourger of hy- pocrisies. He wTites of vice, but it is with loathing. He lays bare the cause of evils, but leaves it to others to prescribe the remedy. But leaving the moral question aside, these social dramas mark a new stage in the evolution of dramatic art. It is a drama of descending, not ascending action, not of preludes, but of con- sequences. "The plays are apt to begin with their climax. They are thoroughly realistic, absolutely unconventional. Their dialogues are so natural as to give the illusion of real though fascinating conversation which the playwright allows his audience to overhear. It would be hard to match them in any literature. Hence their power has been felt throughout the dramatic and literary world, while the realistic dramas of the French naturalistic school, of the Goncourts and Zola, have been regarded with languid curiosity as the products of artistic theory. For Ibsen's life, consult: .Jaeger, Ilenrik Ihscn: A Critieal Biog- raphy (Chicago, 1894) ; for summaries and com- ment on the dramas, Boyesen, Commentary on the Writings of Ilenrik Ibseti (New York, 1894) ; Shaw, The Quintessence of Ibsenism (London, 1893) : Wicksteed, Four Lectures on Ibsen (ib., 1892) : and Archer, "The Real Ibsen," in Inter- 7Wtional Monthly (ib.. 1901). Tlie German Ibsen literature native and trans- lated is very extensive : among the more note- worthv and recent contributions to it are: Brahtii. 77. Ihsen (Berlin. 1887); Andreas-Sa- lome, Ibsens Frauengestalten (Berlin, 1892); Wiirner, Ibsen.') Jugenddramen (Munich, 1895), and //. Ibsen (Munich, 1899 seq.) ; Jiiger, H. Ib- sen (Swedish, Christiania. 1892; German. Dres- den, 1897) ; Von Haustein, Ibsen als Idealist (lA'ipzig. 1897) ; Garde (translated by Kilchler), Der (trundgcdanke in Ibsens Dichtung (l^eip- zig. 1S9H) ; Brandes, //. Ibsen (Copenhagen, 1S9S); Reich, Ibsens Dramen (Dresden, 1900); Litzmann, Ibsens Dramen (Hamburg, 1901). IBYCTJS, IbK-kfis (Lat., from Ok. "IffvKos, Ibykos). A Greek lyric poet of the sixth century