Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 5).djvu/11



INTRODUCTION.

In a speech delivered at Copenhagen in 1898, Ibsen said: "It is now thirty-four years since I journeyed southward by way of Germany and Austria, and passed through the Alps on May 9. Over the mountains the clouds hung like a great dark curtain. We plunged in under it, steamed through the tunnel, and suddenly found ourselves at Miramare, where the beauty of the South, a strange luminosity, shining like white marble, suddenly revealed itself to me, and left its mark on my whole subsequent production, even though it may not all have taken the form of beauty." Whatever else may have had its origin in this memorable moment of revelation, Emperor and Galilean certainly sprang from it. The poet felt an irresistible impulse to let his imagination loose in the Mediterranean world of sunshine and marble that had suddenly burst upon him. Antiquity sprang to life before his mental vision, and he felt that he must capture and perpetuate the shining pageant in the medium of his art. We see throughout the play how constantly the element of external picturesqueness was present to his mind. Though it has only once or twice found its way to the