Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 8).djvu/23

 THE WILD DUCK.

INTRODUCTION.

The first mention of The Wild Duck (as yet unnamed) occurs in a letter from Ibsen to George Brandes, dated Rome, June 12, 1883, some six months after the appearance of An Enemy of the People. "I am revolving in my mind just now," he says, "the plan of a new dramatic work in four acts. From time to time a variety of whimsies gathers in one's mind, and one wants to find an outlet for them. But as the play will neither deal with the Supreme Court nor with the Absolute Veto, nor even with the Pure Flag, it can hardly count upon attracting much attention in Norway. Let us hope, however, that it may find a hearing elsewhere." The allusion in this passage is to the great constitutional struggle of 1880-84, of which some account will have to be given in the Introduction to Rosmersholm. The "Pure Flag" agitation aimed at, and obtained, the exclusion from the Norwegian flag of the mark of union with Sweden, and was thus a preliminary step towards the severance of the two kingdoms. The word which I have translated "whimsies" is in the original galskaber, which might be literally rendered "mad fancies" or "crazy