Letters of Olive Shreiner

To Havelock Ellis

Bole Hill,
29th July, 1884.

I was going to tear up the bit I enclose

[destroyed] but I won't because perhaps you would
like to see it. I can't explain what I mean by this
fear, not even to myself; perhaps you can for me. I
am so afraid of caring for you much. I feel such a
bitter feeling with myself if I feel I am perhaps
going to. I think that is it. I feel like someone
rolling a little ball of snow on a mountain side, and
he knows at any minute it may pass out of his hand
and grow bigger and bigger and go–he knows not
where. Yet, when I get a letter, even like your little
matter-of-fact note this morning, I feel: " But this
thing is yourself." In that you are myself I love you
and am near to you; in that you are a man I am
afraid of you and shrink from you.

Do you know that butterfly that the artist of the

beautiful makes in Hawthorn's story?

Yesterday I heard part of Ibsen's

play, Ghosts, still in MS. [Read to her by Aveling.]
It is one of the most wonderful and great things
that has long, long been written. I wanted you so,
too, to be sitting there by me, to hear it. There was
one line.... It made me almost mad. I cried out
aloud. I couldn't help it.

How is our exam going? It's this dry-as-dust part

of the work that must be so horrible, especially,
you see, if you don't think in your future life of
making the practice and study of medicine the
central point (and I feel most distinctly that your
"call" is to literature, just as mine was, in spite of
my medical longing).

Mrs. Walters says that I seem years gladder and

younger than when she saw me this time last year,
just as if I was only fifteen. Do you know it is you
who have made me feel so young? Almost
altogether you. I feel younger, much, than when I
was a child of ten.

I think of you like a tall angel, as you looked at

the Progressive meeting.

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1890

Engels to Paul Ernst
Written: June 5, 1890;
Source: Ibsen ed. Angel Flores, Critics Group,
New York, 1937;
Transcribed: Sally Ryan in 2000;
HTML Markup: Sally Ryan.

Unfortunately I cannot comply with your request

to write you a letter that you could use against
Herr Bahr. This would involve me in an open
polemic against him, and for that I would literally
have to rob myself of the time. What I write here,
therefore, is intended only for you personally.

Furthermore, I am not at all acquainted with

what you call the feminist movement in
Scandinavia; I only know some of Ibsen’s dramas
and have not the slightest idea whether or to what
extent Ibsen can be considered responsible for the
more or less hysterical effusions of bourgeois and
petty bourgeois women careerists.

On the other hand the field covered by what is

generally designated as the woman question is so
vast that one cannot, within the confines of a letter,
treat this subject thoroughly or say anything half-
way satisfactory about it. This much is certain, that
Marx could never have "adopted the attitude"
ascribed to him by Herr Bahr; after all, he was not
crazy.

As for your attempt to explain this matter from

the materialist viewpoint, I must tell you from the
very first that the materialist method is converted
into its direct opposite if instead of being used as a
guiding thread in historical research it is made to
serve as a ready-cut pattern on which to tailor
historical facts. And if Herr Bahr thinks he has
caught you in a mistake, it seems to me that he is
somewhat justified.

You classify all Norway, and everything

happening there, as petty bourgeois, and then,
without the slightest hesitation, you apply to this
Norwegian petty bourgeoisie your ideas about the
German petty bourgeoisie.

Now two facts stand in the way here.

In the first place: at a time when throughout all

Europe the victory over Napoleon spelled a victory
of reaction over revolution, when only in its
homeland, France, was the revolution still capable
of inspiring enough fear to wrest from the re-
established Bourbons a bourgeois liberal
constitution, Norway was able to secure a
constitution far more democratic than any
constitution in Europe at that time.
 In the second place, during the course of the last
twenty years Norway has had a literary renaissance
unlike that of any other country of this period,
except Russia. Petty bourgeois or not, these people
are creating more than anywhere else, and
stamping their imprint upon the literature of other
countries, including Germany.

If you study these facts carefully you will surely

agree that they are incompatible with the fashion
of ranking the Norwegians in a class with the petty
bourgeoisie, particularly the German variety these
facts demand, in my opinion, that we analyze the
specific characteristics of the Norwegian petty
bourgeoisie.

You will no doubt then perceive that we are here

faced with a very important difference. In
Germany the petty bourgeoisie is the product of an
abortive revolution, of an arrested, thwarted
development; it owes its peculiar and very marked
characteristics of cowardice, narrowness,
impotence and ineffectuality to the Thirty Years
War and the ensuing period during which almost
all of the other great nations were, on the contrary,
developing rapidly. These traits remained with the
German petty bourgeoisie even after Germany had
again been carried into the stream of historical
development; they were pronounced enough to
engrave themselves upon all the other German
social classes as more or less typically German,
until the day when our working class broke
through these narrow boundaries. The German
workers are with justification all the more violently
“without a country” in that they are entirely free of
German petty bourgeois narrowness. Thus the
German petty bourgeoisie does not constitute a
normal historical phase, but an extremely
exaggerated caricature, a phenomenon of
degeneration. The German petty bourgeoisie is
classic only because of the extreme exaggeration of
its petty bourgeois characteristics. The petty
bourgeoisie of England, France, etc., are on an
altogether different level than the German petty
bourgeoisie.

In Norway, on the other hand, the small

peasantry and the petty bourgeoisie, together with
a limited section of the middle class – just as in
England and France in the seventeenth century,
for example – have for several centuries
represented the normal state of society. Here there
can be no question of a violent return to outdated
conditions as a consequence of some great
defeated movement or a Thirty Years War. The
country has lagged behind the times because of its
isolation and natural conditions, but its situation
has always corresponded to its conditions of
production, and, therefore, been normal. Only very
recently have manifestations of large scale industry
sporadically made their appearance in the country,
but that mighty lever of the concentration of
capital, the Bourse, is lacking, and furthermore the
powerful shipping industry also exerts a
conservative influence, for while throughout the
rest of the world steamboats are superseding
sailing vessels, Norway is expanding considerably
her sailing vessel navigation, and possesses, if not
the greatest, then at all events the second greatest
fleet of sailing ships in the world, belonging mostly
to small shipowners, just as in England around
1720. Nevertheless this circumstance has infused
new vitality into the old lethargic existence, and
this vitality has made itself felt also in the literary
revival.

The Norwegian peasant has never known

serfdom, and this fact gives an altogether different
 background to the whole development of the
country, as it did in Castile. The Norwegian petty
bourgeois is the son of a free peasant and for this
reason he is a man compared to the miserable
German philistine. Likewise the Norwegian petty
bourgeois woman is infinitely superior to the wife
of a German philistine. And whatever the
weaknesses of Ibsen’s dramas, for instance, they
undoubtedly reflect the world of the petty and the
middle bourgeoisie, but a world totally different
from the German world, a world where men are
still possessed of character and initiative and the
capacity for independent action, even though their
behavior may seem odd to a foreign observer.

Eleanor Marx Aveling 1891

A Doll’s House Repaired
Source: Time March 1891;
Public Domain: this work is free of copyright
restrictions;
Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.

Belfort Bax bought the cultural monthly

magazine Time at the end of 1889 and started it
with a clean sheet in January 1890. He did not
want to turn it into a Socialist journal, but rather
into a broader and progressive cultural paper. He
apparently closed it down in December 1891 (See
Yvonne Kapp, Eleanor Marx, Vol. 2, 1976, pp.
442.) The only issues which appear to survive are
in Cambridge University Library for 1890 and the
first two months of 1891. The circulation must
have been very small. This article appeared in the
magazine in March year but was republished by
Eleanor Marx and Israel Zangwill as a little
pamphlet, one copy of which, badly damaged,
survives in LSE Library and which Yvonne Kapp
appears to have used. There is a photo-copy of the
pamphlet in the Zangwill collection in
Southampton University Library and a copy of the
title page in Kapp’s biography.

Ibsen’s play, which has been seen, read, or read

about by all interested in the contemporary drama,
undoubtedly, on the whole, deserves the
admiration with which it has been received in
England. But the play has certain shortcomings,
and these shortcomings have, as it seems to us,
been rightly pointed out by the English critics,
whose sound English common-sense revolts at the
manifestly impossible, nay, immoral conclusion of
“A Doll’s House.” We venture, therefore, to call
their attention to our “Repaired Doll’s House,”
which we believe will give every satisfaction. Our
repairs not only adhered to English common-
sense; we have restored what was evidently
Ibsen’s’ original idea. In the process of
reconstruction we have, so to speak, made our
bricks with the straw from the thatch of the
original “Doll’s House.” There is hardly a phrase or
an idea in our work which will not be found in the
original, and we are convinced that Ibsen himself
will prefer our repaired upper story to his own
which is so weak.

To those who think it wrong, even in the

interests of decency, morality, and good sense, to
interfere in any way with the work of the Great
Architect Ibsen, we plead the noble precedent set
by Messrs. Herman and Jones (Henry Arthur) who
went to far greater lengths than we have done, and
who transformed the “Doll’s House” past all
recognition. And while we gladly acknowledge the
good work and better intentions of Messrs.
Herman and Jones, we claim for ourselves, that
although we have purified the drainage of the
“Doll’s House” as thoroughly as they did, we have
not found it necessary to seriously alter the
building in order to carry out these sanitary
repairs. We repeat, we have carried out our work
absolutely in accordance with the original plan of
the Norwegian Architect, as anyone may see by
reading the top of page 377 in Mr. William Archer’s
painfully literal reproduction

Finally, we rejoice that the door of the “Doll’s

House” may at last be hospitably thrown open to
the English public, and that the most modest
woman may enter its portals without bringing a
blush to the cheeks of the Daily Telegraph.

Ibsen’s “Doll’s House” deals with the relations

between Torvald Helmer and his wife, Nora. Seven
years before the play begins, Helmer – then only a
poor clerk – has been sick unto death. The doctors
tell his wife two things alone can save him, that he
shall be kept in ignorance of the seriousness of his
illness and that he shall have a long rest in a warm,
southern climate. Nora, to save her husband’s life,
borrows money from one Krogstad on her father’s
security. Unhappily at this time her father is
stricken down, and dying. She cannot disturb her
father’s last hours, and knowing that he would
certainly help her in her sore need, she signs his
name – quite unconscious that she is thus
committing the heinous crime of forgery. With the
money thus obtained she takes her husband – he
fancying the money has been left them by his
father-in-law who has now died – to the South,
and so saves his life.

For eight years they have lived together in

perfect accord and happiness, and three children
have been born to them. Nora, meanwhile, has
been working surreptitiously – copying MSS far
into the night and doing fancy work, to pay off the
debt she had contracted. But Krogstad, in whose
hands the forged document is, is a man of more
than doubtful character. Krogstad is employed at
the bank of which, when the play begins, Helmer
has just been made manager. Helmer resents the
familiar tone of this man – whom he has known
from childhood – and dismisses him from his
position in the bank. Krogstad then threatens Nora
that he will tell her husband everything. She tries
to have him retained at the bank; fails, and
Krogstad writes to Helmer. This letter he throws
into the letter-box. Nora manages to keep her
husband from opening the box, and, meanwhile,
an old school-fellow of Nora’s has appeared on the
scene. Mrs. Linden, a widow who had married for
money not for love, has known and cared for
Krogstad in the old days; she learns that the man is
struggling hard to regain his lost position in
society, and she promises, indeed offers, to become
his wife. In his new-found happiness Krogstad is
anxious to make others happy, and he again writes
to Helmer: – Helmer has nothing to fear from him.
He will not betray Nora. – During all this time
Nora has passed through an agony of terror and
despair. She knows the letter that will tell her
husband all is in the box: by getting him teach her
the tarantella she is to dance at a fancy-dress ball,
by coaxing and cajolery she keeps him from
reading his letters. At last on their return from the
ball Helmer takes his key, opens the box, and goes
to his room with his correspondence. He reads the
first letter from Krogstad telling him of his wife’s
forgery. Horrified, he re-enters and taxes her with
her crime. It is at this point that we take up the
play. Certain critics of a new-fangled order have
maintained that all through the play there is
abundant evidence that Nora is not the childish
creature her husband takes her for. They say that a
woman who could for years work hard – copying
late into the night; who could stint herself while
lavishing care on her husband and children, was
not merely a butterfly. They say that for eight years
Nora has been expecting some convincing proof
that her husband is really the noble man she takes
him for, and loves, and is thus all along preparing
for the decisive and independent course of action
she determines upon when she discovers that
Helmer is not what she has fancied him. They
maintain that there is no sudden development of
the fibbing, macaroon-eating doll of the first act
into the strong self-reliant woman of the third act.
They even deny Nora was a doll. For eight years,
they say, the gunpowder has been accumulating;
the husband’s fierce anger, his (from Nora’s point
of view) selfishness and want of principle in
making light, when he is safe, of the very things he
condemns so sternly when in danger, are the torch
that set the powder a-blazing. According to
these fruits secs the whole play is at once true in
art and true to nature. And we regret to that there
are even women so lost to all the Ewigweigsiche as
to declare it possible a woman should leave
husband and children because she thinks it best for
husband and children and not simply because she
has a lover.

Against this new school – happily in England a

small one – the older, the respectable, the really
responsible critics have protested. They have
shown how immoral the play is; how ridiculous –
and hateful – the conception of a woman
deliberately abandoning husband and children
must be to an English audience. In accordance
with these clean, wholesome ideas of morality we
have slightly altered the third act of’ the “Doll’s
House” – alterations that we believe in accord with
Ibsen’s real intentions, and that cannot fail to
satisfy the English sense of morality and decency.
We begin with the scene where Nora – knowing
her husband has now read Krogstad’s letter – in
her half-childish agony of fear thinks of drowning
herself to spare her husband’s reputation, and to
save him from taking her sin upon himself, as she
is convinced he will do. We start from p.374 (line
14 from bottom) of Mr. Archer’s reproduction.

Nora (with wild eyes gropes about her, seizes

Helmer’s domino, throws it round her, and
whispers quickly, hoarsely). Never to see him
again ! Never, never, never. (Throws her shawl
over her head.) Never to see the children again.
Never, never. Oh, that black, icy water! Oh, that
bottomless – ! If, it were only over! Now he has it;
he’s reading it. Oh, no, no, no, not yet. Torvald,
good-bye! Good-bye, my little ones!

(She is about to rush out, when Helmer enters,

and stands with a letter in his hand.)

Hel. – Nora!

Nora (shrieking).- Ah!

Hel. What is this? Do you

know what is in this letter?

Nora. – Yes, I know. Yes, I

know. Oh! don’t be cross,
Torvald !

Hel. (holds her). – What does

it mean?

Nora. (tries to free herself). –

Let me go! You can’t save me,
Torvald !
Hel. (falling back). True! Is it
true what he writes? No, no. It
cannot be true.

Nora. – Please don’t scold me!

I have loved you beyond all
else in the world.

Hel. – Pshaw – no silly

evasions!

Nora. (coming nearer to him).

– Torvald.

Hel. – Wretched woman!

What have you done?

Nora. – Oh, Torvald! You can’t

save me!

Hel. – I don’t want any

melodramatic airs. (Looks the
door.) Here you shall stay and
give an account of yourself. Do
you understand what you have
done?

Nora. (looks at him, with

tears streaming down her
face, and gradually becoming
hysterical). – Yes, I begin to
understand it.

Hel. (walking up and down).-

Oh, what an awful awakening!
During all these eight years
she who was my pride and joy
– a hypocrite, a liar – worse,
worse – a criminal. Oh, the
hideousness of it ! Ugh! Ugh!
(Nora sobs more and more hysterically.)

Hel. – I ought to have foreseen

something of the kind. All your
father’s dishonesty – don’t
make such a noise – I say your
father’s dishonesty! you have
inherited – no religion, no
morality, no sense of duty.
How I am punished for
shielding him! I did it for your
sake and you reward me like
this.

Nora. (sobbing). – Like this!

Like this!

Hel. – You have destroyed my

whole happiness. You have
ruined my future. Oh, it’s
frightful to think of! I am in
the power of a scoundrel; he
can do whatever he pleases
with me, demand whatever he
chooses, and I must submit.
And all this disaster is brought
upon me by an unprincipled
woman.

Nora. – I did it for your sake!

Hel. – Oh, no fine phrases.

Your father too was always
ready with them. What good is
it to me that you “did it for my
sake” as you say? No good in
the world! He can publish the
story all the same; I might
even be suspected of collusion.
People will think I was at the
bottom of it all and egged you
on. And for all this I have you
to thank you whom I have
done nothing but pet and spoil
during our whole married life.
Do you understand now what
you have done to me?

Nora. (in a voice choked with

sobs) – Yes.

Hel.- It’s impossible. I can’t

grasp it. But we must come to
an understanding. Take that
shawl off: Take it off, I must
try to pacify him in one way or
another – the secret must be
kept, cost what it may. As for
ourselves, we must live as we
have always done; but, of
course, only in the eyes of the
world. Of course you will
continue to live here. But the
children cannot be left in your
charge. I dare not trust them
to you. (Nora sinks shrieking
on the floor at his feet.) Oh, to
have to say this to one I have
loved so tenderly – whom I
still – but no, that is all past –
henceforward, our happy
home is ruined. But I must
save the ruins, the shreds, the
show of it.

(Nora rises and stands with

clasped hands.)
Nora. – Oh, Torvald! What is
to be done? How can you ever
forgive me? How can we save
the shreds, the show of it?

Hel. – I must see Krogstad at

once. I'll send for him. (Nora
stands motionless. Helmer
goes to door and calls) Ellen!

Ell. (at door, half-dressed). –

Yes, sir.

Hel. – Put on your shawl and

run across to Mr. Krogstad’s.
Say I must see him at once.

Ell. – Yes, sir. (Exit.)

(Helmer strides up and down.

Nora sinks into a chair,
hiding her face in her hands.)

Hel. – A dust cloud of lies will

contaminate the whole air of
the house. I shall have to make
terms with this man, and
they'll say at the bank that I'm
under petticoat government
after all. That I have no will,
no firmness. Every breath the
children breathe will contain
some germ of evil.

Nora. (interrupting). – Oh!

You said so, Torvald, you said
so, but I never thought the
words would apply to this
house – to our beautiful home,
that you had made so happy.
(A sound of steps heard.)

Hel. – Hide yourself, Nora.

You mustn’t be seen.

Nora. – Oh! let me stay. I

cannot bear to think of what
he may say to you.

Hel. – No. You wouldn’t

understand. My shoulders are
broad enough to bear the
whole burden.

Nora. – Let me share it with

you, as wife and husband
should.

Hel. – You have done enough

harm already. You have ruined
my home. Let me save the
shreds of it.

(Nora goes towards the first room – that of the

children. Helmer stops her.)

Not there. Go to my study. Not

to the children.

(Nora leans her head against door of the

children’s room, then rushes hurriedly into the
study.)

Enter KROGSTAD.

Krog. – What do you want,

Torvald?

Hel. – You know well enough.

Let us come to the point at
once. We're men – not a
couple of hysterical women.

Krog. – How much can you

afford?

Hel. – How much do you

want?

Krog. – There was a time

when I wanted merely revenge
– and rescue from the mud for
myself. But now a happy turn
in my life – however – this
happy turn brings with it a
need of money. In a word, I'm
going to be married.

Hel. – You married! Why, who

would marry you?

Krog. – Mrs. Linden.

Hel. – What! How could you

dare to ask my wife’s friend?

Krog. – I didn’t. She proposed

to me.

Hel – She proposed! Well, I

always suspected she was no
better than she should be
What can one expect from a
woman who has earned her
own living?

Krog – But supposing she had

to earn her living?

Hel. – Women of our class

never should have to. In
women of the lower classes it
may be a necessity, and even
very laudable. But for ours! It
is in degradation, a destroying
of all that is sweetest and most
womanly. It makes them flat-
chested and flat-footed. The
women of our class should be
the guardians of the hearth;
the spirit of beauty and
holiness sanctifying home-life.
And then it is so ugly to see a
woman work. It shocks one’s
sense of ideal womanliness.
And what is worse, it makes
the wife independent of her
husband. What happiness can
you hope for in a union with
such a woman?

Krog. – Of course I shall stop

Christina working. I will make
her my true helpmate by
making her dependent upon
me.

Hel.- I am glad to see you are

awakening to a higher ideal of
life and its duties. If you
succeed in this you may yet
make it a true marriage. Well,
will you be satisfied with this?
– (Hands him a bundle of
notes.)

Krog (counts them – aside).

– For the present. (Aloud) My
friend! (Moved.) But there is
one thing more. I want to
regain my footing in the world.
I want to rise – and you will
help me. Of course Christina
must become a true woman,
and devote herself to the house
and to me. You will let me
retain my position in the bank.

Hel. – Very well. (Aside.) She

must resign; he can go back to
fill up the vacancy, and so my
dignity will not be
compromised.

Krog. – Thank you, thank you.

(Hands him the paper.)

Hel. (aside). – Saved!

Nora (peeping in at door). –

Saved!

Hel. (aloud and in the old

tone). But remember that
although you are rightly taking
her place at the bank, a woman
who has once tasted the
forbidden fruit of
independence is like a pet tiger
who has once tasted blood.

Krog. – Well, I've as good a

chance of domestic felicity as
you.

Hel. – What do you mean?

Krog. – Why, your wife has

worked to earn money this
long while.
 Hel. (overwhelmed). –
Worked! To earn money! What
new blow is this?

Nora. ( again peeping in at

door). – Heavens! Lost!

Krog Well, I know she has. She

did copying, working late into
the night; and crochet and
fancy work – for sale – and
last Christmas

Hel. – And I thought she was

making paper roses for the
Christmas tree for the children
– herself a sweet child-wife.

(Sinks into a chair, hiding his face.)

Krog. – It’s understood then. I

remain at the bank?

Hel. – Yes.

Krog. – And I shall do my

work thoroughly. But you
must stick to the bargain. If
you do, I promise you my
silence.

Hel. – And now we have

spoken face to face, eye to eye.
You have been frank with me;
I am helping you to regain
your place in the world – nay,
more, your self-respect. I Have
helped to show you the way to
a better life and to a true
marriage.. Will you help me to
 remove the one shadow that
lies athwart my working hours
at the bank?

Krog. (deeply moved). – I will,

I will.

Hel. (grasps his hand and

speaks solemnly). – Don’t call
me by my Christian name.

Krog – I won’t. I promise.

Good-night.

Hel. – Good-night.

Krog. – God bless you, Tor –

Mr Helmer.

Hel. – God bless you!

(Exit Krogstad. Nora enters with bowed head)

Hel. – Nora! You here!

Nora. – Yes, forgive me. I

could not but listen while you
were saving the shreds of our
happiness. But, oh, Torvald!
You have again made the
shreds into our beautiful
home. I am saved, I am saved!

Hel. – And I?

Nora. – You too, of course; we

are both saved, both of us.
You've got back the
promissory note, you must
burn it. We must get rid of this
hateful thing. It shall be
nothing but a dream. (She
takes the I.O. U. from his
hand throws it on the fire, and
both watch it burning.) There!
It’s gone! Oh, Torvald,
Torvald, what a mauvais
quart d'heure this must have
been for you!

Hel. – I have fought a hard

fight during the last fifteen
minutes.

Nora. – And in your agony you

saw no other outlet but to take
the blame upon yourself. No –
we won’t think of that horror.
We will only rejoice and repeat
– it’s over, all over! Don’t you
hear, Torvald? You don’t seem
able to grasp it. Yes, it’s over.
What is this set look on your
face? Oh, my poor Torvald, I
understand; you can’t believe
that I have truly repented. But
I have, Torvald, I swear it. I
have repented of everything. I
will never think for myself
again. I know all you do is
right.

Hel. – That’s true.

Nora. – You loved me as a

husband should love his wife.
And I have been very wicked,
very foolish. But you will give
me back your love; for
henceforth I will lean on you.
You will counsel and guide me.
You would be no true man if
my unwomanly independence
had not made me less dear in
your eyes. But you mustn’t
think any more of the foolish
things I did before I
understood the sin of a wife
thinking and acting without
her husband’s leave. I have
repented, Torvald; I swear I
have repented.

Hel. – I sincerely hope you

have. (Goes out right.)

Nora. – No, stay! What are

you going to do? (She stands
at the door.)

Hel. (inside). – I'm going to

have the sheets aired for the
spare room.

Nora. (at the door). – How

thoughtful of you! But there'll
be plenty of time to-morrow
morning to air them for
Christina! Oh! how lovely, how
cosy our home is, Torvald.
She will like being here. (She
walks up and dozen.) You
have wings broad enough to
shield everybody. (She takes a
macaroon and eats it.) Now
that Christina is going to be
married, now that she is no
longer friendless and alone, we
can offer her the spare room.
 It is true I told her we hadn’t a
spare room, but it was all for
love of you, Torvald. (Eats
another macaroon.) I thought
you wouldn’t care to have with
us a woman who lived alone.
(Helmer enters with a key in
his hand. As he does so, Nora
hurriedly hides the bag of
macaroons.) Why, what’s this?

Hel. – It’s the key of the spare

room.

Nora. – But why give it me so

late to-night?

Hel. – I shall not sleep to-

night.

Nora. – But, Torvald, dear -

Hel. (looking at watch). – It’s

not so late yet. Sit down, Nora,
I have much to say to you.
(Sits down by table.)

Nora. – Torvald, what does

this mean? Your cold, set face

Hel. – Sit down. It will take

some time. I have much to
make clear to you.

(Nora sits at the other side of the table.)

Nora – You alarm me. I don’t

understand you.

Hel. – No, that’s just it. You

don’t appreciate me; and I
have never understood you till
to-night. No, don’t interrupt.
Only listen to what I say. We
must come to a definite
arrangement, Nora.

Nora. – How do you mean?

Hel. (after a pause). – Does

not one thing strike you as we
sit here?

Nora. – What should strike

me?

Hel. – We have been married

eight years. Does it not strike
you that we have never talked
together as man and wife
should?

Nora. – Man and wife! What

do you mean?

Hel. – During eight whole

years and more – ever since
the day we first met – you have
never seriously consulted me;
you have never sunk really
yourself in me!

Nora. – Was I always to

trouble you with the petty
cares of the kitchen?

Hel. – I?m not talking of

kitchens. I say you have never
seriously set yourself to
realising what marriage
means.
Nora. – Why, dear Torvald,
what had I to do with serious
things?

Hel. – You had to do with me.

You have never understood
me. I have had great injustice
done me, Nora; first by
Krogstad, and then by you.

Nora. – What! By Krogstad

and me? By the only two
people in all the world who
now call you by your Christian
name?

Hel. – Yes, it is so, Nora. When

I was at school with Krogstad
he used to tell me all his
opinions. I did not hold them,
as a rule; and when I did I
concealed it. A man like myself
cannot hold the same opinions
on any subject as a Krogstad.
Then he called me a cad, and
caffed me as I chaffed my little
sister.[1] Then you came to live
in my house.

Nora. – What an expression to

use about our marriage!

Hel. (undisturbed). – You

came to live in my house. I
settled everything with the
greatest propriety, and I hoped
you had the same tastes as I;
but, as I see now, you only
pretended to have them. When
I look back on it, you seem to
have been living here as an
actress. You lived by playing
tricks on me. Nora, you and
Krogstad have done me a great
wrong. It’s your fault if my life
is wasted.

Nora. – Why, Torvald, haven’t

you been happy with me.

Hel – No, I thought I was, but

I never was.

Nora. – Not – not happy?

Hel – No, only amused. I now

see you have only been
entertaining me – that our
home has been nothing but a
play-house. Here you have
been an actress, just as at
home you were your papa’s
infant phenomenon. And the
children, in their turn, will
grow up actors. I thought it
real when you were only
playing before me, just as the
children did when we took
them to the pantomime.[2] That
has been our marriage.

Nora. – What do you mean?

Hel. – You heard what

Krogstad told me. You were
never the helpless, silly song-
bird I took you for. When I
thought you my little lark, my
squirrel, you were deceiving
me. When I first learnt what
you had done, I marvelled.
Could a little squirrel, could a
little lark, take such a step for
itself? But now I see that all
along you have been acting
and thinking for yourself. This
is no sudden transformation.
You have been consistent all
along. You worked to earn
money. I should not even be
surprised if you had tried to
feel like a man!

Nora. – But the money went in

housekeeping, never for
anything else. Oh, I know
there is truth in what you say,
but you are too hard on a poor
little thing like me – it is
breaking a butterfly. And if I
did violate the true relation of
husband and wife, I did it for
you. Can’t you understand
that? You remember when you
were so ill – well, you were
never to suspect how ill you
were. The doctors came to me
privately and told me your life
was in danger, that you would
die unless you went to a
warmer climate

Hel. (impressively) – I should

have found my way to a
warmer clime without your
interference.

Nora.- You know I tried to

save myself from this crime. I
told you I longed to have a trip
abroad like other young wives;
I wept and prayed; I asked you
to remember my condition and
not thwart me. But you said it
was your duty as a husband
not to yield to my whims and
fancies. Very well, I thought.
But saved you must be; and
then I did – what you now
know. Oh! forgive me,
Torvald! You said one could
retrieve one’s character if one
owned one’s crime and
repented.

Hel. – You resorted to tricks

and dodges to conceal from me
that you had worked to earn
money, that you had saved my
life in an unwomanly manner.
It is all this concealment that
has corrupted you, and makes
you unfit to bring up my
children in the way they
should go.

Nora. – But henceforth it shall

be different. Play-acting time
is over; now comes the time
for education.

Hel – Whose education, Nora?

Yours or the children’s?

Nora. – Both, my dear

Torvald. Oh! can’t you teach
me to become a fit wife for
you?
Hel. – That will take time.

Nora – And I'm not to educate

the children?

Hel. – It is impossible. Didn’t I

tell you only a few minutes ago
that I could not trust my
children to you?

Nora. – I thought that was in

the excitement of the moment!
Why should you dwell upon
that?

Hel – No. I am perfectly calm.

The problem of educating my
children is beyond you. There’s
another problem to be solved
first – how to educate you. I
must set about it at once, and
think it, out alone. That’s why
I am now leaving you. (He
hands Nora the key, which
she takes mechanically.)
Good-night.

Nora. – What do you mean

that the spare room is for me
and not for Christina? I am not
to invite her to stop tomorrow?

Hel. – You are mad! I shall not

allow it. I forbid it. The idea of
Christina staying with us! A
woman who has so far
forgotten herself that she has
proposed to the man she loves,
after accepting the man she
did not – she is no fit
companion for my wife. You
must never be at home to her
except when we're at home to
all the world. This is the first
step in your education, Nora.
Again, good-night.

Nora. – What! You would

practically shut me out from
my home, my husband, my
children! Consider what the
world will say.

Hel. – The world! The world

will know nothing unless you
again forget yourself, and
forsake your holiest duties.

Nora. – My holiest duties?

What are my holiest duties?

Hel. – Do you ask me that? To

keep up appearances.

Nora. – Are there no other

duties equally sacred?

Hel. – None. Except to obey

me.

Nora. – My duties to my
children

Hel. – Before all else you are

my wife.

Nora. – I know so now. My

wicked dream, that I might
become a human being as you
are, is over. I will be nothing
but a true wife and woman.
Have I not an infallible guide?
(She kisses his hand humbly.)
Have I not religion?

Hel. – I fear, Nora, that you

don’t know properly what
religion is.

Nora. – What do you mean?

Hel – You have forgotten all

our clergyman told you when
you were confirmed. He
explained that a woman must
be submissive to her husband.
But your mother’s scepticism,
like your father’s loose ideas of
finance, are in your blood.
Most sins are traceable to
sceptical mothers and loose
ideas of finance.

Nora. – Oh! Let me appeal to

you for mercy! Do not separate
me from my children – for I
suppose I have some moral
feeling – or answer me, have I
none?

Hel. – Well, Nora, it’s not easy

to say. I really can’t decide off-
hand. I only know you seem to
have been thinking for yourself
– and differently from me.

Nora. – But surely society says

a mother shall bring up her
husband’s children!
Hel. – You don’t understand
the society in which you live.

Nora. – I don’t. But you do.

And you say. I am to be really
separated from my little ones,
and from you?

Hel. – It must be so.

Nora. – Then there is only one

explanation possible. You're
no longer in love with me.

Hel – No; that is just it.

Nora. – Torvald! Can you say

so?

Hel – I regret it extremely,

Nora; for you have always
been so very amusing. But it
can’t be helped. I'm not in love
with you at present.

Nora. – And can you make

clear to me how I have
forfeited your love?

Hel. – Yes, I can. For eight

years I thought of you as an
ideal woman; one who did not
understand anything, but who
loved; a woman like millions of
other women, sweetly sinking
her own identity entirely in
that of her husband. Then the
miracle happened. I found you
were not the woman I had
taken you for. I found that the
money which I thought your
father had providentially won
at cards and providentially
dying at the right time, left to
us, you had obtained by
forgery, and that not content
with this crime, you had
worked to pay off the debt so
improperly contracted. Nora, I
would gladly work for you day
and night – bear sorrow and
want for your sake – but no
true man sacrifices his
independence even for the
woman he loves.

Nora. – Millions of men have

depended upon women.

Hel. – They were not men.

And I have my position in the
Bank to consider, our position
in society to remember.

Nora. – Forgive me. I spoke

like a silly child. But I am
beginning to understand.

Hel. – Until you quite

understand you are not the
woman with whom I can share
my life. When your terror was
over – not for me, but for
yourself – when there was
nothing more to fear – then it
was to you as though nothing
had happened. You were to be
my lark again, my play-acting
doll – and I was to take twice
as much care of you in the
future because you were, in
spite of all your efforts, so
entirely incapable of thinking
for yourself correctly.
(Coming- closer.) Nora, in that
moment it burst upon me that
I had been living here these
eight years with a woman I
had not known – that my
children may take after you.
Oh! I can’t bear to think of it –
I could tear you into pieces!

Nora. – (sadly) – I see it, I see

it; an abyss has opened
between us. But, Torvald, can
it never be filled up?

Hel. – As you now are, you are

no wife for me.

Nora. – You have strength to

make another woman of me.

Hel. – Perhaps – when

husband and children are
taken away from you.

Nora. – To be parted from you

– from the children! No,
Torvald, no; I can’t grasp the
thought.

Hel (going into his room). –

The more reason for the thing
to happen.

(He comes back with brush,

comb, tooth-brush, a piece of
soap, and two candlesticks.
These he places on the table.)

Nora. – Torvald, Torvald, not

now. Can’t you think it over till
to-morrow?

Hel. – No. Of course I can’t

allow you to spend the night in
another’s house, so we shall
live here as brother and sister.

Nora. – Oh, Torvald! I must go

to the children. I know they're
in better hands than mine, but
still I am their mother.

Hel. (interrupting). – As you

now are, you can be nothing to
them. They must be sent to a
boarding school.

Nora. – Oh! never, never! No

mother could ever leave her
little ones. Nature, society,
religion, all forbid you to
separate a mother from her
children. You cannot! You dare
not!

Hel. – Cannot? Dare not? I

both can and dare do what is
my duty towards my children.

Nora. (hysterically). – But

this is monstrous, unnatural,
unheard of!

Hel. – Unheard of? Supposing

I had not saved you from
 Krogstad, you would have
been condemned as a forger.
Do you think you would have
your children with you in a
prison cell? And what the law
would have done on legal
grounds, I must do on moral
grounds. Unnatural? It is the
law of nature in the working
classes, and you have debased
yourself to their level. Didn’t
the three nurses you engaged
for the children, because I was
afraid nursing them yourself
would spoil your figure, have
to send their own babes to
baby-farms? And as for
monstrous, supposing you had
committed suicide, as you
selfishly thought of doing,
would you not have been
separated from the children,
and for ever?

Nora. (overwhelmed, sinks on

her knees). – But some
time, Torvald, some time.

Hel. – Possibly.

Nora. – Ah! my husband! My

husband now and always!

Hel. – And as such the best

judge.

Nora. (sobbing in uncontrollable violence). – But

the children -
Hel. – Have you really the
courage to begin that again?

Nora. (pleadingly, catching

hold of his coat tails). –
Torvald!

Hel. – No, it is all over now.

Take your tooth-brush and
these (points to things on
table). Towels are in the room
already. Remember the matter
must be placed in a proper
light before the servants. And I
will write to Pastor Manders to
recommend me a good
boarding school for my
children.

Nora. – All over All over!

Torvald, shall I never see them
again?

Hel. – They will write to you

once a quarter.

Nora. – And I may write to

them?

Hel. – Yes. But I must see the

letters.

Nora. – And I may send them

goodies – macaroons?

Hel. – Nothing. Nothing!

Nora. – But I may go to them

if they should have the
measles.
Hel – No, I say. You must
remain strangers.

Nora. – Can I never be more

than a stranger to you and to
them?

Hel. (takes up matches and

lights both candles). – Oh,
Nora, then the miracle of
miracles would have to
happen.

Nora. – What is the miracle of

miracles?

Hel. – You would have to

change so that – but oh! Nora,
after my experience of
miracles I hardly look forward
to another.

Nora – But I will believe in

one. I must so change that -

Hel. – That, perhaps, I may

allow the children to come
home for the holidays.

Nora. (seizes his hand) – Oh,

thank you, thank you! And
perhaps, Torvald, then I shall
become your little squirrel
again your merry little song-
bird.

Hel. – In that case our living

together will be a true
marriage. (Takes up his
 candle.) Good-night! (He goes
out.)

Nora. (sinks into a chair with

her face in her hands). –
Torvald, Torvald! (She looks
round and stands up.) He’s
gone! (She takes her candle,
the brushes, etc., then a hope
suddenly inspires her, and she
puts them down again.) Ah!
the miracle of miracles!

(Helmer’s bedroom door bangs.)

1. For the suggestion as to this sister, we have to

express our grateful indebtedness to Mr. Jones’s
Breaking a Butterfly.”

2. Although Ibsen, when he re-writes his “ Doll’s-

House,” will not be able to translate this –
pantomimes are not performed in Norway it is a
touch which, like the comic lover introduced by
Mr. Jones, will please the English public, and we
trust Mr. Gosse at least will adopt it in the
translation of this play which we hear he is
preparing.

Franz Mehring

Ibsen’s Greatness
and Limitations
(1900
Translator: A.S Grogan.
Originally Published: Neue Zeit, 1900.
Source: Angel Flores (ed.), Ibsen Critics Group, New York, 1937.
Transcribed: Sally Ryan for marxists.org, October 2000.

Seldom has a nation paid so heavily as the

Scandinavians for the illusory splendor of military
glory. During the Thirty Years’ War, because of
especially favorable conditions their military
domination over Germany seemed to be assured; a
century later, ridiculous as was the part they were
condemned to play in war, they had much less real
influence on the intellectual life of Europe, or
indeed any part in it worth mentioning. The storm
of the French Revolution, which gave a new
impetus to the literature of all European nations,
left the Scandinavian countries almost untouched.

They surrendered all the more readily to

reaction. Scandinavian literature became a fanatic
disciple of romanticism and remained so even
when romanticism had fallen into decay
everywhere else in Europe. As late as 1848
the Neue Rheinische Zeitung rightly said that
Denmark imported all of both her literary and her
material food from Germany, but that Germany
was progressive and revolutionary compared with
Denmark. “Scandinavianism,” the only movement
originating in the Scandinavian countries, was
characterized by this revolutionary paper as an
enthusiasm for the brutal, dirty national character
of the old Nordic pirates, an enthusiasm for that
depth of feeling that could not express its
exuberant thoughts and sentiments in words, but
only in deeds, in brutality towards women, in
continual drunkenness and outbreaks of berserk
fury alternating with tearful sentimentality.
Cutting as these expressions were, they do not
seem to have been exaggerated; when, twenty
years later, the youthful Georg Brandes lectured at
Copenhagen University on literary history,
adopting the viewpoint of bourgeois
enlightenment, he was universally attacked as a
heretic with a bitterness reminiscent of the
mediaeval Inquisition, so bloodthirsty was it,
though fortunately impotent.

Until late in the latter half of the nineteenth

century, Scandinavian literature was dominated by
the romantic current – flight from the life of the
present, constant return to subjects drawn from
long ago, a predilection for writing allegorical fairy
tales, and last but not least, a kind of fantastic
mysticism degenerating into an ascetic rejection of
the world. With few exceptions, this literature was
bitterly hostile to all modern ideas, and denounced
their advance not only as apostasy from the
Christian faith, but as marking the dissolution of
all social and moral bonds. Yet modern ideas could
not be repelled when capitalism advanced
victoriously into the Scandinavian countries and
mercilessly revolutionized the hoary and venerable
structure of society. The economic revolution
brought the intellectual revolution in its wake, and
the winds of spring blew all the fresher after the
long winter.

The leadership in the belated awakening of

Scandinavian literature fell to Norway, thanks to
the native peasantry and petty bourgeoisie who
had for several centuries been the ruling classes in
Norwegian society. The Norwegian peasant had
never been a serf, as the Danish and Swedish had,
and the Norwegian petty bourgeois was descended
from free peasants; Norway was the only country
which had preserved a democratic constitution
after the victory of European reaction at Waterloo.
It must be admitted that this petty bourgeois
world, which afforded such extremely poor
opportunities for industrial development on a large
scale, for the stock exchange and all other levers
for the concentration of capital, had a mental
horizon equally limited – in effect, the horizon of
the peasantry and petty bourgeoisie; but when the
modern system of production invaded the land it
infused a strong and healthy element which rapidly
advanced from the deep swamps of romanticism to
the heights of modern society and was checked at
last only because its path onwards from these
heights was lost in the clouds. Nevertheless a mass
proletariat could not, and cannot, evolve in
Norway; for this reason the most revolutionary
writer in Norwegian literature failed to find the key
to the deepest problems of his time, so that Henrik
Ibsen said: “I am concerned with asking questions;
answers have I none.” But Ibsen’s way of putting
his questions has made him a European writer of
the first rank.

Henrik Ibsen was born on the twentieth of

March, 1828, at Skien, one of those small
Norwegian coast towns where the salt tang of the
sea mingles with the smell of the mountain forests.
The little town was a stronghold of puritanism, and
at the same time a model in miniature of modern
commerce, displaying the most glaring social
contrasts in the smallest imaginable space.
According to Goethe the child is father of the man,
and certain youthful impressions of his native
town stamped themselves on Ibsen’s mind; the
most trenchant of his social dramas are set in
places of which Skien was the original.

Ibsen came of a petty bourgeois family, and

attended grammar school till the age of sixteen,
when he went to live as a pharmacist’s apprentice
in the small town of Grimstad. Here he lived for
four or five years, preparing for the entrance
examinations at Christiania University, where he
intended to study medicine. Before he had reached
this goal, however, the February Revolution of
1848 broke out and stirred the twenty-year-old
youth deeply. He wrote fiery poems dedicated to
the revolutionary Hungarians and, in a series of
sonnets, appealed to the King of Sweden to take up
arms to aid their Danish brothers against the
Germans. It should not be overlooked, however,
that the party in Copenhagen which urged the
annexation of Schleswig-Holstein was the
revolutionary party in Denmark, and that Ibsen
had nothing to do with the reactionary principles
of Scandinavianism, although he did wish the
Danish cause to be supported against the Germans.
His immediate future belonged to the struggle for
emancipation through which Norwegian literature
sought to free itself from its complete dependence
on Denmark.

Apart from the revolutionary lyrics of his youth,

Ibsen had written a revolutionary tragedy, Catiline,
and had it published under a pseudonym. The
critics for the most part received it unfavorably,
but Ibsen was not discouraged by this, and
remained true to his literary penchant after
passing the entrance examination at Christiania
and beginning his studies at the university. Still his
name was almost unknown when in 1852 he was
appointed dramatist to the Norwegian Theatre in
Bergen. He kept this post until 1857 and wrote a
play every year, whereby he acquired that sure
technique which distinguishes his later
masterpieces to such a high degree. Apart from
this Ibsen himself condemned, almost without
exception, the plays which he wrote at that time.
Essentially they were still in the style of Danish
romanticism, and the attempt to create an
independent Norwegian literature was doomed to
failure so long as it continued to distinguish itself
from Danish literature merely by means of slight
differences in dialect and other such non-
essentials.

The first to find the right way was Björnson, a

fellow student of Ibsen’s, who was dramatist to the
Norwegian Theatre in Christiania. His peasant
stories mirrored the life of the Norwegian people
with refreshing truth. In 1857 the two writers
exchanged posts and now Ibsen’s genius, too, flew
higher, in plays such as The Pretenders and The
Vikings at Helgeland, which showed his
effeminate contemporaries some figures from
Norway’s past, full of vigor and rude greatness.
In Love’s Comedy, however, Ibsen held up a mirror
to his contemporaries, showing not their
forefathers’ virtues, but rather their own
foolishness. The play struck at the heart of the
hypocrisy of the time, and stirred up a storm of
indignation, which even threatened the author’s
position, particularly since the Norwegian Theatre
in Christiania went bankrupt in the same year
that Love’s Comedy appeared. Ibsen’s friends were
already trying to keep him from starvation by
means of some minor post in the Civil Service
when somebody succeeded in procuring him a
small travelling grant from the state. Ibsen went to
Rome, where, in the late sixties, he wrote his
mystical dramas Brand and Peer Gynt and began
the historical play Emperor and Galilean, not
completed until later.

In these vast works many of Ibsen’s admirers see

his most gifted and sublime creations, not to be
compared save with Goethe’s Faust. Yet such an
opinion is merely a reflection of the world fame
which Ibsen later won; anyone approaching
without prejudice the works which Ibsen wrote in
Rome will agree with the skeptical words of Georg
Brandes: “Is Brand reaction or revolution? I
cannot tell, there is so much of both in the play.
In Brand Ibsen sets up ideals from whose giddy
heights reality seems to disappear in the distance.
True, there is revolutionary spirit in those works,
and in Peer Gynt the poet castigates severely
enough that reactionary Scandinavianism of great
words and small deeds, of overflowing
sentimentality and hard narrow egoism. But he
himself is still in a ferment, out of which no great
work of art can crystallize. Ibsen first found the
path which was to bring him undying laurels when,
in 1869, he wrote The League of Youth, a comedy
which graphically portrayed the life of
contemporary Norway and vigorously attacks its
political careerists, though it was still cast in the
somewhat superficial mold of French comedy. The
play made new enemies for Ibsen in Norway and
he did not return to his motherland. After his
sojourn of several years in Italy he lived now in
Dresden, now in Munich. He acclaimed the war of
1870 and the Paris Commune with high hopes,
soon to be disappointed; in a letter written from
Dresden surrounded by “heavy German
phrasemongers and boasters who shout
themselves hoarse with their eternal Watch on the
Rhine,” he foresaw, with wonderful clarity, the
menacing future that lay ahead: “In this very
victory lies defeat and the sword will turn into a
whip.” The celebrated idols of the day he compared
to the Egyptian columns of Memnon which the
storm soon covers with layers of sand. Of the
position of the workers in a state where arms
ruled, he declared that they were like larvae which
can never become butterflies. Ibsen was at last ripe
to call model capitalist society before his tribunal.
 In the sixth decade of the author’s life his
masterpieces were written. Especially of these is
Ibsen’s remark to one of his biographers true: “All
that I have written is closely wedded to what I have
lived through if not personally experienced. For me
the purpose of every new work was to serve as a
process of spiritual liberation and purification. For
no man is ever free of responsibility for the society
to which he belongs, or without a share in its guilt.”
The essence of these dramas, considered both
objectively and subjectively, is pungently summed
up in these words. The writer stands within a
society whose vital functions he can closely
observe, even down to the faintest heart beats – a
feat which would be impossible to him if he stood
above society, and really knew how to liberate and
purify himself from it.

That is at once Ibsen’s greatness and his

limitation. None can excel the realism of the
characters which Ibsen learned to put on the stage.
One sees them walk and stand, one hears them
talk, as if they really lived. The dialogue is free
from any brilliant artificiality; one might almost
call it commonplace. Such at least is the
impression of those who unthinkingly give
themselves up to the enjoyment of these works.
Anyone who studies his technique closely will
discover the supreme achievement of his art in this
very simplicity; each of those negligent words,
apparently dropped by chance, has been well
pondered and is closely woven into the whole
texture of the play. But this masterly technique is
always completely merged in his poetic faculty.

Yet while the writer lives in and with the

characters he has created, he too is unable to
overcome the barriers hemming them in. He may
resent their faults and quarrel with them, but free
them he can not. Herein lies the root of Ibsen’s
notorious pessimism. This catchword in itself is as
meaningless as any other; it gains real content and
meaning only by reason of its social basis.
Pessimism rears its head in all declining classes,
but in each particular case the deciding factor is
above all which class is concerned and how it
declines. The pessimism of the German philistine
Schopenhauer is quite different from the
pessimism of the petty bourgeois Ibsen; the former
suffers with head bowed; the latter, rebelling,
fights; it is this element of struggle which lends to
Ibsen’s masterpieces such a powerful dramatic
tension. Yet the struggle is never crowned with
victory; Ibsen proclaims the “new epoch,” but he
cannot throw open the gates to it: his criticism of
society as expressed in his plays comes to a dead
end.

In as early a work as Pillars of Society, published

in 1877, the villain turns from his evil ways: after
committing or attempting every possible infamous
deed the profiteering capitalist is converted to the
honorable principle of the petty bourgeoisie – that
is, verbally. He proclaims that “from this day” –
that is, from the day on which his frauds are no
longer successful – the “new age” shall begin; that
as for the past, “with its pretenses, its hypocrisy
and hollowness, its false respectability and
infamous obsequiousness,” it will live on only as a
museum piece, displayed for the instruction of the
public. Freedom and truth are the real pillars of
society; such is the shallow truism with which the
audience is sent away, just after being thoroughly
stirred by a vivid picture of capitalist corruption.
This picture was true enough to life to rouse the
hottest anger of “good society” against the writer,
and to dispel all suspicion that with his “happy
end” he was moved by an intention which actually
lay far from his thoroughly sincere nature. The
psychological fallacy with which the work ended
was rooted in nothing but the author’s lack of
clarity with regard to sociological problems.

This he combated honestly and vigorously

enough, as evidenced by his immediately
subsequent plays: A Doll’s House, 1879,
and Ghosts, 1881. In these plays Ibsen turns his
searchlight upon the comfortable home of the
philistine and pillories the falsity of the bourgeois
money marriage. No longer does he veil the harsh
truth. While he does not see any way of salvation,
he does see the curse under which bourgeois
society lives. While he does not yet understand the
struggle of the oppressed class, he already
understands the struggle of the oppressed sex.
Nora is the pampered doll who plays with life and
knows little more about it than a doll, until,
brought into sharp conflict with life, she recognizes
its crudeness and brutality and resolutely tears
asunder the whole web of lies woven about her
with its unnerving softness. Mrs. Alving did not
come to that resolution at the decisive hour in her
life; she did not break up her marriage when she
recognized it as no more than a falsehood: “I
hadn’t the courage to act differently, not even for
my own sake; I was such a coward.” The
atonement she has to make is terrible, for the
ghosts of her youth return; she has to poison her
only son to relieve him from the awful bodily
torture inherited from his diseased father. The
principal figure of this play is Mrs. Alving, and not
the son on whom the sins of the father are visited.
Although in the use of such a theme there lurks a
danger of obscuring the importance of the social
factors by overemphasizing the apparent effects of
natural laws, yet Ibsen handles it with originality
and in a manner not to be compared with that of
his stale would-be disciples who distort it into a
reactionary caricature and think they are great
revolutionaries.

A Doll’s House and Ghosts will probably keep

Ibsen’s name alive longest. In An Enemy of the
People, published in 1882, he already declines
from their high standard. In this he responds to
the violent outbreaks aroused by his two tragedies:
his “enemy of the people” is an honest man who
does not lie or dissimulate and who is afraid of
nothing when the cause of truth is at stake, but
who loses his post and for that reason is outlawed
by a “compact majority,” so that he consoles
himself with the thought that the strongest man in
the world is he who stands alone. Though rich in
trenchant satire, the play is weak in its hero, who,
with all his honesty and resoluteness, is after all a
queer fellow, more of a headstrong eccentric than
an intellectual fighter for the cause of humanity,
just as, by the principle which he proclaims at the
end, he simply condemns himself to starvation. Yet
this figure is also true to life; this narrow honesty,
inflamed with anger against the symptoms of
social evil without understanding its real essence,
is ever claiming victims in bourgeois society, yet
tragic figures such victims are not. They arouse in
us a feeling of compassion, but it is a compassion
accompanied not by terror, but by a touch of
amusement and even contempt.

The solution of the problem contained in An

Enemy of the People verges on unintentional
comedy, in The Wild Duck, 1884, Ibsen created a
comedy in the highest sense of the word, the hero
of which, Hjalmar Ekdal, recalls Falstaff and Don
Quixote. The fighter who sees that the world is out
of joint, and would set it right with his “claims of
the ideal,” is shown as a fool who causes nothing
but misfortune; contrasted with him is the dry
cynic with his practical wisdom: “Rob the average
man of his life’s illusion and you rob him of his
happiness.” Between them wavers Hjalmar Ekdal,
a poor fellow, no better and no worse than people
of his kind usually are, who feverishly endeavors to
live up to the “claims of the ideal” and who always
relapses into the old comfortable “life’s illusion”
which has become second nature to him. It was
wrong to see a milder mood in this tendency of
Ibsen’s; immediately afterwards he returned to
strict tragedy. In 1886 he published Rosmersholm,
in which the weak man who cannot and will not
fight, together with his daemonic wife who tries in
vain to drag him with her up steep paths, seeks and
finds death.

Ibsen took an ever gloomier view of his world the

more it was overshadowed by the evils
accompanying the irresistible deluge of capitalism,
and the more surely the burden of his years robbed
him of the hope of ever seeing a new dawn break.
In his sixtieth year Ibsen’s militant pessimism
changed to a visionary pessimism. The time came
when the fat money bags, through their literary
hacks, used to say that Ibsen was getting madder
and madder, incapable as they were of perceiving
the appalling stench of corruption which rose from
a perishing society to the thousand fine senses of a
great writer.

The work of Ibsen’s old age includes as many

plays as the period of his masterpieces, and the
line between the two cannot be drawn with any
strict exactitude. Mystical elements already play a
part in Rosmersholm; while in The Lady from the
Sea and Hedda Gabler, dramatic psychology is not
yet entirely overshadowed by the dark sway of a
dark fate. Ibsen becomes really enigmatic with The
Master Builder. Nevertheless, so far as any line
can be drawn, it lies
between Rosmersholm and The Lady from the
Sea. From this drama onwards the writer’s
thoughts and language become ever more
mysterious; The Master Builder, Little Eyolf, John
Gabriel Borkman and When We Dead Awaken are
dramatic riddles which everyone can solve as he
pleases, only no one can ever claim to have found
the right solution.

In his “Dramatic Epilogue,” as Ibsen himself

calls his last play, When We Dead Awaken, he
makes the hero, an artist, angrily complain that
“the whole world” always goes into raptures over
what is unintentional in his work, and so it is not
worthwhile to exert himself for “the mob.” It is
easy enough to recognize in this a complaint of the
author himself, and who can deny that
unreasonably bulky commentaries have been
written on the work of his old age? Yet the tragic
poet himself succumbs to a tragic fate if he thinks
that he awakes only to see that he has never lived.
Ibsen has lived and will live, but only in those of
his creations which are modelled after the image of
life, by the hand of genius. Since social
development has grown past his understanding,
since he has ascribed to incomprehensible powers,
of whose moods man is the toy, the effects of an
economic process which he does not and cannot
understand, since then he has lost touch with real
life and not all the traces of genius plentifully
displayed in his later works will assure them of
immortality.

Ibsen is no thinker, but a poet. It seems to be in

pain, with urgency and sorrow that he creates the
dramas in which he speaks in abstruse words of
the downfall of a world from whose curse he
cannot free himself, and this explains his
impatience with the “rapture” with which his latest
plays were received. But apart from this he had no
grounds for writing a bitter epilogue to his creative
work, which has ranked him with the greatest
authors of his century, and has also contributed so
much towards the awakening of a love for drama in
the modern working class.

It is to his honor that the aged poet is not

weakened by the success which lesser poets would
gleefully enjoy. What youth denied him age has
given him in plenty. For the last ten years Ibsen
has been living in Christiania decked with medals
and loaded with riches, the most celebrated poet of
his nation, in the splendor of European fame. To
keep a Promethean steadfastness though fanned by
the breezes of the flattery of one’s contemporaries,
is the mark of true genius.

Leon Trotsky

Ibsen
(excerpt)

Written: Vostochnoye Obozreniye Nos 121, 122,

126, 3, 4, 9, June 1901;
Reprinted and published: Revolutionary
History, "Culture and Revolution in the Thought of
Leon Trotsky", Volume 7, No 2.

We must also say something about Ibsen's women,

as he is a writer to whom many are ready to give
the title of a 'singer of women'. Ibsen certainly paid
a lot of attention when depicting female characters,
who are represented in considerable variety in his
dramas.

In Ellida (The Lady from the Sea) and partially

in Marta (The Pillars) are personified the dreamy
yearnings of escape from a dull life, to where 'the
sky is wide... clouds rise higher... the air is freer...',
yearnings, which in higher stages become a desire
'to slap the face of all that decorum', not stopping
even before a break from one's country (Lona and
Dina in The Pillars), or with husband and children
(Nora). A procession comes before us of Ibsen's
women who are self-sacrificing, always living for
somebody else and never for themselves (auntie
Juliana in Hedda, Mrs Linden in A Doll's
House), unhappy slaves of married and maternal
duty (Elena Alving in When We Dead
Awaken), gentle, morbidly sensitive, affectionate
and weak-willed, like Kaja Fosli (The Master
Builder), or Mrs Elvsted (Hedda), and finally, a
woman of a fin de siecle type, spiritually-broken,
highly-strung, decadent Hedda Gabler....

The reality of the last decades has created a new

woman, who stands three times as high not only as
the Nora who breaks from her husband as a result
of an awakened consciousness of her own dignity,
but also as the Nora of the later period, who puts
all her efforts into a fervent struggle for women's
emancipation.

This new woman raises higher than the question

of the position of women from a privileged class
the social question of the realisation of a form of
social life under which there will be no place not
only for the subordination of woman by man, but
generally for any subordination of one person to
another. Hand in hand with man, this woman --
not in the old role of being an inspiration for her
husband, brother or son, but as a comrade in arms,
equal to them -- fights for the realisation of the
best ideals of the present time. Ibsen did not know
such a woman.

Karl Kautsky

The Intellectuals
and the Workers
(1903)

Written: Die Neue Zeit (Volume XXII, no.4, 1903).

First published in English: Fourth International, Vol.7 No.4,
April 1946, pp.125-126.
Reprinted and published on-line: Revolutionary History

Part of the very problem which once again so

keenly preoccupies our attention is the antagonism
between the intellectuals and the proletariat.

My colleagues will for the most part wax

indignant at my admission of this antagonism. But
it actually exists, and as in other cases, it would be
a most inexpedient tactic to try to cope with this
fact by ignoring it.

This antagonism is a social one, it relates to

classes and not individuals. An individual
intellectual, like an individual capitalist, may join
the proletariat in its class struggle. When he does,
he changes his character too. It is not of this type
of intellectual, who is still an exception among his
fellows, that we shall deal with in the following
lines. Unless otherwise indicated I shall use the
word intellectual to mean only the common run of
intellectual. who take the standpoint of bourgeois
society and who are characteristic of intellectuals
as a whole, who stand in a certain antagonism to
the proletariat.

This antagonism differs, however, from the

antagonism between labour and capital. An
intellectual is not a capitalist. True, his standard of
life is bourgeois and he must maintain it if he is not
to become a pauper; but at the same time he has to
sell the product of his labour, and frequently his
labour. power; and he is himself often enough
exploited and humiliated by the capitalists. Hence
the intellectual does not stand in any economic
antagonism to the proletariat. But his status of life
and his conditions of labour are not proletarian,
and this gives rise to a certain antagonism in
sentiments and ideas.

As an isolated individual, the proletarian is a

nonentity. His strength, his progress, his hopes
and expectations are entirely derived from
organisation, from systematic action in
conjunction with his fellows. He feels himself big
and strong when he is part of a big and strong
organism. The organism is the main thing for him;
the individual by comparison means very little.
The proletarian fights with the utmost devotion as
part of the anonymous mass, without prospect of
personal advantage or personal glory, performing
his duty in any post assigned to him, with a
voluntary discipline which pervades all his feelings
and thoughts.

Quite different is the case of the intellectual. He

fights not by means of power, but by argument. His
weapons are his personal knowledge, his personal
ability and his personal convictions. He can attain
a position only through his personal abilities.
Hence the freest play for these seems to him the
prime condition for success. It is only with
difficulty that he submits to serving as a part which
is subordinate to the whole, and then only from
necessity, not from inclination. He recognises the
need of discipline only for the masses, not for the
select few. And naturally he counts himself among
the latter,

In addition to this antagonism between the

intellectual and the proletarian in sentiment, there
is yet another antagonism. The intellectual, armed
with the general education of our time, conceives
himself as very superior to the proletarian. Even
Engels writes of the scholarly mystification with
which he approached workers in his youth. The
intellectual finds it very easy to overlook in the
proletarian his equal as a fellow fighter, at whose
side in the combat he must take his place. Instead
he sees in the proletarian the latter’s low level of
intellectual development, which it is the
intellectual’s task to raise. He sees in the worker
not a comrade but a pupil. The intellectual clings
to Lassalle’s aphorism on the bond between
science and the proletariat, a bond which will raise
society to a higher plane. As advocate of science,
the intellectuals come to the workers not in order
to co-operate with them as comrades, but as an
especially friendly external force in society,
offering them aid.

For Lassalle, who coined the aphorism on

science and the proletariat, science, like the state,
stands above the class struggle. Today we know
this to be false. For the state is the instrument of
the ruling class. Moreover, science itself rises
above the classes only insofar as it does not deal
with classes, that is, only insofar as it is a natural
and not a social science. A scientific examination of
society produces an entirely different conclusion
when society is observed from a class standpoint,
especially from the standpoint of a class which is
antagonistic to that society. When brought to the
proletariat from the capitalist class, science is
invariably adapted to suit capitalist interests. What
the proletariat needs is a scientific understanding
of its own position in society. That kind of science
a worker cannot obtain in the officially and socially
approved manner. The proletarian himself must
develop his own theory. For this reason he must be
completely self-taught, no matter whether his
origin is academic or proletarian. The object of
study is the activity of the proletariat itself, its role
in the process of production, its role in the class
struggle. Only from this activity can the theory, the
self-consciousness of the proletariat, arise.

The alliance of science with labour and its goal of

saving humanity, must therefore be understood
not in the sense which the academicians transmit
to the people the knowledge which they gain in the
bourgeois classroom, but rather in this sense that
every one of our co-fighters, academicians and
proletarians alike, who are capable of participating
in proletarian activity, utilise the common struggle
or at least investigate it, in order to draw new
scientific knowledge which can in turn be fruitful
for further proletarian activity. Since that is how
the matter stands, it is impossible to conceive of
science being handed down to the proletariat or of
an alliance between them as two independent
powers. That science, which can contribute to the
emancipation of the proletariat, can be developed
only by the proletariat and through it. What the
liberals bring over from the bourgeois scientific
circles cannot serve to expedite the struggle for
emancipation, but often only to retard it.
 The remarks which follow are by way of
digression from our main theme. But today when
the question of the intellectuals is of such extreme
importance, the digression is not perhaps without
value.

Nietzsche’s philosophy with its cult of superman

for whom the fulfilment of his own individuality is
everything and the subordination of the individual
to a great social aim is as vulgar as it is despicable,
this philosophy is the real philosophy of the
intellectual; and it renders him totally unfit to
participate in the class struggle of the proletariat.

Next to Nietzsche, the most outstanding

spokesman of a philosophy based on the
sentiments of the intellectual is Ibsen. His Doctor
Stockmann (An Enemy of the People) is not a
socialist, as so many believe, but rather the type of
intellectual who is bound to come into conflict with
the proletarian movement, and with any popular
movement generally, as soon as he attempts to
work within it. For the basis of the proletarian
movement, as of every democratic movement, is
respect for the majority of one’s fellows. A typical
intellectual a la Stockmann regards a “compact
majority” as a monster which must be overthrown.

From the difference in sentiment between the

proletarian and the intellectual, which we have
noted above, a conflict can easily arise between the
intellectual and the party when the intellectual
joins it. That holds equally even if his joining the
party does not give rise to any economic difficulties
for the intellectual, and even though his theoretical
understanding of the movement may be adequate.
Not only the very worst elements, but often men of
splendid character and devoted to their convictions
have on this account suffered shipwreck in the
party.

That is why every intellectual must examine

himself conscientiously, before joining the party.
And that is why the party must examine him to see
whether he can integrate himself in the class
struggle of the proletariat, and become immersed
in it as a simple soldier, without feeling coerced or
oppressed. Whoever is capable of this can
contribute valuable services to the proletariat
according to his talents, and gain great satisfaction
from his party activity. Whoever is incapable can
expect great friction, disappointment, conflicts,
which are of advantage neither to him nor to the
party.

An ideal example of an intellectual who

thoroughly assimilated the sentiments of a
proletarian, and who, although a brilliant writer,
quite lost the specific manner of an intellectual,
who marched cheerfully with the rank-and-file,
who worked in any post assigned to him, who
devoted himself wholeheartedly to our great cause,
and despised the feeble whinings about the
suppression of one’s individuality, as individuals
trained in the philosophy of Nietzsche and Ibsen
are prone to do whenever they happen to be in a
minority – that ideal example of the intellectual
whom the socialist movement needs, was Wilhelm
Liebknecht. We might also mention Marx, who
never forced himself to the forefront, and whose
hearty discipline in the International, where he
often found himself in the minority, was
exemplary.

Karl Kautsky
 G.V. Plekhanov

Ibsen, Petty
Bourgeois
Revolutionist
(1891)

Translators: Emily Kent, Lola Sachs & Pearl Waskow.

Originally Published: St Petersburg 1908.
Source: Ibsen ed. Angel Flores, Critics Group, New York 1937.
Transcribed: Sally Ryan for marxists.org, October 2000.

HENRIK IBSEN is unquestionably one of the

greatest and most sympathetic figures in modern
literature. As a dramatist he probably has no peer
among his contemporaries.

Of course, those critics who compare Ibsen to

Shakespeare fall into rather extreme exaggeration.
For even if Ibsen were possessed of Shakespeare’s
genius, as works of art his dramas could not attain
the heights of Shakespeare. They have an inartistic
– an artificial – quality which can be sensed by
anyone who reads Ibsen’s dramas carefully and
repeatedly. And that is why his dramas, replete
with the greatest suspense and interest, every now
and then become dull and boring.

If I were opposed to works of art expressing

ideas, I might say that this artificial element in
Ibsen’s dramas is due to the fact that they are
saturated with ideas. And a statement of this kind
might even, at first glance, seem very apt.

But only at first glance. More careful analysis of

the problem would prove this statement to be most
unsatisfactory and superficial.

Rene Doumic has very acutely said of Ibsen:

“The most striking thing about this dramatist is his
love for ideas: by that I mean his moral
restlessness, his preoccupation with problems of
conscience, his need to bring all the events of daily
existence into a singler focus.” This trait, this love
for ideas, cannot be isolated and considered in
itself as a defect. It is, on the contrary, a great
merit. It is this very characteristic which arouses
our interest, not so much in Ibsen’s dramas, but in
Ibsen himself. It is this trait which justifies his
remark, in a letter to Bjärnson written December 7,
1867, that he was “in earnest in the conduct of his
life.” And it is this trait which made him, to use
Doumic’s expression, “one of the greatest teachers
of the revolt of the modern spirit.”

The teaching of “the revolt of the modern spirit”

does not of itself exclude the artistic element.
However, lest it should, the teaching must be clear
and coherent; the teacher himself must be at one
with the ideas he teaches; these ideas must be part
of his flesh and blood, they must not hinder and
perplex him in his moments of creation; in short,
these ideas must not have a disruptive influence
upon him. Otherwise the writer is no longer master
of his own ideas, nor can the ideas themselves be
clear and coherent. The intellectual, or ideological,
content can then have only an injurious effect upon
the work of art. It must be realized, however, that
it is not the ideas themselves that are to blame, but
the impotence of the artist, who, for one reason or
another, has not satisfactorily adjusted himself to
them and therefore is not able to be a perfect or
true poet of ideas.

In other words, the real reason for the artist’s

weakness lies not in the ideological content of his
work, as might appear on first thought, but quite
the contrary, in his confusion or lack of ideas.

The teaching of “the revolt of the modern spirit”

lends interest adds an element of loftiness to
Ibsen’s work. However, while he taught “revolt,” he
himself did not know to what end it should lead,
but as often happens in such cases, he valued
revolt for its own sake. Now if a man teaches revolt
simply because it is revolt, not knowing himself to
what end it should lead, then his teaching will take
on a rather nebulous character. If he is an artist,
and thinks in terms of images and forms, then the
vagueness of his thinking will necessarily result in
vague artistic images. An abstract and schematic
element will creep into his creative work. And it is
just this negative element which is to be found in
all of Ibsen’s dramas of ideas, to their great
detriment.

Let us consider his Brand, for example. Doumic calls

Brand’s ethics revolutionary, and unquestionably they are – in
so far as they “revolt” against bourgeois triviality and
mediocrity. Brand is the sworn enemy of opportunism, and
considered in this light he certainly takes on the appearance of
a revolutionist. Yet it is only an external resemblance, and a
one-sided one. Let us hear what he has to say:

Come thou, young man – fresh and free –

Let a life-breeze lighten thee
From this dim vault’s clinging dust.
Conquer with me! For thou must
 One day waken, one day rise,
Nobly break with compromise; –
Up, and fly the evil days,
Fly the maze of middle ways,
Strike the foeman full and fair
Battle to the death declare!

This is not badly expressed. Revolutionists love to applaud

such sentiments. But who is this “foeman” against whom we
are to declare battle to the death? What is that “All” in place of
which Brand, in his eloquent preaching, will accept
“Nothing”? Brand himself does not know; and when his
followers call to him: “Show us the way and we will follow!”
he can offer them only this program of action:

Over frozen height and hollow,

Over all the land we’ll fare,
Loose each soul-destroying snare
That this people hold in fee,
Lift and lighten, and set free,
Blot the vestige of the beast,
Each a Man and each a Priest,
Stamp anew the outworn brand,
Make a Temple of the land.

Now let us see what this is all about.

Brand demands of his followers that they break

with compromise and set themselves energetically
to work. But what is this work to be? They are to
“lift” the people and loose them from their “soul-
destroying snares,” from the “maze of middle
ways” – in other words, to free humanity from the
chains of compromise. And then what? Neither
Brand nor Ibsen himself seems to know.
Consequently the struggle against compromise
becomes an end in itself, and quite without
purpose; the description of this struggle in the
drama (the expedition of Brand and his followers
into the mountains) has nothing real about it; in
fact we get a feeling that somehow it is all false and
spurious. To me this expedition recalls Don
Quixote; the skeptical remarks hurled at Brand by
that weary crowd are very reminiscent of those
uttered by Sancho Panza for the benefit of his
chivalrous knight. The only difference is that
Cervantes laughs while Ibsen preaches, which
analogy is hardly favorable to the latter.

Ibsen creates great suspense by his “moral

restlessness” and his preoccupation with problems
of conscience. However, his ethics are just as
abstract and therefore just as meaningless as
Kant’s.

Kant remarked that to use logic in solving

problems reminds him of the rather comical
picture of the two yokels, one of whom is milking a
goat while the other holds out a sieve for him.

Apropos this remark, Hegel says that the same

situation results when people attempt by means of
purely practical reasoning to distinguish between
right and duty.

Kant’s ethical criterion was not the meaning but

the form of the will, not what we want, but how we
want it. Such a law is meaningless.

In Hegel’s words, such a law does not say “what

must be willed and done in all circumstances, but
what must not be willed and done. It is absolute
not in a positive sense but in a negative sense: it is
utterly indefinite or ‘infinite.’ Moral law must,
according to its nature, be absolute and positive:
for this reason Kant’s moral law is not moral.”
 Similarly, the moral law which Brand preaches is
devoid of all moral content. It proves to he a very
inhuman law; recall, for example, the scene in
which Brand demands that his wife, out of charity,
give away the little cap which her dead child had
worn and which she carried next to her breast.
When Brand preaches this law, which, even apart
from its meaninglessness, is quite inhuman, he is
milking the goat, and when Ibsen puts this law in
practice he is holding out the sieve.

At this point the objection might be made that

Ibsen himself considerably modified his hero’s
preaching; for as Brand dies, buried beneath the
avalanche, a “Voice” calls out to him that “God is
Love!” This afterthought, however, does not alter
the situation in the least. In Ibsen’s eyes the moral
law remains an end in itself. Even if he had created
a hero who preached love, his preaching would be
no less abstract. Brand is merely another variety of
the type to which Master Builder Solness, Sculptor
Rubek [When We Dead Awaken], Rosmer, and
even the dying bankrupt merchant John Gabriel
Borkman, belong.

The strivings of all of these characters prove but

one thing: that Ibsen himself had no idea what
they should strive for.

I might also be reminded at this point: “But

these are all symbols!” To which I reply: “Quite so.”
The point is – what drove Ibsen to seek refuge in
symbols? This is a highly interesting question.

“Symbolism,” writes a French admirer of Ibsen,

“is a form of art which fulfills our desire to come to
grips with reality and at the same time transcend
it. It gives us the concrete simultaneously with the
abstract.” To which we say that a form of art which
gives us the concrete simultaneously with the
abstract is just as imperfect as a vital form of art
which is turned into a bloodless phantom by the
addition of the abstract. Furthermore, why do we
need this addition of the abstract? According to
this imposing critic, we need the abstract in order
to transcend the boundaries of reality.

Man’s mind can transcend the boundaries of

reality in two ways: by means of symbols – which
lead into the realm of abstraction; or by way of the
road which reality itself travels, by which it
transcends its limitations, develops meaning
through its own power and strength, and creates
the foundation for the reality of the future.

The history of literature shows that man has

always used one or the other of these means to
transcend a particular reality. He employs the first
(i.e. symbols) when he is unable to grasp the
meaning of that particular reality, or when he
cannot accept the conclusion to which the
development of that reality leads. He resorts to
symbols when he cannot solve difficult, sometimes
insoluble problems; when (to use Hegel’s happy
expression) he is not able to utter those magic
words which bring to life a picture of the future.
Thus the ability to utter those magic words is a
sign of power, while inability to do so is a sign of
weakness. And so in art, when an artist leans
toward symbolism it is an infallible sign that his
thinking – or the thinking of the class which he
represents, in the sense of its social development –
does not dare penetrate the reality which lies
before his eyes. Symbolism hides a kind of mental
poverty, so to speak. For if thought is armed with
understanding it does not need to wander forth
into the wilds of symbolism.
 It has been said that literature and art are the
mirrors of public life. If this is true – and
unquestionably it is – then clearly the leaning
towards symbolism is conditioned by the social
consciousness and social development of a given
society.

What are the reasons for this? I should like at

this point to show why I have not been unjust in
condemning Ibsen or Brand for not knowing what
should be the goal of those who have determined
to “nobly break with compromise”; and in
maintaining that the moral law which Brand
preaches is devoid of all moral content.

Let us examine more closely Ibsen’s social ideas.

The Anarchists consider the poet one of their

own, or almost one. Brandes tells us of a certain
“bomb-thrower” who, in defending himself in
court, mentioned Ibsen as an advocate of
Anarchism.” I do not know which “bomb-thrower”
Brandes had in mind, but a few years ago, while
attending a performance of An Enemy of the
People in Geneva, I personally observed with what
avidity a small group of Anarchists who were
present listened to the tirades of the good Dr.
Stockmann against the “compact majority” and
universal suffrage. And it cannot be denied that
these tirades bore a close resemblance to the
principles espoused by the Anarchists. Many of
Ibsen’s own views also bear this resemblance.
Ibsen hated the state, for example. In one of his
letters to Brandes he wrote that he would gladly
participate in a revolution that would destroy this
hateful institution. Or we may read his poem, To
My Friend the Revolutionary Orator. There he pays
tribute to the only kind of revolution that he could support –
the Deluge in Genesis:
Yet Lucifer tripped, even then; by a later ship
Came Noah, you remember, and seized the dictatorship.

“Make a clean sweep of the chess-board,” Ibsen

cries, “and I’m your man.” This is in the best
Anarchist tradition; one might even gather
therefrom that Ibsen had read a bit too much
Bakhunin.

Nevertheless it would be an exaggeration to

brand our dramatist an Anarchist on these
grounds. Bakhunin’s language assumes a different
meaning when spoken by Ibsen. For the same
Ibsen who declares himself ready to take part in a
revolution against the state declares unequivocally
that he is not the least bit concerned with the form
of social relationships. The only thing that matters
is “the revolt of the modern spirit.” In one of his
letters to Brandes [April 4, 1872] he says:
“Freedom of thought and spirit thrive best under
absolutism; this was best shown in France,
afterwards in Germany, and now we see it in
Russia.” In the interests of freedom, according to
Ibsen, this form of state should be retained always;
from this it follows that those who oppose it
commit a sin against the modern spirit. Bakhunin,
I feel, would hardly agree with this conclusion.

Ibsen realized that the modern constitutional

state is superior in many ways to the state ruled by
police control. But these advantages appealed to
him only as a citizen, whereas man is more than a
citizen, he is a man at all times. Here Ibsen reveals
his essential indifference to politics. What wonder,
then, that Ibsen, the enemy of the state, the tireless
preacher of the “revolt of the modern spirit,” could
reconcile himself to one of the most despotic forms
of government known to history? It is, as a matter
of fact, well known how sincerely he regretted the
seizure of Rome by Italian troops, which brought
to an end the Papacy as a world power.

The reader who does not see that the “revolt”

which Ibsen preaches is just as meaningless as
Brand’s moral law, and that this is the reason for
the shortcomings of his plays, can not have the
slightest understanding of Ibsen.

Ibsen’s best plays illustrate glaringly the harmful

effect of the meaninglessness of his “revolt.”
Consider his Pillars of Society, for example. In
many respects this is a splendid work. Mercilessly
yet artistically it reveals the moral rottenness and
hypocrisy of small town society and politics. And
what is the outcome of the drama? The most
typical and corrupt of Ibsen’s bourgeois hypocrites,
Consul Bernick, comes to the realization of his
rottenness, loudly repents before the whole village,
and then proclaims his discovery that women are
the Pillars of Society – whereupon his worthy
sister-in-law, Lona Hessel, with touching
eloquence, contradicts him: “No, no, the spirits of
freedom and truth – these are the Pillars of
Society.”

If we should ask this worthy lady what truth she

had in mind, and to what freedom she aspired, she
would probably answer that freedom consists in
complete independence of public opinion, while
truth is – well, just what this play brings out. It
seems that in his younger days Consul Bernick had
a love affair with an actress; her husband got wind
of it and the matter threatened to become a public
scandal. Whereupon a friend of young Bernick,
Johan Tönnesen, who was about to sail for
America, took the blame upon himself, only to be
falsely accused by Bernick of running away with
his cash-box. On the basis of this first misdeed
Bernick found himself committing, in the course of
years, many other misdeeds which, incidentally,
did not seem to hinder him from becoming one of
the “pillars of society.” At the end of the play, as
already mentioned, Bernick does public penance
for his sins-he manages to conceal a few, however
– and since this unexpected moral transformation
was due to the beneficial influence of Lona, it is
obvious what kind of truth, in her opinion, upholds
society. If you have played around with actresses in
your youth, speak up and confess that you are the
guilty one and do not throw any false suspicions on
your neighbors. In money matters, do the same: if
no one has stolen your money, do not pretend that
you have been robbed. Such candor may hurt your
prestige – but hasn’t Lona already told you that
you must be completely indifferent to public
opinion? If only everybody would always
remember to uphold these noble moral standards,
what a fine thing it would be for society!

Much ado about nothing! In this excellent drama

the spirit “revolts” only to overcome the most
banal, the most boring, the most commonplace
situations. Is it surprising, then, that such a
childish solution of the dramatic conflict has a
harmful effect upon the aesthetic value of the play?

And how fares Dr Stockmann, that scrupulously

honest soul? Alas, he gets himself entangled in a
whole series of the most absurd and hopeless
contradictions. At the mass meeting [An Enemy of
the People, Act IV] he proves, “on scientific
grounds,” that the democratic press lies
shamelessly when it tells the masses that they are
the “real essence” of the people. “The masses are
nothing but the raw material that must be
fashioned into a People by us, the better elements.”
Splendid! But who are the better elements? Here
the good doctor presents his most irrefutable
“scientific” arguments:

What a difference between a

cultivated and an uncultivated breed
of animals! Just look at a common
barn-door hen. What meat do you get
from such a skinny carcase? Not
much, I can tell you! And what sort of
eggs does she lay? A decent crow or
raven can lay nearly as good. Then
take a splendid Spanish or Japanese
hen, or take a fine pheasant or turkey
– ah! then you’ll see the difference!
And now look at the dog, our near
relation. Think first of an ordinary
vulgar cur – I mean one of those
wretched, ragged, plebeian mongrels
that haunt the gutters, and soil the
sidewalks. Then place such a mongrel
by the side of a poodle-dog,
descended through many generations
from an aristocratic stock, who have
lived on delicate food, and heard
harmonious voices and music. Do you
think the brain of the poodle isn’t very
differently developed from that of the
mongrel? Yes, you may be sure it is.
It’s well-bred poodle-pups like this
that jugglers train to perform the
most marvelous tricks. A common
peasant-cur could never learn
anything of the sort – not if he tried
till doomsday.

I will not go into the question of how far a

Japanese hen, a poodle, or any other kind of
domesticated animal can be compared to the best
of the animal kingdom. I merely wish to note that
the “scientific” arguments of our good Doctor serve
only to befuddle him. He implies that only those
individuals belong to the better elements who have
“descended through many generations from an
aristocratic stock, who have lived on delicate food,
and heard harmonious voices and music.” At the
risk of being impertinent, I should like to ask
whether Dr Stockmann himself descended from
such people? In the play there is no mention of his
“ancestry,” and it can hardly be assumed that the
Stockmanns stemmed from the aristocracy. As far
as his own life is concerned, it was clearly the life
of a proletarian intellectual. Hence h would have
been far better had the Doctor kept quiet about the
question of ancestry, in accordance with the advice
of Krilof’s peasant to the conceited goose. A
proletarian intellectual who is socially conscious
ought not to attribute his mental development to
his ancestory but to realize that he himself is
responsible for having acquired his education and
ideas during the course of a lifetime crowded with
work. Thus Dr Stockmann’s ideas are neither new
or convincing.

Dr Stockmann is fighting the majority. Why?

Simply because the “majority” refuses to accede to
the complete reconstruction of the Municipal
Baths, which he feels to be so absolutely necessary
for the welfare of the sick.

Under these circumstances it should have been

very easy for Dr Stockmann to see that the
majority (in this instance) was on the side of the
sick, who flocked to the town from far and wide,
while those who objected to overhauling the Baths
were actually in the minority. Had he perceived
this – and the facts were obvious enough – he
would have realized how foolish it was to rail
against the “majority.” But this is not all. Who
actually constituted this “compact majority” with
whom our hero found himself at odds? First, there
were the shareholders of the Municipal Baths;
second, the landlords; third, the newspapermen
and publishers, and lastly, the townspeople – who
were under the influence of these three elements
and followed them blindly. In proportion to the
first three groups the townspeople naturally
formed the “compact majority.” But if Dr
Stockmann had bothered to observe this, he would
have discovered that the majority against whom he
thundered (to the great glee of the Anarchists) are
not really enemies of progress; rather it is their
ignorance and backwardness, which are products
of their dependence upon a financially powerful
minority.

Had our hero realized this, he would no doubt

have forfeited the applause of the Anarchists, but
he would have won the truth – the truth which he
loved but which, because of his “scientific”
backwardness, he failed to comprehend.

It is understandable why the Anarchists applaud

Dr Stockmann: his very manner of thinking reveals
the same confusion that characterizes them. Our
good Doctor thinks in the most abstract terms,
such as Good and Evil. He does not realize that
Truth is not absolute but may belong to various
categories, depending on its origin.

For instance, among the supporters of serfdom

in the era of the Great Reformation in Russia, i.e.,
the 1860’s, there were doubtless many who were
far more cultured than their “baptized livestock.”
Now, these people naturally did not believe in the
superstition that thunder is caused by the rolling of
the prophet Elijah’s carriage through the heavens.
Therefore, on the question’of tile cause of thunder
the truth was on the side of the minority – the
educated feudal lords, and not on the side of the
majority – the illiterate rabble. But where would it
have been on the question of serfdom? The
majority – these same ignorant peasants – would
have declared themselves for the abolition of
serfdom, while the minority – these same educated
feudal lords – would have cried out that abolishing
serfdom would mean the collapse of the “most
sacred foundations of society.” On whose side
would the truth have been in this case? Not, it
seems to me, on the side of the cultural minority.

An individual (or a group of individuals, or a

class) is inevitably swayed by his own interests.
Wherever an individual (or a group or a class)
judges a matter where his personal interests are at
stake, no matter how cultured or educated that
individual may be, he will almost invariably view
the matter from the standpoint most favorable to
him, even though it may be the exact opposite of
the true state of affairs. Hence it would be the
greatest folly to believe that the minority is always
in the right and the majority always in the wrong –
especially on questions of social relationships, and
consequently also where the interests of the
various classes or sections of the population are
concerned. Quite the contrary. Social relationships,
to this very day, have always been such that the
majority is exploited by the minority. It has,
therefore, always been in the interests of the
minority to misrepresent the truth in everything
pertaining to the fundamental facts of social
relationships.

The exploiting minority cannot avoid, cannot, in

fact, help falsifying these facts, consciously or
unconsciously. The exploited majority, on the
other hand, never knows where the shoe pinches.
Only the direst necessity finally forces the majority
to stare truth in the face, whereas the minority sees
only the warts and the wrinkles on the face of
truth. And on this fundamental lie of the exploiting
minority there arises a vast and highly complicated
structure built upon more and more lies, which
continues to blind them to the truth. It takes,
therefore, the utter naivete of Dr Stockmann to
expect that this minority will love truth and serve
her unselfishly.

“But no one claims that the exploiting minority is

composed of the noblest people,” Dr Stockmann
might indignantly retort to all this. “What about
us, the intellectuals, who live by the products of
their own, not somebody else’s, labor and
consciously seek the truth?” Perhaps. Nevertheless,
intellectuals do not drop as the rain from heaven.
They are flesh of the flesh and bone of the bone of
that social class into which they were born. They
come forward as the ideologists of their particular
class. No one would deny that Aristotle was an
“intellectual,” yet he formulated a theory, dear to
the Greek slaveholders of his time, that Nature
herself had willed that some people be born slaves
and others masters.

What educated class has ever played a

revolutionary role in society? That one, and only
that one which, in social matters, has dared to
place itself on the side of the exploited majority;
that one which has ceased to feel contempt for the
masses – something which “educated” people find
so hard to do.

When Abbe Sieyes wrote his famous

controversial brochure, Qu’est-ce que le Tiers-
Etat? [What Is the Third Estate? 1789], in which
he proved that it includes practically everybody,
with the exception of the privileged few, he came
forward as a liberal “intellectual” and placed
himself on the side of the oppressed majority. In so
doing, however, he abandoned the abstract
concepts of Truth and Untruth and went directly to
the heart of actual social relationships.
 Our good Dr Stockmann, however, wanders
further and further into the realm of abstraction
and it never occurs to him that where social
questions are concerned one must go about
seeking the truth in quite a different manner than
one does in matters of pure science. Upon first
leading his impassioned speeches I recalled an
observation which Marx makes in the first volume
of Capital regarding those naturalists who, without
any preparatory training in the subject, take it
upon themselves to solve social problems. These
men, realists in their own field, turn into idealists
of the first water when they enter the field of social
science. Thus Dr Stockmann too, in his “scientific”
studies of the masses, turns out to be a pure
idealist. For instance, he imagines he has
discovered that the masses cannot think freely.
And why not? While we hear his explanation, let us
not forget for a moment that freedom of thought is
to him practically synonymous with morality.

But, happily, the notion that culture

demoralizes is nothing but an old
traditional lie. No, it’s stupidity,
poverty, the ugliness of life, that do
the devil’s work! In a house that isn’t
aired and swept every day my wife
maintains that the floors ought to be
scrubbed too, but perhaps that is
going too far; – well, – in such a
house, I say, within two or three
years, people lose the power of
thinking or acting morally. Lack of
oxygen enervates the conscience. And
there seems to be precious little
oxygen in many and many a house in
this town, since the whole compact
majority is unscrupulous enough to
found its future upon a quagmire of
lies and fraud.

From this it follows that when the shareholders of

the Municipal Baths, together with the landlords,
wish to deceive the public – and we already know
that the initiative in this deception was taken by
the representatives of the shareholders – this can
be explained by their poverty and “the lack of
oxygen” in their homes, which has enervated their
conscience. When our politicians are corrupt and
reactionary, it is because the doors of their
mansions are seldom swept; and when our
proletarians finally rebel against all this hypocrisy
and rottenness, it is, of course, because they inhale
so much oxygen – especially in times of
unemployment, when they are thrown out on the
streets. Here Dr Stockmann reaches the limits of
his endless confusion. More clearly than ever is the
weakness of his thinking revealed. That poverty is
a source of corruption, and that those who blame
corruption on “culture” are profoundly mistaken –
all this is absolutely true. But it is not true to say
that all corruption is due to poverty, and that
culture is under all conditions an ennobling
influence. Quite the contrary, no matter how
corruptive the influence of poverty may be, “lack of
oxygen” does not prevent the proletarians of our
day from being far more sensitive than any other
class of society to everything which stands for
progress, truth and nobility. The mere fact that a
certain class is poor does not explain how poverty
reacts on its development. “Lack of oxygen” will
always represent a minus quantity in the algebraic
sum of social development. However, this “lack” is
due not to weakness on the part of the productive
forces of society, but to the general social
relationship between the forces of production,
which leaves the producers in poverty while the
appropriators indulge their every whim and
extravagance – in short, this “lack” is rooted in the
social system itself, and, while blunting and
demoralizing a certain section of the population, it
gives rise to revolutionary thoughts and feelings in
the majority of the people by placing them in a
negative position in relation to the existing order.
This is precisely what we find in capitalist society,
where on the one hand there is tremendous
concentration of wealth while poverty is the lot of
the increasing majority, and along with the
impoverishment of the masses comes a
revolutionary discontent and an increasing,
understanding of the road to emancipation.

But of all this our naive Doctor has not the

faintest inkling. He is absolutely incapable of
understanding that a proletarian might have the
capacity of clear thought and action even though
he breathes foul air and the floors of his home
leave much to be desired in the way of cleanliness.
This is why Stockmann, who regards himself as a
thinker “at the outposts” of humanity, ridicules the
idea that:

the multitude, the vulgar herd, the

masses, are the real essence of the
People – that they are the People –
that the common men, the ignorant,
undeveloped member of society, has
the same right to sanction and to
condemn, to counsel and to govern,
as the intellectually distinguished few.

This is also the reason why he, one of the

“intellectually distinguished few,” raises an
objection against democracy which Socrates made
long before him:

Who make up the majority in any

given country? Is it the wise men or
the fools? I think we must agree that
the fools are in a terrible,
overwhelming majority, all the whole
wide world over. But how in the
devil’s name can it ever be right for
the fools to rule over the wise men?
At these words a worker present at the meeting
shouts: “Out with the fellow that talks like that!”
And other workers shout: “Turn him out!” They are
entirely convinced that Stockmann is an enemy of
the people. And from their point of view they are
perfectly right.

We know, of course, that Dr Stockmann was far

from wishing the people harm in demanding the
rebuilding of the Baths. In this respect he was an
enemy of the exploiting minority rather than of the
people. But in his battle against this minority he
erroneously raises the very objections invented by
those who fear the rule of the majority.
Unintentionally, even unconsciously, he speaks
here as a true enemy of the people, as a political
reactionary.

It is interesting to note that Björnson, in his

drama, Beyond Human Might, makes Holger – a
real enemy of the people, an exploiter by
profession – speak exactly like Dr Stockmann. In
the scene with Rachel, Holger says that there will
first be happiness on earth:

... when this earth once more finds a

place for big personalities, who dare
and can proclaim their own selves.
When we get away from antheap
ideas and centipedal dreams – back
to big men with genius and will ... To
me the most important feature of the
whole struggle is to make room for
personality.

In another scene, at the meeting of the

entrepreneurs in the third act, he jeers at the
demands of the workers:

When they call out to us from the

other side that the will of the majority
must rule, and that they are the
majority, then we reply: the insects
 are also in a majority. [Cries of:
“Hear, hear!”] If such a majority
should come into power here – by the
ballot, or any other means – a
majority, that would mean, without
the traditions of a ruling class,
without its nobility of mind and
passion for beauty, without its age-
tested love of order in big things and
small – then, quietly but firmly, we
would give the word, “Guns to the
fore!”

This, at least, is clear and consistent. Dr

Stockmann would no doubt hare protested
indignantly against this conclusion. He wants
truth, not bloodshed. But the point is that he
himself does not realize. the significance of his own
words about the right to vote. In his astounding
naivete he fears that the people seek to solve
questions regarding the general origin of
knowledge, and not problems of social practice,
which are closely bound up with the interests of
the masses I and which are decided against these
interests when the masses themselves do not have
the right to pass upon them. Incidentally, it may be
observed that the Anarchists also cannot
understand this.

While Björnson, during his second period – that

is, after he had abandoned his earlier religious
ideas and come forward as an advocate of modern
naturalism – could not free himself from an
abstract social philosophy, still he sinned far less in
this respect than Ibsen – despite the fact that in
the 90’s Ibsen declared that he had endeavored to
study the question of social democracy even
though he did not have the time “to study the great
embracing literature which deals with the different
social systems.”
 From this it would seem that questions of “social
democracy,” if not their solution, were not
unknown to Ibsen. However, he always remained
an idealist where practical matters and methods
were concerned.” This alone was the source of
many errors. But not only this.

In approaching social questions Ibsen not only

used idealistic methods, but he formulated these
questions so narrowly that they did not adequately
correspond to the public life of modern capitalistic
society. That is why his every attempt to solve
these problems was ultimately vitiated.

What then is the point of this whole discussion?

What was the cause of these unfortunate errors on
the part of a man who was not only possessed of
talent and keen insight but filled with a
tremendous passion for truth?

The basic reason is that Ibsen’s Weltanschauung

was conditioned by the social milieu in which he
was born and reared.

Vicomte de Colleville and F. de Zepelin, the

authors of an extremely interesting work, Le
Maitre du Drama Moderne. Ibsen, ridicule the
idea that the Weltanschauung of the great
Norwegian dramatist was formed under the
influence of the “milieu” so highly esteemed by
Taine. They believe that Norway “was by no means
the milieu in which Ibsen’s genius developed.” This
opinion, however, is refuted at every point by the
material which they themselves present in their
book.

For instance, they say that some of Ibsen’s

dramas were based entirely upon his childhood
memories. Is this not the influence of milieu? Let
us further examine the characteristics of Ibsen’s
social milieu, which is so strongly emphasized by
these authors. This environment was marked by a
“hopeless banality.” The little seaport of Grimstad
where Ibsen spent his childhood and youth was the
classic soil, according to their description, of
insipidity and boredom. ...

All of the sources of livelihood of this

little town lay in its port and its
commerce. In such surroundings
men’s thoughts are not likely to rise
above the day-to-day struggle of
material existence. The townsfolk
leave their dwellings only in order to
find out about the latest landings, or
the latest rate of exchange. Everybody
knows everybody else, and people
almost literally live in glass houses.
The rich are greeted obsequiously by
everyone; the middle class does not
receive quite the same welcome, while
the greeting of lowly workman or
peasant is acknowledged merely by a
curt nod. There is not the slightest
hurry here about anything, the
attitude being “if not today,
tomorrow.”

Anything above the ordinary is frowned upon;

anything original is considered ridiculous;
anything eccentric, a crime. Even here, however,
Ibsen stood out as an unusual and somewhat queer
character.

It is not hard to imagine how Ibsen must have

felt among these philistines. They irritated him,
while he enraged them.

My friends greeted me as peculiarly

fitted for the unintentionally droll,
and my non-friends thought it in the
highest degree strange that a young
person in my subordinate position
could undertake to inquire into affairs
concerning which not even they
 themselves dared to entertain an
opinion. I owe it to truth to add that
my conduct at various times did not
justify any great hope that society
might count on an increase in me of
civic virtue, inasmuch as I also, with
epigrams and caricatures, fell out
with many who had deserved better of
me.... Altogether, – while a great
struggle raged on the outside, I found
myself on a war-footing with the little
society where I lived cramped by
conditions and circumstances of life.

In Christiania, the Norwegian capital, where he

later settled, Ibsen fared no better. There too the
pulse of public life beat hopelessly slow. Colleville
and Zepelin write:

At the opening of this century [i. e.,

the 19th century – G.P.] Christiania
was a small town of 16,030
inhabitants. With a rapidity
reminiscent of the development of
American cities, it grew to a city of
180,000, but it retained all its former
pettiness; gossip, fault-finding,
calumny and vulgarity. Mediocrity
was praised to the skies while true
greatness found no recognition here.
A whole book could be filled up with
articles by Scandinavian writers
depicting this dark side of life in
Christiania.

By the time the German-Danish war broke out,

Ibsen’s patience was exhausted. The Norwegians
claimed to be filled with Scandinavian patriotism,
ready to sacrifice anything for the good of the three
Scandinavian countries, and yet they did not offer
the slightest aid to Denmark, which was soon
conquered by its powerful enemy. Ibsen wrote a
burning poem: A Brother in Need ,[December,
1863], decrying the empty phraseology of
Scandinavian patriotism. It is of this period that
one of Ibsen’s German biographers says:
“Contempt for his countrymen took firm root in his
heart.” At any rate, the disgust which Ibsen had
long felt for his countrymen reached its limit.
According to Colleville and Zepelin: “It became a
matter of life and death to him to leave this
country.” And so he put his business affairs in
order, “shook the dust from his feet,” and went
abroad, where he remained until practically the
end of his life.

Even these few facts serve to prove that contrary

to the opinion of our French authors, Ibsen’s
milieu left its stamp upon his life and his
Weltanschsuung, as well as upon his literary
production.

I should like to emphasize here that environment

leaves its mark not only upon those who accept or
compromise with it but also upon those who
openly declare war against it.

It might be said: “Yes, but although Ibsen could

not endure his environment, still the vast majority
of his countrymen found it quite satisfactory.” To
this I reply that many Norwegian writers fought
against this same environment, and Ibsen,
naturally, carried on his battle in his own
characteristic manner. By this I do not mean to
minimize the importance of the individual in
history in general and in the history of literature in
particular. Without individuals there would be no
society and, consequently, no history. When an
individual protests against the hypocrisy and
vulgarity which surrounds him, it is then that his
spiritual and moral qualities, his insight, taste, and
sensitivity are brought to the fore.

Each individual travels the road of protest in his

own way. But where this road leads depends upon
his environment. The character of negation is
determined by the character of that which is being
negated.

Ibsen was born and grew to manhood in a petty

bourgeois environment, and the manner and
method of his protest were predetermined, so to
speak, by the character of that environment.

As we have already seen, one of the peculiarities

of this environment was hatred of anything
original, anything which deviated even the least bit
from the usual social routine. Even Mill once
complained bitterly of the tyranny of public
opinion. And Mill, we must remember, was
English, a citizen of a country where the petty
bourgeoisie does not set the pace. In order to really
know what heights the tyranny of public opinion
can reach, one must live in one of the petty
bourgeois countries of western Europe. It was
precisely this tyranny which Ibsen rebelled against.
We have seen how, as a youth of twenty, during his
residence in Grimstad, he had already begun his
fight against society, how he had mocked it in his
epigrams and scourged it in his caricatures!

A notebook kept by the young Ibsen has been

preserved in which there is a sketch representing
“Public Opinion.” And what do you suppose this
sketch depicts? A fat petty bourgeois, with a whip,
lashing two pigs who walk along before him very
gravely, with their little tails boldly raised high. I
do not mean to imply that this first attempt by
Ibsen in the field of artistic symbolism was very
successful, for the artist’s intention was too vague;
nevertheless, this drawing of the two pigs indicates
that the underlying idea was not in the least bit
respectful.
 The boundless tyranny of petty bourgeois public
opinion, which likes to stick its nose into
everything, and knows everything, forces people
into lies and hypocrisies, into compromises with
their’conscience; it debases their character and
makes them cheap and ordinary. That is why Ibsen
raises up the flag of rebellion against this tyranny
and cries out: Truth at any price! and then, as a
corollary: To your own self be true! Brand says:

Be passion’s slave, be pleasure’s thrall, –

But be it utterly, all in all!
Be not today, tomorrow, one,
Another when a year is gone;
Be what you are with all your heart, And not by pieces and in part.
The Bacchant’s clear, defined, complete,
The sot, his sordid counterfeit;
Silenus charms; but all his graces
The drunkard’s parody debases.
Traverse the land from beach to beach,
Try every man in heart and soul,
You’ll find he has no virtue whole,
But just a little grain of each.
A little pious in the pew,
A little grave, – his father’s way, –
Over the cup a little gay, –
It was his father’s fashion too!
A little warm when glasses clash,
And stormy cheer and song go round
For the small Folk, rock-willed, rock-bound,
That never stood the scourge and lash.
A little free in promise-making;
And then, when vows in liquor will’d
Must be in mortal stress fulfill’d,
A little fine in promise-breaking.
Yet, as I say, all fragments still
His faults, his merits, fragments all,
Partial in good, partial in ill,
Partial in great things and in small; –
But here’s the grief – that, worst or best,
Each fragment of him wrecks the rest!

There are critics who claim that in writing

his Brand, Ibsen was influenced by Pastor
Lammers, and particularly by the well-known
Danish writer, Sören Kierkegaard. This is quite
possible, but it does not weaken my point in the
least. Pastor Lammers and Sören Kierkegaard,
each in his own sphere, had to deal with the same
type of environment which Ibsen warred against. It
should not be surprising, therefore, that their
protest against this environment resembled his.

I do not know the works of Sören Kierkegaard,

but judging from Lothar’s description of them,
Ibsen might very well have borrowed from him the
maxim, “To your own self be true!” He wrote:

Man’s task is to be an individual, to

concentrate his attention upon
himself. Man must become what he
is; his only task is to select himself, by
“God-willed self-choice,” just as it is
life’s only task to unfold the self. The
truth is not to know the truth, but to
be the truth. Subjectivity is the
highest good.

This does sound very much like Ibsen, and merely

demonstrates once again that similar causes
produce similar effects.

In petty bourgeois society, men whose “spirits”

are driven to “revolt” must necessarily be
exceptions to the general rule. Very often such men
proudly regard themselves as aristocrats, and they
do resemble aristocrats in two respects: they are
superior spiritually just as the aristocracy is
superior socially because of its privileged position;
and their interests are so remote from – even
inimical to – the interests of the majority that they
are as far removed from the latter as is the
aristocracy. The only difference is that the real
historical aristocracy dominated society during its
heyday; while the intellectual aristocracy
practically no influence upon the petty bourgeois
society of which it is a product. Having no social
power, these spiritual “aristocrats” remain isolated
individuals, and in compensation, devote
themselves all the more zealously to the cultivation
of their personality.

Their social environment makes individualists of

them, and then they make a virtue of necessity.
They make a cult of individualism, believing that
what is really a result of their isolation in petty
bourgeois society is an indication of their personal
strength.

As crusaders against triviality and mediocrity,

these men often appear as pathetic individuals of
broken spirit. But truly magnificent figures are to
be found among them. Pastor Lammers, whom
Lothar discusses, is one. So, too, is Sören
Kierkegaard, and certainly Ibsen.

Ibsen gave himself completely to his literary

calling. It is really moving to read what he wrote to
Brandes on the subject of friendship:

Friends are an expensive luxury; and

when a man’s whole capital is
invested in a calling and a mission in
life, he cannot afford to keep them.
The costliness of keeping friends dues
not lie in what one does for them, but
in what one, out of consideration for
them, refrains from doing.
This path may lead, as it led Goethe, to dreadful
egoism. It is, however, the path of the greatest and
richest enthusiasm for one’s art.

An equally magnificent figure in the battle for the whole

man is Ibsen’s spiritual son, Brand. When he thunders against
conventional moderation, against the philistine divergence
between word and deed, Brand is splendid. The petty bourgeois
creates even God in his own image complete with house-
slippers and bathrobe. Brand says to Einar:

I do not flout;
Just so he looks in form and face,
The household idol of our race.
As Catholics make of the Redeemer
A baby at the breast, so ye
Make God a dotard and a dreamer,
Verging on second infancy.
And as the Pope on Peter’s throne
Calls little but his keys his own,
So to the Church you would confine
The world-wide realm of the Divine;
Twixt Life and Doctrine set a sea,
Nowise concern yourselves to be;
Bliss for your souls ye would receive,
Not utterly and wholly live.
Ye need, such feebleness to brook,
A God who’ll through his fingers look,
Who, like yourselves, is hoary grown,
And keeps a cap for his bald crown.
Mine is another kind of God!
Mine is a storm, where thine’s a lull,
Implacable where thine’s a clod,
All-loving there, where thine is dull;
And He is young like Hercules,
No hoary sipper of life’s lees!
His voice rang through the dazzled night
When He, within the burning wood,
By Moses upon Horeb’s height
As by a pigmy’s pigmy stood.
 In Gibeon’s vale He stay’d the sun,
And wonders without end has done,
And wonders without end would do,
Were not the age grown sick, – like you!

Ibsen, through Brand, castigates petty bourgeois hypocrites

who in the name of love reconcile themselves to evil.

Never did word so sorely prove

The smirch of lies, as this word Love:
With devilish craft, where will is frail,
Men lay Love over, as a veil,
And cunningly conceal thereby
That all their life is coquetry.
Whose path’s the steep and perilous slope,
Let him but love, – and he may shirk it;
If he prefer Sin’s easy circuit,
Let him but love, – he still may hope;
If God he seeks, but fears the fray,
Let him but love, – ’tis straight his prey;
If with wide-open eyes he err,
Let him but love, – there’s safety there!

Here I sympathize with Brand with all my heart. How often do

the enemies of Socialism hide behind love! How often are the
Socialists denounced for inspiring hatred against the exploiters,
because of their love for the exploited! For good folk counsel
everybody to love everything – flies and spiders, oppressed
and oppressors. Brand – that is, Ibsen – knows the true worth
of these cowardly words:

Humanity! – That sluggard phrase

Is the world’s watchword nowadays.
With this each bungler hides the fact
That he dare not and will not act;
With this each weakling masks the lie,
That he’ll risk all for victory;
 With this each dastard dares to cloak
Vows faintly rued and lightly broke;
Your puny spirits will turn Man
Himself Humanitarian!
Was God “humane” when Jesus died?
Had your God then his counsel given,
Christ at the cross for grace had cried –
And the Redemption signified
A diplomatic note from Heaven.

All this is indeed excellent. The heroes of the great

French Revolution spoke thus. Here we see the
kinship between the spirit of Ibsen and that of the
great Revolution. Nevertheless, Doumic is
mistaken in thinking Brand’s ethics revolutionary.
The ethics of a revolutionist has definite content
whereas Brand’s ethics, as we have seen, is empty
form.

I have already remarked that Brand, with his

meaningless ethics, is in the ridiculous position of
the man milking the goat. Before endeavoring to
explain the sociological reasons why he came to
assume this unpleasant position, I must first take
up some characteristics of this type of social
phenomenon.

The spiritual aristocrats of petty bourgeois

society often consider themselves chosen men, or,
as Nietzsche put it, Supermen. To these men the
masses, the “majority” of the people, are inferiors.
The Supermen are permitted everything. It is only
to them that the command: “To your own self be
true!” applies. This does not go for ordinary
mortals. Wilhelm Hans has rightly observed that,
according to Ibsen, all those who have no
“mission” in life have only one mission left – “to
sacrifice themselves.” King Skule, in The
Pretenders (Act V) says:

There are men born to live, and men

born to die.

As to the contempt in which the masses are held by

our spiritual aristocrats, we need no further
example than Dr Stockmann’s remarkable speech,
still fresh in our memory.

In this speech Dr Stockmann arrives at

reactionary, absurd conclusions, which, of course,
do no credit to Ibsen. However, we must not
overlook one mitigating circumstance. The petty
bourgeois “compact majority” whom Ibsen’s hero
addressed were Philistines incarnate.

In modern capitalist society, with its sharply

defined class distinctions, the majority, consisting
of the proletariat, represents the only class capable
of being inspired with zeal for everything noble
and progressive; in early petty bourgeois society,
however, there was no such class. There were, of
course, the sick and the poor. But the poorer
classes of the population lived under conditions
which were hardly conducive to mental
stimulation, but which rather lulled them to sleep,
thus making them obedient tools of the “compact
majority” – the more or less well-to-do Philistines.

At the time Ibsen’s opinions and ideals were

being formulated, a working class, in the present
sense of the term, had not yet developed in
Norway, and was, therefore, nowhere evident in
public life. Thus it is very clear why Ibsen, in
writing Dr Stockmann’s speech, failed to mention
the Norwegian working class as a progressive
social force.
 He saw the people as they actually were in typical
petty bourgeois countries: an utterly undeveloped
mass, sunk in mental torpor, differing from the
“Pillars of Society,” who led them along by the
nose, only in that their manners were cruder and
their homes dirtier.

I do not wish to repeat here that Dr Stockmann

is mistaken in attributing the mental lethargy of
the poorer sections of petty bourgeois society to
“lack of oxygen,” but I should like to point out that
this erroneous explanation is causally related to
the idealistic nature of the doctor’s social views.
When an idealist like Stockmann ponders the
development of social ideas, and attempts to
remain on scientific ground, he appeals to oxygen,
to unswept Boors, to heredity – in short, to the
physiology and pathology of the individual
organism; but it never occurs to him to consider
the social relationships which in the last analysis
condition the psychology of every society.

The idealist explains Being through

Consciousness, and not vice versa. This is readily
understandable in petty bourgeois society, where
there is talk of “Supermen.” These people are so
isolated from the society around them, and their
development proceeds at such a snail-like pace,
that it is impossible for them to perceive the causal
relationship between the “course of ideas” and the
“course of things” in human society.

It must be remarked that this relationship was

observed by scientists in the nineteenth century.
The class struggle as the most important factor in
the whole social movement was indicated by
historians and publicists of the Restoration period.
 But the “Supermen” of stagnating petty
bourgeois society have only one pleasing discovery
to make: that without them society would be
devoid of thinkers. Therefore they consider
themselves “Supermen;” Dr Stockmann, however,
considers them “poodle-men.” This reactionary
absurdity which slipped into the doctor’s speech
does not, of course, prove that Ibsen sympathized
with political reaction. It must be said, to the
honor of the great poet, that those readers in
France and Germany who consider Ibsen to be a
bearer of ideas which confirm the rule of the
privileged minority over the propertyless majority,
are greatly mistaken.

Ibsen was completely indifferent to politics, but,

as he himself said, he hated politicians. His way of
thinking was apolitical; fundamentally that was its
outstanding characteristic. This can be explained
in terms of his social environment, but
nevertheless it involved the poet in a whole series
of painful contradictions.

What politics, what politicians, did Henrik Ibsen

know? The politics and politicians of that very
petty bourgeois society in which he himself almost
suffocated, and which he denounced so bitterly in
his works.

What is petty bourgeois politics? A miserable

botchwork. What is a petty bourgeois politician? A
miserable botcher.

Petty bourgeois progressives now and then do

put up broad political programs, but they are very
lukewarm about them, never in any hurry; they
hold fast to the golden rule, “Make haste slowly.”
There is no room in their hearts for that mighty
passion without which, in the beautiful words of
Hegel, there can be no great historic deeds. And
truly, they have no need of passion, for great
historic deeds are not their task. In petty bourgeois
countries even broad political programs are given
petty support – but they pass, for thanks to the
lack of sharply defined class conflicts these
programs meet with little social objection. Political
liberty is cheaply bought here, and therefore has
little value. Furthermore it is completely saturated
with the Philistine spirit, which in practice is
constantly vitiating its true meaning. Even in his
conception of political liberty the petty bourgeois is
frightfully narrow-minded.

He has merely to be faced with a conflict which is

only an aspect of the great and furious struggle
raging in modern capitalist society – and which,
due to the shattering and pervasive influence of the
more developed countries, occasionally breaks out
also in the “tranquil” petty bourgeois countries of
western Europe – and, liberty forgotten, he cries
for order, and, without the slightest compunction,
he ignores in practice those very ideals of liberty
which he cherishes so much in theory. With the
petty bourgeois Philistine, word and deed are just
as divergent in this respect as in every other. In
short, petty bourgeois political liberty is a far cry
from the powerful, dauntless beauty of which
Barbier sang in his day, in Les lambes. It is rather a
quiet, petty hausfrau’s brand.

He who is not content with prose that is

exemplary, neat, and freshly laundered daily can
scarcely be expected to fall for this solid hausfrau.
He would sooner disavow his love for political
liberty, abandon politics altogether, and seek
another field of interest. And that is exactly what
Ibsen did. He lost all interest in politics.
Nevertheless, in The League of Youth and An
Enemy of the People he gave an excellent picture of
petty bourgeois politicians.

It is worthy of note that Ibsen, as a rather young

man, collaborated with Paul Botten-Hansen and
Osmund Olafson in publishing the liberal, satirical
weekly, The Man, in Christiania, which was
openly hostile not only to the conservative party
but to the opposition as well; the latter he opposed
not because it was too radical, but because it was
too moderate.

In this weekly Ibsen published his first political

satire, Norma; or, a Politician’s Love, in which he
depicted a political climber, a type which he later
developed to perfection in The League of Youth. It
is apparent that already at that time Ibsen was
repelled by the baseness of petty bourgeois
politicians.

Yet even in this struggle against pseudo-political

philistinism, Ibsen remained himself. Lothar says:
“The politics in which Ibsen was then and later
interested was confined entirely to individuals, to
the men behind movements or parties. His interest
shifted from man to man, it was never theoretical
or dogmatic.” However, politics confined entirely
to individuals, without regard to the “theories” or
“dogmas” which they represent, has nothing
political about it. Shifting “from man to man,”
Ibsen’s ideas were partly ethical, partly artistic, but
always apolitical.

Ibsen himself aptly characterized his attitude

toward politics and politicians as follows:

All we have had to live upon up to the

present date are crumbs from the
revolutionary table of the past
century, and even this fare has been
masticated over and over again. These
 ideas of the past require new
substance, new interpretation.
Freedom, equality, and fraternity are
no longer the same things they were
in the days of the guillotine of blessed
memory. This is what the politicians
will not understand, and therefore it
is I hate them. The people demand
only special revolutions, revolutions
in the outside world, in the sphere of
politics. But all this is sheer nonsense.
What is really needed is a revolution
of the spirit of man.

Ibsen’s distinction between political revolutions

and other (presumably social) revolutions for those
not content with superficial details, is untenable.
The French revolution to which Ibsen refers was
both political and social. And this must be said of
every social movement which deserves to be called
revolutionary. But this is beside the point here. The
point is that the lines just quoted illustrate better
than anything else Ibsen’s negative attitude toward
politicians. He hates them, because they re-chew
the “crumbs” from the table of the great French
Revolution; he hates them because they do not go
far enough, because their vision does not penetrate
beneath the surface of social life. It is the same
charge which the Social-Democrats of western
Europe make against petty bourgeois politicians.
(The political representatives of the upper
bourgeoisie of western Europe no longer mention
any kind of “revolution” whatever.) In so far as
Ibsen makes this charge against petty bourgeois
politicians he is right, and his defiance of them
measures the height of his ideals and the strength
of his character. However, Ibsen imagined that all
politicians were like those he had known in his
petty bourgeois homeland at the time his views
were being formed, and in this, of course, he was
wrong; his hatred of politicians reflects the
narrowness of his horizon. He forgets that the
heroes of the great French Revolution were also
politicians and that their heroic deeds were
performed in the field of politics.

The crux of the matter here, as always with

Ibsen, is “the revolution of the spirit of man” for
the sake of revolution itself – enthusiasm for form
independent of content.

As I have said, Ibsen’s defiance of politicians under

the aforementioned circumstances is a measure of
the height of his ideals. Yet this very defiance
involved him in those countless contradictions
which I have already mentioned and will discuss
further.

The greatest tragedy of Ibsen’s fate was that he, a

man of such strong and determined character, who
valued consistency above all else, was destined to
become entangled in unending contradictions.

Ibsen once asked a group of friends: “Have you

ever thought an idea through to its conclusion
without a contradiction?” Unfortunately it must be
assumed Ibsen himself rarely succeeded in doing
this.

Everything flows, everything changes, and

everything carries within itself the germ of its own
destruction. For the human mind, every concept
carries within itself the germ of its own negation.
This is the natural dialectic of concepts, which is
based upon the natural dialectic of things. It does
not confuse those who command it; on the
contrary, it lends elasticity and consistency to their
thinking. It has nothing to do with the
contradictions in which Ibsen involved himself;
these were due to the apolitical character of his
thinking as already referred to.
 Ibsen’s disgust with the insipidity of the public
and private life of the petty bourgeoisie drove him
to seek a sphere where his truth-hungry, powerful
soul might rest, even if temporarily. At first he
found such a sphere in his people’s past, which the
romantic school led him to study – the past which
was so remote from his banal petty bourgeois
environment and so full of rugged power and
heroic poetry.

The Norwegian Vikings, the giant predecessors

of Ibsen’s philistine contemporaries, stirred his
creative imagination, and he brought them into
several of his dramas, the most noteworthy of
which is unquestionably The Pretenders. Ibsen
bore this play in his soul, so to speak. Its plot was
conceived in 1858, but it was not written until
1863. According to Colleville and Zepelin, before
Ibsen left his native land, “where the sons of the
Vikings had become pale, egoistical bourgeois, he
had decided to show them the full depth of their
degradation.”

This drama is also interesting because of its underlying

political idea. The hero of the play, King Hakon Hakonsson, is
struggling for the unification of Norway. Here our poet turns
political, but he does not remain long upon this plane. Modern
times cannot use the ideas of a vanished past. The ideas of the
past had not the slightest practical value for the poet’s
contemporaries. These people loved to recall the brave Vikings
over a glass of wine, but they themselves naturally lived in the
present. The Mayor, in a conversation with Brand, says, “Great
memories bear the seed of growth,” whereupon Brand retorts
contemptuously:

Yes, memories that to life are bound;

But you, of memory’s empty mound,
Have made a stalking-horse for sloth.
Thus the political ideas of the past proved to be
useless in the present, whereas the present was not
productive of any political ideas capable of
inspiring Ibsen. Consequently his only alternative
was to take flight into the field of ethics – which is
what he did. From his point of view, that of a man
who knew only petty bourgeois politics, and
despised it, it seemed undeniable that abstract
preaching of the “purification of the will” was more
important than participating in the trivial,
disgusting bickerings of petty bourgeois parties
unable to transcend their empty issues. Political
struggles, however, are based upon social
relationships, whereas ethical preaching seeks the
perfection of the individual. Therefore once Ibsen
had abandoned politics and put his hopes in ethics
he naturally arrived at the standpoint of
individualism. Whereupon he had to lose interest
in everything beyond the bounds of individual
perfection. Hence his indifferent, even antagonistic
attitude toward laws – those obligatory norms
which impose certain limits upon the personal will
of the individual in the interests of society, or the
ruling classes of society – as well as toward the
state, as the source of these obligatory norms. Mrs.
Alving, for instance, says: “Oh, that perpetual law
and order. I often think that is what does all the
mischief in this world of ours.”

This is said in response to a remark of Pastor

Menders that her marriage “was made in complete
conformity with law and order;” but she is thinking
not only of this particular law but all laws, all the
“duties and obligations” which in any way restrict
the personality. It is just this feature of Ibsen’s
philosophy which seems, on the surface, to ally
him with the Anarchists.
 Ethics aims to perfect the individual.
Nevertheless its practical precepts are rooted in
politics, if we understand politics to mean the sum
of all social relationships. Man is an ethical being,
according to Aristotle, only because he is a political
being.

Robinson Crusoe had no need of ethics on his

uninhabited island. If ethics overlooks this, and
fails to bridge the gap between itself and politics, it
falls into a multitude of contradictions.

Individuals perfect themselves, free their spirits,

purify their wills – all of which, of course, is
excellent. However, this perfecting leads either to a
change in their relationship to other people – in
which case their ethics becomes political; or it does
not affect this relationship-in which case their
ethics becomes stagnant: perfection of the
individual then becomes an end in itself, that is, it
loses all practical value, and the most perfected
individuals, in their relationship to others, have no
need of ethics. This means, however, that ethics
destroys itself.

And that is what happened to Ibsen’s ethics. He

repeats again and again, “Be entirely yourself; that
is the highest of laws; there is no sin greater than
that which goes contrary to this.” The immoral
Chamberlain Alving [Ghosts], however, was
“entirely himself,” but nonetheless he was all filth
and vulgarity. Of course, as we have already noted,
the recommendation to “be entirely yourself” is
made only to the “masters” and not to the
“masses.” Although the ethics of the masters must
also be based upon some laws, we look for these in
vain in Ibsen. He says: “It is not important that we
wish this or that, but that one absolutely must wish
that which one must wish because one is what one
is and cannot do otherwise. All else leads to a lie.”
It is too bad, but this, too, leads to a lie.

The crux of this problem – which is insoluble

from the Ibsenian point of view – lies in what the
individual concerned must wish in order to remain
“what one is.” The criterion of the “MUST” is not
whether it is unconditional, but what its object is.
To remain always “oneself,” without having to
consider the interests of others, was possible only
for Robinson Crusoe on his island, and even then
only until Friday appeared. It is true that the laws
mentioned by Pastor Manders in his conversation
with Frau Alving are really empty forms.
Nevertheless Frau Alving is greatly mistaken – and
Ibsen as well – in thinking that every law is but an
empty and harmful form. A law, for example, that
restricts the exploitation of labor by capital not
only is not harmful; it is, on the contrary, very
beneficial. And how many similar laws could there
be! Admitted – although with many qualifications
– that everything is permitted the “Hero.” But who
can be considered a “Hero”? “He who serves the
interests of the universal development of
mankind,” answers, instead of Ibsen, Wilhelm
Hans. Good, but with these words we pass from
the viewpoint of individualism and individual
ethics to the viewpoint of society, of politics.

In Ibsen this transition occurs – when at all –

quite unconsciously; he seeks direction for his
“spiritual aristocrats” not in their social
relationships but in their own “autonomous” wills.
It is for this reason that Ibsen’s theory of the
masters versus the masses is so anomalous. His
hero, Stockmann, who places freedom of thought
on such an extremely high level, tries to convince
the masses that they have no right to have their
own opinions. This is only one of the innumerable
contradictions in which Ibsen “absolutely must”
have become involved once he confined himself to
ethical problems exclusively. In light of this we can
now fully appreciate Brand’s remarkable character.

Brand’s creator could find no way out from

ethics to politics. Therefore Brand “absolutely
must” remain within the field of ethics. He
“absolutely must” confine himself to purifying his
will and freeing his spirit. He advises the people to
struggle “as long as life.” But what is to be gained?
“... a will that’s whole, – a soaring faith, a single
soul ...” This is a vicious circle, Ibsen did not – and
for the aforementioned reasons could not – find an
outlet for his “will that’s whole” in the dreary world
around him, nor any means of changing or
enhancing that dreary world. Consequently Brand
“absolutely must” preach the purification of the
will and the freeing of the spirit, as ends in
themselves.

Furthermore the petty bourgeois is a born

opportunist. Ibsen hates opportunism with all his
soul; he describes it brilliantly in his plays. Recall
the printer Aslaksen [An Enemy of the People],
with his incessant preaching of “moderation,”
which, in his own words, “is the greatest virtue in a
citizen – at least, I think so.” Aslaksen is the
epitome of the petty bourgeois politician, who
finds entry even into the Labor parties of petty
bourgeois countries. And it is as a natural reaction
against Aslaksen’s “greatest virtue” that Brand
proclaims his proud motto: “All or Nothing!” When
Brand thunders against petty bourgeois
moderation, he is magnificent; but, having no
foundation for his own will he “absolutely must”
degenerate into empty formulas and pedantry.
When his wife Agnes, after having given away to
the poor all of her dead child’s belongings, wishes
to keep as a remembrance the little cap in which he
died, Brand cries to her angrily. “Serve thine idols!
I depart.” He demands that Agnes give away the
cap too. It would be laughable were it not so cruel.

A real revolutionist does not demand

unnecessary sacrifices, for he has a criterion by
which he can distinguish between necessary and
unnecessary sacrifices. Brand, however, has no
such criterion. The formula “All or Nothing” is
inadequate.

For Brand, form kills the entire content. In a conversation

with Einar he defends himself from the charge of dogmatism
with the following :

Nothing that’s new do I demand;

For Everlasting Right I stand.
It is not for a Church I cry,
It is not dogmas I defend;
Day dawn’d on both, and, possibly,
Day may on both of them descend.
What’s made has “finis” for its brand;
Of moth and worm it feels the flaw,
And then, by nature and by law,
Is for an embryo thrust aside.
But there is one that shall abide;
The Spirit, that was never born,
That in the world’s fresh gladsome Morn
Was rescued when it seem’d forlorn,
That built with valiant faith a road
Whereby from Flesh it climb’d to God.
Now but in shreds and scraps it dealt
The Spirit we have faintly felt;
But from these scraps and from these shreds,
These headless bands and bandless heads,
These torso-stumps of soul and thought,
A Man complete and whole shall grow,
 And God His glorious child shall know,
His heir, the Adam that He wrought.

Here Brand speaks almost like Mephistopheles:

All that is born

Deserves to be destroyed.

And the conclusion is the same for both. Mephistopheles

concludes:

Then ’twere best if nothing were created.

While Brand does not say this directly, he

repudiates everything on which “day dawn’d,” and
on which “day may ... descend.” He values only the
“everlasting.” And what is everlasting? Only
motion, or, in the theological (i.e. idealistic)
language of Brand, “the Spirit, that was never
born.” And in the name of this everlasting unborn
Spirit Brand rejects everything that is merely
“new” and of the time. Thus ultimately he reaches
the same conclusion as Mephistopheles with
regard to current things. But the philosophy of
Mephistopheles is onesided. This “Spirit,” which
rejects everything, forgets that there would be
nothing to reject if nothing had been born. In the
same way, Brand does not realize that eternal
motion (the everlasting unborn Spirit) finds
expression only in the creation of the merely “new”
– new things, new conditions, new relationships.
This rejection of everything new makes him,
despite his loathing for compromise of any kind, a
conservative. In Brand’s dialectics there is no
negation of the negation; hence its utter futility.
But why is this essential element lacking in his
dialectic? Here again Ibsen’s social environment is
responsible. This environment was sufficiently
defined to produce a negative reaction on Ibsen’s
part, but it was not defined enough – because it
was not developed enough – to arouse in him a
definite longing for something “new.” That is why
he was not able to utter those magic words which
bring to life a picture of the future. And that is why
he ultimately lost himself in the dreary, barren
desert of negation. This is the sociological basis of
Brand’s methodological weakness.

This weakness – Brand’s and Ibsen’s – could not

but leave its defacing effect upon all of the
dramatist’s creative work. In a speech at a congress
of the Norwegian Women’s Rights League, Ibsen
declared: “I have been more a poet and less a social
philosopher than people generally seem inclined to
believe.” On another occasion he remarked that he
always aimed to give the reader the impression of
having an actual experience. This is quite
understandable. The poet thinks in terms of
poetical imagery. But how can “the Spirit that was
never born” be portrayed in terms of poetical
imagery? Symbolism must be used. Hence Ibsen
invariably resorts to symbolism when he leads his
heroes, stumbling, into the field of abstract self-
perfectionism, in quest of the everlasting unborn
Spirit. His symbols never fail to reflect the futility
of this quest. They are pale and bloodless, devoid
of vitality, representative not of reality but only a
blurred copy of it.

Symbols, as a matter of fact, are Ibsen’s weak

point. His strength lies in his incomparable ability
to describe petty bourgeois heroes. Here he proves
himself to be a superb psychologist. Because of this
a study of his work is essential for everyone who
wishes to understand the psychology of the petty
bourgeoisie. In this connection every sociologist
should study Ibsen.

But as soon as the petty bourgeois begins to

“purify” his will, he becomes a boring, professorial
abstraction, like Consul Bernick, for example, in
the last act of Pillars of Society.

Ibsen did not and could not know what to do

with his abstractions. Therefore he lets the curtain
fall on his heroes immediately after the
“Revelation,” or lets them die somewhere in the
mountains under an avalanche. This recalls
Turgenev, who killed off two of his characters,
Bazaroff and Insaroff, because he did not know
what to do with them.

In Turgenev’s case this was due to his ignorance

of the goal of the Russian Nihilists and the
Bulgarian revolutionists; but Ibsen’s characters,
whose goal is merely self-expression, for its own
sake, simply do not know where to start.

“The pregnant mountain gives birth to a tiny

mouse!” This occurs frequently in Ibsen’s dramas.
And not only in his dramas; it is characteristic of
his philosophy as a whole. What, for example, is
his attitude toward the woman question? When
Helmer reminds Nora [A Doll’s House] of her
duties as a wife and mother, she answers: “I don’t
believe that any longer. I believe that before all else
I am a reasonable human being, just as you are –
or, at all events, that I must try and become one.”
She does not recognize marriage as the customary
“lawful” cohabitation of man and wife. She strives
after that which was once called the “emancipation
of woman.” Ellida Wangel [The Lady from the
Sea] from all appearances also strives toward the
same goal. Her aim is freedom at any price. When
her husband gives her her freedom, she denies the
“unknown” which had attracted her so strongly,
and tells him: “You have been a good physician for
me. You found – and you had the courage to use-
the right remedy – the only one that could help
me.”

Even Maia Rubek [When We Dead Awaken] is

not satisfied with the narrow confines of married life. She
accuses her husband of not keeping his promise to lead her up
upon a high mountain and show her the glory and
magnificence of the world. She finally breaks with him and
sings joyously:

I am free! I am free! I am free!

No more life in the prison for me!
I am free as a bird! I am free!

In short, Ibsen recommends the emancipation of

woman. Yet here, as everywhere, it is the
psychological process of the emancipation that
interests him, and not its social consequences, not
the altered social status of woman. Only the
emancipation of woman is of importance to him;
her social status remains unchanged.

In the speech delivered before the Norwegian

Women’s Rights League on May 26, 1898, Ibsen
confessed that he was not quite clear as to just
what “women’s rights” really were. “Women’s
rights” seemed to him to be a problem of
humanity’s rights. His aim had always been “to
give the people a higher standard,” and in that
connection it was for the mothers, by strenuous
and sustained labor, “to awaken a conscious feeling
of culture and discipline.” This must be created in
men before it would be possible to uplift them.
Thus according; to him it is for the women to solve
the problem of humanity. In a word: it is woman’s
duty, in the interest of “humanity’s rights,” to
confine her horizon to the walls of the nursery. Can
this be called clear vision?

Woman has duties as a mother; that is true.

Man, on the other hand, has duties as a father, but
that does not prevent him from going beyond the
confines of the nursery. The emancipated woman
can be as content with the role of mother as the
woman who never dreamed of freedom. That,
however, is of no importance. Of importance only
is the eternal, not the contemporary. Of
importance is the movement itself, and not its
results. The “revolution of the spirit of man” leaves
everything unchanged. The pregnant mountain has
again given birth to a tiny mouse, all because of
that methodological weakness the social causes of
which I have already mentioned.

And love itself – love between husband and wife?

Fourier, with marvelous satirical power, has
already pointed out that bourgeois society –
civilization, as he calls it – debases love and
ruthlessly drags it down into the mire of material
calculations. Ibsen knew this as well as Fourier.
His Love’s Comedy is an excellent satire which ridicules
bourgeois marital virtue. And what is the outcome of this
splendid comedy, one of the best which Ibsen wrote? Svanhild,
who loves the poet Falk, marries the merchant Gulstad because
her love for Falk seems to be too idealistic. The following
conversation, which sounds unbelievable but which is very
characteristic of Ibsen’s philosophy, takes place between
Svanhild and Falk:

FALK.
... But, to sever thus!
Now, when the portals of the world stand wide, –
When the blue spring is bending over us,
On the same day that plighted thee my bride!

SVANHILD.
Just therefore must we part. Our joy’s torch fire
Will from this moment wane till it expire!
And when at last our worldly days are spent,
And face to face with our great Judge we stand,
And, as a righteous God, he shall demand
Of us the earthly treasure that he lent –
Then, Falk, we cry – past power of grace, to save –
“O Lord, we lost it going to the grave!”

FALK.
[With strong resolve]
Pluck off the ring!

SVANHILD.
[With fire]
Wilt thou?

FALK.
Now I divine!
Thus and no otherwise canst thou be mine!
As to the grave opens into life’s Dawn-fire,
So Love with Life may not espoused be
Till, loosed from longing and from wild desire,
It soars into the heaven of memory!
Pluck off the ring, Svanhild!

SVANHILD
[In rapture]
My task is done!
Now I have filled thy soul with song and sun.
Forth! Now thou so rest on triumphant wings, –
Forth! Now thy Svanhild is a swan that sings!
[Takes off the ring and presses a kiss upon it.]
To the abysmal ooze of ocean bed
Descend, my dream! – I fling thee in its stead!
[Goes a few steps back, throws the ring into the fjord,
and approaches FALK With a transfigured expression.]
Now for this earthly life I have forgotten thee, –
But for the life eternal I have won thee.

This is a complete triumph of the eternal “unborn”

spirit, and, at the same time and for that very
reason, it is a complete self-renunciation and self-
annihilation of the “new,” the “temporary.” This
triumph of the “purified” will is identical with its
complete defeat, and the triumph of that which it
had set out to negate. The poetic Falk retreats
before the prosaic Guldstad. In their struggle with
petty bourgeois philistinism Ibsen’s heroes always
become weaklings precisely at the moment when
their “purified” will is strongest. Love’s
Comedy might well have been called “The Comedy
of the Independent Will.”

Comrade Jean Longuet, in L’Humanite, has

said that Ibsen was a Socialist. However, Ibsen was
just as remote from Socialism as from any other
theory based upon social relationships. Consider
the speech which he addressed to the working men
of Trondhejm on June 14 1885.

In this speech the aged poet describes his

reactions upon returning to his native country after
many years abroad. He found much to be
commended but also much to be deplored. He was
disappointed to observe that the most
indispensable individual rights were still not being
properly recognized. A ruling majority was
arbitrarily curtailing freedom of speech and belief.
There was still much to be done in that direction,
but it was beyond the power of
the present democracy to solve these problems. An
element of nobility would have to enter Norway’s
political life – administration, representatives and
press. “Of course,” Ibsen hastens to explain, “I am
not thinking of nobility of birth, wealth, or even
intellect; I am thinking of nobility of character, of
will, and mind. That alone can make us free.” And
this nobility will come, according to Ibsen, from
two sources: “from our women and from our
working men.”

This is all very interesting. In the first place, the

“ruling majority” with whom Ibsen takes issue
immediately recalls the “compact majority” against
whom Dr Stockmann struggled. That group, too,
was accused of disregarding individual freedom in
general and freedom of speech in particular.
However, unlike Dr Stockmann, Ibsen does not say
that “lack of oxygen” condemns the “masses” to
stupidity. No, the working class is here depicted as
one of the two social groups to which Ibsen looks
for the reform of Norwegian society. This best
proves my contention that Ibsen was certainly not
a conscious enemy of the working class. When he
thinks of it as a special section of the “masses” – as
he did at Trondhjem, but otherwise very seldom –
it would seem that he is no longer satisfied with
“milking the goat” – with the “revolution of the
spirit of man” as an end in itself, but has arrived at
a concrete political task, the broadening and
strengthening of personal rights. But this task –
which, by the way, must be considered one of those
“special revolutions” so bitterly condemned by
Ibsen – is to be accomplished how? It appears that
the solution of this problem must be a political
one. But Ibsen always feels exceedingly
uncomfortable in the field of politics; he therefore
hastens to return to the old stamping ground of
ethics: he expects great things to result from the
injection of a noble element into the political life of
Norway. How confused this is! It is as though one
were listening to his spiritual son Johannes
Rosmer, whose aim is “to make all the people of
this country noble” [Rosmerholm, Act. I]. Rosmer
expects to do this “by freeing their minds and
purifying their wills.” Of course this is extremely
praiseworthy. A free mind and a purified will are
very desirable. But there is not the slightest trace of
politics here. And without politics there can be no
Socialism.

Let it be understood: there is a great deal of truth

in what Ibsen says about nobility of character, will
and mind. His poetic sensibility, that could not
bear petty bourgeois moderation – which distorts
even the noblest sentiments – did not mislead him
when it pointed to the workers as the social group
most capable of introducing into the political life of
Norway the “element of nobility” which it lacked.
The proletariat, pressing with all its might toward
its final goal, shall indeed free its mind and purify
its will. However, Ibsen misunderstood the true
relationship of things. The moral rebirth of the
proletariat can take place only when it begins to
strive toward its great goal; for no amount of moral
preaching could otherwise lift it out of the petty
bourgeois morass. The noble spirit of enthusiasm
is brought to the working class not by Rosmer but
by Marx and Lassalle.

The moral “emancipation” of the proletariat will

be accomplished only in its social battle for
freedom. “In the beginning was the deed,” said
Faust. But Ibsen did not understand this.

The Trondhjem speech does, it is true, contain a

passage which seems to confirm Jean Longuet’s
assertion:

this reformation in which I rest my

hopes, upon which I insist and for
 which I will devote my entire energies
for the rest of my life.

Here Ibsen speaks almost like a confirmed

Socialist. Still his language is weak became of its
vagueness. Aside from the fact that the so-called
woman question cannot be separated from the so-
called labor question, the thing to be noted here is
that Ibsen does not utter a single word as to what
he conceives “the future status of labor” to be. This
proves that the aim of the “reshaping of social
conditions” is simply beyond his comprehension.
His hopes for the future “nobility” of woman did
not prevent him from confining her to the nursery.
Then why assume that his hopes for the “nobility”
of the worker led him to the conviction that the
worker would have to emancipate himself from the
domination of capital? This is not to be divined
from his words; but from his address to the
Norwegian Women’s Rights League, it is apparent
that the “reshaping of social conditions” to him
meant one thing: “to lift the people to a higher
plane.” But is this Socialism?

According to Ibsen, men must first be ennobled

and then lifted to a higher plane. This formula
resembles that used by the supporters of serfdom:
“First educate the people and then free them.” I
repeat emphatically that Ibsen was by no means
feudalistic. He was far from being an enemy of the
emancipation of the people. On the contrary he
was`even prepared eventually to serve the
interests of the people. But how and in what way
was a complete mystery to him – the reason being
that the petty bourgeois society in which he grew
up, and with which he came into such violent
conflict, did not – and could not – provide the
slightest clue to the solution of this problem; nor
even formulate such problems as the labor
problem, or the woman problem.

Jean Longuet was mistaken. He was led astray

by the statement which Ibsen made in 1890 in
reply to the press comments concerning Bernard
Shaw’s lectures on Ibsen and Socialism. In this
statement Ibsen declared that he had endeavored,
in so far as his “ability and opportunity permitted,
to study the question of social democracy,”
although he did not have the time “to study the
great embracing literature which deals with the
different social systems.” As I have already
remarked, however, it is everywhere apparent that
Ibsen studied “the question of social democracy”
from his habitual, i.e., exclusively ethical, point of
view, and never from the political point of view.

Ibsen’s incapacity to judge the modern

proletarian movement is obvious from the fact that
he did not make the least attempt to understand
the great historical significance of the Paris
Commune of 1871. He described it as a caricature
of his own theory of state, although there was no
room in his mind for theories of state.

At Ibsen’s funeral one of his admirers described

him as a Moses. But this is hardly a fair
comparison.

Ibsen, perhaps more than any of his

contemporaries in world literature, was capable of
leading his readers out of the “Egypt of
Philistinism.” However, he did not know where the
promised land lay, and, as a matter of fact, he
believed that such a land was unnecessary, that the
all-important thing was the spiritual liberation of
man. This Moses was sentenced to wander about
in the desert of abstraction. Which was a terrible
doom. Once he said that his life had been “a long,
long Passion Week.” There can be little doubt of
this. To a sincere and consistent nature such as his,
it must have meant untold agony to wander about
in an endless labyrinth of inextricable confusion.

This torment he owed to the backwardness of

Norway’s social life. Drab petty bourgeois reality
showed him what had to be opposed, but it could
not show him which road to pursue.

It is true that when Ibsen shook the dust of

bourgeois mediocrity from his feet, turned his back
upon Norway, and established himself abroad, he
had an excellent opportunity to find the path that
leads to true elevation of the human spirit and to
victory over banal Philistinism. In Germany,
already at that time, the movement for the
emancipation of the working class – a movement
which even its enemies admitted was alone capable
of bringing forth a true and great ethical idealism –
was moving forward irresistibly. But even then
Ibsen lacked the fundamental prerequisites to
comprehend this movement. His inquiring mind
was much too occupied with the problems raised
by the life of his native land, and which he could
not solve because that life had not yet developed
the conditions requisite to a solution.

Ibsen has often been called a pessimist. Indeed,

he was one. Considering his position, and the
seriousness with which he regarded the problems
which tormented him, he could scarcely have been
an optimist. He could have become an optimist
only if he had succeeded in solving the riddle of the
sphinx of our time. But this he was not destined to
do.
 He himself once stated that the conflict between
the ideal and the real was one of the basic motives
of his work. He might equally well have said that
this was the basic motive of his work and also the
reason for his pessimism. This conflict, so far as he
was concerned, was a product of his environment.
In petty bourgeois society “poodle-men” can have
the grandest ideals, but to realize them is
something they are “not destined to do,” for the
simple reason that their dreams find no objective
support.

It has also been said that Ibsen was an

individualist, which is also correct. But this was
due to the fact that his ethics could find no outlet
into politics. Ibsen arrived at the individualist
point of view not because of the strength of his
personality but because of its weakness, which,
again, he owed to his early social environment.

Note the acumen of La Chesnais’ remark, in the

article from the Mercure de France mentioned
above, to the effect that it was very fortunate for
Ibsen that he came from a small country, “where, it
is true, things went badly with him at first, but
where at least his works could not remain
unnoticed and lost among thousands of other
volumes.” This is, one might say, the standpoint of
literary competition. With what contemptuous
irony would Ibsen himself have accepted this
interpretation!

Colleville and Zepelin are justified in calling

Ibsen a master of the contemporary drama.
However, if a work of art reflects glory on its
creator, it also reflects his shortcomings.

Ibsen’s principal shortcoming – his inability to

find a way out from the field of individual ethics
into the field of politics “absolutely must” have its
reflection in his works: symbolistic, abstract and
propagandistic elements. These transformed some
of his poetic images into bloodless abstractions,
and even his “supermen,” his “poodle-men,” had to
suffer greatly as a result. It is for this reason that I
contend that Ibsen as a dramatist could never have
reached the Shakespearean heights even if he had
possessed Shakespeare’s poetic powers. But why
and how did it happen that this undeniably grave
defect was construed by the public as a mark of
merit? This, too, must have its social basis.

What then is this social basis? In order to

determine this we must first establish the socio-
psychological causes for Ibsen’s success in the
countries of western Europe, where social
development had reached a much higher plane
than in Scandinavia.

Brandes says: “It requires more than strength of

talent to transcend the boundaries of one’s native
land. A great talent can of itself slowly create such
a receptivity in its own countrymen, or it may be
able by intuitional apprehension to sense the
temper of its contemporaries or immediate
successors. But Ibsen could not have created this
receptivity among people who spoke a foreign
tongue, who knew nothing about him and among
whom, even though he seemed to have discerned
the state of things, he had at first found no
approbation.”

This is entirely correct. In such cases talent alone

is never enough. The mediaeval Romans were not
only indifferent to the artistic creations of the
ancient world; they even burned the antique
statues in order to extract the lime. But then
another period dawned when the Romans, and the
Italians in general, began to grow enthusiastic
about ancient art and to use it as their model.
During the long period when the Romans – and
not only the Romans – dealt so barbarously with
the great works of ancient sculpture, a gradual
process took place in the inner life of mediaeval
society which deeply changed its structure, and,
consequently, the views, emotions and sympathies
of its members. The metamorphosis of their
existence led to a metamorphosis of their
consciousness, and only the latter made the
Romans capable of the Renaissance period,
capable of appreciating the works of ancient art. It
is this new consciousness which made the
Renaissance possible.

In general, when an artist or a writer of one

country wishes to influence the inhabitants of
other countries, the state of mind of that artist or
writer must correspond to the state of mind of his
foreign audience. From this it follows that if
Ibsen’s influence spread far beyond the boundaries
of his native country, his works had characteristics
which corresponded to the state of mind of the
reading public of the modern civilized world. What
are these characteristics?

Brandes mentions Ibsen’s individualism, his

dislike of the majority. He says: “The first step
toward freedom and greatness is to possess
personality. He who has but little personality is
only a fraction of an individual. He who has none,
is a zero. But only these zeroes are equal to one
another. In modern Germany we again find
confirmation of the words of Leonardo da Vinci to
the effect that ‘all the zeroes of the world are, so far
as their content and value are concerned,
equivalent to a single zero.’ Only in this respect has
the ideal of equality been attained. And the
thinking group of Germany does not believe in
equality. Henrik Ibsen does not believe in it. In
Germany the opinion is prevalent that after the
period of belief in majority rule will come a period
of faith in the minority, and Ibsen is a man who
believes in the minority. Finally, many assert that
the road to progress is via the isolation of the
individual. Henrik Ibsen agrees with this trend of
thought.”

Here Brandes is again partially correct. Today,

the so-called “thinking group of Germany” is
actually no more inclined toward the ideal of
equality than it is toward a belief in the majority.
That this is a fact is well substantiated by Brandes.
His explanation, however, is wrong. In fact
according to him it would seem as if the striving
for equality were irreconcilable with the
development of the individual and that the
“thinking group of Germany” repudiates this ideal
for that reason. But such is not the case. Who
would dare to assert that on the eve of the great
revolution the “thinking group” of France had less
regard for the “individual” than the same group in
modern Germany? Yet the “thinking” Frenchmen
of that period were infinitely more sympathetic to
the idea of equality than modern Germans. The
“majority” frightened those Frenchmen far less
than they frighten modern “thinking” Germans. No
one will deny that the old Abbe Sieyes and his
fellow ideologists belonged to the “thinking group”
of France at that time, but nevertheless Sieyes’
chief argument in favor of the third estate was
based on the fact that its interests were the
interests of the majority, and conflicted with the
interests of merely a small group of privileged
individuals. Consequently it is not a question of the
attributes of the ideal of equality or the belief in
the majority; it is a question of the historical
conditions under which the “thinking group” of
France of the eighteenth century had the same
point of view as the more or less revolutionary
bourgeoisie, who, in their opposition to the
spiritual and the real aristocracy, felt solidarity
with the tremendous masses of the population,
that is, with the “majority.” The modern “thinking
group of Germany,” however – and not only of
Germany but of all countries where the capitalist
system of production has become entrenched – has
in most cases adopted the standpoint of the
bourgeoisie, who have come to realize that their
class interests are more closely related to those of
the aristocracy (who, in their turn, are now filled
with the spirit of the bourgeoisie) than to those of
the proletariat, which, in all advanced capitalist
countries, constitutes the majority of the
population. That is why “belief in majority rule”
has unpleasant connotations; that is why it seems
to them to be irreconcilable with the conception of
the “individual;” that is why they incline more and
more to “minority” rule. The revolutionary
bourgeoisie of eighteenth century France
applauded a Rousseau whom they did not fully
comprehend at the time. The modern bourgeoisie
of Germany extol a Nietzsche in whom they sense,
with true class instinct, the poet and ideologist of
class rule.

However that may be, there is no doubt that

Ibsen’s individualism accords with the “belief in
minority rule” which is peculiar to the “thinking
group” of the bourgeoisie of the modern capitalist
world. In a letter to Brandes dated September 24,
1871, Ibsen writes: “What I chiefly desire for you is
a genuine, full-blooded egoism, which shall force
you for a time to regard what concerns you yourself
as the only thing of any consequence, and
everything else as non-existent.” The state of mind
which is expressed in these words not only does
not conflict with the state of mind of the “thinking”
bourgeois of today, but it accords with it perfectly.
Likewise the state of mind expressed in the
following lines of the same letter also accords with
it. “I have never really had any very firm belief in
solidarity; in fact, I have only accepted it as a kind
of traditional dogma. If one had the courage to
throw it overboard altogether, it is possible that
one would be rid of the ballast which weighs down
one’s personality most heavily.” And finally, every
“thinking” class-conscious bourgeois will be unable
to criticize, except very favorably, the man who
wrote the following words: “I do not believe that
things are better in other countries than in our
own; the masses, both at home and abroad, are
without all understanding of higher things.” More
than ten years later Ibsen wrote in a letter to
Brandes: “It will never, in any case, be possible for
me to join a party that has the majority on its side.
Bjornson says: ‘The majority is always right.’ ... I,
on the contrary, must of necessity say: ‘The
minority is always right.’” These words, too, can
have the approval only of the “individualistic”
minded ideologists of the modern bourgeoisie. And
since the state of mind which is expressed in these
words underlies all of Ibsen’s dramatic works, it is
not surprising that his works attracted the
attention of all ideologists of this type and that
they proved to be very “receptive” to it.

Of course, as the old Romans said: Two people

may say the same thing, but still it is not quite the
same. Ibsen’s conception of the term “minority”
was quite different from that of the middle-class
reader of advanced capitalist countries. Ibsen
added in explanation: “I mean the minority which
leads the van, and pushes on to points which the
majority has not yet reached. I mean that the man
is right who has allied himself most closely with
the future.”

As we have seen, Ibsen’s views and ideals were

developed in a country which had no revolutionary
proletariat, and where the backward masses were
petty bourgeois to the core. These masses could
not become the vanguard of the progressive ideal.
That is why every forward step of necessity seemed
to Ibsen to be a movement of the “minority,” that
is, of a small group of thinking individuals. It was
quite different in countries of developed capitalist
production. There every progressive movement
obviously had to be a movement of the exploited
majority, or rather, it had to attempt to be that. For
people brought up in Ibsen’s social atmosphere
“belief in the minority” has a completely innocent
significance. And more: it serves as an expression
of the progressive strivings of the small intelligent
oasis in the barren desert of philistine life. On the
other hand, in advanced capitalist countries this
belief in the “thinking group” is a sign of
conservative opposition to the revolutionary
demands of the workers. Two people may say the
same thing, still it is not quite the same. If,
however, someone preaches the “belief in the
minority,” this preaching can and will find the
approbation of those who share such belief, even if
for entirely different psychological reasons. Ibsen’s
bitter, sincere attacks against the “majority” were
greeted with applause by innumerable people who
believed this majority to be the proletariat fighting
for its emancipation. Ibsen attacked that
“majority” which was alien to all progressive
strivings, but he received the approbation of those
people who feared the progressive strivings of the
“majority.”
 Let us go further. Brandes continues: “But if one
carefully tests this individualism [i.e., Ibsenian
individualism – (G. P.] one will discover a hidden
socialism in it, which was discernible in Pillars of
Society and which became clearly evident in
Ibsen’s enthusiastic speech to the workers in
Trondhjem during his last visit to the north.”

As I have already stated, a great deal of good will

is needed in order to discover any sort of socialism
in Pillars of Society. In reality Ibsenian socialism
was based upon the good-natured but very vague
desire “to raise the people to a higher plane.” This
was not only no hindrance to Ibsen’s success so far
as the “thinking group of Germany” and other
capitalist countries were concerned, but was even
beneficial to him. If Ibsen had really been a
Socialist, he would not have been approved by
those people who “believed in the minority” out of
fear of the revolutionary movement of the
majority. And just because Ibsenian “Socialism”
meant no more than the desire “to raise the people
to a higher plane,” it was hailed by those people
who were sympathetic to social reform as a means
of hindering social revolution. Here the same quid
pro quo took place as in the interpretation of the
“belief in the minority.” Ibsen went no further than
the desire to raise the people to a higher plane”
because his views were shaped by a petty bourgeois
society whose developmental process had not yet
placed the great socialistic problem in the
foreground. But only the narrowness of Ibsen’s
aims assured his success in the highest class (the
“thinking group”) of that society whose entire
inner life is controlled by this great problem.

In any event it must be observed that even his

limited reformatory strivings found almost no
expression in Ibsen’s plays. There, his thinking
remains apolitical in the widest sense of the word,
that is, far removed from all social questions. He
preaches the “purification of the will,” the
“revolution of the spirit of man,” but he does not
know what goal to set for the “purified will,” nor
what social conditions the spirit of man ought to
combat after its “revolution.” This is a tremendous
shortcoming. Nevertheless it too, along with the
two previously mentioned shortcomings, must
have greatly augmented Ibsen’s success among the
“thinking groups” of the capitalist world. These
groups could sympathize with the “revolution of
the spirit of man” only so long as this revolution
took place as an end in itself, that is, remained
without purpose and did not threaten the existing
social order.

The “thinking group” of the bourgeoisie could listen with

the greatest compassion to the words of Brand when Ibsen
promised:

Over frozen height and hollow,

Over all the land we’ll fare,
Loose each soul-destroying snare
That this people holds in fee,
Lift and lighten, and set free....

“frozen height and hollow,” but in order to let them

fulfill some definite revolutionary task, then the
“thinking group,” thoroughly shocked, If this same
Brand, however, had made it evident that he
wished to “lift and lighten” the people not merely
to take them for a walk over would have considered
him a “demagogue” and would have stamped Ibsen
a “propagandist.” And then Ibsen’s talent would
have been of no good, then it would have been
clearly revealed that the “thinking group” does not
have the sensitivity necessary to appreciate talent.
 It is now clear why Ibsen’s weakness – which lay
in his inability to find an outlet from ethics to
politics, and which found expression in his works
in the form of an element of symbolism and
abstraction – not only failed to injure him in the
eyes of the great majority of the reading public, but
was, on the contrary, advantageous to him.
“Heroes,” “Supermen,” are vaguely drawn in
Ibsen’s works, they are almost completely
bloodless creatures. This is necessary, however, in
order to appeal to the “thinking group” of the
bourgeoisie. This circle can sympathize only with
those “heroes” who display a vague, faint striving
“upward,” and who entertain nothing more than
the sinful desire to belong to those who “here on
earth erect the kingdom of heaven.”

This is the psychology of the “thinking group” of

the modern bourgeoisie, a psychology which, as we
have seen, is explained by sociology. This
psychology has left its mark upon all contemporary
art. It is due to this psychology that symbolism is
having so widespread a success at the present time.
The inevitable vagueness of the artistic forms
created by the symbolists corresponds to the
inevitable vagueness of the practically futile efforts
of the “thinking group” of contemporary society,
who even in their moments of greatest
dissatisfaction with the status quo cannot bring
themselves to a revolutionary opposition to it. The
state of mind created by the modern class war in
the “thinking group” of the bourgeoisie necessarily
leads to superficiality in contemporary art. The
same capitalist system which in the sphere of
production prohibits the full utilization of all the
means of production over which man now has
control, at the same time also sabotages the field of
artistic production.
 And the proletariat? Its economic position is now
such that at present it cannot concern itself with
art. Still, in so far as the “thinking group” of the
proletariat does concern itself with this subject, it
must, of course, take a definite stand toward an
author.

The “thinking group” of the proletariat fully

realizes the previously described inadequacies of
Ibsen’s manner of thinking and his artistic
creations, and it is aware of the reason for these
shortcomings. Nonetheless it cannot help but love
the Norwegian poet as a man who deeply hated
petty bourgeois opportunism, and as an artist who
brilliantly clarified the psychology of that
opportunism. For the “revolution of the spirit of
man,” which has now found expression in the
revolutionary strivings of the proletariat, is also,
among other things, an expression of a revolution
against petty bourgeois triviality, against the
“weakness of the soul” which Ibsen combatted in
his Brand.

We see, therefore, that Ibsen represents a

paradoxical case of an artist who – to almost the
same extent, although for opposite reasons –
captivated the “thinking groups” of both of the two
great irreconciliably-opposed classes in
contemporary society. Only a man who developed
in a milieu altogether dissimilar from the scene of
the colossal class struggle of our times could be
such an artist.

Havelock Ellis
 Eleanor Marx
(excerpt)

Written: Modern Monthly, Volume 9, 1935.

I had planned to do the English edition of some of

Ibsen's social plays, to be published in a cheap
popular series, and as Ibsen was a congenial
subject for her, I asked Eleanor to translate An
Enemy of Society. The volume appeared in 1858.
Her Socialist activities were not yet absorbing, and
she had already done literary work, notably her
translation of Flaubert's Madame Bovary, not
indeed a faultless piece of work but for many years
the only version of that masterpiece available for
English readers; In August of the same year I
planned a second Ibsen volume and asked for her
co-operation· "I think it would be splendid," she
wrote, "I should love to work at that." Nearly all
the letters of Eleanor's I have preserved are
concerned with literary work and often with
schemes in which she could co-operate. Although I
was in touch with many of the active Socialist
leaders at that time, I was not associated with any
movement, being taken up by my medical studies
and the literary avocations which more and more
absorbed my spare time. Eleanor, who was also
keenly interested in literary matters, seems to have
felt no impulse to draw me into the questions in
which she was still more closely concerned.

In December of 1884 she had written to me from

Great Russell Street: "On Jan. 15 evening we are
going to have a reading here of 'Nora' [at that time
the usual title in England of The Dolls' House]. I
feel I must do something to make people
understand our Ibsen a little more than they do,
and I know by experience that a play read to them
often affects people more than when read by
themselves. This is especially the case with so
essentially a dramatic writer as Ibsen. We want to
have only people who we know do love and
understand Ibsen already, or those who will love
and understand him, and who in turn will go on
preaching him to others. I still half hope Olive will
come--she would like to--and I very much hope
you will come. William Morris and his daughter
will be here, and just a few people worth reading
'Nora' to. We both hope to see you here on the
15th. Yours very sincerely, Eleanor Marx Aveling."
She mentions in a postscript, a previous attempt to
invite me to spend an evening at their flat, but
addressed by mistake to Guy's Hospital, and not to
my Hospital, St. Thomas'. A little later came the
card with the names of readers of the parts.
Aveling as Helmer, Eleanor as Nora, Bernard Shaw
as Krogstadt, and so on. Still later, the day before
the reading, came another letter. "Olive has told
you of my plan to have someone read or say a few
introductory words on "Nora" tomorrow evening,
and she has told me that since she can't come up
and is not well enough to write she has asked you
to do this little 'introduction' for her. I do hope you
will. I have just written to Olive I would rather she
could have done it, but if the right woman can't,
then we must have the right man. I know you will
say just what one wants said. We must make
people know Ibsen. It is, it seems to me, a real duty
to spread such great teachings as his and my little
effort is just a poor beginning. I long to do more,
but to make a few people the better by knowing
Ibsen is something. I hope you will not mind my
asking you to do this. see though I have met you so
little I seem to know you very, very well. There are
some people one gets to know at once--I mean to
know in the essentials--and others that one is a
stranger to after a life-time passed together--I
really count on you for tomorrow." It is certain,
however, that I was not present at the reading, and
in any case, I should not, then or later, have agreed
to speak or read in public.......

The next letter I have preserved is dated four

months later [July 1887] just before the Avelings
were leaving for New York, and just after the
publication of the Ibsen volume I had edited with
Eleanor's translation in it of An Enemy of
Society: "It is too vexing about that letter! That is
about the sixth letter to or from us that has gone
wrong in about as many months. Only on Saturday
we sent a most important, letter to Stepniak, and
when we saw Stepniak yesterday the letter had not
then arrived--I have sent the address to Newcastle
and have wired to you, or rather Edward will wire
if he doesn't see you at the Museum.

I have read your Introduction [to the Ibsen

volume and later included in my New Spirit] and I
like it. It is simple and to the point. But I am sorry
'Nora' was not included in the volume. It should
have been, I think in any first volume of Ibsen.

"When we were at Minneapolis one morning we

were startled by the appearance at our hotel of
Kristofer Janson. Of course you know his books,
and that he, too is one of the 'new school'. He
spoke most sympathetically of our Socialist work,
and he also told us Ibsen was a Socialist. To hear
and see Janson talk of Ibsen was delightful. Janson
is a great big fellow over six feet and broad in
proportion, and he has the cleverest, honestest
blue eyes I have ever seen. And the whole face lit
up when he spoke of Ibsen. He seemed to
positively worship his genius and to love the man.

Anatol Lunacharsky

Ibsen

Translator: Jenny Covan

Originally Published: Literaturny
Kritik, December, 1934 Source: Ibsen ed. Angel
Flores, Critics Group, New York, 1937
Transcribed: Sally Ryan for marxists.org,
October 2000.

HENRIK IBSEN was a Norwegian writer and

outstanding dramatist, whose influence spread far
beyond the boundaries of his native country. Born
in the provincial town of Skien, into a middleclass
family who became poverty-stricken while he was
still a child, Ibsen began life as a typical petty
bourgeois forced to struggle for his daily bread. He
started his career as a pharmacist's apprentice in
the tiny village of Grimstad. Aloofness and
independence had always been a rigid tradition
with his family, and Ibsen adhered to this tradition
through a keen sense of personal pride and a
highly developed feeling of self-esteem; but as he
was constantly thrown into contact with
individuals and groups upon whom he was
compelled to be dependent, his attitude was bound
to result in a strong feeling of protest. Early in life
Ibsen began to regard with sorrow and contempt
the manifestations of servility and cowardice
displayed by the poverty-stricken bourgeois toward
the upper classes. Living amid such social
surroundings, and in such a frame of mind, it was
natural for Ibsen to turn radical. The personal
indignities he was made to endure--some of them
inflicted upon him by his own countrymen--and
the widespread injustice he witnessed in the world
at large, compelled him to take a stand against his
own self and to adopt an attitude of almost
revolutionary aggressiveness.

The grave events of 1848 left a radically different

impress upon each of the various European
sectors. The advent of large-scale capitalism,
overwhelming the self-supporting petty
bourgeoisie, became an important factor in the rise
of numerous revolutionary movements at that
time. It is significant that such a state of affairs
should have also prevailed in Norway, where, for
political reasons, the petty bourgeoisie occupied a
predominant position and were considered the
national and economic leaders of the country--
much more so than in any other European state. In
the near future this circumstance was to create a
special place for representatives of the Norwegian
bourgeoisie protesting against capitalist
oppression; and it also assured European
recognition to its greatest native talent, Ibsen.

We are in possession of an extremely interesting

letter written by Engels which is highly pertinent
to this state of affairs. In 1890 the writer Paul
Ernst, a Social-Democrat who subsequently
withdrew from the Party, persuaded Engels to act
as arbiter in a quarrel between himself and
Hermann Bahr concerning Ibsen's treatment of the
woman question. Ernst had defined Ibsen as a
typical petty bourgeois writer. Engels, however,
took exception to such loose generalizing, which,
from the Marxist viewpoint, failed of effect because
it lacked concreteness.
 Engels' brilliant exposition definitely confirms
the soundness of another Marxist analysis of
Ibsen's work written by Plekhanov.

Ibsen's plays unquestionably voice the protest of

the determined and powerful petty bourgeoisie
against antagonistic capitalist principles--in the
name of ... But here lies the difficulty. In the name
of what, and why, did this powerful petty
bourgeoisie call upon its literature for its ideal?

It is obvious that the prophets of this petty

bourgeoisie had to exalt individualism, strong and
fearless personality, indomitable will; these were
not merely the basic virtues inherited from their
ancestors of the golden age of Norwegian peasant-
fishermen economics, but constituted as well,
valuable support in the bourgeoisie's active
resistance to capitalist elements.

It is rather absurd to speak of indomitable will

without at the same time pointing out its goal. That
goal might here have been g moderate impulse to
oppose capitalism for the sake of safeguarding the
independence of the small merchant. The latter,
however, were being systematically ruined--
although more slowly than in other countries-by
the advance of capitalism; and the petty bourgeois
intelligentsia could not reconcile itself to
conservative principles--it had to elevate and
idealize them somewhat, give them a certain
glamor.

This marked the beginning of endless difficulties.

For the petty bourgeoisie was unable to create a
single mass ideal; it had lost faith in the security of
the past, it could see in the present only the
increasing yielding and servility of its own class,
and was unable to visualize anything constructive
for the future.

On this score, Rosa Luxembourg is entirely right

in saying that Ibsen, despite his great talent, was
not equipped with sufficient perspicacity to be able
to evaluate the trends of his time, consequently his
work had little concrete value.

Actually, Ibsen was a man of great idealistic

impetuosity arising out of the social conditions
depicted here, without any pre-arranged plan of
action.

As a youth of twenty he became incensed at the

spectacle of the destruction of nations and
societies. He called upon the people to fight against
tyrants, he wrote poetic messages to the Magyars
sympathizing with their struggle for independence.
He threw himself into his compatriots' battle
against "Sweden, the Oppressor." He wrote an
immature, chaotic play Catiline, dealing with the
case of a slandered rebel, which seethed with
indignation. And it is with this play that he began
to meet success.

The sole ideal to which Norway would rally was

patriotism. Capitalism, which was beginning to
flourish in Norway, was to a certain extent
interested in remaining independent of Swedish
rule and Danish capital. The strong middle-class,
which to this day continues to fight for ascendancy
in the state, saw in Norway's Viking past not only a
basis of patriotic pride but also the seed of keen
class consciousness. That is why the plays Ibsen
wrote before he returned to Christiania brought
him a measure of success. Such plays were: The
Warrior's Barrow, Lady Finger of Ostraat, The
Feast of Solhaug and The Vikings of Helgeland.
 This success brought Ibsen to Christiania and
earned for him his appointment as director of the
National Theatre. The Norwegian bourgeoisie
became so convinced of Ibsen's merit as a national
bard that he was granted a pension by the state.
But Ibsen's role was a dual one. For he was not at
all the poet of the upper classes; on the contrary,
he burned with indignation at the laxness,
duplicity, greed and treachery rampant about him.
His trip to Rome was far from being a poet
laureate's triumphant journey, resembled more a
flight from an accursed native land. In his Love's
Comedy Ibsen for the first time openly slapped the
face of society about him; for the first time, too, he
aimed a powerful blow at a condition which
stunned him--the decadence of family life. This
move brought down a storm of abuse upon his
head.

Ibsen's flight marked a new period in his life.

Henceforward it was a battle for integrity and
dignity--as the upper bourgeoisie conceives these
qualities--a battle against the despised servility
and hypocrisy of the middle class; a battle against
everything which was undermining its strength;
against the evils which the bourgeoisie beheld in
its offspring and foe--capitalism.

Like huge, monumental figures dominating his

plays dealing with social problems, stand
Ibsen's Brand and Peer Gynt.

Brand was of profound significance in that it

revealed a bourgeois class consciousness, or rather,
it would have had greater significance if the
bourgeoisie, which had no future, could actually
have been saved.
 Brand is the exemplar of the man of strength and
integrity, the teacher of life who constantly
admonishes everybody that integrity is man's most
essential attribute; who advocates the avoidance of
introspection and conflicting impulses. He points
to the necessity of ceasing to shirk responsibility
after it is acknowledged, and of desisting from
deeds which bring remorse. He preaches strength
of will: an individual's decisions must be adhered
to until death; thus he will achieve the integrity
demanded by the nobility of his soul, his objective
powers, and his essential morality.

This is the substance of Ibsen's philosophy. As

portrayed in Brand, this ethical individual is the
prototype of the middle-class landlord. The
weapon which Brand wants to fashion is one that is
familiar to this independent bourgeois. But, as we
have previously remarked, the absence of any
definite program makes of all this structure a mere
empty shell.

Ibsen invariably convinces his readers. It is all

the same to me what this or that particular hero
does, what goal he chooses for himself, so long as
he strives to attain it wholeheartedly and with
undivided effort. But Ibsen's philosophy is even
more futile than Kant's categorical imperative. It is
the ethics of a class which holds vital power but is
unaware of the part it can play in society.

One thing can never be resigned;

One gift there is, a man must keep,--
His inner self. He dares not bind,
He dares not stem, whate'er befall,
The headlong current of his Call;
It must flow on to the great deep.
 A certain mysticism premeates this. Every
individual has a great goal of some sort to attain.
What it is no one knows. Give man complete
freedom and in turn let him give his impulses and
his ruling passion full play: all will be well.

Thus an intellectual-idealistic aura surrounds the

basic principle of the middle class: the landlord--a
king in his own house. But Ibsen understands
perfectly that this empty external evanescence is
only an ideal, entirely unrelated to actuality. He
wrote as follows:

Traverse the land from beach to beach,

Try every man in heart and soul,
You'll find he has no virtue whole,
But just a little grain of each.
A little pious in the pew,
A little grave--his father's way,--
Over the cup a little gay,--
It was his father's fashion too!
A little warm when glasses clash,
And stormy cheer and song go round
For the small Folk, rock-will'd, rock-bound,
That never stood the scourge and lash.
A little free in promise-making;
And then, when vows in liquor will'd
Must be in mortal stress fulfill'd,
A little fine in promise-breaking.

Here everything is clearly revealed. Pride in the

past is evident-although in Ibsen's opinion it has
become nothing but empty words; and so is the
realization that this past is dead.

Nevertheless the semi-mystic ending of Brand is

a direct challenge to Ibsen, as though the dramatist
himself understood the utter futility of his cause.
Ibsen wants to lead his people farther and farther
ahead. But where to? He himself does not know.
And so Brand conducts his followers farther and
farther up into the mountains, the snows, the
glaciers. What for? No one knows. It is an idle
picture. An` ascent to barren heights, where no
one can live, and which accomplishes nothing. And
when Brand, on his incongruous path, is engulfed
by the avalanche, he cries out:

Shall they wholly mise thy Light

Who unto man's utmost might
Will'd---?

Then suddenly, as though passing judgment

upon Ibsen, God's voice is heard: "God is love."

It is as though Ibsen acknowledged that the road

which Brand traveled--a read of stupendous
demands upon himself and agonizing intolerance
of the people around him--was a false road; that in
reality the lofty pinnacle of truth to which he
summoned mankind is much kinder, much more
merciful, much closer to love--which Brand
scorned--than to conquest, which Brand over-
rated.

It is hard to tell whether Ibsen at that time had

already begun to doubt, in his subconscious, the
validity of his noble sermon. It is quite possible
that in his mind and heart he knew that the
weapon he had fashioned in his social arsenal was
inadequate and useless. At any rate Ibsen
continued to fight in its name for some time to
come.

Nevertheless Brand remains one of Ibsen's

positive types, while Peer Gynt, on the other hand,
is all negative.
 Peer Gynt is a complex play, overflowing with
fantasy, mysticism, symbolism, and allegory, but
as a whole its meaning is simple. It is a picture of a
man (a typical Norwegian no doubt) bewildered
and tossed by circumstances, whose convictions
vacillate accordingly. He manages to protect
himself, but only by becoming as pliable as wax; it
becomes evident then that he is like an onion
which can be peeled layer by layer and thus
destroyed except for the removed layers. This
demonstrates that despite the many aspects which
Peer Gynt can assume, he has no soul. He is like a
defective button come out of the mold. He is
unable to fulfill any function, he lacks that which
makes a human being's life justifiable; like the
defective button he must be-thrown back into the
mold and recast. If there is any salvation for him at
all, according to Ibsen, it can only lie in the fact
that Solveig loves him, and that in her imagination,
as the old-fashioned guardian of the home, he will
again find the germ of his lost identity.

Thus, on the one hand, Peer Gynt is a satire

against the capitalistic spirit which had invaded
Ibsen's small native country; on the other hand, it
is a poetic longing for a monumental, grandiose
assertion of the ego. It is also something of a hope
and a plan of salvation through certain inner
channels, through the enlightenment one seeks in
one's intimate feelings, at one's own fireside. All
this is undeniably permeated with pessimism,
defeatism and resignation.

In Emperor and Galilean--a play of the same

huge proportions and fantastic character as Peer
Gynt, a play with some utterly obscure passages--
Ibsen expresses despair of ever finding a way out.
 Julian is portrayed as a strong man. He carries
through Brand's plan. He maintains a firm stand
against the oncoming historic epoch, in favor of
what he deems to be a sounder system. But the
epoch throttles him. In this play, this idea occurs to
him frequently. Ibsen seeks to show the impotence
of a great personality.

The Pretenders: A great many talented men who

pretended to the crown have been rejected,
according to history. Their claims were based on
some original idea, first put forth by them. King
Haakon, however, really deserved the crown
because he had solved the problems of his time.

This thought was Hegel's.

Was Ibsen himself unable to solve the problems

of his time? What prevented him from finding a
wisdom so supreme that it could not fail to become
reality?

Ibsen could have achieved his end only by

alienating himself from his own class and joining
the ranks of the proletariat--but Ibsen was
incapable of taking such a step. That is why he
himself could be only a pretender to the crown, a
Julian opposing advancing capitalism, a brave
defender of a hopeless state, a figure in the path of
history.

The next phase of Ibsen's work is of great

interest because he then occupies first rank among
European dramatists. He shifts to an almost
realistic technique. He writes of his times, his
contemporaries, and the problems of the day. He
demonstrates his mastery along the lines of the
achievements of the French dramatists of the
period--Augier, Sardou, Scribe, etc. But even at
this stage of his creativeness--which can already be
characterized as the social-realistic stage--we find
certain traces of symbolism, a striving to add a
dual meaning and an exhaustive, profound
rationalization to the events and speeches in his
plays.

Generally speaking, all of the dramas of this

period evince a spirit of protest against capitalist
debauch, against greed and vanity. Upon
scrutinizing all these Bernicks, Bjorkmans and
Solnesses, one often comes to the conclusion that
Ibsen, as a strong bourgeois, was dutybound to
defend the independence and integrity that had
been Brand's; yet he failed to realize that he
possessed the ethical power to condemn their
ruling passion: the lust for wealth and power. They
all emerge guilty, not because of their utter lack of
principle, but rather because they are not
unprincipled enough. They crush those who
happen to cross them--their own people as well as
strangers--crush them individually or collectively;
yet this in itself does not seem to persuade Ibsen to
condemn them. However, they themselves cannot
bear their guilt proudly, or deny it on the ground
that they have the right to do anything and
everything. They seem to be victims of some sort of
inner weakness, a self-abasement which eventually
disrupts their entire future.

Nevertheless it would be arbitrary on this score

to rank Ibsen as an ideologist of the upper middle
class. And it would be equally incorrect to identify
Brand's desire for integrity with Nietzsche's will to
power.

Nietzsche, perhaps, might have accused

capitalist heroes of still retaining some vestiges of
conscience. But not Ibsen.
 Ibsen holds that where purely human feelings
and relationships are concerned, inhumanity is
beyond the power of any man, except perhaps
some sort of moral monster who does not at all
appeal to him. In his "epilogue," When We Dead
Awaken, Ibsen--symbolically, of course--excludes
even art as an excuse. To sacrifice a woman, a
living being, in order to use her as a model, an
object by which to achieve fame, is an unforgivable
crime.

Ibsen was unable to say what man's goal should

be; yet, while demanding heroism, he denounces
capitalism and wealth, the sordid and cynical form
which heroism took at that time.

Another play of Ibsen's must be mentioned, a

play which likewise betrays his inner vacillations
even on matters which he held sacred.

To demand truth in all human relationships, to

fight arrogance, to tear off all masks--are not these
the aims of those members of the middle class who
despise all the complications of commercial life, all
the hypocrisy of capitalist civilization?

Ibsen's play The Wild Duck seems designed to

illustrate these principles.

The Ekdal family lives in an atmosphere of

disgusting hypocrisy. Gregers, a Brand-like type,
seeks truth above all else. Lies, duplicity, must be
banished. In Gregers' opinion life will be easier for
everybody once the fog of deceitfulness is lifted.
But the play is written so that Gregers emerges not
as a crusader for truth but as its Don Quixote. His
dedication to the cause of truth only brings him
more unnecessary suffering. He becomes
ridiculous in his fanaticism. The conclusion which
the audience draws is, one must be compassionate;
deceit is sometimes a saving grace.

Does not this sound like compromise? Is not

Ibsen here himself a "wild duck," with broken
wings?

Ibsen deals himself an even greater blow,

perhaps, in Hedda Gabler. Realistically (as
Eleanore Duse conceived the part), the play is a
profound and brilliant study of a shallow,
hysterical woman striving for startling effects and
for chances to demonstrate her power-cowardly in
the face of scandal, devoid of any interest in the
constructive aspects of life, a possessive and almost
spineless being. However, the demands which
Hedda makes on the people around her are so
reminiscent of Brand's that many critics
considered that she was a much nobler character
that Thea [Mrs. Elvsted], that she was a positive
type personifying Ibsen's ideal woman. This
confusion of the critics was not accidental. Here
Ibsen seemed to direct his irony against himself.
Demoniacal courage, which might do in an
atmosphere culled from old Viking sagas, in our
times became hideously unconvincing. But which
is to be blamed: our drab and prosaic times, or
people like Hedda? Ibsen does not say.

Uncertainty also issues from his remarkable

play, An Enemy of the People. In substance this
play represents the struggle of the strong, honest
bourgeois against capitalism. Capitalism arrives
with a definite lie. A Municipal Bath is being built
which is not only unsanitary but actually harmful.
However, it brings in good profits. To expose the
facts about it would mean to throw many people
into destitution. But the truth must be told, and
therein lies the conflict. Ibsen, however, cannot see
any definite social forces which might support the
champion of truth.

What is the conclusion? Can Dr Stockmann

remain silent? No, he must speak. Can he hope for
victory thereby? No, it is impossible. There is only
the vague and slender hope that some time in the
distant future mankind will evolve; and in the
meantime one can work toward that time.

Then what is to be done? One must do one's duty

and stand alone.

Of course, Stockmann is not an enemy of the

people. The title is ironical. As a lover of truth he
tries to trample down a harmful lie. But the people
have no use for such love, the people are blind and
stupid, and that is why Stockmann is an enemy of
the people, an enemy of society; he is also an
enemy of the masses because he does not believe in
them, because he is ready to tell everyone: "Do not
put any faith in the masses, have faith only in
yourself."

But is this wise counsel? No, it is not; it is really a

product of despair--a despair born not so much of
the conditions prevalent in Europe at that time--
objective conditions, that is--as of Ibsen's deeply
rooted bourgeois individualism and the subjective
social conditions which governed him.

As time went on, Ibsen turned more and more

from plays of realistic technique to plays of an
entirely symbolic character, such as When We
Dead Awaken. In this play there is practically no
action except of a very hazy sort. The dialogue
consists entirely of references to a dim, gradually-
unfolding past. The movements of the characters
have no clear-cut meaning, except by inference.
Realism and symbolism were always at odds in
Ibsen, but symbolism finally emerged victorious.

This obscure technique can be laid to two causes,

one positive and the other negative.

The positive cause is that Ibsen is no hack writer,

nor a playwright of popular trends. He never
attempts to portray scenes of everyday life, nor to
expound some petty theory of his own through the
medium of the stage. He always has some lofty
idea which cannot be conveyed in a purely realistic
manner, nor without departing somewhat from
actuality in depicting characters or relating facts.
Neither occasional inaccuracies nor a certain
measure of fantasy, nor departures in the
interpretation of facts disturbs Ibsen, so long as his
original idea is realized in terms of artistic feeling;
for he never forgets that the dramatist must work
not with bare facts but with images.

But the negative angle is that Ibsen himself does

not really know where he is going and what he is
hinting at--a circumstance which detracts from the
clarity of his symbolism. His trouble lies not in the
fact that he seeks a working language with which to
express great thoughts and feelings, and is
therefore obliged to create new words not hitherto
available to him--but in the fact that he is not
certain of what he wants to say, and thus speaks
unintelligibly: let the public think there is
something important behind the cryptic language.
To ascend ever higher, to leave the plains for the
mountains, to be true to one's self, to be
passionately fond of the sea--what does it all
mean? Actually, nothing.

If we furthermore consider Ibsen's constant

tendency to descend from the heights to very low
depths; his sudden demand, "Just give us freedom,
we shall not abuse it"; his anemic pessimism; his
bleak mysticism--we shall be able to appreciate the
profound disappointment of the vital and active
public--the public represented by the creative
group--with Ibsen's dramas.

What enjoyment could anyone take in Nora, who

demands that her husband treat her more
seriously without ever for a moment stopping to
think that she is as much an individual as her
husband, and that it is up to her to find her place
in society? Or in Ellida, who is infatuated with a
stranger until she is free to follow him, and who
elects to remain with her husband the moment she
receives her freedom?

However, we must realize the importance of the

role which Ibsen played in his day. In the first
place, whenever the masses were stirred by a vague
feeling of protest, or a progressive striving for
freedom, or a movement of defense against the
oppression of capitalism--in other words,
whenever a need was felt for mildly progressive
action, Ibsen was accepted as the prophet of such
action. Even his uncertainty seemed constructive,
for it was common to many states and many
groups, and the indefiniteness of his program
made it into a sort of master-key. On the other
hand, during periods of disillusionment, when the
petty bourgeois of various types and walks in life,
defeated in their social existence, gave themselves
up to despair, they found, in such works of Ibsen as
corresponded to their mood, a certain poetic
vindication of themselves, a certain lofty--because
so vague--metamorphosis of their own impotence
into something fateful and thrilling.
 Ibsen is an example of a tremendous effort on
the part of certain more admirable members of the
petty bourgeoisie to create an independent place
for themselves in the face of advancing capitalism;
and he is a splendid illustration of the utter
impossibility that middle class writers--no matter
how talented--will ever achieve this aim.