Henrik Ibsen advices to a young writer.

Laura Petersen (Later Laura Kieler)

 
In 1870 he was not at the peak of his career but he was already famous and a controversial writer, a good poet and was on his way to becoming an European personality; around his 40s Henrik Ibsen could receive letters with texts of new born writers, especially women writers.
Laura Petersen, a Norwegian young writer, published a kind of sequel to Ibsen’s poetic play Brand entitled Brand’s Daughters. Michael Meyer, Ibsen’s biographer, depicts this text as “an imaginary sequel (...) an emotional contribution to the debate on women’s rights”. Today we recognize Ibsen as a 19th century champion for women rights (thanks to some of his plays of maturity), but in that time, around 1870, that wasn't a very easy subject for him.  In fact, he wasn't a very open minded man about that: when he was younger and living in Italy he asked for the expulsion of some members of the Scandinavian Club in Rome who let their wives enter to the club (reserved only for men) without being noticed; and years later he used to have some lively debates with Camilla Collet, a Norwegian novelist recognized by her fighting for women rights; Collet, following Meyer’s text “... was scandalized by what she regarded as an old fashioned man about ideas on women’s place in society”.

So, when Laura Petersen sent to him her Brand’s Daughters asking for advice, one could only expect the letter would be ignored or at least rejected in a polite way.  But no, something happened to Ibsen when young women writers approached to him asking for advice.  Suddenly, the gentleman surged from him,  and a patient and kind wise man always replied. Thanks to that attitude towards young women artists we can now read a document with some advices, coming from his own hand, directed to a young writer.
Letter to Laura Petersen (June 11, 1870):
"Are you thinking of continuing to write? (…) Much more is needed than mere talent. One must have something to create from, some genuine experience. If one lacks that, one doesn't write in the true sense, one just makes books (…) Intellectually, man is a long-sighted animal; we see most clearly from a distance; details distract; one must remove oneself from what one wishes to judge; one describes the summer best on a winter's day (…) The main thing is to be true and faithful to oneself. It is not question of willing to go in this direction or that, but of willing what one absolutely must, because one is oneself and cannot be otherwise. The rest is only lies." (*) 

Laura Petersen never went out from Ibsen's life, both were linked for ever; she married later and her name changed to Laura Kieler, and a terrible real anecdote with her husband was Ibsen's inspiration for A Doll's House; Nora Hellmer was modeled on this young lady who was thinking on women rights since her adolescence.

Ibsen, with the honesty and wisdom his letter shows, was not only a good mentor to Laura Petersen but a prophet of his own future way to work.


 





 

(*) Henrik Ibsen Biography. By Michael Meyer. Page 320.

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"Buy a dog, my lord"

Just a simple Ibsen's dialogue quotation from The Pretenders (circa 1863) which show, in my point of view, that ironic Ibsen of his later years. Even without thinking about the great author who wrote it, this is a charming point:

"Skule- (…) I must have someone by me who will obey me instinctively, believe in me unflinchingly, stand close by me through good days and evil, live only to give light and warmth to my life--someone who, when I fall, must die! What shall I do, Jatgeir?

Jatgeir- Buy a dog, my lord."*

* The Pretenders by Ibsen. From Michael Meyer's Ibsen's Biography. Double Day, 1967. Page 210.

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson critic of the young Henrik Ibsen

The young Henrik Ibsen (1861)

The young Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1860)

 The young Ibsen was insecure, choleric and with a remarkable physical ugliness (at least in the point of view of many of his contemporaries), his personality was worthless for many, as Olev Arvesen writes about him when used to see him "entering L'Orsa's café punctually at two o'clock each afternoon to drink coffee and read the foreign newspapers", around 1858:

"That this man with the threadbare coat, old, soft mormon hat and profoundly unassuming mien would become one of Norway's and Scandinavia's greatest men was an unimaginable thought." (Michael Meyer, Ibsen's Biography)

But at the same time Ibsen owned a great talent for poetry, liked (and could) to write theatre and had the dream-ambition of being the greatest writer of Norway.

But around 1859, at 31, and in the beginning of his life as a playwright, theatre director and poet, he has not succeeded at all. That was the moment of Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, who was the head of Norwegian young writers, tall, handsome and economically successful artist; it was him who Ibsen wanted to dethrone. The first fights (Ibsen’s attacks to Bjørnson) were charged of misunderstandings, jealousy and suppositions that only were in detriment of Ibsen himself. Yes, the greatest realist writer didn’t have yet that superb personality and speech what would characterize his last years of fame, a man full of cold wisdom.

After a small scandal with Ibsen’s piece The Viking of Helgeland, Bjørnson wrote a letter to Clemens Petersen elaborating a big description of the ambiance around Ibsen and a strong critic to him. It is curious for us today the remarkable tone of power as a writer and artist Bjørnson shows in that letter, more if we think of Bjørnson’s comments at the end of his life, all totally charged with bitterness and envy for Ibsen.

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson letter to Clemens Petersen. Bergen, 5 March, 1859:

"The play (The Vikings at Helgeland) hasn't succeeded, though it may seem from a distance to have (…) Ibsen has a little clique of admirers headed by Nyhedsbladet. But every time he has to face the general public everything goes wrong and I've had to go to his aid twice, because Ibsen despite his aberrations is a poet. And I hope some day to get him to be himself and turn away from all this damned pastiche. The day Ibsen admits he is small he'll become a perfectly enchanting poet. I've told him as much pretty plainly, but the result is, he's jealous. He's done all sort of little things to annoy me, and does still. He's angry that I haven't put The Vikings at Helgeland into my repertory. (…) I haven't read his poem 'Gull Cry'; I've heard it's rather affected stuff, and was written largely because Danish monthly said he was lesser writer than me. Now that's exactly the kind of thing that always distracts Ibsen from what he ought to be and do. The point is, he's rather small and gnomish little chap, with no chest or rump, so he feels that as he has no other gifts he has to strain most frightfully when he writes. And so he doesn't write what he'd really like to, and could." (*)


These are very harsh words, but most of them could be the truth, that was the young insecure and sometimes stupid Ibsen; but what a terrible game for Bjørnson because they now only talk to us ironically about his fall and his wrong appreciation of an ambitious man, who “despites his aberration” could become not only the greatest poet and playwright of Norway but one of the greatest of the history of the world.

 

* Ibsen Biography. By Michael Meyer. Double Day, 1967. Page 161.

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

Henrik Ibsen on the cover of "L'Illustration" (March 19th 1889)

Henrik Ibsen was a famous author, less than Victor Hugo (who moved masses), but more famous, at his time (19th Century), than many playwrights we revere today. There’s no question about his presence in many social and editorial European circles, and about his position as a living national poet of Norway. Ibsen was a pretext for writing articles, reviews, critics, books (Bernard Shaw dedicated one to him, for example), and his own intellectual figure was fashionably appearing on the cover of many magazines as today we would see on “Times” or “Newsweek”.

One of those covers was the number for Saturday, March 19th 1898 of ‘L’Illustration’, which was dedicated to Ibsen, who was going to celebrate his 70th birthday. The magazine also published two articles about his work (1).

Henrik Ibsen (L'Illustration March 19th, 1898)

I found this ‘curiosity’ at the Lagunilla Market (a flea market) in Mexico City around 20 years ago, at the exact moment I was at the climax of learning Antonio González Cabllero’s Acting Method (2). I was 17 years old, couldn’t even read in French yet, but I was amazed by it, by the idea of owning a magazine with Ibsen on the cover, more than by knowing that it was from the same time he was alive: the magazine was went on print on March 19th and Ibsen’s birthday was on the 20th!

The articles inside are simple, without much interest, as if they hadn’t found anything really new to say about Ibsen. The author of the article (it is impossible to know his name, he only signed as ‘P.Q.’) listed the whole work of Ibsen till that moment: the last play on the list is John Gabriel Borkman, dated 1898. There is some data I could call interesting information: Ibsen is named as an author of the highest European avant-guard, and Paris, which was the city of the avant-guard par excellence, received Ibsen’s plays from the hands of ‘Théâtre Libre’ and Antoine; the article says the production for Ibsen’s plays was low budget and lots of creativity.

About the celebration of his 70th birthday, Norway and Sweden joined together to honour the playwright with ceremonies, official banquets, popular celebrations and, of course, performances of his plays. Ibsen was an important figure not only for Scandinavian countries but for all of Europe.

The engraving (a photograph of it)you are seeing in this Blog on the cover of the magazine shows an image of Ibsen with great personality: a big old man with an air of wisdom; a strong face, a firm but good-natured body. My master Antonio González Caballero used to draw parallelisms between the personality and work of the four artists who ‘propose’ the way of acting in the Theatre of Modernism (3). So, about Ibsen, he always remembered his enjoyment of the social world, his appearance, and this photograph is an example of those comments by González Caballero(4).

We should do an exercise in comparing any picture of any author with his personality and his work. I’ve already done that with many of my favorite authors and it is a surprising game, even clarifying.


Here is one photograph circulating on the Net. You will notice it was the same photographic session that we saw on the cover of L’Illustration, Ibsen is wearing the same clothes and he’s seating at the same desk, but in a different pose:

Henrik Ibsen at the same photo session as that for L'Illustration magazine (1898). It is the same coat and the same desk.

(1) About this number of L’Illustration, an antiquities site in French says:
“ L'ILLUSTRATION. N°2873 Henrik Ibsen, gravure par Thiriat. Journal Universel. 19 mars 1898. (…) Intérieur frais. 16 pages environ illustrées de nombreuses gravures noir et blanc, premier plat de couverture illustré d'une gravure. La corporation des bouchers de Limoges par De Noussanne avec gravures dans le texte (rue de la Boucherie, syndic tenant la bannière, intérieur de triperie, église des Bouchers, croix de Saint AUrélien). Un devancier de Gutenberg par M. Normand avec gravure dans le texte (fac-similé de la dernière page du Doctrinal de Gerson imprimé par Jean Brito. L'hôtel des ventes, suite par Montheuil avec gravures dans le texte et gravure pleine page d'une vente de lingerie fine. Gravure pleine page en couleurs d'Une jeune fille d'orient par P. barthot. De Courbevoie à Banghi avec la mission Marchand,suite avec gravures dans le texte dont l'adjudant Laurent dans la pirogue, photo de l'exécution de Mounounaméka...). Publicité pour l'Art Nouveau avec 4 photos de mobilier et une lampe (buffet de salle à manger, glace avec encadrement, table toilette avec carreaux artistiques..). ”
(2) Ibsen, Pirandello, Chekhov and Strindberg, are what González Caballero named "los cuatro autores propositores de las corrientes actuacionales en el teatro moderno" (the four authors who propose the acting way for Modern Theatre); so, the study of their work, their personality and their propositions (“proposiciones”) enveloped our life as acting students.
(3) I’m currently writing a Blog about Antonio González Caballero’s Acting Method: agcmetodo.blogspot.com
(4) Chekhov was different, living outside the social life and only wanting to spend his time at his house in Crimea, while Ibsen’s life had continuos movement; it is known that the Norwegian author spent a big part of his daily life reading newspapers behind the windows of famous cafés where everybody could see him.