Ghosts

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Ghosts

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Title: Ghosts
Author: Henrik Ibsen

Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8121] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on June 16, 2003]
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Language: English
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Produced by Nicole Apostola

GHOSTS by Henrik Ibsen
Translated, with an Introduction, by William Archer
INTRODUCTION.
The winter of 1879-80 Ibsen spent in Munich, and the greater part of
the summer of 1880 at Berchtesgaden. November 1880 saw him back
in Rome, and he passed the summer of 1881 at Sorrento. There,
fourteen years earlier, he had written the last acts of _Peer Gynt_; there
he now wrote, or at any rate completed, Gengangere. It was published
in December 1881, after he had returned to Rome. On December 22 he
wrote to Ludwig Passarge, one of his German translators, "My new
play has now appeared, and has occasioned a terrible uproar in the
Scandinavian press; every day I receive letters and newspaper articles
decrying or praising it. ... I consider it utterly impossible that any
German theatre will accept the play at present. I hardly believe that
they will dare to play it in the Scandinavian countries for some time to
come." How rightly he judged we shall see anon.
In the newspapers there was far more obloquy than praise. Two men,
however, stood by him from the first: Björnson, from whom he had

been practically estranged ever since The League of Youth, and Georg
Brandes. The latter published an article in which he declared (I quote
from memory) that the play might or might not be Ibsen's greatest work,
but that it was certainly his noblest deed. It was, doubtless, in
acknowledgment of this article that Ibsen wrote to Brandes on January
3, 1882: "Yesterday I had the great pleasure of receiving your
brilliantly clear and so warmly appreciative review of Ghosts. ... All
who read your article must, it seems to me, have their eyes opened to
what I meant by my new book--assuming, that is, that they have any
wish to see. For I cannot get rid of the impression that a very large
number of the false interpretations which have appeared in the
newspapers are the work of people who know better. In Norway,
however, I am willing to believe that the stultification has in most cases
been unintentional; and the reason is not far to seek. In that country a
great many of the critics are theologians, more or less disguised; and
these gentlemen are, as a rule, quite unable to write rationally about
creative literature. That enfeeblement of judgment which, at least in the
case of the average man, is an inevitable consequence of prolonged
occupation with theological studies, betrays itself more especially in
the judging of human character, human actions, and human motives.
Practical business judgment, on the other hand, does not suffer so much
from studies of this order. Therefore the reverend gentlemen are very
often excellent members of local boards; but they are unquestionably
our worst critics." This passage is interesting as showing clearly the
point of view from which Ibsen conceived the character of Manders. In
the next paragraph of the same letter he discusses the attitude of "the
so-called Liberal press"; but as the paragraph contains the germ of An
Enemy of the People, it may most fittingly be quoted in the introduction
to that play.
Three days later (January 6) Ibsen wrote to Schandorph, the Danish
novelist: "I was quite prepared for the hubbub. If certain of our
Scandinavian reviewers have no talent for anything else, they have an
unquestionable talent for thoroughly misunderstanding and
misinterpreting those authors whose books they undertake to judge. ...
They endeavour