1850 As The First Of Ibsen's Plays example essay topic

Henrik Ibsen was born in the Stockman Building in Skin, Norway. He spent part of his childhood on Vent&o slash; p Farm after his father went bankrupt. In 1843, he was apprenticed to a chemist in Grim stad. That was when he began writing satire and elegant poems in the style of the time.

He wrote his first play in 1849, a five-act tragedy in verse, Catiline, which was published in 1850 under the pseudonym Brynjolf Bjarne. The Warrior's Barrow was written and performed in 1850, as the first of Ibsen's plays to reach the stage. However, it was not published until much later. Ibsen lived in Christiania (now Oslo) from 1850 to 1851 to complete his upper secondary education. From 1851 to 1857, Ibsen was playwright in residence and director of the theatre in Bergen. While there, he wrote St. John's Night (written in 1852), Lady Inger of Oster aad (written in 1854, published in 1857), The Feast at Sol haug (written in 1855, published in 1856), and Olaf Liljekrans (written in 1856).

All these plays were inspired by folk songs, folklore or history, all of which are leitmotifs that run through Ibsen's works. Ibsen became creative director of The Norwegian Theater in Christiania in 1858. The next year, he wrote the historical play The Vikings at Helge land. The Pretenders was written in 1863. Beside Bjornstjerne Bjornson's Sigurd Sle mbe, The Pretenders is considered the main work of historical fiction produced during this era.

Henrik Ibsen married Suzanna h Thoresen (1836-1914) in 1858. Soon after, he wrote the poem 'On the Heights' (1859) and the play Love's Comedy (1863). The years in Christiania were difficult for Ibsen. He was given a means of escape when a group of his friends, headed by Bjornstjerne Bjornson, collected enough money for him to move to Italy in 1864. Shortly after moving, Ibsen began a major drama about Julian, but he did not complete the work until 1873, when it was published as Emperor and Galilean. The Epic Brand, a major epic-lyric poem, led to the lyric drama Brand (1866), Ibsen's first real success as a writer.

His next major work followed close on the heels of this success when he penned Peer Gyn t in 1867. Ibsen moved to Dresden in 1868, then to Munich in 1875. In 1869, he wrote the comedy The League of Youth. The realistic style used to stage the drama Pillars of Society (1877) focused on various problems of the day. However, A Doll's House, published in 1879, marked the first major breakthrough for realistic drama. Ibsen's next two realistic contemporary dramas, Ghosts (1881) and An Enemy of the People (1882) were both successes.

Ibsen gained international acclaim as a writer, and was translated and performed in a number of European countries. Ibsen's next plays are often called symbolic dramas since their plots do not revolve around everyday realism or polemics, but rather converge on more psychological, existential problems which are expressed through symbols. The first of these dramas was The Wild Duck (1884), followed by Rosmersholm (1886) and The Lady from the Sea (1888). Hedda Gabler (1890) was the last work Ibsen wrote while still in exile.

In July 1891, Ibsen decided to move back to Norway and settle in Christiania. The artist's creative ambitions, introspection and defeats came to the fore during the last phase of his career when he wrote The Master Builder (1892), Little Ey olf (1894), John Gabriel Bork man (1896) and the dramatic epilogue When We Dead Awaken (1899). His Poems, collected and published in 1871, show that he was also a master of lyric poetry. Henrik Ibsen died on 23 May 1906 in Christiania after suffering from a debilitating illness that prevented him from writing during the last years of his life.