Staging Death 
Martin Puchner
- Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism: Art, Theatre, Philosophy by Toril Moi Buy this book
Henrik Ibsen died in 1906, acknowledged as the founder of modern drama. Today, he is the most performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare. It was an unlikely success story. Born in 1828 in an isolated town in Norway, when the country was still dependent on its long-time coloniser Denmark, Ibsen grew up speaking a language known by few and lacking any great dramatic tradition. In order to write himself out of this obscurity, he had to become European, and modern.
Subscribers to the print edition can log in to view the entire article. For information about subscribing to the London Review of Books click here. This article is available for purchase online. Buy this article.
From the LRB letters page: [ 8 March 2007 ] Tim Allen.
Martin Puchner teaches in the department of English and comparative literature at Columbia. His most recent book is Poetry of the Revolution: Marx, Manifestos, and the Avant-Gardes.
print layout
tell a friend