The influence of Henrik Ibsen on modern dramatists.
Modern drama is divisible into three distinct classes, namely: the romantic, the realistic, and the symbolic plays. These types, however, shade sometimes one into the other so that one cannot distinguish the specific characteristics of each separate form. Many modern writers, in fact, in all countries, often combine the three. During the early part of the nineteenth century, the drama, as a form of literature designed for presentation on the stage, had almost ceased to exist; but, from 1860 up until the present day, a new form of the play has been developing under the influence of its originator, Henrik Ibsen. For the past half century he has been one of the great literary and intellectual forces of all Europe. Ibsen was not afraid to discuss a problem in dramatic form, and his plays thus became something beyond an entertainment for an idle hour. The one form of the drama in which the author is particularly interested and of which Ibsen was the founder is the new realistic, or problem play. In these dramas, the playwrights strive – not to please or amuse, but to give the reading and theatre-going public a picture of life as it really is – either in all its loveliness, or its drab sordidness, as the case may be. Actuality reigns. There can be no artificial plan of arrangement into introduction, rising and falling action, and solution of difficulties, but the course of life is followed just as it is lived. The main interest of the play is in the conversation, which develops plot, rather than in physical action. The characters are few and the situations simple. It is in the realistic plays that we find the truly modern tragedy. The tragic character of these dramas is not the kind, who, as in Shakespeare's plays, defies some moral law and then suffers his just punishment, but one who has to suffer and succumb to certain complex situations in his life over which he has no power or control. Plays which deal with such situations do not attempt a solution at all, but end abruptly and, usually, unhappily, leaving the problem to be solved, or at least to be pondered over by each individual for himself. It is the purpose of the following discussion to compare the dramatists of modern England, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy and Spain to the Norwegian founder of the new drama of ideas, and to show wherein he has influenced their works, either in technique or in content. The discussion is arranged in chapters, devoting a chapter to the dramatists of each country, the first chapter alone dealing with Ibsen's life and works as a background for the comparison which follows.
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