Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (713 page)
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Authors: Henrik Ibsen
SPEECH AT THE BANQUET IN STOCKHOLM, APRIL 13th, 189
8
IT seems to me like a dream, this my visit here in Stockholm; and indeed it is a dream. The first figure that met me in the dream was His Majesty the King. (Oscar II (1829-1907), King of Norway and Sweden, 1872-1905, King of Sweden, 1905-1907.)
He bestowed upon me the greatest demonstration of honour that could have been accorded me. I was surprised. I who came to express my gratitude received still more to be grateful for. And now I am invited to this splendid and brilliant gathering here, so representative in every way. When His Majesty the King met me with such a demonstration of honour, it all appeared to me like an ingenious royal eccentricity. And something similar I feel also in this place. I do not see in this homage which is here paid me a mere personal homage. I see in it an approval of literature as a cultural power, expressed by the Swedish people. And what effect this must have on me I am sure you can imagine. My life has passed like a long, long, quiet week, and as I stand here in the real passion week, my life is transformed into a fairy play. I, the old dramatist, see my life remolded into a poem, a fairy poem. It has been transformed into a summer night’s dream. My thanks for the transformation.
SPEECH AT THE FESTIVAL OF THE NORWEGIAN WOMEN’S RIGHTS LEAGUE, CHRISTIANIA, MAY 26th, 189
8
I AM not a member of the Women’s Rights League. Whatever I have written has been without any conscious thought of making propaganda. I have been more poet and less social philosopher than people generally seem inclined to believe. I thank you for the toast, but must disclaim the honour of having consciously worked for the women’s rights movement. I am not even quite clear as to just what this women’s rights movement really is. To me it has seemed a problem of humanity in general. And if you read my books carefully you will understand this. True enough, it is desirable to solve the problem of women’s rights, along with all the others; but that has not been the whole purpose. My task has been the
description of humanity.
To be sure, whenever such a description is felt to be reasonably true, the reader will insert his own feelings and sentiments into the work of the poet. These are attributed to the poet; but incorrectly so. Every reader remolds it so beautifully and nicely, each according to his own personality. Not only those who write, but also those who read are poets; they are collaborators; they are often more poetical than the poet himself.
With these reservations I undertake to thank you for the toast which has been given to me. For this I recognize, indeed, that women have an important task to perform in the particular directions this club is working along. I will express my thanks by proposing a toast to the Women’s Rights League, wishing’ it progress and success.
The task always before my mind has been to advance our country and give the people a higher standard. To obtain this, two factors are of importance: it is for the
mothers
by strenuous and sustained labor to awaken a conscious feeling of
culture
and
discipline.
This must be created in men before it will be possible to lift the people to a higher plane. It is the women who are to solve the social problem. As mothers they are to do it. And only as such can they do it. Here lies a great task for woman. My thanks! and success to the Women’s Rights League!
Letters I-X were first published in the Norwegian magazine ‘
Samtiden’,
February, 1908.
(Clemens Petersen was a leading literary critic of the day. From 1857 to 1868 he contributed to
Fædrelandet.
He had considerable influence, and his views were a strong determining factor in public opinion. He reviewed rather favorably some of Ibsen’s earlier works, among them “Love’s Comedy,” referred to in the letter, which was reviewed at some length in
Fædrelandet,
July 18, 1863.)
CHRISTIANIA, August 10th, 1863
Mr. Clemens Petersen:
I CAN never get on with letter writing, mostly because apprehend that my authorship in this line may, with good reason, be characterized in the same fashion as you — rather harshly, it would seem to me — characterize my prose in general; nevertheless I must write you a few lines to thank you, sincerely and cordially, for your review of my book. I thank you both for that in which I agree with you (which is not exclusively those parts of your criticism complimentary to me) and for that about which, when I am sometime fortunate enough to meet you personally, I shall at least try to argue with you. Especially do I thank you because I see that you have not so much against me, after all, as until now I had instinctively imagined; this has to me an importance it would be difficult to convince you of, who do not know to how terrible a degree I feel intellectually alone up here. My “friends’” view of me does not, by the way, do me any harm; for I see, with regard to myself, in all points clearer than all my friends — and this certainly not to my advantage. I am now working on a historical play in five acts, (The Pretenders) but in prose, I
cannot
write it in verse. You do me some little injustice when you hint that I have tried to imitate Bjornson’s manner; “Lady Inger of Ostraat” and “The Warriors at Helgeland” were written before Bjornson had yet written a line. (N.B. it is possible that “Between the Battles” existed at the time when I wrote “The Warriors,” but it did not and could not come under my eye.) As to “Love’s Comedy” I can assure you that if ever it was necessary for an author to rid himself of a sentiment and a subject it was so with me when I began that work. I shall follow your kind advice to send “Lady Inger” to the Royal Theatre; I only wish that I might handle the matter in the right way and that it might succeed. I have felt a strong desire to send you these few grateful lines, for I have a deep, personal feeling that you have done me a good service by not putting my book aside in silence.
Yours obligedly,
HENRIK IBSEN
ROME, December 4th, 1865
Mr. Clemens Petersen:
NEXT Christmas there will appear a dramatic poem (Brand) by me which I most urgently ask you to interest yourself in as far as your conscience in any way will permit. The meanness and hopelessness in my home country have compelled me to look into myself and into the condition of affairs; out of this the sentiment and the content of the poem have developed. You once wrote of me that the versified form with the symbolic meaning behind it was my most natural mode of expression. I have often thought about it. I believe the same myself, and in concurrence therewith the poem has shaped itself. But I have not been able to avoid striking with hard hands. I ask you, if you can, not to examine this feature under any magnifying glass. Your review will be a decisive factor in my countrymen’s reception of the poem and of those truths which I have not been able to withhold; but of course I should like as long as possible to avoid any martyrdom.
The journalistic scribblers that are criticising in Norway will not understand it. I therefore urgently ask that as soon and as strongly as possible you will support me in all those points where you find that the matter or I myself deserve it. Should you have anything to communicate to me that does not find a place in your public review — which I await with assurance and eagerness — I would thank you most heartily for a few lines; I have an insufferably oppressive feeling of standing alone.
Yours truly, HENRIK IBSEN
ROME, March 9th, 1867
Mr. Cand. Mag. Clemens Petersen:
ALTHOUGH I have confined myself — for nearly a year now — to expressing to you by means of a third person my thankfulness for your review of “Brand” and the advantages thereby secured to me, it is certainly not from a lack of appreciation of your services; but you once took occasion to write a word about undue intimacy after short and hasty acquaintance, and that word has made me somewhat shy. I feel very sure, however, that there has been no such “affectation” in my appeals to you; yet the characteristic, such as you interpret it, is at any rate so truly Norwegian that I can easily see that it was a Norwegian who gave you opportunity for the observation and the remark.
In spite of this I still venture to send you my thanks for the review — both for the written criticism and for the one which lies in what is not expressed. The first has been a great personal joy to me and to my advantage with the public, the latter has surely not been any joy to me, but has, thereby, been all the more helpful as against a self-analysis that may not be shirked with impunity.
But I have more to thank you for than the review of “Brand” and my other works. I want to thank you for every word you have written besides, and I hope that in my new work (Peer Gynt) you will acknowledge that I have taken an essential step forward.
I have been told that you once said that you did not believe it would be of any use to review my works, as I would probably not follow suggestions for improvement. I would certainly not be able to follow directions upon the strength of mere authority, for thus I would become untrue in my own sight, and such a blind following of your suggestions would, I am quite sure, afford you no satisfaction either. But this step forward that I have mentioned consists in just this fact, that hereafter there can be no question of “want to be,” but of “must be”; and across that yawning gulf you have helped me, and therefore it is that I now thank you and always shall thank you.
Hoping that in these lines you will not see anything more or less than our certainly remote acquaintance grants me the privilege of writing, I am,
Your ever thankful
HENRIK IBSEN
(P. F. Siebold was a commercial traveller who had become acquainted with northern literature on his travels in the North.)
DRESDEN, February 10th, 1869
Mr. P. F. Siebold:
I MOST urgently ask you to forgive me for waiting until now to answer your kind note of the sixth of last month. A new literary work which at present demands all my time and all my thought must bear the blame for this long delay.
I am extremely grateful to you that you have chosen to translate “Brand” into German. The undertaking is certainly very difficult; but in your beautiful language it is possible to work miracles.
Do you not think it would be of advantage to add to the German edition a preface containing a short account of the reception the book has had in the three Scandinavian countries? In the course of three years five large editions have appeared. Councillor Hegel will be glad to give you any other needed information.
If you had not already chosen your publisher, I should have advised you to apply to the proprietor of the Scandinavian bookstore in Leipsic, Mr.
Helms, who has already published many translations from the Danish and Norwegian, and who, besides, is highly esteemed here.
We shall hardly meet at Christiania next summer. I do not intend to return so soon to the home where I find it too cold — in every sense of that word. I do not give up the hope, however, of sometime having the pleasure of personally making your acquaintance. Please give my regards to our mutual Scandinavian friends; and wishing and hoping that you may soon and successfully overcome all the difficulties connected with the editing, I am,
Yours respectfully and obligedly,
HENRIK IBSEN