Honour (German : Die Ehre) is an 1889 play by the German writer Hermann Sudermann. It tells the story of the conflicts and love affairs between two families, one wealthy and one poor. When the wealthy father has an affair with a daughter in the poor family, her brother challenges the rich man to a duel, only to be laughed off.
The play was Sudermann's debut as a dramatist. It became an immediate success, launching Sudermann into literary stardom in Germany, and was widely performed during the Wilhelmine period. [1] Later, after naturalist literature and the influence of Henrik Ibsen had become more commonplace, the play lost much of its initial status. [2]
The American literary critic James Huneker wrote in his 1905 book Iconoclasts:
Yet it is easy to admire Honour. It contains, notably in the two acts of the "hinter haus," real strokes of observation and profound knowledge of human nature. ... The motive of Honour is not alone the ironic contrast of real and conventional ideals of honour—it shoots a bolt toward Nietzsche's land where good and evil blend in one hazy due. Sudermann, here and in nearly all his later pieces, challenges the moral law—Ibsen's loftiest heron feather—and if any appreciable theory of conduct is to be deduced from his works, it is that the moral law must submit to the variations of time and place, even though its infraction spells sin, even though the individual in his thirst for self-seeking smashes the slate of morality and perishes in the attempt. [2]
The play was adapted for film twice in Germany. Urban Gad's Frontstairs and Backstairs , starring Asta Nielsen, premiered in 1914. An adaptation directed by Richard Oswald was released in 1925. [3]
A Doll's House is a three-act play written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It premiered at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 21 December 1879, having been published earlier that month. The play is set in a Norwegian town circa 1879.
Henrik Johan Ibsen was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playwrights of his time. His major works include Brand, Peer Gynt, An Enemy of the People, Emperor and Galilean, A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, When We Dead Awaken, Rosmersholm, and The Master Builder. Ibsen is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare, and A Doll's House was the world's most performed play in 2006.
Hermann Sudermann was a German dramatist and novelist.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1889.
Christian Fürchtegott Gellert was a German poet, one of the forerunners of the golden age of German literature that was ushered in by Lessing.
The Wild Duck is an 1884 play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It is considered the first modern masterpiece in the genre of tragicomedy. The Wild Duck and Rosmersholm are "often to be observed in the critics' estimates vying with each other as rivals for the top place among Ibsen's works".
Sigurd Ibsen was a Norwegian writer, lawyer and statesman, who served as the prime minister of Norway in Stockholm (1903–1905) and played a central role in the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905.
The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, or: how violence develops and where it can lead is a 1974 novel by Heinrich Böll.
Vera Fyodorovna Komissarzhevskaya was one of the most celebrated actresses and theatre managers of the late Russian Empire. She made her professional debut in 1893, after having acted as an amateur at Constantin Stanislavsky's Society of Art and Literature. She is probably best known today for originating the role of Nina in the ill-fated premiere of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, at the Alexandrinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg in 1896. Though the production was deemed an utter failure, Komissarzhevskaya's performance was highly praised.
James Brander Matthews was an American academic, writer and literary critic. He was the first full-time professor of dramatic literature at Columbia University in New York and played a significant role in establishing theater as a subject worthy of formal study by academics. His interests ranged from Shakespeare, Molière, and Ibsen to French boulevard comedies, folk theater, and the new realism of his own time.
James Gibbons Huneker was an American art, book, music, and theater critic. A colorful individual and an ambitious writer, he was "an American with a great mission," in the words of his friend, the critic Benjamin De Casseres, and that mission was to educate Americans about the best cultural achievements, native and European, of his time. From 1892 to 1899, he was the husband of the sculptor Clio Hinton.
Rosmersholm is a play written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen in Danish—the common written language of Denmark and Norway at the time—and originally published in 1886 in Copenhagen by the Danish publisher Gyldendal. Rosmersholm has been described as one of Ibsen's darkest, most complex, subtle, beautiful, mystical, multilayered and ambiguous plays. The play explores the tension between old and new, and between liberation and servitude. Rosmersholm and The Wild Duck are "often to be observed in the critics' estimates vying with each other as rivals for the top place among Ibsen's works."
Max Bernstein was a German art and theatre critic and author. He was the husband of Elsa Bernstein.
Siegfried Jacobsohn was a German writer and influential theatre critic.
Heinrich Bulthaupt was a German poet, dramatic author, and lawyer, as well as librarian of his native town, Bremen. Many of Bulthaupt's works found considerable widespread popularity in the lyrical and dramatic genres.
Maria Filotti was a Romanian actress. She was described as one of the "prestigious actors of the great realistic school" and the "directress" of a theater "that made an important contribution to transmitting the experience from one generation to the next."
Heimat (Home) is an 1893 play by the German dramatist Hermann Sudermann. The play, either in the original German or in translations, was commonly also known as Magda, the name of the heroine. It was thought by some to be the most widely known and the most successful drama of the end of the 19th century.
Knud Plesner Ibsen was a Norwegian merchant from the city of Skien and the father of the playwright Henrik Ibsen. He is widely considered the model for many central characters in his son's plays, including Jon Gynt in Peer Gynt and Old Ekdahl in The Wild Duck.
The Excursion to Tilsit is a 1917 collection of short stories or novellas by the German writer Hermann Sudermann. Its German title is Litauische Geschichten, which means "Lithuanian stories". The book consists of four stories set in rural Lithuania in the mid 19th century. It was published in English in 1930, translated by Lewis Galantière.
Fyodor Alexandrovich Kumanin was a publisher, theatre critic and translator from the Russian Empire.