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, as well of one of the most influential playwrights in Western literature more generally. His major works include Brand, Peer Gynt, Emperor and Galilean, A Doll's House, Ghosts, An Enemy of the People, The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm, Hedda Gabler, The Master Builder, and When We Dead Awaken. 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.
The University of Oslo is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the oldest university in Norway and consistently considered the country's leading university and one of the highest ranked universities in the Nordic countries. Originally named the Royal Frederick University, the university was established in 1811 as the de facto Norwegian continuation of Denmark-Norway's common university, the University of Copenhagen, with which it shares many traditions. It was named for King Frederick VI of Denmark and Norway, and received its current name in 1939. The university was commonly nicknamed "The Royal Frederick's" before the name change, and informally also referred to simply as Universitetet.
The Paus family is a Norwegian family that first appeared as members of the elite of 16th-century Oslo and that for centuries belonged to Norway's "aristocracy of officials" as priests of the state church, judges and other higher government officials, especially in Upper Telemark. Family members later became involved in shipping, steel and banking. The family is particularly known for its close association with Henrik Ibsen.
The Wild Duck is an 1884 play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It explores the complexities of truth and illusion through the story of a family torn apart by secrets and the intrusion of an idealistic outsider. It focuses on the Ekdal family, whose fragile peace is shattered by Gregers Werle, an idealist who insists on exposing hidden truths, leading to tragic consequences. The play was written in a realistic style, but literary scholars have pointed out the play's kinship with symbolism. It blends themes such as deception, betrayal, and the disillusionment of modern life with moments of comedy and satire, and 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".
Rosmersholm is an 1886 play written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It tells the story of Johannes Rosmer, an aristocratic former clergyman and owner of the Rosmersholm manor who is haunted by his wife's suicide and his own idealistic desires for societal reform, and Rebecca West, a strong-willed companion who challenges his convictions, leading to a deep exploration of morality, political activism, and the struggle for personal and social change amidst a backdrop of intense personal and political turmoil. 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, between liberation and servitude, between narratives, action or inaction, and of "what to do with ourselves when the world collapses around us." 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."
Catiline or Catilina was Henrik Ibsen's first play. It was written during winter 1848–49 and first performed under Ibsen's name on 3 December 1881 at the Nya Teatern, Stockholm, Sweden. The first performance of Catilina in Norway not under Ibsen's pseudonym was at Det Nye Teater in Oslo on 24 August 1935.
John Richard Northam was a professor emeritus of literature and drama, ranked among the foremost Ibsen scholars in the world.
Den Nationale Scene is the largest theatre in Bergen, Norway. Den Nationale Scene is also one of the oldest permanent theatres in Norway.
The International Ibsen Award honours an individual, institution or organization that has brought new artistic dimensions to the world of drama or theater. The committee consists of figures in the theatre community.
Harald Noreng was a Norwegian literary researcher and lexicographer.
Egil Kraggerud is a Norwegian philologist.
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. Through the Paus family—the family of Knud's stepfather Ole Paus and Marichen's mother Hedevig—Knud was raised as a close relative of his would-be wife Marichen Altenburg, although they were not closely related biologically.
The Centre for Ibsen Studies at the University of Oslo engages in multidisciplinary research, teaching, and documentation on the nineteenth-century Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.
Ibsen Studies is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering research on the playwright Henrik Ibsen. It is published biannually by the Centre for Ibsen Studies at the University of Oslo. It was originally published annually under the title Ibsenårbok by Universitetsforlaget from 1952 to 1988. From 1988 to 2000, it was published by Universitetsforlaget as Contemporary approaches to Ibsen. Since 2000, it has been published under the title Ibsen Studies by Taylor & Francis (Routledge) on behalf of the Centre for Ibsen Studies.
Marichen Cornelia Martine Altenburg was the mother of the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen and is known as the model for several characters in some of Ibsen's most famous plays, including Åse in Peer Gynt. Through the Paus family—the family of Marichen's mother Hedevig and Knud's stepfather Ole Paus—Marichen was raised as a close relative of her would-be husband Knud Ibsen, although they were not closely related biologically.
The Norwegian patriciate was a social class in Norway from the 17th century until the modern age; it is typically considered to have ended sometime during the 19th or early 20th century as a distinct class. Jørgen Haave defines the Norwegian patriciate as a broad collective term for the civil servants (embetsmenn) and the burghers in the cities who were often merchants or ship's captains, i.e. the non-noble upper class. Thus it corresponds to term patriciate in its modern, broad generic sense in English. The patricians did not constitute a legally defined class as such, although its constituent groups, the civil servants and the burghers held various legal privileges, with the clergy de jure forming one of the two privileged estates of the realm until 1814.
Fredrikke Louise Nielsen, was a popular Norwegian actress and a women's pioneer. She played more than 300 roles in her twenty-six-year-long career, and was personally directed by both Henrik Ibsen and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. Ibsen chose her to play Signe, one of the lead characters in The Feast at Solhaug (1856), which was his first audience success. In 1880, Nielsen left the stage and joined the Methodist Movement in Bergen. She now became a preacher, first in Scandinavia, and later in the United States. She felt a strong social commitment and used the pulpit for preaching other topics than religion, such as women's and children's rights.
Jørgen Haave is a Norwegian literary scholar and the senior curator and director of the Henrik Ibsen Museum in Skien, a part of Telemark Museum. He is especially known for his Ibsen biography, The Ibsen Family (2017), and is one of the foremost contemporary Ibsen scholars; alongside Jon Nygaard he has been central in a scholarly reassessment of older myths pertaining to Ibsen's background and childhood, and their influence upon his work.
Jørgen Lorentzen is a Norwegian literary scholar and independent film producer. His research has focused on the representation of men and masculinities in literature, film and popular culture. He became known to a broad audience through his participation in the TV program Hjernevask in 2010. He was employed as a researcher at the Centre for Gender Research in Oslo until 2013, and has since been a freelance researcher and documentary film producer. In collaboration with his wife, film director Nefise Özkal Lorentzen, he has produced several independent documentaries on Turkey and has also become known in Norway as a critic of Erdoğan's government and a commentator on Turkish political developments.
Ibsen's Kingdom: The Man and His Works is a book about Henrik Ibsen and his works by Evert M. Sprinchorn (1923–2022), an American Scandinavian literature scholar. It was published by Yale University Press in 2021 when Sprinchorn was 98. It is described as a biography and more specifically as a biographical reading of Ibsen's plays.
