Little Eyolf
Ibsen, Henrik, 1828-1906
English
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Below is a summary of Little Eyolf
LITTLE EYOLF.
By Henrik Ibsen
Translated, With an Introduction, by William Archer
INTRODUCTION.
Little Eyolf was written in Christiania during 1894, and published
in Copenhagen on December 11 in that year. By this time Ibsen's
correspondence has become so scanty as to afford us no clue to what
may be called the biographical antecedents of the play. Even of
anecdotic history very little attaches to it. For only one of the
characters has a definite model been suggested. Ibsen himself told
his French translator, Count Prozor, that the original of the
Rat-Wife was "a little old woman who came to kill rats at the
school where he was educated. She carried a little dog in a bag,
and it was said that children had been drowned through following
her." This means that Ibsen did not himself adapt to his uses the
legend so familiar to us in Browning's _Pied Piper of Hamelin_, but
found it ready adapted by the popular imagination of his native
place, Skien. "This idea," Ibsen continued to Count Prozor, "was
just what I wanted for bringing about the disappearance of Little
Eyolf, in whom the infatuation [Note: The French word used by Count
Prozor is "infatuation." I can think of no other rendering for it;
but I do not quite know what it means as applied to Allmers and
Eyolf.] and the feebleness of his father reproduced, but
concentrated, exaggerated, as one often sees them in the son of
such a father." Dr. Elias tells us that a well-known lady-artist,
who in middle life suggested to him the figure of Lona Hessel, was
in later years the model for the Rat-Wife. There is no inconsistency
between these two accounts of the matter. The idea was doubtless
suggested by his recollection of the rat-catcher of Skien, while
traits of manner and physiognomy might be borrowed from the lady
in question.
The verse quoted on pp. 52 and 53 [Transcriber's Note: "There stood the
champagne," etc., in ACT I] is the last line of a very well-known
poem by Johan Sebastian Welhaven, entitled _Republikanerne_, written
in 1839. An unknown guest in a Paris restaurant has been challenged
by a noisy party of young Frenchmen to join them in drinking a health
to Poland. He refuses; they denounce him as a craven and a slave; he
bares his breast and shows the scars of wounds received in fighting
for the country whose lost cause has become a subject for conventional
enthusiasm and windy rhetoric.
"De saae pas hverandre. Han vandred sin vei.
De havde champagne, men rorte den ei."
"They looked at each other. He went on his way. There stood their
champagne, but they did not touch it." The champagne incident leads
me to wonder whether the relation between Rita and Allmers may not
have been partly suggested to Ibsen by the relation between
Charlotte Stieglitz and her weakling of a husband. Their story must
have been known to him through George Brandes's _Young Germany_, if
not more directly. "From time to time," says Dr. Brandes, "there
came over her what she calls her champagne-mood; she grieves that
this is no longer the case with him." [Note: _Main Currents of
Nineteenth Century Literature_, vol. vi. p. 299] Did the germ of
the incident lie in these words?
The first performance of the play in Norway took place at the
Christiania Theatre on January 15, 1895, Fru Wettergren playing
Rita And Fru Dybwad, Asta. In Copenhagen (March 13, 1895) Fru Oda
Nielsen and Fru Hennings played Rita and Asta respectively, while
Emil Poulsen played Allmers. The first German Rita (Deutsches
Theater, Berlin, January 12, 1895) was Frau Agnes Sorma, with
Reicher as Allmers. Six weeks later Frl. Sandrock played Rita at
the Burgtheater, Vienna. In May 1895 the play was acted by M.
Lugne-Poe's company in Paris. The first performance in English took
place at the Avenue Theatre, London, on the afternoon of November
23, 1896, with Miss Janet Achurch as Rita, Miss Elizabeth Robins as
Asta, and Mrs. Patrick Campbell as the Rat-Wife. Miss Achurch's
Rita made a profound impression. Mrs. Patrick Campbell afterwards
played the part in a short series of evening performances. In the
spring of 1895 the play was acted in Chicago by a company of
Scandinavian amateurs, presumably in Norwegian. Fru Oda Nielsen has
recently (I understand) given some performances of it in New York,
and Madame Alla Nazimova has announced it for production during the
coming season (1907-1908).
As the external history of _Little Eyolf_ is so short. I am tempted
to depart from my usual practice, and say a few words as to its
matter and meaning.
George Brandes, writing of this play, has rightly observed that "a
kind of dualism has always been perceptible in Ibsen; he pleads the
cause of Nature, and he castigates Nature with mystic morality;
only sometimes Nature is allowed the first voice, sometimes
morality. In _The Master Builder_ and in _Ghosts_ the lover of
Nature in Ibsen was predominant; here, as in _Brand_ and _The Wild
Duck_, the castigator is in the ascendant." So clearly is this the
case in _Little Eyolf_ that Ibsen seems almost to fall into line
with Mr. Thomas Hardy. To say nothing of analogies of detail
between _Little Eyolf_ and _Jude the Obscure_, there is this
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