When We Dead Awaken
Ibsen, Henrik, 1828-1906
English
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Below is a summary of When We Dead Awaken
WHEN WE DEAD AWAKEN
By Henrik Ibsen.
Introduction and translation by William Archer.
INTRODUCTION.
From _Pillars of Society_ to _John Gabriel Borkman_, Ibsen’s plays had
followed each other at regular intervals of two years, save when his
indignation over the abuse heaped upon _Ghosts_ reduced to a single
year the interval between that play and _An Enemy of the People_.
_John Gabriel Borkman_ having appeared in 1896, its successor was
expected in 1898; but Christmas came and brought no rumour of a new
play. In a man now over seventy, this breach of a long-established
habit seemed ominous. The new National Theatre in Christiania was
opened in September of the following year; and when I then met Ibsen
(for the last time) he told me that he was actually at work on a new
play, which he thought of calling a "Dramatic Epilogue." "He wrote
_When We Dead Awaken_," says Dr. Elias, "with such labour and such
passionate agitation, so spasmodically and so feverishly, that those
around him were almost alarmed. He must get on with it, he must get
on! He seemed to hear the beating of dark pinions over his head. He
seemed to feel the grim Visitant, who had accompanied Alfred Allmers
on the mountain paths, already standing behind him with uplifted hand.
His relatives are firmly convinced that he knew quite clearly that this
would be his last play, that he was to write no more. And soon the
blow fell."
_When We Dead Awaken_ was published very shortly before Christmas 1899.
He had still a year of comparative health before him. We find him in
March 1900, writing to Count Prozor: "I cannot say yet whether or not
I shall write another drama; but if I continue to retain the vigour of
body and mind which I at present enjoy, I do not imagine that I shall
be able to keep permanently away from the old battlefields. However,
if I were to make my appearance again, it would be with new weapons
and in new armour." Was he hinting at the desire, which he had long
ago confessed to Professor Herford, that his last work should be a
drama in verse? Whatever his dream, it was not to be realised. His
last letter (defending his attitude of philosophic impartiality with
regard to the South African war) is dated December 9, 1900. With the
dawn of the new century, the curtain descended upon the mind of the
great dramatic poet of the age which had passed away.
_When We Dead Awaken_ was acted during 1900 at most of the leading
theatres in Scandinavia and Germany. In some German cities (notably
in Frankfort on Main) it even attained a considerable number of
representatives. I cannot learn, however, that it has anywhere held
the stage. It was produced in London, by the State Society, at the
Imperial Theatre, on January 25 and 26, 1903. Mr. G. S. Titheradge
played Rubek, Miss Henrietta Watson Irene, Miss Mabel Hackney Maia,
and Mr. Laurence Irving Ulfheim. I find no record of any American
performance.
In the above-mentioned letter to Count Prozor, Ibsen confirmed that
critic's conjecture that "the series which ends with the Epilogue
really began with _The Master Builder." As the last confession, so
to speak, of a great artist, the Epilogue will always be read with
interest. It contains, moreover, many flashes of the old genius, many
strokes of the old incommunicable magic. One may say with perfect
sincerity that there is more fascination in the dregs of Ibsen's mind
than in the "first sprightly running" of more common-place talents.
But to his sane admirers the interest of the play must always be
melancholy, because it is purely pathological. To deny this is, in
my opinion, to cast a slur over all the poet's previous work, and in
great measure to justify the criticisms of his most violent detractors.
For _When We Dead Awaken_ is very like the sort of play that haunted
the "anti-Ibsenite" imagination in the year 1893 or thereabouts. It
is a piece of self-caricature, a series of echoes from all the earlier
plays, an exaggeration of manner to the pitch of mannerism. Moreover,
in his treatment of his symbolic motives, Ibsen did exactly what he
had hitherto, with perfect justice, plumed himself upon never doing:
he sacrificed the surface reality to the underlying meaning. Take,
for instance, the history of Rubek's statue and its development
into a group. In actual sculpture this development is a grotesque
impossibility. In conceiving it we are deserting the domain of
reality, and plunging into some fourth dimension where the properties
of matter are other than those we know. This is an abandonment of the
fundamental principle which Ibsen over and over again emphatically
expressed--namely, that any symbolism his work might be found to
contain was entirely incidental, and subordinate to the truth and
consistency of his picture of life. Even when he dallied with the
supernatural, as in _The Master Builder_ and _Little Eyolf_, he was
always careful, as I have tried to show, not to overstep decisively
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