The Feast at Solhoug
Ibsen, Henrik, 1828-1906
English
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THE FEAST AT SOLHOUG.
by
HENRIK IBSEN
From The Collected Works of Henrik Ibsen, Volume 1
Revised and Edited by William Archer
Translation by William Archer and Mary Morrison
INTRODUCTION*
Exactly a year after the production of _Lady Inger of Ostrat_--that
is to say on the "Foundation Day" of the Bergen Theatre, January 2,
1866--_The Feast at Solhoug_ was produced. The poet himself has
written its history in full in the Preface to the second edition.
The only comment that need be made upon his rejoinder to his critics
has been made, with perfect fairness as it seems to me, by George
Brandes in the following passage:** "No one who is unacquainted with
the Scandinavian languages can fully understand the charm that the
style and melody of the old ballads exercise upon the Scandinavian
mind. The beautiful ballads and songs of _Des Knaben Wunderhorn_
have perhaps had a similar power over German minds; but, as far as
I am aware, no German poet has has ever succeeded in inventing a
metre suitable for dramatic purposes, which yet retained the
mediaeval ballad's sonorous swing and rich aroma. The explanation
of the powerful impression produced in its day by Henrik Hertz's
_Svend Dyring's House_ is to be found in the fact that in it, for
the first time, the problem was solved of how to fashion a metre
akin to that of the heroic ballads, a metre possessing as great
mobility as the verse of the _Niebelungenlied_, along with a
dramatic value not inferior to that of the pentameter. Henrik
Ibsen, it is true, has justly pointed out that, as regards the
mutual relations of the principal characters, _Svend Dyring's
House_ owes more to Kleist's _Kathchen von Heubronn_ than _The
Feast at Solhoug_ owes to _Svend Dyring's House_. But the fact
remains that the versified parts of the dialogue of both _The Feast
at Solhoug_ and _Olaf Liliekrans_ are written in that imitation
of the tone and style of the heroic ballad, of which Hertz was
the happily-inspired originator. There seems to me to be no
depreciation whatever of Ibsen in the assertion of Hertz's right
to rank as his model. Even the greatest must have learnt from
some one."
But while the influence of Danish lyrical romanticism is apparent
in the style of the play, the structure, as it seems to me, shows no
less clearly that influence of the French plot-manipulators which
we found so unmistakably at work in _Lady Inger_. Despite its
lyrical dialogue, _The Feast at Solhoug_ has that crispiness of
dramatic action which marks the French plays of the period. It may
indeed be called Scribe's _Bataille de Dames_ writ tragic. Here,
as in the _Bataille de Dames_ (one of the earliest plays produced
under Ibsen's supervision), we have the rivalry of an older and a
younger woman for the love of a man who is proscribed on an unjust
accusation, and pursued by the emissaries of the royal power. One
might even, though this would be forcing the point, find an analogy
in the fact that the elder woman (in both plays a strong and
determined character) has in Scribe's comedy a cowardly suitor,
while in Ibsen's tragedy, or melodrama, she has a cowardly husband.
In every other respect the plays are as dissimilar as possible; yet
it seems to me far from unlikely that an unconscious reminiscence
of the _Bataille de Dames_ may have contributed to the shaping of
_The Feast at Solhoug_ in Ibsen's mind. But more significant than
any resemblance of theme is the similarity of Ibsen's whole method
to that of the French school--the way, for instance, in which
misunderstandings are kept up through a careful avoidance of the
use of proper names, and the way in which a cup of poison, prepared
for one person, comes into the hands of another person, is, as a
matter of fact, drunk by no one but occasions the acutest agony to
the would-be poisoner. All this ingenious dovetailing of incidents
and working-up of misunderstandings, Ibsen unquestionably learned
from the French. The French language, indeed, is the only one which
has a word--_quiproquo_--to indicate the class of misunderstanding
which, from _Lady Inger_ down to the _League of Youth_, Ibsen
employed without scruple.
Ibsen's first visit to the home of his future wife took place after
the production of _The Feast at Solhoug_. It seems doubtful whether
this was actually his first meeting with her; but at any rate we
can scarcely suppose that he knew her during the previous summer,
when he was writing his play. It is a curious coincidence, then,
that he should have found in Susanna Thoresen and her sister Marie
very much the same contrast of characters which had occupied him
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