"Backgrounds" gives students an understanding of Ibsen's creative process with selections from his correspondence and other writings. Twenty-seven documents have been collected and arranged by play, with a section of autobiographical writings at the end Ibsen's plays continue to provoke diverse commentary. "Criticism" includes nineteen of the most important responses to Ibsen's work, among them essays by Bernard Shaw, Sandra Saari, E. M. Forster, Hugh Kenner, and Joan Templeton A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.

One of the best-known, most frequently performed of modern plays, A Doll's House richly displays the genius with which Henrik Ibsen pioneered modern, realistic prose drama. In the central character of Nora, Ibsen epitomized the human struggle against the humiliating constraints of social conformity. Nora's ultimate rejection of a smothering marriage and life in "a doll's house" shocked theatergoers of the late 1800s and opened new horizons for playwrights and their audiences.
But daring social themes are only one aspect of Ibsen's power as a dramatist. A Doll's House shows as...

Ibsen s seminal play, which changed modern drama, is a searing view of a male-dominated and authoritarian society, presented with a realism that elevates theatre to a level above mere entertainment. The reverberations of Nora s slamming the door as she leaves Torvald continue to this present day. Nicholas Rudall, justly celebrated for his translations of Ibsen, again provides a play of power and speakability."

Filled with a passion for life that cannot be confined by her marriage or -perfect home, - Hedda Gabler strives to find a way to fulfill her desires by manipulating those around her. Former artistic director of the National Theatre and top-flight director of both stage and screen, Richard Eyre helms his own new version of Ibsen's classic at London's Almeida Theatre in Spring 2005.

In his final play, Henrik Ibsen tells the story of Rubek, an aging sculptor who has lost all interest in the world around him. In spite of his wealth, his fame, and the attentions of his beautiful, young wife, he can find no joy in his existence. He is stagnating, trapped in a spiritual vacuum, when suddenly he is jolted out of his stupor by an unexpected reunion with Irene, a model who once posed for him and whom he idolized. She is now half-mad and literally believes herself to be a walking corpse, a dead woman who roams the earth. In spite of her delusions, however, and in spite of his...

Ibsen, considered to be the father of modern drama, was a Norwegian playwright. He is responsible for "realistic drama." When We Dead Awaken was Ibsen's final play. Rubek is an aging sculptor who has lost all interest in the world around him. Rubek has wealth, a beautiful wife and fame yet he is unhappy. He is in an emotional vacuum until he is jolted awake by a reunion with Irene, an earlier model of his. Irene is insane believing herself to be a half dead corpse walking over the earth. Even though Rubek is married and Irene is crazy he still courts her. Rubek believes that together he and...

A revised Methuen Student Edition of the classic set text A Doll's House (1879), this is a masterpiece of theatrical craft that for the first time portrayed the tragic hypocrisy of Victorian middle-class marriage on stage. The play ushered in a new social era and "exploded like a bomb into contemporary life."

Acclaimed director Richard Eyre's version of Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts is a fresh and vivid depiction of a woman who yearns for emotional and sexual freedom, but who is too timid to achieve it.
Helene Alving has spent her life suspended in an emotional void after the death of her cruel but outwardly charming husband. She is determined to escape the ghosts of her past by telling her son, Oswald, the truth about his father. But on his return from his life as a painter in France, Oswald reveals how he has already inherited the legacy of Alving's dissolute life.
This edition contains...

Henrik Ibsen, considered to be the father of modern drama, was a Norwegian playwright. He is responsible for "realistic drama." During the Victorian era Ibsen's writings were considered scandalous. The Pillars of Society (original Norwegian title: Samfundets stotter) is an 1877 play. From Wikipedia "Karsten Bernick is the dominant businessman in a small coastal town in Norway, with interests in shipping and shipbuilding in a long-established family firm. Now he is planning his most ambitious project yet, backing a railway which will connect the town to the main line and open a fertile valley...