Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Henrik Ibsen
-
Standard Name: Ibsen, Henrik
The plays of Henrik Ibsen
, nineteenth-century Norwegian poet and dramatist, were both controversial and enormously influential in Britain; their use of realist techniques to address contemporary social problems helped to bring about a revolution in English drama. Elizabeth Robins
and Florence Farr
played important roles in getting his plays staged in England, and Robins interpreted his characters on stage. After the 1889 production of A Doll's House in London, British feminists claimed Ibsen as an ally, and his name became closely associated with New Woman writers such as George Egerton
and Mona Caird
. Githa Sowerby
and Elizabeth Baker
were among the many dramatists influenced by his work.
ER
played an important role, until recently unacknowledged, as collaborator in William Archer
's early translations of Ibsen
's plays, as well as other contributions to the new drama movement.
Textual Features
Elizabeth Robins
This book reflects ER
's interest in eugenics, intermarriage, and suicide. Its emphasis on heredity made several reviewers note Ibsen
's influence.
John, Angela V. Elizabeth Robins: Staging a Life, 1862-1952. Routledge.
41-3
Family and Intimate relationships
Henry Handel Richardson
A closer friendship formed in Leipzig was that with a young Scotsman, George Robertson
, who was studying for a PhD in German literature. He reawakened Richardson's interest in books and writing, particularly when she...
Publishing
Henry Handel Richardson
She apparently began to write for a readership after giving up the aim of a musical career, by producing contributions for an unnamed friend's manuscript magazine. Her first attempt was Christmas in Australia, an...
Literary responses
George Paston
Early reviews praised the novel for its wit and humour, though the Athenæum was condescending about the heroine for being just a little Ibsen
ite, a little Woman's Rights, a little emancipationist, but as...
Intertextuality and Influence
E. Nesbit
In this an advanced woman, Nora, smokes as a protest against existing prejudices.
Briggs, Julia. A Woman of Passion: The Life of E. Nesbit, 1858-1924. Hutchinson.
68
The heroine's name suggests that either Nesbit or Bland had been quick off the mark in digesting the message of Ibsen
Performance of text
Katherine Mansfield
The literary house-party at Garsington performed KM
's The Laurels, a kind of Ibsen
-Russian play
Alpers, Antony. The Life of Katherine Mansfield. Oxford University Press.
Alpers, Antony. The Life of Katherine Mansfield. Oxford University Press.
227
Textual Production
Hannah Lynch
The English print-run of the Echegaray translation was 400 copies. Lynch's solid, 30-page introduction, in part reprinted from the Contemporary Review, makes no attempt at boosting her subject. She compares Echegaray
in his various...
Intertextuality and Influence
Ada Leverson
This dialogue brings together several fictional characters, including Wilde
's Salome, Ibsen
's Nora, Pinero
's Mrs Tanqueray, and Madame Santuzza from Mascagni
's opera Cavalleria Rusticana.
Burkhart, Charles. Ada Leverson. Twayne.
69
Textual Production
Elizabeth Jolley
EJ
invoked as an appropriate description of her own motivation, Flaubert
's dictum that writing comes from an inner wound.
Joussen, Ulla. “An Interview with Elizabeth Jolley”. Kunapipi, Vol.
15
, No. 2, pp. 37-43.
40
She said of Johnson
's Rasselas and Goethe
's Elective Affinities (both of which...
Textual Features
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
The script uses narrative by Gilot
in voice-over to supplement its dramatic settings and tense encounters between people.
Long, Robert Emmet. The Films of Merchant Ivory. Harry N. Abrams.
247
The film as a whole is disturbing in rather the way that Jefferson is and that...
Textual Production
Ann Jellicoe
AJ
knew from an early age that she wanted to work in the theatre. At school she put together amateur productions of many of her own creations. Her first work to achieve a professional production...
Textual Production
Storm Jameson
Decades later she remembered praising Chekhov
, Hoffmansthal
, Ibsen
, and Strindberg
, while admitting that I mocked, censured, rebuked, tore down, with reckless delight, Shaw
, Yeats
, Masefield
,
Jameson, Storm. Journey from the North. Harper and Row.
69
and other British dramatists.
Occupation
Naomi Jacob
Briefly back in London in 1944, she returned to the stage as the mother of a troupe of performing acrobats in a stage adaptation of Margery Sharp
's novel The Nutmeg Tree.
Bailey, Paul. Three Queer Lives: An Alternative Biography of Fred Barnes, Naomi Jacob and Arthur Marshall. Hamish Hamilton (Penguin).
167
In...
Textual Features
Violet Hunt
VH
's central character here is Phoebe Elles, described by Barbara Belford
as a British version of Flaubert
's Madame Bovary.
Belford, Barbara. Violet. Simon and Schuster.
108
Phoebe is unhappily married to (and soon leaves) her abusive husband Mortimer; looking...
