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
attended the first London production of Ibsen
's A Doll's House, which she described as [r]emarkable and thrilling.
John, Angela V. Elizabeth Robins: Staging a Life, 1862-1952. Routledge.
53
Occupation
Elizabeth Robins
ER
opened in the lead role in Ibsen
's Hedda Gabler, a production which also marked the beginning of her career in theatre management.
Demastes, William W., and Katherine E. Kelly, editors. British Playwrights, 1880-1956. Greenwood Press.
353
Textual Production
Elizabeth Robins
ER
, Marion Lea
, and William Archermodified for stage production Edmund Gosse
's translation of Ibsen
's Hedda Gabler (published earlier the same year).
John, Angela V. Elizabeth Robins: Staging a Life, 1862-1952. Routledge.
55-7
Textual Production
George Bernard Shaw
GBS
wrote The Philanderer, a problem play that pits Ibsen
ite morality against Victorian hypocrisy.
Innes, Christopher, editor. The Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw. Cambridge University Press.
xxii
Performance of text
George Bernard Shaw
The Theatre Royal
in South Shields gave the first performance of Candida, GBS
's response to Ibsen
's A Doll's House, in which he premised that in the real typical doll's house it...
Textual Production
George Bernard Shaw
GBS
published The Quintessence of Ibsenism, a defence of Ibsen
in the wake of public controversy over the first English productions of A Doll's House and Ghosts.
Cox, Michael, editor. The Oxford Chronology of English Literature. Oxford University Press.
Innes, Christopher, editor. The Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw. Cambridge University Press.
xxi
Textual Features
Githa Sowerby
The play reflects the prevalent influence of Ibsen
in the British drama of this time, not only in its realist approach to social and ethical problems but also in its stifling atmosphere and oppressive Northern...
Education
Christina Stead
CS
's father
would have liked to have her education entirely in his own hands. The first books to be her favourites were the works of W. T. Stead
, and fairy stories by the...
Intertextuality and Influence
G. B. Stern
While in her teens GBS
composed two one-act Waiferage plays. The heroine of one, a lonely understudy in a fifth-rate touring company, worships the leading man from afar and feels ecstatic when the leading lady...
Occupation
John Millington Synge
At this time he abandoned his dream of pursuing classical music as a career, because public performance made him intensely nervous. Instead, he read Ibsen
and began, for the first time, writing a play of...
Family and Intimate relationships
Viola Tree
Throughout her life, VT
took direction from her father, the actor-manager Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree
, who had abandoned his job in the family corn-trading business to pursue a career on stage, and had changed...
Textual Production
Dorothy Wellesley
DW
's prose works included a discursive and elusive autobiography, and a biography: Sir George Goldie
, Founder of Nigeria, A Memoir. This was, she said, a record of her conversations with Goldie...
Characters
Romer Wilson
RW
deals here with the problem of language and the effects of society and civilisation on personal choices and relationships, through the adulterous love affair of the Englishman Rane Smith, who speaks only English, and...
