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Henrik Ibsen |
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The customary division of Ibsen's large dramatic output into at least three distinct career phases allows us to bring the chief characteristics of each of these groups of plays into clearer focus, through the application of different critical approaches to the different periods. MYTHOLOGICAL criticism is relevant to many of the earlier works, especially Peer Gynt. A SOCIOLOGICAL reading of the plays of the middle period, the texts most closely associated with Ibsen's name and the customary assumptions about the nature of his achievement, is one of the most frequent approaches to his work. And the BIOGRAPHICAL approach has been explored with reference to ways in which concerns drawn from Ibsen's own life may have served, in an indirect and heavily transformed manner, as bases for the enigmatic last plays, whether in terms of the artist's demands on others and himself in the name of art (When We Dead Awaken) or even Ibsen's unresolved feelings over the child he fathered in his youth (Little Eyolf).
Given Ibsen's own interests and emphases, PSYCHOLOGICAL analysis has always been the preferred angle of approach to his work in all phases of his career, but most especially to the great plays of the middle period. HISTORICAL criticism has been relevant not only to an analysis of Ibsen's own use of historical materials in his early plays, but more generally to an understanding of the literary and theatrical context out of which his plays originated and the ways which he all but singlehandedly transformed that context, creating a tradition of realistic dialogue and character portrayal, making the stage a supple instrument for serious investigations into the nature of modern life, and then going beyond the limits of realism in his last plays.
Ibsen's obvious sympathy for women and his unusual ability to portray them not in an idealized manner, but as psychological entities every bit as nuanced and sophisticated as their male counterparts, has led to a good deal of GENDER analysis of his plays, especially those, like A Doll's House and Hedda Gabler, which feature complex female protagonists. And the mode of READER-RESPONSE criticism has allowed us to appreciate the richness and depth of his portrayal of life's unresolvable complexities, as well as his refusal to impose easy answers on situations that often have no answers at all.
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