The Hallucinatory Vision of Playwright Henrik Ibsen
Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) is reportedly the second most staged theatre author in history, after Shakespeare. He is known for his psychological dramas with deep symbolism, which are said to have inspired Sigmund Freud. Few know that Ibsen was originally a devout Lutheran, and that his symbols and psychological understanding came from reading the Bible daily while he was still a teenager. Later he also developed an interest in mythology and folk traditions, which inspired his symbolist ideas.
An episode of his exceptional spiritualism is documented from his childhood years. At the age of 13 or 14, he had a dream that he wrote a school essay about. The essay is unfortunately lost, but a shorthand of it is preserved in the schoolbooks of one of his classmates, B. Ording:
The young Ibsen dreamed
«While wandering lost and exhausted over the tundra, we were surprised by nightfall. We lay ourselves down to rest on the rocks, as Jacob had once done. My mates soon fell asleep, but I could not bring myself to rest. Finally, I was overcome by weariness, and suddenly I saw an angel standing over me, who said: Rise and follow me.
Where would you lead me in this darkness? I asked. Come — He repeated: I will let you see a vision, about the reality and truth of human life. So I followed — with dark foreboding, and we walked downwards over giant steps, until the mountains arched over us like stunning architecture, and beneath them lay a great dead city with all the frightful remnants and signs of death and decrepitness, a whole world laid out like a corpse, sunken under the power of death, a bleached, withered, extinguished glory.
And above it all — a pale, dawning light, as grim as can be, with church walls and a whitewashed cross bending it`s shade across the graveyard, with less light than what it could shed on the bleached rows of white bones, which glowed palely in obscure rooms of endless rows. An icy sense of foreboding overwhelmed me at this sight, there at the angel`s side: “Here you see, all is vanity.” Then came the noise from the first hesitant strokes of a coming storm, it was like a sigh moaned a thousandfold, and it grew to a whining storm, that moved the arms of the dead so they reached out to me…. And I awoke with a scream — wetted by the cold dew of the night.”
Ibsen was obviously under the influence of Gothic novels when he dreamed this. The Gothic style was very popular in the 1800`s, both in literature and architecture. But more importantly, he was under the influence of the prophet Ezekiel. This may seem strange for a 13-year-old schoolboy, but the Bible had been his daily reading from an early age, according to his sister. Such deep reading interests and philosophical inclinations were not typical for the rest of his family. Ibsen would break contact with his family when he became a playwright, and did not even return home for the death of his parents.
The Biblical parallel to Ibsen`s childhood vision is found in Ezekiel 37: 1–10
“The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”
So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet — a vast army.”
Both visions have horror elements, but while Ezekiel expresses faith in resurrection of the people through God`s will, Ibsen feels despair. The skeletal remains in Ibsen`s dream are not growing new flesh with God`s grace, instead they are being rattled by a menacing storm. The cross of Ibsen`s vision stands in a pale light, like a sanctuary, but will it be enough to keep back the ghosts of the past, the sinister depths of the human soul and the threatening future? Many of Ibsen`s dramas deal with these precise issues. And Biblical visions followed him from the beginning to the end of his career, even in such apparently non-Christian themes as in “Solness the Builder”, where the title character tries to rebuild the tower of Babel. Ibsen titled his last play “When We Dead Awaken”, like a nod back to his teenage dream that only he could understand. The dream itself was only preserved by chance among the belongings of a childhood friend and recovered after Ibsen`s death. But while Ibsen`s Bible references became rarer and more obscure as he developed his famously Realist style of theatre plays, he continued to find themes from Christian heritage.
Ibsen`s Italian awakening
Henrik Ibsen was in Italy between 1864–68. His continental journeys caused a softening in his stern Lutheran outlook, but at the same time his aestheticism became more austere, until his dramas were cut down to the bare bones of the human psyche. He wrote in a letter to his friend, Norwegian writer Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, dated September 12th, 1865, from Ariccia:
“There is a blessed peace out here, no acquaintances, and I read nothing but the Bible, — it is powerful and strong! –“
…. I have driven every ounce of aestheticism out of myself, and thus isolated myself and challenged myself, with the same grip it formerly held on me. A critic from Copenhagen once told me when I was there:” Christ is really the most interesting phenomenon in the history of the world,” — this connoisseur enjoyed Christ like he would admire an oyster.”
Ibsen`s sarcasm betrays contempt for the shallow, the decorative, the purely aesthetic, the socially pleasing. His entire person was oriented towards the deepest mysteries of religious experience and the most dangerous questions of human existence. He would frequently cause scandal with his plays, as he dissected human vices, the futility of idealism and the triumph of purity. Modern theatre critics have stumbled over themselves in admiration for his spirit but have frequently written him off as a non-religious modernist, maybe even a bit atheistic. Ibsen lived an isolated existence, spending much energy on keeping other people at arm`s length. It was difficult to get close to him. Only after his death did a few sparse words in letters shed more light on what thoughts and doubts he wrestled with.
Henrik Ibsens Conflict with Georg Brandes over Christianity
Georg Morris Cohen Brandes (1842–1927) was a Danish critic and poet who greatly influenced the direction of Scandinavian and European literature between the 1870`s — 1920`s.
Born in a Jewish family, Brandes began identifying himself as atheist when he studied philosophy and aesthetics at university. He began an early correspondence with the older Ibsen, and visited his new friend in Germany. For a while, Brandes was a fan(atic) reader of Ibsen, and Brandes became one of the very few friends that Ibsen had.
When Brandes defined “The Modern Breakthrough” in a series of lectures at the university of Copenhagen in 1871, which he later defined in many articles and books, he created a literary movement that would have ripple effects across all of Europe, not only Scandinavia. And when Danish authorities denied Brandes the professorial title he believed he deserved, he rebelled by going into “voluntary exile” in Germany, similarly to many other modernist European writers and artists, who were moving across borders in search of community and liberty.
Returning to Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1883, he began a bitter and ill-fated battle against what he saw as “the failure of Christian marriage” and “bourgeois sexual hypocrisy”. Part of this rebellion was his translation of John Stuart Mill`s The Subjection of Women into Danish. Privately, he began an affair with Swedish author Victoria Benedictsson, who was mother to six children and stuck in an unhappy marriage. Many of Benedictsson`s books are precisely about unhappy marriages. Her own life was about to get worse, as the relationship with Brandes destroyed her family, her relationship to her children and her social standing. Benedictsson committed suicide in Copenhagen in 1888, and the relationship with Brandes has later been blamed for her death. Brandes himself married a German woman and seems to have shown no genuine empathy or remorse over the death of his lover.
Brandes kept rising in global literary fame, unfazed by rejection and tragedy. While in Copenhagen, he began a literary society of modernist authors who wrote in the Realist style favoured by Brandes. He called them “Det moderne Gjennembruds Mænd” (The Men of the Modern Breakthrough). Ibsen was associated with them, so much so, in fact, that Brandes was the main speaker and guest when Ibsen was given an honourary dinner by the Norwegian intelligentsia shortly before his death. Brandes was long credited with making Ibsen famous and culturally accepted.
Only decades after the death of both men, when their correspondence became available to literary researchers, did it become apparent that Brandes broke with Ibsen and took active steps to destroy his friend`s career — because Henrik Ibsen was a Christian.
Brandes` Betrayal of Ibsen`s Friendship
Ibsen released the play Emperor and Galilean in 1873 — he himself considered this his main work and believed this was what he would be remembered for. But the play has only been staged once in its entirety, in Oslo in 1903, since it takes 7–8 hours to play through the entire script. A much-shortened version was performed at the National Theatre in London in 2011.
Emperor and Galilean showcases Ibsen`s soul-searching regarding the truth content and moral value of Christianity. The title hero is Emperor Julian the Apostate, who is raised by a rigid and punishing monk in a hypocritical Imperial Rome overrun by heretic sects in violent conflict with each other. Julian contacts a Gnostic mystic and magician, who opens his mind to Greek pagan mysticism. Julian leaves Christianity, and begins to persecute Christians in a bloody genocide, while he himself aspires to become a pagan poet. The Church Fathers Gregorius Nazianzos and Basilios of Caesarea are in contact with him the whole time but fail to re-convert him. In the end, Julian dies in battle with the Persians, overcome not only by another pagan enemy, but by his own hybris. His last thought is that he will not be able to finish the literary piece he has been writing. As he lies dying, his persecuted Christian friends come to him, forgive him, and show him love in his last moments.
Ibsen betrays his own mistrust of organized religion and secular authorities here. He shows how they can corrupt religion and a good moral message. But the play is ultimately not a criticism of the Church. Instead, Ibsen focuses on something that he finds more important than external organizations — on mysticism and spirituality. He juxtaposes the “satanic mysticism” of the Gnostic teacher and Julian`s own sun-worshipping paganism with the Christ-centered mysticism of the Holy Church Fathers and Julian`s Christian friends. Christ Himself makes a few mysterious appearances as a face in a swirling mist, beckoning Julian. Only a close critical reading of the play will reveal that this is Christ in person, as shallow readings have sometimes interpreted the face in the mist as “demonic”. This face in the mist — Christ — is the Galilean alluded to in the title, but the play`s agents mostly just experience Christ through Christian teachings, actions and martyrdom. Emperor and Galilean is Ibsen`s ultimate defense of Christianity — he tells us that the more Christianity is corrupted and/or persecuted, the more it will be cleansed and a true source of Divine Goodness shine through. Julian the Apostate becomes an agent of divine will in the end, all the while believing that he is master of his own Fate. And while he believes he destroys Christianity, he is actually purifying and reviving it.
This play led to Brandes braking off his friendship to Ibsen, although he admits in third-party letters that Ibsen has been very kind to him. Julian the Apostate was one of the heroes of the atheist Brandes, who was becoming a follower of Nietzche`s philosophy. A few years later Brandes would make Nietzche world famous through his philosophical lectures. Brandes seems to have taken personal offence at Ibsen portraying Emperor Julian as a clownish wannabe poet and genocidal fanatic, who failed in his ambitions.
Brandes described in letters to his mother how he had felt “spiritually related” to Ibsen — well, that ended abruptly! After Emperor and Galilean, Brandes would write in several passages how Ibsen was egocentrically looking inward as the only source of his dramatic inspiration, and how he, Brandes, felt culturally “superior” to Ibsen. Ibsen seems to have missed this cooling in his once so loyal friend, and asked Brandes to introduce him to the German poet Paul Heyse. Brandes complied with gnarled teeth and wrote to Heyse: “Ibsen is not so easily understood. If you could only free him a little internally, so he develops a more liberated religious view, then you would do a good deed.” Brandes was clearly provoked by Ibsen`s religious faith.
The Corpse in the Cargo
In 1875, on the four-year anniversary of their first meeting, Ibsen sent Brandes “a rhyming letter” to celebrate their friendship: here, Ibsen describes the modernist calling (which to him came in the shape of literature), and also the problems and wrongs that comes with it:
“My dearest friend/
You write me in such worry and ask me/
Why does this generation walk in such strange oppression/ (…)
Do not demand of me, friend, to solve this riddle/
I prefer to question, for my calling is not to answer.
(Ibsen still gives a kind of answer in allegorical form:)
Look, my sweet friend, Europe`s steamer boat/
Launched at sea, headed for new lands/
And both you and me have bought our ticket/
And taken our place at the poop deck/
With our hats lifted towards those old beaches/
For out here both mind and brow is cooled/
Up here we can breathe freely and easily.
The poem portrays the steamer (machinized) ship of modernism, and the leading critic and writer of the modernist style in Scandinavia are both on board, leaving the past behind and heading for a new, unknown Utopia. The scene recalls immigration to the United States of America, which presented as a kind of promised land to many impoverished Europeans. But the poem continues:
And yet — out on the open seas/
Half-way between our homeland and our end station/
It seems like our speed is slowing/
As if all our impertinence was stolen from us/
Crew and passengers, men, and women/
Walk about with clouded eyes, downturned smiles/
They collapse, brood, ponder, listen/
In poor man`s cabins and luxury cabins/
(A voice tells the passengers:)
“I believe we are sailing with a corpse in the cargo bed.”
Ibsen is here using symbols of modernism, such as speed, machinery, travel and impertinence (rebellion), which are also used by Cubist and Futurist painters and poets. Then, he suddenly portrays depression and mania (hysteria) which of course was also a favorite subject of the period in the works of Sigmund Freud, and Symbolist and Expressionist artists. But Ibsen names the cause of these ailments as a corpse in the cargo of modernism. The root cause of all social and individual problems which causes the modernist search for Utopia to fail is the corpse in the baggage, which Brandes correctly understood as a veiled reference to apostasy or atheism (as in Julian the Apostate). Brandes and Ibsen understood each other from half-spoken truths.
And Brandes was enraged! He himself would brood, ponder, and listen over Ibsen`s “rhyming letter”, while planning to strike back at his old friend! In the end, he wrote a letter to Danish author Holder Drachmann, asking him to write a “counter-letter” to Ibsen: Brandes describes how he sees the corpse that poisons their Utopian quest not as apostasy, but as Christianity itself, and says it is a poet`s duty to tell the people how to throw this corpse overboard — to dispose of Christianity.
Brandes writes to Drachmann: “If you could only put something like this to better rhymes than his (Ibsen`s) and send it to me, and I will have it printed in the next issue. Yet this must be done with some caution. It must not be said with clear words that Christianity is the corpse, but it must be possible to read it between the lines. You should call it Dogma or Theology or whatever you want and mean something more than that: Écrasez l’infame!”
Atheism and “Intellectual Credibility”
Écrasez l’infame!: The French quote that ends Brandes` letter is Voltaire`s call to crush the Catholic Church, or Christianity as such. Brandes broke all contact with Ibsen between 1877–81, and when their correspondence resumed, it was Ibsen who sought contact with Brandes. Ibsen, who was an almost friendless loner his whole life, seems to have desired friendship with Brandes until the end, while Brandes, the popular ladies` man and atheist intellectual leader, was mostly annoyed by his Christian friend.
When Ibsen achieved world fame with his plays The Enemy of the People (1877) and A Doll`s House (1879) through the German stages, Brandes conspicuously stopped writing about these plays, even though he had written many positive criticisms of Ibsen`s earliest plays, before he was known — and before Brandes was aware of how deep Ibsen`s faith in God went. Instead, Brandes began describing Ibsen`s plays as bland in his correspondence with other artists. In 1879 Brandes went out and called Ibsen “backwardly conservative” (despite of A Doll`s House premiering that same year and portraying Nora leaving an exploitative marriage based on lies).
In the same year of 1879 Brandes also published the article “New Danish and Norwegian Poetry” in the English journal The Academy — where he omitted mentioning Ibsen! Brandes lived in Germany at this time, and did everything he could to sabotage Ibsen`s career on the stage, while German theatres were vying to stage one of his “scandalous plays”. Before returning to Denmark, Brandes published a collection of essays on Nordic authors in Germany, under the title Modern Spirits. Again, Ibsen is omitted, although at this point he was one of the most famous Scandinavian writers.
Yet Ibsen continued to consider himself a friend of Brandes.
The way Brandes methodically backstabbed and sabotaged Ibsen can be seen as a first step in the Christophobic stance against not only Christianity and the Church, but any artist, businessman or politician who dares to hold Christian religious views in the modern world. Ironically, Brandes was later credited with Ibsen`s global success — because Ibsen always remained a faithful friend to Brandes and because Brandes` early criticism of Ibsen was written before the play Emperor and Galilean. And ironically Ibsen is the most lasting modernist/Realist artist to have arisen out of Scandinavia — or out of all of Europe, for that matter — while many of the authors and artists pushed by Brandes are now only remembered by historians as a periodical curiosity!
But the strange friendship of Ibsen and Brandes also foreshadows something else: the fact that Christian artists and thinkers have been methodically obstructed by atheist literati — because of their world view. And the fact that those who whish to make it in the artistic and literary world often feel a compulsion to attack “organized religion”, especially Christianity, or the figure of Jesus, in order to achieve “intellectual credibility”. Anti-Christian attitudes have become an entrance ticket to academic, intellectual, or artistic circles. Lately, it has become fashionable to accuse Christian scholars/politicians/artists of “nazi or fascist” attitudes in order to push them out of academia or public life. Which is why I find the personal story of Henrik Ibsen so fascinating.
Sources:
- Sørensen, Ingvar: Dreieskiven. Ibsen og Bibelen. 2001.
- Haugan, Jørgen: Dommedag og djevlepakt. Henrik Ibsens forfatterskap — fullt og helt. Gyldendal, 2014.
