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Ghosts (original Norwegian title: Gengangere) is a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. Norway ( Norwegian: Norge ( Bokmål) or Noreg ( Nynorsk) officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Constitutional A playwright, also known as a dramatist, is a person who writes dramatic literature or Drama. "Ibsen" redirects here For other people named Ibsen see Ibsen (disambiguation. It was written in 1881 and first staged in 1882. [1]

Like many of Ibsen's better-known plays, Ghosts is a scathing commentary on 19th century morality.

Contents

Play Background

Ghosts was written during the autumn of 1881 and was published in December of the same year. It was not performed in the theatre till May 1882[1], when a Danish touring company produced it in the Aurora Turner Hall in Chicago. Chicago (ʃɪˈkɑːgoʊ is the largest City by population in the state of Illinois and the American Midwest of the United States. Ibsen disliked the translator William Archer's use of the word 'Ghosts' as the play's title, whereas the Norwegian "Gengangere" would be more accurately translated as "The Revenants".

The play achieved a single private London performance on 13 March 1891 at the Royalty Theatre. Events 1138 - Cardinal Gregorio Conti is elected Antipope as Victor IV, succeeding Anacletus II. Year 1891 ( MDCCCXCI) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common The Royalty Theatre was a small London theatre situated at 73 Dean Street, Soho and opened on May 25 1840 as Miss Kelly's Theatre The Lord Chamberlain's Office censorship was avoided by the formation of a subscription-only Theatre Society, which included Thomas Hardy and Henry James among its members[2]. The Lord Chamberlain's Office is a department within the British Royal Household. Thomas Hardy OM (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928 was an English novelist Short story writer and poet of the naturalist movement though he saw Henry James, OM ( –) son of theologian Henry James Sr, brother of the philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James

Plot

Helene Alving is about to dedicate an orphanage she has built in the memory of her dead husband, Captain Alving. She reveals to her spiritual advisor, Pastor Manders, that she has hidden the evils of her marriage for its duration, and has built the orphanage to deplete her husband's wealth so that their son, Osvald, might not inherit anything from him. Pastor Manders had previously advised her to return to her husband despite his philandering, and she followed his advice in the belief that her love for her husband would eventually reform him. However her husband's philandering continued until his death, and Mrs. Alving was unable to leave him prior to that due to the constraints of 19th Century morality. During the action of the play she discovers that her son Osvald (whom she had sent away so that he would not be corrupted by his father) is suffering from congenital syphilis, and (worse) has fallen in love with Regina Engstrand, Mrs. Syphilis is a Sexually transmitted disease caused by the spirochetal Bacterium Treponema pallidum pallidum. Alving's maid, who is revealed to be an illegitimate daughter of Captain Alving, and thereby Osvald's own half-sister.

The play concludes with Mrs. Alving deciding whether or not to euthanize her son Osvald in his developing syphillitic madness in accordance with his wishes.

Reactions

Much like A Doll's House, Ghosts was deliberately sensational. A Doll's House (literally translated A Doll's Home, from the original Norwegian title Et dukkehjem) is an 1879 play by the What most offended Ibsen's contemporaries was what they regarded as its shocking indecency, its more than frank treatment of a forbidden topic. An English critic was later to describe it as "a dirty deed done in public,"[3] and to many it must have seemed simply shocking rather than in any profound intellectual sense revolutionary. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland

At the time, the mere mention of venereal disease was scandalous, but to show that even a person who followed society's ideals of morality had no protection against it was beyond scandalous. A sexually transmitted disease ( STD) or venereal disease ( VD) is an illness that has a significant probability of transmission between Humans Hers was not the noble life which Victorians believed would result from fulfilling one's duty rather than following one's desires. Those idealized beliefs were only the "ghosts" of the past, haunting the present.

The production of Ghosts scandalised Norwegian society of the day and Ibsen was strongly criticised. In 1898 when Ibsen was presented to King Oscar II of Sweden, at a dinner in Ibsen's honour, the King told Ibsen that Ghosts was not a good play. Early life At his birth in Stockholm Oscar Frederik was created Duke of Östergötland. "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation. After a pause, Ibsen exploded "Your Majesty, I had to write Ghosts!".

Notes

  1. ^ a b Ibsen.net
  2. ^ Theatreland Timeline (London Metropolitan Archives) accessed 11 Oct 2007
  3. ^ Krutch, Joseph Wood. Joseph Wood Krutch (pronounced krootch) ( November 25, 1893 &ndash May 22, 1970) was an American writer critic and naturalist "Modernism" in Modern Drama: A Definition and an Estimate. Modernism describes an array of Cultural movements rooted in the changes in Western society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century A definition is a statement of the meaning of a Word or Phrase. Estimation is the calculated Approximation of a result which is usable even if Input data may be incomplete or uncertain. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1953. Ithaca or Ithaka (in Greek, Ιθάκη, Ithaki) is an island in the Ionian Sea, in Greece, with an area of 118 km² Page 9.

List of characters

External links

Bibliography

William Archer ( 23 September 1856 &ndash 27 December 1924) Scottish Critic, was born in Perth, and was educated
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