E-text prepared by Douglas Levy
The Collected Works of Henrik Ibsen, Volume I
Translation by C. H. Herford
Koerlighedens Komedie was published at Christiania in 1862. Thepolite world—so far as such a thing existed at the time in theNorthern capital—received it with an outburst of indignationnow entirely easy to understand. It has indeed faults enough.The character-drawing is often crude, the action, though full ofeffective by-play, extremely slight, and the sensational climaxhas little relation to human nature as exhibited in Norway, orout of it, at that or any other time. But the sting lay in theunflattering veracity of the piece as a whole; in the mercilessportrayal of the trivialities of persons, or classes, high in theirown esteem; in the unexampled effrontery of bringing a clergymanupon the stage. All these have long since passed in Scandinavia,into the category of the things which people take with their Ibsenas a matter of course, and the play is welcomed with delight byevery Scandinavian audience. But in 1862 the matter was serious,and Ibsen meant it to be so.
For they were years of ferment—those six or seven which intervenedbetween his return to Christiania from Bergen in 1857, and hisdeparture for Italy in 1864. As director of the newly founded"Norwegian Theatre," Ibsen was a prominent member of the littleknot of brilliant young writers who led the nationalist revoltagainst Danish literary tradition, then still dominant inwell-to-do, and especially in official Christiania. Well-to-doand official Christiania met the revolt with contempt. Under suchconditions, the specific literary battle of the Norwegian withthe Dane easily developed into the eternal warfare of youthfulidealism with "respectability" and convention. Ibsen had alreadystarted work upon the greatest of his Norse Histories—ThePretenders. But history was for him little more than materialfor the illustration of modern problems; and he turned with zestfrom the task of breathing his own spirit into the stubborn mouldof the thirteenth century, to hold up the satiric mirror to thesuburban drawing-rooms of Christiania, and to the varied phenomenacurrent there,—and in suburban drawing-rooms elsewhere,—underthe name of Love.
Yet Love's Comedy is much more than a satire, and its exuberanthumour has a bitter core; the laughter that rings through it isthe harsh, implacable laughter of Carlyle. His criticism ofcommonplace love-making is at first sight harmless and ordinaryenough. The ceremonial formalities of the continental Verlobung,the shrill raptures of aunts and cousins over the engaged pair,the satisfied smile of enterprising mater-familias as she reckonsup the tale of daughters or of nieces safely married off under herauspices; or, again, the embarrassments incident to a prolongedBrautstand following a hasty wooing, the deadly effect offamiliarity upon a shallow affection, and the anxious efforts tosave the appearance of romance when its zest has departed—allthese things had yielded such "comedy" as they possess to manyothers before Ibsen, and an Ibsen was not needed to evoke it.But if we ask what, then, is the right way from which these "cosmic"personages in their several fashions diverge; what is the conditionwhich will secure courtship from ridicule, and marriage fromdisillusion, Ibsen abruptly parts company with all his predecessors."'Of course,' reply the rest in chorus, 'a deep and sincere love';—'together,' add some, 'with prudent good sense.'" The prudentgood sense Ibsen allows; but he couples with it the startlingparadox that