The Oxford Ibsen, Volume VIII: Little Eyolf, John Gabriel Borkman, When We Dead Awaken ed. by James Walter McFarlane (review)

Book Reviews THE OXFORD IBSEN, VOLUME YIlT: UTILE EYOLF. JOHN GABRIEL BORKMAN. WHEN WE DEAD AWAKEN, ed. and trans. James Walter McFarlane. Oxford, London , New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. xiii & 390 pp. £10.50, $31.50. Most fitting it is that The Oxford Ibsen was completed by the sesquicentennial of Ibsen's birth. Long before the publication of this eighth and final volume, this handsome edition had been recognized as the standard English edition of Ibsen. The only uniform collection in English of all the plays, The Oxford Ibsen fins a gap that had yawned as wide as the great Ginnungagap, that mythic emptiness stretching from the world of the north. From that void the corpus of the giant Henrik Ibsen has now emerged fully formed and living under the creative eduction of Professor McFarlane. One of the most valuable scholarly aspects of The Oxford Ibsen is the organization and translation of significant draft materials hitherto unavailable in English. Virtually none of the Ibsen scholarship in English has made significant use of draft materials in analyzing the plays. In this volume, Professor McFarlane not only provides the draft materials, translated with an eye to preserving similarities between the draft and final versions, but also offers an exemplary analysis demonstrating the importance of examining these materials. His extended consideration of the kinship relationships-of the "intricate interweaving of ties parental and filial, of sibling and other blood relationships, of affiliate and affinal connections of astonishing variety"- in Little Eyolj as they alter over the stages of the play's development, provides a masterly illustration of Ibsen's concern for the motivation, duty, and psychicsymbolic patterns deriving from various bondings. The critical significance of this analysis reaches far beyond Little Eyolf. As a case study, it traces Ibsen's intricate adjustment of the warp and woof of the web that functions, as early as Pillars of Society, as the modern analogue of the ancient Greek or Norse concept of fale. Scholars have in the past disagreed, and will continue to disagree with the particulars of a given translation. No translation matches the original. Lost, for example. in this as well as other English versions, is the formal method of address by title or occupation. While the aspect of formality can be conveyed successfully in English by shifting from forename to surname or appending "Mr.," there is no comparable speech pattern in modern English to convey the 433 434 BOOK REVIEWS occupation. In translations of Bygmesler Solness, the Norwegian form of address has been superimposed on the English because of the obvious and unavoidable significance in Ibsen's use of the occupational title of master builder. His use of occupational title in John Gabriel Borkman is m OTe subtly developed, but it nevertheless functions as an element in the delineation of Borkman's character. Borkman is first referred to in the playas "he" and then identified as banksjefen, "the hank director." When his actual name is first introduced, it is cited as a name in the abstract- HAnd think what the name John Gabriel Borkman once meant!"-rather than as a reference to a person. The second use of his name is similarly confined to its significance as an appellation: "And they called him by his Christian names- all over the country- just as if he was the King. 'John Gabriel.' 'John Gabriel.' Everybody knew what a great man 'John Gabriel' was!" When the person himself needs to be identified, he is again identified by occupation. To the query, who is in the room above, Mrs. Barkman replies, "The bank director." Only then are the person and the name united: Ella responds, "Borkman. John Gabriel Barkman!" Thus, the public title and occupation become associated with Mrs. Borkman's perception , and the name as a personal designation becomes associated with Ella Rentheirn. The twin sisters reflect the opposing aspects of Borkman. However, this opposition is also developed in Act I by many other means, so the translation of banksjefen as "he" or "that man" is a better choice than the literal translation which would distort by virtue of its unusualness in English conversational patterns. The place where this first act patterning becomes important is...