In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Ibsen and the Irish Revival
  • Christine M. Young-Gerber
Ibsen and the Irish Revival. By Irina Ruppo Malone. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Hardcover $80.00. 240 pages.

In Ibsen and the Irish Revival, Irina Ruppo Malone skillfully explores Ireland's problematic relationship with Ibsen, "challeng[ing] the commonly held view that the Irish Revival was rooted in the rejection of Ibsen” (2). By exploring Ireland's response to English Ibsenism, utilizing reviews, and examining reactions to Ibsen's work in historical context, Malone reveals intersections between Ibsen and the Irish Revival, ranging from Yeats's contradictory views to Joyce's twining of real and mythic.

According to Malone, it is not enough to merely point out the similarities in Ibsen's work and the Irish Revivalists. Detailing the chronology of Ibsen's introduction to Ireland through British newspapers in 1891 to the first production of an Ibsen play in 1894, Malone draws on press reviews, diaries, and letters to make clear Ireland's cultural reliance on England and the ways in which this reliance influenced Ibsen's reception. Malone explores the similarities between the Norwegian Dramatic Revival, of which Ibsen was part, and Yeats's ideal of a similar Irish revival. Although Ireland knew Ibsen primarily as the father of realist drama, Yeats noted the mytho-poetic aspect of Ibsen's work, seeking to absorb this aspect into the Irish Literary Revival, "cultivat[ing] the idea of a close similarity between the Irish and the Norwegian Dramatic Revivals” (29). Malone's detailed comparisons of A Doll's House and In the Shadow of the Glen, as well as Hedda Gabler and Dierdre reveal an understanding, rather than rejection, of Ibsen on the part of Irish writers and audiences, as well as revisionist efforts on Ibsen's themes in subsequent Irish plays.

Malone devotes much exploration to Ibsen's use of Norwegian idiom, and the subsequent use of Irish idiom in plays echoing Ibsen's work, revealing, Malone asserts, a nationalist understanding of Ibsen by the Irish playwrights. However, she argues, by moving chronologically through Ireland's exposure to and absorption of Ibsenism, the issue of Yeats and his initial embrace and subsequent aversion to Ibsen must be explored. Malone's statement that "Yeats's remarks on Ibsen range from sincere expression of admiration to equally sincere articulations of distaste” reveals the inherent confusion in Yeats's contribution to Irish Ibsenism (39). By piecing together Yeats's Ibsen writings, Malone asserts Yeats's contradictions grew from [End Page 169] audience response at an Ibsen production, and from criticism of the Abbey Theatre. Further research on Malone's part reveals Yeats's revulsion toward "‘joyless and pallid words'”(42). Ultimately, then, Yeats's rejection of Ibsen results from a lack of poetic sensibility, such as "‘Shakespeare and Sophocles'” possessed (42). It would be interesting to explore the specific Ibsen translations Yeats used.

Malone also asserts that while Ibsen made no distinction between symbolic and literal, an attachment to the literal made Irish symbolism difficult. Through review of The Heather Field and an 1908 production of The Master Builder, Malone details the Cork Realists' reaction to Ibsen's combining of symbol and literal, asserting that the dismissal of this combination resulted in the Revivalist writers missing part of the richness of Ibsen's work. By departing from dramatic works, however, Malone's reading of Joyce's "An Encounter” in juxtaposition to Little Eyolf reveals her assertion that Joyce was able to do what the Cork Realists were not: incorporate myth into reality. This incorporation of myth into reality is further pursued through an intriguing investigation of Peer Gynt's influence on Irish writing and of the Gate Theatre's production of the play. She points to this 1928 production as evidence that Yeats's mytho-poetic ideals had not been ignored, merely incorporated differently than originally intended and "bridged the gap between the theatrical and the literary reception of Ibsen in Ireland” (177).

By providing a new perspective of Ibsen's influence on the Irish Literary Revival, Malone illuminates previously overlooked aspects of the Revival, opening new avenues for inquiry. Through study of audience and playwright response to Ibsen's...

pdf

Share