The Oxford Ibsen ed. by James Walter McFarlane and Graham Orton (review)

360 MODERN DRAMA December have already said the same or similar things, and such other pedantic documentations as those of famous Shakespearean lines. Yet Scheibler focuses on important scenes, characters, and dramatic devices. including irony and symbol. and explains them with Teutonic thoroughness. Despite my noted reservations, I frequently found his four long analyses challenging and suggestive. MYRON MATLAW Queens College The City University of New York THE OXFORD IBSEN. Volume I: Early Plays. Edited and translated by James Walter McFarlane and Graham Orton. London: Oxford University Press, 1970. viii+7I5 pp. $22.50. Of the eight volumes either completed or projected in the Oxford edition of Ibsen's dramas, this is the one that will surely receive least attention. Cataline, The Burial Mound, Norma or a Politician's Love, St. John's Night, Lady Inger, The Feast at Solhoug, and Olaf Liljekrans do not have the literary or dramatic quality likely to excite anyone but the scholar determined to understand Ibsen's development as a literary artist and as a man of the theater. For such a person this volume will be extremely useful, not only because it contains the early plays but because it contains a valuable introduction, Ibsen's notes on various plays, a bibliography, and eight appendices, everyone of which is filled with the sort of information students need: "Cataline: commentary," "Ibsen in Christiania 1850-1851," "The Burial Mound: commentary," "Ibsen and the Bergen Theatre 1851-1857," "St. John's Night: commentary," "Lady Inger: commentary ," "The Feast of Solhoug: commentary," and "Olaf Liljekrans: commentary." Assembling all of this fascinating material in one volume is typical, of course, of the excellent plan for the whole edition and its realization volume by volume. The introduction which sketches in some detail Ibsen's development both as a human being and as a dramatist from 1850 to 1859 can serve any serious student well. The essential facts are there, their significance is clarified, and the editor's comments are pertinent and to the point. The development of Ibsen from a young inexperienced man obedient to the demands of his time to a still young but independent creative artist who was to affect and influence his time appreciably is traced. The following passage (which deals with his later works) suggests as much: This is the common factor that informs many of the key phrases, of these works-notions like 'the joy of life,' 'the man who stands alone,' 'nobility of mind,' 'freedom with responsibility,' 'the robust conscience,' 'the miraculous.' Individual fulfillment following some independent recognition or act of courage is the aim; and 'duty' (pligt in Norwegian) is-as Hilde Wangel declares-a nasty word both in sound and in implication. The dramatist who was to help make these matters part of everyday thinking in a most influential segment of the western world even in his own day was to have a significant share in changing western patterns of thinking and of behavior. The early plays are highly important for anyone who wants to understand how Ibsen came to certain conclusions about human beings and the world in which they live and how he learned to express those conclusions unforgettably. A comparison of passages in the translations with the original reveals that the 1971 BOOK REVIEWS 361 trarulations are as accurate as one can ask. Take, for example, these lines from Cataline (Act I, Aurelia's speech, page 52): A woman's role is to console and comfort, although she cannot dream like you of greatness;... when man is fighting for his proudest dream, and reaps but disillusion and distress, her words sound kind and tender in his ear... and she will lull him into peaceful slumber; then he discovers that the quiet life itself has joys which frantic turmoil lacks. This is surely a highly competent rendering of En kjaerlig Tr~st er stedse Qvindens Sag, kan hun end ei som Du om Storhed dr~mme;­ Naar Manden kjaemper for sin stolte Dr~m, og al hans L~n er Skuffelse og Kummer, da lyder hendes Tale blid og ~mhun dysser ind ham til en rolig Slummer; da finder han, at og det stille Liv har Glaeder, sem den vilde...