Henrik Ibsen

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 31 May 2018

⏱️ 50 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great Norwegian playwright and poet, best known for his middle class tragedies such as The Wild Duck, Hedda Gabler, A Doll's House and An Enemy of the People. These are set in a world where the middle class is dominant and explore the qualities of that life, its weaknesses and boundaries and the ways in which it takes away freedoms. It is the women who fare the worst in this society, something Ibsen explored in A Doll's House among others, a play that created a sensation with audiences shocked to watch a woman break free of her bourgeois family life to find her destiny. He explored dark secrets such as incest and, in Ghosts, hereditary syphilis, which attracted the censors. He gave actresses parts they had rarely had before, and audiences plays that, after Shakespeare, became the most performed in the world. With Tore Rem Professor of English Literature at the University of Oslo Kirsten Shepherd-Barr Professor of English and Theatre Studies and Tutorial Fellow, St Catherine's College at the University of Oxford And Dinah Birch Professor of English Literature and Pro-Vice Chancellor for Cultural Engagement at the University of Liverpool Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the BBC.
0:02.0	Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time.
0:05.0	There's a reading list to go with it on our website.
0:07.0	And you can get news about our programs if you follow us on Twitter at BBC In Our Time.
0:12.0	I hope you enjoyed the programs.
0:14.0	Hello, Henry Gibson's tragedy is a remodeling the most performed plays in the world,
0:18.0	second only to the Zavshagspir.
0:20.0	Among them, adults house the wild, duck, head of garbler and ghosts.
0:25.0	His characters aren't kings, princes or emperors,
0:27.0	but bank managers, doctors, photographers and above all their wives and daughters
0:32.0	often trapped in their roles in the new Norwegian bourgeoisie.
0:36.0	The dramas larger take place in city rooms or landscapes, not castles.
0:40.0	And explore topics that cause the sensation when first performed in the late 19th century
0:44.0	and still provoke discussion today.
0:46.0	Could, should a mother abandon her children?
0:48.0	What if a husband, in fact, is a wife or a syphilist?
0:51.0	What if a woman has an affair with an older man whom she suspects is her father?
0:55.0	With me to discuss the works of Henry Gibson are Torrey Rem, Professor of English Literature,
1:00.0	at the University of Oslo.
1:02.0	Kirsten Shepherd Bar, Professor of English and Theatre Studies,
1:05.0	and Tutorial Fellows in Catherine's College at the University of Oxford.
1:08.0	And Diana Burge, Professor of English Literature and Provise Chanceurper,
	...

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