The Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) developed realistic techniques that changed the entire course of Western drama. There is very little in modern drama that does not owe a debt to him.

Henrik Ibsen was born on March 20, 1828, in the town of Skien. His father, a businessman, went bankrupt when Ibsen was 8, a shattering blow to the family. Ibsen left home at 15, spending the next six, difficult years as a pharmacist's assistant in Grimstad, where he wrote his first play. In 1850 he moved to Christiania (Oslo) to study. In 1851 he became resident dramatist, later director, of a new theater in Bergen. Although he never became a good director and his plays were mostly unsuccessful, the years in Bergen gave him invaluable experience in practical stagecraft.

Ibsen returned to Christiania in 1857, where he spent the worst period of his life. His plays were either rejected or failures, he went...