The winter of 1879-80 Ibsen spent in Munich, and the
greater part of the summer of 1880 at Berchtesgaden.
November 1880 saw him back in Rome, and he passed
the summer of 1881 at Sorrento. There, fourteen
years earlier, he had written the last acts of Peer
Gynt; there he now wrote, or at any rate completed,
Gengangere. It was published in December
1881, after he had returned to Rome. On December
22 he wrote to Ludwig Passarge, one of his German
translators, “My new play has now appeared, and
has occasioned a terrible uproar in the Scandinavian
press; every day I receive letters and newspaper articles
decrying or praising it.
... I consider it utterly
impossible that any German theatre will accept the
play at present. I hardly believe that they will
dare to play it in the Scandinavian countries for
some time to come.” How rightly he judged
we shall see anon.
In the newspapers there was far more obloquy than
praise. Two men, however, stood by him from the
first: Bjornson, from whom he had been practically
estranged ever since The League of Youth, and
Georg Brandes. The latter published an article
in which he declared (I quote from memory) that the
play might or might not be Ibsen’s greatest
work, but that it was certainly his noblest deed.
It was, doubtless, in acknowledgment of this article
that Ibsen wrote to Brandes on January 3, 1882:
“Yesterday I had the great pleasure of receiving
your brilliantly clear and so warmly appreciative review
of Ghosts. ... All who read your article
must, it seems to me, have their eyes opened to what
I meant by my new book—assuming, that is,
that they have any wish to see. For I cannot
get rid of the impression that a very large number
of the false interpretations which have appeared in
the newspapers are the work of people who know better.
In Norway, however, I am willing to believe that the
stultification has in most cases been unintentional;
and the reason is not far to seek. In that country
a great many of the critics are theologians, more
or less disguised; and these gentlemen are, as a rule,
quite unable to write rationally about creative literature.
That enfeeblement of judgment which, at least in the
case of the average man, is an inevitable consequence
of prolonged occupation with theological studies,
betrays itself more especially in the judging of human
character, human actions, and human motives.
Practical business judgment, on the other hand, does
not suffer so much from studies of this order.
Therefore the reverend gentlemen are very often excellent
members of local boards; but they are unquestionably
our worst critics.” This passage is interesting
as showing clearly the point of view from which Ibsen
conceived the character of Manders. In the next
paragraph of the same letter he discusses the attitude
of “the so-called Liberal press”; but
as the paragraph contains the germ of An Enemy
of the People, it may most fittingly be quoted
in the introduction to that play.
