Must we, then, wholly dissent from Bjornson’s
judgment? I think not. In a historical,
if not in an aesthetic, sense, Ghosts may well
rank as Ibsen’s greatest work. It was the
play which first gave the full measure of his technical
and spiritual originality and daring. It has
done far more than any other of his plays to “move
boundary-posts.” It has advanced the frontiers
of dramatic art and implanted new ideals, both technical
and intellectual, in the minds of a whole generation
of playwrights. It ranks with Hernani
and La Dame aux Camelias among the epoch-making
plays of the nineteenth century, while in point of
essential originality it towers above them. We
cannot, I think, get nearer to the truth than Georg
Brandes did in the above-quoted phrase from his first
notice of the play, describing it as not, perhaps,
the poet’s greatest work, but certainly his
noblest deed. In another essay, Brandes has pointed
to it, with equal justice, as marking Ibsen’s
final breach with his early-one might almost say his
hereditary romanticism. He here becomes, at last,
“the most modern of the moderns.”
“This, I am convinced,” says the Danish
critic, “is his imperishable glory, and will
give lasting life to his works.”
GHOSTS
(1881)
CHARACTERS.
MRS. HELEN ALVING, widow of Captain Alving, late Chamberlain
to
the King. [Note: Chamberlain (Kammerherre) is
the only title of
honour now existing in Norway. It is a distinction
conferred by the
King on men of wealth and position, and is not hereditary.]
OSWALD ALVING, her son, a painter.
PASTOR MANDERS.
JACOB ENGSTRAND, a carpenter.
REGINA ENGSTRAND, Mrs. Alving’s maid.
The action takes place at Mrs. Alving’s country
house, beside one of the large fjords in Western Norway.
GHOSTS
A FAMILY-DRAMA IN THREE ACTS.
ACT FIRST.
[A spacious garden-room, with one door to the left,
and two doors to the right. In the middle of
the room a round table, with chairs about it.
On the table lie books, periodicals, and newspapers.
In the foreground to the left a window, and by it
a small sofa, with a worktable in front of it.
In the background, the room is continued into a somewhat
narrower conservatory, the walls of which are formed
by large panes of glass. In the right-hand wall
of the conservatory is a door leading down into the
garden. Through the glass wall a gloomy fjord
landscape is faintly visible, veiled by steady rain.]
[ENGSTRAND, the carpenter, stands by the garden door.
His left leg is somewhat bent; he has a clump of wood
under the sole of his boot. REGINA, with an empty
garden syringe in her hand, hinders him from advancing.]
REGINA. [In a low voice.] What do you want? Stop
where you are. You’re positively dripping.
