450

p But this error, which was also inherited by Brand from Ibsen, could not fail to harm the whole of our dramatist’s work. Ibsen said of himself in a speech that he delivered to the Norwegian Women’s Rights League: "I am more of a poet and less of a social philosopher than is usually thought.” On another occasion he remarked that it had always been his intention to make the reader feel that he was experiencing something real! And this is understandable. The poet thinks in images. But how can one imagine the "uncreated spirit" in an image? A symbol is necessary here. And so Ibsen resorts to symbols every time he makes his heroes wander to the glory of the "uncreated spirit" in the realm of abstract self-perfectionment. But the futility of their wandering inevitably makes itself felt on his symbols. They are insipid and contain too little "real life": they are not reality, but merely a remote allusion to reality.

p Symbols are the weak point of Ibsen’s work. His strong point is his excellent portrayal of petty-bourgeois characters. Here he is 451 a superb psychologist. A study of this aspect of his works is essential for anyone who wishes to study the psychology of the petty bourgeoisie. In this respect every sociologist should make a careful study of Ibsen.  [451•*  But as soon as the petty bourgeois begins to "purify his will”, he turns into an edifyingly boring abstraction. Such is Consul Bernick in the final scene of The Pillars of Society.

p Ibsen himself did not know, and indeed could not have known, what to do with his abstractions. Therefore he either brings down the curtain immediately after revelation has dawned on them, or kills them off by an avalanche somewhere on a high mountain. This reminds one of how Turgenev killed off Bazarov and Insarov because he did not know what else he could do with them. But in Turgenev this destroying of his heroes resulted from a lack of knowledge as to how Russian nihilists and Bulgarian revolutionaries acted. Whereas in Ibsen it arose from the fact that there was actually nothing to do for people who engaged in selfpurification as an end in itself.

p The mountain has produced a mouse. This often happens in Ibsen’s dramas. And not only in his dramas, but in his whole world outlook. Take the "women’s question”, for example. When Helmer tells Nora that she is first and foremost a wife and a mother, the latter replies:

p “That I no longer believe. I believe that before all else I am a human being—or at least that I should try to become one.” She does not recognise the usual “lawful” cohabitation of man and woman as marriage. She strives for what we once called women’s emancipation. The "lady from the sea" Ellida is evidently also striving for this. She wants freedom at any price. When her husband offers her freedom, she refuses to follow the “stranger”, who had attracted her so strongly before, and says to her husband:

452

p “You have been a good physician for me. You found—and you had the courage to use—the right remedy—the only one that could help me."

p Finally, even Fru Maia Rubek (When We Dead Awaken) is not (Content with the narrow confines of family life. She reproaches her husband for not fulfilling his promise to take her up a high mountain and show her all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. Having broken with him finally, she sings “triumphantly”:

p I am free! I am free! I am free!
No more life in the prison for me!
I am free as a bird! I am free!

p In a word, Ibsen is for women’s emancipation. But here, as everywhere, he is interested in the psychological process of emancipation, and not in its social consequences, not in the effect it will have on women’s social position. The important thing is emancipation, but in terms of their social position let women be what they have been up to now.

p In a speech which he gave to the Norwegian Women’s Rights League on May 26, 1898, Ibsen admitted that he did not understand what the "women’s cause" was. Women’s cause was humanity’s cause. Ibsen always strives "to lift the people to a higher level" and, according to him, it was women more than anyone else who were called upon to solve this task. It is mothers who by their sustained and slow work will arouse in the people a desire for culture and a sense of discipline.  It is essential that this should be done first in order to lift the people to a higher level. And in doing this, women will solve the cause of humanity. In short, for the sake of "humanity’s cause" women should limit their horizon to the confines of the nursery. Is that clear?

p Women are mothers. That is so. But men are fathers. Yet this does not prevent them from leaving the nursery. The emancipated woman will be content with the role of mother, just as the woman who never thought of emancipation was content with it. But this is of no importance. The important thing is what is eternal, not what is temporal. Movement is important, not its results. "The revolt of the human spirit" leaves everything in its old place. The huge mountain again produces a tiny mouse thanks to the methodological error for which I have given the sociological explanation.

_p But what about love, the love between man and woman? Fourier pointed out with great satirical skill that bourgeois society, civilisation, as he put it, mercilessly trampled love in the dirt of monetary gain. Ibsen was no less aware of this than Fourier. His Love’s Comedy is an excellent satire, which pokes extremely malicious fun at bourgeois marriage and bourgeois family virtues. 453 But what is the denouement of this fine play, one of Ibsen’s best? The girl Svanhild who loves the poet Falk marries the merchant Guldstad and does so in the name of her noble love of Falk. In this connection the following conversation, which is incredible, but highly characteristic of Ibsen’s world outlook, takes place between her and Falk:

p Falk.

_p ... But, to sever thus!
Now, when the portals of the world stand wide,—
When the blue spring is bending over us,
On the same day that plighted thee my bride!

p Svanhild.

_p Just therefore must we part. Our joy’s torch fire
Will from this moment wane till it expire!
And when at last our worldly days are spent,
And face to face with our great Judge we stand,
And, as a righteous God, he shall demand
Of us the earthly treasure that he lent—
Then, Falk, we cry—past power of Grace, to save—
"0 Lord, we lost it going to the grave!"

p Falk.

_p Now I divine!
Thus and not otherwise canst thou be mine!
As the grave opens into life’s Dawn-fire,
So Love with Life may not espoused be
Till, loosed from longing and from wild desire,
It soars into the heaven of memory!
Pluck off the ring, Svanhild!

p Svanhild (in rapture).

p My task is done!
Now I have filled thy soul with song and sun.
Forth! Now thou soarest on triumphant wings,—
Forth! Now thy Svanhild is the twan that sings!
(Takes off the ring and pi esses a kiss upon it.)
To the abysmal ooze of ocean bed
Descend, my dream!—/ fling thee in its stead!
‘ (Goes a few steps back, throws the ring into the
fjord, and approaches Falk with a transfigured expression.)
Now for this earthly life I have forgotten thee,—
But for the life eternal I have won thee!

454

This is the complete triumph of the eternal, “uncreated” spirit, and at the same time—and precisely for this reason—it is also the complete self-abnegation and self-destruction of the “new”, the temporal. The victory of the “purified” will is tantamount to its complete defeat and to the triumph of that which it was striving to negate. The poetic Falk yields up honour arid place to the prosaic Guldstad. In the fight against bourgeois vulgarity Ibsen’s heroes were always weakest when their “purified” will showed most strength. Love’s Comedy might well have been called The Comedy of the Independent Will.