After Seeing Bernhardt 'Ou me cacher? Fuyons dans la nuit infernale. INCORPORATE passion and dark tower of flame Without the blasting fire, and crucibles' glow, NAY, not such thou, blind daughter of the Sun! Whose embers in the dull, Medean drink Are quenched, and whom no shades at Minos' bar Shall crowd around, nor ever dread of night, Nor wrath of gods shall make thy spirit shrink: Thou hast thy boonthou art extinguished quite. I IBSEN'S BRAND AN INTERPRETATION BY JANE DRANSFIELD STONE N September, 1865, Ibsen wrote to Bjornsterne Bjornson from Ariccio, a village eighteen miles southeast of Rome, where he was then living: Things are going well with me now; and they have really been doing so the whole time, except on the one or two occasions when I have been at my wits' end, not only where to turn for money, but with regard to my work also. It would make no progress. Then one day I strolled into St. Peters,—I had gone to Rome on an errand, and there I suddenly saw in strong and clear outlines the form of what I had to say. I threw to the winds all that I had been unavailingly torturing myself with for a whole year, and in the middle of July began something new, which progressed as nothing has ever progressed with me before. The work is new, in the sense that I only began to write it then, but the subject and the mood have been weighing on me like a nightmare ever since the many lamentable political occurrences at home first made me examine myself and the condition of our national life, and think about things that before had passed me lightly by. It is a dramatic poem, modern in subject, serious in tone, five acts in rhymed verse. The fourth act is now nearly finished, and the fifth I feel I can write in a week. I work both in the morning and the afternoon, a thing I have never been able to do before. It is delightfully peaceful here; we have no acquaintances; I read nothing but the Bible - it has vigor and power.' This new work was 'Brand,' and I quote the passage in full because of the light it throws upon the creative impulse of the poem. In the following spring Brand' was published, immediately attaining an immense popularity. Throughout Norway and soon throughout Scandinavia, it was read, studied, and quoted, a success due, however, more to a narrow pietistical interpretation of its meaning than to a real understanding of its motive and bearing. You surely will not blame me because the book may have given pietism something to lean on,' writes Ibsen to Brandes.* Norway in 1865 received its tone from the peasant class, not only in politics, but in religion and art. The romantic movement had made the peasant *To Geog Brandes, from Dresden, 15th July, 1869. an object of interest and study, and it was not long before he became conscious of his opportunities, and began to make himself a vital factor in national politics. Hence arose a crude and over-enthusiastic nationalism and a conventional and utilitarian view of society that Ibsen had little sympathy with. Georg Brandes, in his ' Second Impression' (1882), makes a searching analysis of the dramatist's attitude at this time. The air around him resounded with words that expressed ideals; they spoke of everlasting love, deep earnestness, the courage of faith, firmness of character, Norwegianness,' but Ibsen 'found nothing in the world of reality that answered to these words.' Sick at heart, weighted and oppressed by the low ideals, and lethargy of his countrymen, Ibsen left Norway, not to return for permanent residence for twenty-five years. On his way south into Italy, he passed through Denmark, just after its defeat by Prussia in the war over Schleswig-Holstein. He writes to Hansen: 'About the time of my arrival at Copenhagen, the Danes were defeated at Dybbol. In Berlin I saw King William's triumphal entry with trophies and booty. During those day Brand' began to grow within me like an embryo.'* Ibsen had felt that Norway had shamelessly broken faith in not aiding the Danes in this struggle. The king had given his word, but a decision of the Storthing had tied his hands. It is true that the Norwegians at this time were in no position to give effectual aid, but, nevertheless, Ibsen seemed to feel they should have tried, and blamed them for their inaction. Throughout the poem this note of indignation is dominant. The Norwegians are depicted as a nation of pocket-edition' souls, of sluggard spirits, souls of lead,' against whom Brand pits his will, armed with his terrible formula 'all or nothing.' Men must be made to feel the insufficiency of their present lives to satisfy the demands of heaven; must be taught dissatisfaction with half measures and devotion to some worthy cause. Three types of men, a triple-banded foe,' he will wage war against Faint-heart,' exemplified in the peasant who will not risk his life to lead the priest to give the last sacrament to his dying daughter; Light-heart,' in Einer, the artist, who thoughtlessly worships an inherited idea of God, and consecrates his life to gayety, though converted later to a shallow evangelicalism; and Wild-heart,' in the young gypsy girl, Gerd, so strangely *To Peter Hansen, from Dresden, 28th October, 1870. related to Brand, and destined to influence his life in its crisis. Gerd, who worships in the Ice-church,' fears the falcon, and finds 'foul things fair.' Against these Brand will wage war front and rear, war high and low.' Such are the people. The official class is also scourged, sometimes with a light touch of satire, then again with denunciation, the weight of the lash proportioned to the offence. Where is there a more amusing picture than that of the mayor, who never works outside of his own Division, with his wonderful schemes for building an arrest-house,'' pest-house,' and ' guesthouse,' all under one roof, his chatter about the glory of Norway in King Bele's reign, and his watchword 'moderation.' He is a product of the weak humanitarianism then prevalent. He is a good man, a faithful father and husband, a trusty official, an ideal servitor of the people, one would say, yet Brand calls him a scourge upon the land. 'How many an eager will made numb, How many a valiant song struck dumb, The representative of organized religion, the Dean, is not sketched with as kindly satire. To consider the church simply a function of government, making all the uses of it to the State's advantage tend,' was to Ibsen an intolerable condition, crushing individual effort, and bringing all men to a dead level. Ibsen has often been blamed for his lack of patriotism. Unlike Bjornson, that giant of energy and idol of the people, who has worked body and soul for Norwegian nationality, he has ever held himself aloof from party politics. His peculiar and often misunderstood views upon democracy and governments have subjected him to much criticism, and he has been called a socialist, and even anarchist. Ibsen, however, is too much of an individualist to admit of any arbitrary classification. It is true he has declared, 'the state must go,' not, however, in this present era, by bomb-throwing and bloodshed, but in the future, when men, having attained individual personality, having worked out their own salvation, will recognize that spiritual relationship is the only thing that makes for unity.' The accidental, or rather circumstantial fact of a number of people living in the same locality, does not argue for nationality as much as racial kinship. To Ibsen the Jews were the greatest nation, and he grew to feel himself not a Norwegian only, not a Scandinavian only, but a Teuton. He believed in liberty, not liberties; individualism, not democracy. 'The state is (what you hardly dream) Liberty held in strictest ban, But by destroying More and Less.' 6 Consequently to Brand, who Ibsen has said is myself in my best moments,'* the Dean's twaddle about church and state, his arguments for wont and use, his views on profitable religion, are vacant and vain.' The Dean is shallow and rhetorical, without the slightest comprehension of idealism, such as Brand's or of true religion, yet it is he to whom the people return, as sheep to a shepherd, when they no longer can scale the heights. to which Brand's uncompromising ideal would lead them. The idealism of Brand has for its keynote what Wicksteed, in his most able study of the poem, calls the formula of elimination,'' all or nothing.' 'Know that I am stern to crave, All or nothing I will have. and in the logical working-out of its inexorable demands lies the tragedy of the play. Brand's divine mission to make the sick earth grow sound again' is not to be carried out by half-measures. The gentle palliatives of humanitarianism, or the sweet benefits of love, but by will. 'You must first will! Not only things Attainable, in more or less, Not only where the action brings Your way through all earth's agonies.' In this resolute will, this unbending and unflinching devotion to a cause, even though it become a lost cause, as it does, lies Brand's strength. We find him hard, we think him wrong, but we feel him great. 'How he towered as he spoke,' said Agnes, at their first meeting. There is something Titanic about him. He is a northern Prometheus, who would aid men with fire from heaven, though they do not understand its use, and chained to the rock of his idealistic formula, his heart is eaten out daily by misunderstanding on the one side, and on the other by his own half-realized doubt of himself, a doubt only fully faced in the crisis of his life. Because Brand is a priest, his 'All or Nothing' means willing an absolute service to God. Had he been an artist, his call would have been *To Peter Hansen, 28th October, 1870. |