Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism: Art, Theater, Philosophy

by Toril Moi

Overview

Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) is the founder of modern theater, and his plays are performed all over the world. Yet in spite of his unquestioned status as a classic of the stage, Ibsen is often dismissed as a fuddy-duddy old realist, whose plays are of interest only because they remain the gateway to modern theater. In Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism , Toril Moi makes a powerful case not just for Ibsen's modernity, but for his modernism. Situating Ibsen in his cultural context, she shows how unexpected his rise to world fame was, and the extent of his influence on writers such Shaw, Wilde, and Joyce who were seeking to escape the shackles of Victorianism. Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism also rewrites nineteenth-century literary history; positioning Ibsen between visual art and philosophy, the book offers a critique of traditional theories of the opposition between realism and modernism. Modernism, Moi argues, arose from the ruins of idealism, the dominant aesthetic paradigm of the nineteenth century. She also shows why Ibsen still matters to us today, by focusing on two major themes-his explorations of women, men, and marriage and his clear-eyed chronicling of the tension between skepticism and the everyday. This radical new account places Ibsen in his rightful place alongside Baudelaire, Flaubert, and Manet as a founder of European modernism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191502644
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	02/14/2008
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	416
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Toril Moi was born and raised in Norway, and worked in England in the 1980s, before moving to Duke University in 1989, where she is now the James B. Duke Professor of Literature and Romance Studies. She is the author of influential books on feminist theory. The second edition of her landmark study of Simone de Beauvoir will be published in January 2008.

Table of Contents

An Ibsen ChronologyIntroductionPart I: Ibsen's Place in History1. Ibsen and the Ideology of Modernism2. Postcolonial Norway? Ibsen's Cultural Resources3. Rethinking Literary History: Idealism, Realism, and the Birth of Modernism4. Ibsen's Visual World: Spectacles, Painting, TheaterPart II: Ibsen's Modern Breakthrough5. The Idealist Straitjacket: Ibsen's Early Aesthetics6. Becoming Modern: Modernity and Theater in Emperor and GalileanPart III: Ibsen's Modernism: Love in an Age of Skepticism7. "First and Foremost a Human Being": Idealism, Theater, and Gender in A Doll's House8. Losing Touch with the Everyday: Love and Language in The Wild Duck9. Losing Faith in Language: Fantasies of Perfect Communication in Rosmersholm10. The Art of Transformation: Art, Marriage, and Freedom in The Lady From the SeaEpilogue: Idealism and the "Bad" EverydayAppendix 1: Synopsis of Emperor and GalileanAppendix 2: Translating Ibsen

Editorial Reviews

"[Moi makes her arguments] with vigor and intellectual integrity—and with enough enthusiasm to send a reader back to the plays.... She has an impressive knowledge of nineteenth-century European literature and theory—and of Ibsen's place in both.... With much affection and scrupulous scholarship, she finds her way back to the original."—Bookforum

"One of the joys of enrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism is that it is rhetorically sophisticated and tightly argued. Moi's prose is lively and engaging, she knows her Ibsen well, and her theoretical background has enabled her to offer an interesting, intellectually rewarding reading experience."-Jan Sjavik, Modern Language Quaterly

"The best account of Ibsen's mind and stagecraaft I have read, but it does a lot more than that."—A.S.Byatt, Times Literary Supplement

"A magisterial book."—Martin Puchner, London Review of Books

"Moi has written a subtle and brilliant analysis of the plays - both poetic and realist - but she has done much more than that. She has redrawn the parameters of the distinction between realist and 'modern', in a surprising and exciting way....There are all sorts of good things in this book....It alters our idea both of Ibsen and of the world of ideas he worked in."—AS Byatt, Guardian

"Moi is full of rare insights into the arts, philosophy and culture of the nineteenth century."— Alastair Macaulay, Financial Times

"Moi provides a blend of theory, history, and interpretation that simultaneously renders Ibsen's aesthetic development coherent and situates the great Norwegian playwright in the orbit of Baudelaire, Flaubert, and Manet as a revolutionary pioneer of European modernism. Summing Up: Highly recommended."—Choice

"This is an indispensable book, as illuminating of the painting and literature of the times as of Ibsen himself."—Paul Binding, Spectator

"A subtle and brilliant analysis... surprising and exciting.... It alters both our idea of Ibsen and of the world of ideas he worked in."—A. S. Byatt, Guardian Review Book of the Week

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