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Three Major Plays: Peer Gynt/Rosmersholm/When We Dead Awaken

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Includes the plays Peer Gynt, Rosmersholm, When We Dead Waken

The three plays in this volume are representative of Ibsen's extraordinary achievement as a playwright. The first is perhaps his best known work, the great dramatic poem Peer Gynt, presented here in the acclaimed translation used by the Royal Shakespeare Company for its 1982 production. With this are Romersholm, in which Ibsen unmasks the moral evasions which prevent us from being truly free, and When We Dead Waken, in which a figure from the past rises to haunt an ageing artist.
These distinctive translations are accompanied by an introductory foreword and are followed by notes on pronunciations and other details and aspects of Ibsen's original texts.

176 pages, paper

First published September 1, 2006

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About the author

Henrik Ibsen

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Henrik Johan Ibsen was a major Norwegian playwright largely responsible for the rise of modern realistic drama. He is often referred to as the "father of modern drama." Ibsen is held to be the greatest of Norwegian authors and one of the most important playwrights of all time, celebrated as a national symbol by Norwegians.

His plays were considered scandalous to many of his era, when Victorian values of family life and propriety largely held sway in Europe and any challenge to them was considered immoral and outrageous. Ibsen's work examined the realities that lay behind many facades, possessing a revelatory nature that was disquieting to many contemporaries.

Ibsen largely founded the modern stage by introducing a critical eye and free inquiry into the conditions of life and issues of morality. Victorian-era plays were expected to be moral dramas with noble protagonists pitted against darker forces; every drama was expected to result in a morally appropriate conclusion, meaning that goodness was to bring happiness, and immorality pain. Ibsen challenged this notion and the beliefs of his times and shattered the illusions of his audiences.

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