HI
Meet the Author
Henrik Ibsen
Norwegian · 1828–1906 · Playwright
The Norwegian playwright who brought ordinary living rooms, and the secrets inside them, onto the modern stage.
2 StoryBites Editions2 Big Books2 Full texts
Why read Henrik Ibsen?
Ibsen took the respectable middle-class home and showed the lies holding it together: debts, hidden diseases, and marriages built on performance. His characters talk like real people, and his endings refuse to tie things up neatly. Read him to see where modern realistic drama comes from and why his plays still start arguments.
A life in six dates
- 1828Born in Skien, Norway
- 1864Leaves Norway for Italy and Germany, beginning decades abroad
- 1867Peer Gynt
- 1879A Doll’s House
- 1881Ghosts
- 1890Hedda Gabler
- 1906Dies in Kristiania, now Oslo
Themes across the collection
The StoryBites Editions
Context that actually matters
Realism on stageIbsen replaced grand verse and melodrama with prose dialogue and everyday settings, which shaped the theater that followed.
The problem playHis dramas raise social questions about marriage, money, and hypocrisy, and leave the audience to argue about the answers.
Scandal and debateA Doll’s House and Ghosts provoked outrage in their own day, which helped make them famous.
Reading the plays and snagging on the language? A Glossary of Common Shakespearean Words →
Influence
Echoes of Henrik Ibsen run through George Bernard Shaw, James Joyce, Arthur Miller, among many others.