Shakespeare in Ibsen's Drama

Abstract

Through comparative reading, I elaborate on claims in previous Ibsen research on Shakespeare’s influence on Ibsen. The main point is that aspects of Ibsen’s wayof creating dramatic characters from Brand (1866), Ibsen’s Scandinavian breakthrough, via An Enemy ofthe people (1882) to his last and modernistic play When We Dead Awaken (1899), can be regarded asinfluenced by Shakespeare, especially one particular Shakespeare play, the one that according to T.S. Eliotis Shakespeare’s most successful play: Coriolanus (1607-1608). Shakespeare’s Coriolanus is a Romangeneral and a complex drama character whose virtues can be said to turn into his vices and who’s moralabsolutism makes him socially and politically homeless, and what I argue, is that these aspects might haveinfluenced Ibsen’s way of portraying characters.