Brand [Paperback]

Henrik Ibsen (Author), G. Hill (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 17, 1978 | Series: Plays / National Theatre

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Henrik Ibsen was born of well-to-do parents at Skien, a small Norwegian coastal town, on March 20, 1828. In 1836 his father went bankrupt, and the family was reduced to near poverty. At the age of fifteen, he was apprenticed to an apothecary in Grimstad. In 1850 Ibsen ventured to Christiania—present-day Oslo—as a student, with the hope of becoming a doctor. On the strength of his first two plays he was appointed “theater-poet” to the new Bergen National Theater, where he wrote five conventional romantic and historical dramas and absorbed the elements of his craft. In 1857 he was called to the directorship of the financially unsound Christiania Norwegian Theater, which failed in 1862. In 1864, exhausted and enraged by the frustration of his efforts toward a national drama and theater, he quit Norway for what became twenty-seven years of voluntary exile abroad. In Italy he wrote the volcanic Brand (1866), which made his reputation and secured him a poet’s stipend from the government. Its companion piece, the phantasmagoric Peer Gynt, followed in 1867, then the immense double play, Emperor and Galilean (1873), expressing his philosophy of civilization. Meanwhile, having moved to Germany, Ibsen had been searching for a new style. With The Pillars of Society he found it; this became the first of twelve plays, appearing at two-year intervals, that confirmed his international standing as the foremost dramatist of his age. In 1900 Ibsen suffered the first of several strokes that incapacitated him. He died in Oslo on May 23, 1906.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Heinemann Educational Books (April 17, 1978)
• ISBN-10: 0435234161
• ISBN-13: 978-0435234164
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Patience hardens, August 15, 2000

By 

Dominic Fox (Leicester, Leicestershire United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brand: A Version for the Stage by Geoffrey Hill (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

This is unmistakeably Hill's _Brand_: the technical grace of his Englishing of Ibsen shows an acute awareness of the responsibility of the translator to both the original text and the language into which it is to be translated. Hill's translation enriches not only the English language but the ability of English (and non-Norwegian) speakers to appreciate Ibsen's brooding, symbolically charged drama of the challenge of faith in the midst of common life. Is Brand's fidelity to his "dear Christ hurt with thorns" obdurate or obstinate? In this play, the repudiation of social morality in the name of higher things is put to the question: what if devotion to such "higher things" also leads to, or becomes a mask for, moral isolation, the cauterization of social feeling? Uncompromising and yet compromised, Brand is a caution, and _Brand_ a cautionary tale...

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best books I have read...., March 8, 2000

By 

Jonathan Johnson (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brand (Paperback)

This book captures the essence of humanity. I recommend to anyone who wants to find themself.

2 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The "Good" Ibsen, June 5, 2000

By 

Carra R Lane - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brand: A Version for the Stage by Geoffrey Hill (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

Brand is the flip side of Peer Gynt. Ibsen may well have intended to write heroism into Brand, a charismatic dissenting priest, but could not breathe any life into his protagonist at all. Brand is cold, righteous, merciless, uncompromising. The play is dated, dull, static, but of historical interest to Ibsen scholars, since he may have learned plenty by writing Brand. The rather rigid Norwegian state/church of his time loved it, granted Henrik a permanent poet stipend for Brand. Modern gentle readers may roll their eyes.