Ibsen and the Irish Free State: The Gate Theatre Company Productions of Peer Gynt (Henrik Ibsen, Dublin Gate Theatre) (Critical Essay‪)‬

In 1897, arguing for the necessity of Irish Literature to turn to native myth and folklore for inspiration, W.B. Yeats cited the example of Henrik Ibsen, whose Peer Gynt, he contended, was 'not only "national literature" [...] but the chief glory of "the national literature" of its country'. (1) In 1899, Yeats promoted the newly-founded Irish Literary Theatre in a series of speeches and publications that praised Ibsen's early dramas 'founded on the heroes of legends of Norway' as models for the rising generation of Irish playwrights. In following the example of Ibsen, Yeats insisted, the Irish Literary Revival would restore creative vigour to the educated classes in Ireland, whose 'literary barrenness' he believed to be 'the result of their imaginations having been torn up by the roots and of them having little or no sympathy with the life of the country'. (2) The implied promise that the Irish Literary Theatre would produce Ibsen was never fulfilled (much to the consternation of the young James Joyce who saw this omission as a sign of the moral cowardice of the directors). (3) Nor did the Abbey, the successor of the Irish Literary Theatre, stage any of Ibsen's plays until the 1923 production of A Doll's House. (4) As theatre manager, Yeats did not take the opportunity to engage his audiences in a comparative examination of literary nationalism that the production of Ibsen's plays, such as the early national romantic Vikings of Helgeland, and indeed the later Peer Gynt, would have provided. Moreover, Yeats's initial approach to Ibsen was neglectful of the satirical dimension of Peer Gynt and its critique of the Revivalist project in Norway.