Ibsen and politics
IBSEN AND POLITICS

Summary/Abstract: In Norway the nineteenth century has sometimes been referred to as the age of poetocracy. Representing this way of thinking was Ibsen’s friend and rival Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832–1910), poet, playwright, and public speaker. In the aftermath of the February revolution of 1848 the young Ibsen had supported an early labour union movement, but after this movement was shattered by the police in 1851, Ibsen decided to stay away from political activity. Reacting to liberal agitation he was wrongly accused of being a conservative, which he denied in a 1869 poem, exposing an extreme misanthropic stance. In letters to Georg Brandes Ibsen advocated a position in favour of anarchism. In plays such as An Enemy of the People (1882) and Rosmersholm (1886) political parties are shown to be destructive to human dignity and spiritual values.

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