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    Brand
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    Brand
    Ebook269 pages1 hour

    Brand

    By Henrik Ibsen

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    About this ebook

    Robert David MacDonald’s majestic version of Ibsen’s poem-drama about the triumph of will over compromise. Brand, a fiery priest-hero, urges his flock to sacrifice their lives to save their souls.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOberon Books
    Release dateMar 2, 2016
    ISBN9781783192755
    Author

    Henrik Ibsen

    Born in 1828, Henrik Ibsen was a Norwegian playwright and poet, often associated with the early Modernist movement in theatre. Determined to become a playwright from a young age, Ibsen began writing while working as an apprentice pharmacist to help support his family. Though his early plays were largely unsuccessful, Ibsen was able to take employment at a theatre where he worked as a writer, director, and producer. Ibsen’s first success came with Brand and Peter Gynt, and with later plays like A Doll’s House, Ghosts, and The Master Builder he became one of the most performed playwrights in the world, second only to William Shakespeare. Ibsen died in his home in Norway in 1906 at the age of 78.

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    Reviews for Brand

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      Extraordinarily good edition of Ibsen's long and difficult four-act play about a stern priest who cannot understand the true nature of love. Written in verse (Hill, a poet himself, produced this version from a literal translation of the original he was supplied with by a native speaker of Norwegian), it is a delight to read and to hear on the stage.
    • 2/5
      I feel bad giving this only two stars. For all I know, Ibsen's play is a masterpiece; Hill's version here is certainly very Hill-like, which I appreciate (combining brutal satire, high language and a distinct aura of ambiguity). But as a reading experience... it's not all that hot. It starts out quite symbolically, then for most of the play is fairly realistic, then ends with a rush of symbolism once more. These sections, in Hill's version at least, seem a little disjointed (and fair enough, too. It'd be a tough transition to make for anyone). Brand himself seems like a perfectly human character, inasmuch as most humans are 'unrealistic;' a strange effect of this play is that the seemingly 'realistic' characters end up seeming unrealistically worldly, while the least realistic character seems entirely human. And this brings me to the obvious value of all this, which is that it's an excellent incentive to thinking and puzzling out why you feel x and y about these characters and their statements. Are absolute ideals something to be cherished and admired? Is a pragmatic attitude towards the world always to be scorned? And vice versa.
      That said, I'd put this in the lineage of Zarathustra and Kierkegaard rather than, say, Faust or Flaubert's St Antony. The latter work well as works of literature as well as intellectual bon-bons; Hill's remarkably flexible poetry aside, this works best as a bon-bon.