Henrik Ibsen

Love's Comedy Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen is the great Norwegian playwright known of course for "A Doll's House", "Hedda Gabler", "Ghosts" and "The Master Builder". "Love's Comedy" is one of his earliest plays, released before "Brand and Peer Gynt"."Love's Comedy" is considered Ibsen's first assured masterpiece, written in verse and in language loaded with vivid imagery and passion. Two students, Falk and Lind, are staying at the country house of Mrs. Halm, romancing her two daughters Anna and Svanhild. Lind has ambitions to be a missionary, Falk a great poet. Falk criticises bourgeois society in his verse and insists that we live in the passionate moment. Lind's proposal of marriage to Anna is accepted, but Svanhild rejects the chance to become Falk's muse, as poetry is merely writing, and he can do that on his own and without really risking himself for his beliefs.