Chapter 1 - Early Years in Norway

Summary

This chapter traces Ibsen’s family background and childhood in Skien (1828–43), his youth as an apprentice to a pharmacist in Grimstad (1843–50) and his years in Kristiania and Bergen until he left Norway in 1864. Ibsen’s literary activity started before he left Grimstad and it continued in Kristiania. After failing the university’s entrance exam in 1850, Ibsen was offered a full-time position at the new Norwegian Theatre in Bergen. The theatre was dedicated to the training of Norwegian actors, the introduction of spoken Norwegian on the stage and the promotion of national dramatic writing. In 1857 Ibsen left Bergen to take up a position at the corresponding Norwegian theatre in Kristiania. The theatre experienced economic difficulties that also affected Ibsen’s finances, and more and more he came to experience the theatre as a restriction on his literary ambitions. These negative aspects have to be balanced, however, against the exceptional training these years offered the young playwright. Furthermore, Norwegian theatre by the middle of the nineteenth century was fully integrated in the European theatre business, and by the 1860s Ibsen had become acquainted with and had started to articulate his ambitions against the contemporary, French-dominated, repertoire.