The Hegel Ibsen Connection

What is the Hegel-Ibsen Connection? In The Ibsen Cycle (1975) I argued that Ibsen’s twelve Realist plays, from Pillars of Society to When We Dead Awaken formed a single Cycle and that the sequence of plays followed, in the same order, the sequence of dialectical ‘dramas’ of Consciousness set out in Hegel’s The Phenomenology of Spirit (especially Chapters VI and VII). Despite initial hostility, many Ibsen scholars now concede the Hegelian connection. Few, however, have ventured to take up Ibsen’s and Hegel’s texts to explore further the correspondences between them.

Ibsen’s plays are richly allusive in the manner of his lifelong admirer, James Joyce. The Cycle draws on other of Hegel’s writings and also on a multitude of references from what I have called his ‘Supertext’ of historical, cultural and archetypal figures and events from the past. I argue for the presence of many of these in The Ibsen Cycle. Ibsen’s texts need the attention Joyce’s receive in searching out the Supertext. My analyses have searched out only a fraction of his multilayered textuality.

Readers are invited to add comments to this blog: 'The Hegel-Ibsen Connection'. Essay-length contributions could be chosen for the website in the section ‘Ibsen Related Texts’. Helge Salemonsen’s essay (cf. link below) would be a good starting point for those entering the discussion. Contributions to this topic are welcome.

Helge Salemonsen’s essay: ‘Sophocles, Hegel and Ibsen – A Perspective on A Doll’s House, Ghosts and An Enemy of the People’ takes up the challenge and examines the evidence for the Hegel-Ibsen connection. His essay is an important contribution to Ibsen Studies and an excellent example of the multilayered attention Ibsen rewards and requires. Readers are invited to comment on the essay (and the website) and to add their own suggestions and objections.