Sophocles, Hegel and Ibsen

A Perspective on A Doll’s House, Ghosts and An Enemy of the People
by Helge Salemonsen

II. Brian Johnston

      A similar, rather reluctant confession of Hegelian influence in Emperor and Galilean - like the one seen with Kittang – is expressed also by Bjørn Hemmer:

A certain degree of Hegelian influence might also have manifested itself in Ibsen’s work, not to say that one should exaggerate this influence, as some have been tempted to do. Still in Emperor and Galilean, Ibsen’s understanding of the historical development has a lot in common with Hegel’s. One can also point out certain similarities in their perception of what is characteristic for a tragic conflict, as it is manifested in dramatic form. [...] To say that Hegel was an important figure in his time’s intellectual tendencies, is beyond question, but Ibsen’s possible use of Hegel’s perspective is based on very personal reasons. (Hemmer 2003: 205)

      The scholar who most visibly has used a Hegelian perspective in the reading of Ibsen is, beyond doubt, Brian Johnston in his three books The Ibsen Cycle, To the Third Empire and Text and Supertext in Ibsen’s Drama.(2)   Brian Johnston is convinced that Ibsen not only had second-hand knowledge of Hegel, for example through Monrad and Heiberg, but that he personally must have read and quite thoroughly studied Hegel’s first main work, The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807). He is also convinced that Ibsen has made systematic use of Hegel’s work in his contemporary plays from Pillars of Society to When We Dead Awaken.

      Brian Johnston’s main issue is not to ascertain a general influence from Hegelian thought in Ibsen’s dramas, nor to list some corresponding details in Hegel’s text and Ibsen’s dramas. It is the very order or succession of dramatic intrigues, the sequence of actions, through Ibsen’s twelve last plays that is of interest to him. His staggering thesis claims that this sequence corresponds with the sequence of dialectic actions in the second part of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit:

      What is new in the present study is the discovery that the realistic plays are structured directly upon Hegel’s major philosophical work, The Phenomenology of Mind (3) , and that the dramas in Hegel’s account of the evolution of human consciousness is paralleled in the sequence of dialectical dramas in Ibsen’s Cycle. This argument is capable of proof, for the reader need only compare the dialectical actions of the two sequences to be convinced that a parallel of twelve matching actions, in the same sequence, is beyond the possibility of coincidence. […] The writer is not claiming merely that there are details in Hegel’s text that can be found in Ibsen’s text; he is claiming that the sequence in which these details occur is repeated in Ibsen’s text. (Johnston 1992:1)

      Brian Johnston is taken seriously as a highly qualified and interesting Ibsen researcher, especially when he does not directly connect to his Hegelian thesis. He is referenced, discussed and quoted. Yes, one may also use him as a source of fact; for instance Toril Moi, when she needs to make Ibsen’s Hegelian influence plausible: “Brian Johnston has proven [påvist] Hegel’s influence on Ibsen”, writes Moi on page 115 (Moi 2006). However, on page 428 in the same book, she emphasizes that she has “always perceived Brian Johnston’s Hegelian readings as problematic”.

      Johnston himself has scarcely established any other argument in support of “Hegelian influence on Ibsen” than his insistence on the correspondent sequences. His “Hegelian readings” (cf. Moi) consist in pointing out this correspondence. So, if his Hegelian readings are problematic, then his demonstration (cf. Moi) of Hegel’s influence on Ibsen must also be problematic. In that case, he is not fit to serve as a credible source of fact for Toril Moi.

      In Ibsens heroisme Atle Kittang presents several interesting reflections on Johnston’s analysis of Brand, Pillars of Society and The Master Builder, without putting any noteworthy emphasis on Johnston’s Hegelian perspective. That Kittang rejects Johnston’s thesis about continuous correspondence between Ibsen’s contemporary dramas and the Phenomenology however, is clearly expressed elsewhere, for instance on the radio program Kulturbeitet on NRK P2, where he refers to this perspective as an example of how wrong one can go in studies of Ibsen.

      Asbjørn Aarseth is also sceptical of Brian Johnston’s main thesis in the Ibsen Cycle. He shares Johnston’s perception that Ibsen must have had more than indirect knowledge of Hegel’s philosophy, but presumes that this concerns the Aesthetics more than the Phenomenology:

Given Brian Johnston’s broadly inclined effort, one cannot help but hesitate. Is there a reasonable foundation in the twelve contemporary dramas in order to link them so closely to the text in The Phenomenology of Spirit, chapter six and seven? The reason that this question is difficult to answer with a simple yes or no, is that not only Ibsen’s work, but also Hegel’s work entails some even more excessive interpretational problems. (Aarseth 1977: 186)

      Here, one can only agree with Aarseth. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit is a very difficult text. Johnston’s instructions, to compare the order of actions in Ibsen’s twelve plays with the corresponding course of actions in Hegel’s presentation, is easier said than done. It takes time to read Ibsen. It takes more time to read Hegel. And it takes even more time to understand what he writes. It is not enough to sit down for a social gathering – compare the texts – and then quickly decide whether you are pro or con. Aarseth has read The Phenomenology of Spirit and he has obviously spent more than one night on it:

The ones who look up in the Berlin-edition [of PhS] from 1832, the one which Ibsen would have consulted, must invest a certain good will to be able to follow Johnston’s recommendations. A sceptical reader is tempted more than once to call upon a professional Hegel interpreter. (Aarseth 1977: 186)

      Aarseth cannot agree without hesitation with Johnston’s main perspective. He is sceptical, but still not blind to the value of his work:

Brian Johnston has in this book documented a wider knowledge of the historical spiritual situation of the XIX century than most Ibsen scholars of today. At the same time it is not a dry, over intellectual presentation that he gives. He writes with the enthusiasm and the strength that always resides in having an overall perspective of the object of studies. (Aarseth 1977: 188)

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2 - In a footnote Bjørn Hemmer states that Brian Johnston is a prime example of those who have been “tempted to” put too much emphasis on Hegel’s influence on Ibsen’s literary work. Brian Johnston is a Professor of Dramatic Literature at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA.

3 - Phenomenology of Mind – or – Spirit.  Brian Johnston refers to J. B. Baillie’s translation of Hegel’s Phänomenologie des Geistes, The Phenomenology of Mind, London 1949, while I have made use of A. V. Miller’s translation, The Phenomenology of Spirit, Oxford 1977.