Epiphanic Transformations: Lou Andreas-Salomé's Reading of Nora, Rebecca and Ellida

Abstract

Epiphanic Transformations: Lou AndreasSalome's Reading of Nora, Rebecca and Ellida LORRAINE MARKOTlC It is now we1l over a hundred years since the publication of Lou AndreasSalome's Henrik Ibsen's Female Characrers (Henrik Ibsen's FrauenGesralren,), and it is over a decade since the book was translated into English (as Ibsen's Heroines); yet Andreas-Salome's study of Ibsen's dramas has scarcely been acknowledged by most Ibsen scholars - which is not to say that it has had no influence upon Ibsen scholarship. Indeed, the lack of explicit reference to the book is somewhat striking. Clearly, Andreas-Salome's rcading of Ibsen is now less startlingly original than it once was: since her time, Nietzschean notions of subjectivity have gained popularity, Freud has elaborated Oedipal desi re and incest guilt and Betty Friedan has explored the problem that has no name. Still, Andreas-Salome's work deserves more attention than it has hitherto received. and it is perhaps even more convincing now than it was when she was "ahead of her time."