The mystery of the "North of the North" in Ibsen's works

Jon Nygaard

doi:10.7557/13.3364

Abstract

It is an exaggeration to claim that several of the protagonists in Ibsen’s dramatic works are from the north, or have lived there. The few characters in Ibsen’s drama related to the North are, however, given a special emphasis in his works. They are, like the landscape and the light of the North, mysterious, strange, strong and untamed. Or they have been exiled, suppressed or forgotten – and then suddenly arrive unexpectedly and challenge the established order and open new tension and ambition.Ibsen only visited Northern Norway once, on a trip to North Cape in 1891. His only experience of the “North” before that was actually of Central Norway, Trondheim and Molde. The North in Ibsen’s dramas is accordingly just fiction, imagination – and an expression of the general Southern Norwegian understanding of the “others” living in the North and the “otherness” of the North. Especially people from the North of the North, such as Finnmark, who represent a mysterious, bewitching and magic power, like Rebekka West in Rosmersholm and the foreign sailor in Lady from the Sea. This is explained by the magic nature of the North, such as the midnight sun, the Polar light or the overwhelming and irresistible winter storms over the sea. But Ibsen has also given other clues for the understanding of the mysterious characters from Finnmark, the North of the North. These clues are related to the cultural otherness of the characters as Sami and Kvääni.

Highlights

People from the North of the North, such as Finnmark, who represent a mysterious, bewitching and magic power like Rebekka West in Rosmersholm and the foreign sailor in Lady from the Sea. This is explained by the magic nature of the North, such as the midnight sun, the Polar light or the overwhelming and irresistible winter storms over the sea
The myth and the mystery of the “North of the North” The myth of the Finns, which means the Sami, as the dwarfs and trolls of the folk ballads and folk mythology – and Ibsen underlined that it was a myth – is the background of the mysterious “North of the North” and the mysterious and dangerous people living in the “North of the North” in Ibsen’s dramas
Even though generally accepted as a man fighting for liberty and against superstition, prejudices and myths, in his theoretical article on the heroic ballad and in his later dramas, supports the myth and the mystery of the “North of the North”

Summary

Introduction

In the first volume of Det norske Folks Historie (History of the Norwegian People)(1852) and in Om den saakaldte nyere historiske Skole i Norge (About the so called new Historical School in Norway)(1853), he stated that the two groups of immigrants to Norway, the Northern and the Southern, had different approaches to liberty. Ibsen used Munch’s theories to prove his important point that the Heroic Ballads had their origin in the pre-historic past when the Germanic (or Teutonic) people were living on the great plain in front of the Ural mountains.

Results

Conclusion