Abstract
The overall perspective of this article will be how drama as theatre, plays a part in the making of common worlds. I disagree with Benedict Anderson when he argues that the development of a printed national language was a basis for an imagined community and a condition for the modern nation state. When Ibsen and his contemporaries were fighting for a Norwegian theatre and theatre aesthetics in the 1850s and early 1860s, a written Norwegian language, which was distinctly different from written Danish, did not exist.In order to explain how the Norwegians could have a common imagined community before 1814 and the background for the young Ibsen’s theatre aesthetics, it is necessary to take a look at the theatre traditions Ibsen and his generation inherited – from, what is often referred to as the generation of 1814. It is also necessary to establish a perspective, which does not focus on written or printed language, but on theatre as human action.From 1850 to 1864 Ibsen was a prominent representative for a movement who wanted to develop a national theatre. The function of this national theatre was to be a mirror that could help the nation to correct itself, to strengthen the national self-consciousness. The theatre should be a place where the Norwegian people could experience an inner unity and an external demarcation of the nation. Ibsen participated in this national theatre project both as a theatre critic, as a playwright, as the author of prologues, epilogues and songs filled with national sentiment – and he was struggling for governmental support for the Norwegian theatre on this basis.
Highlights
I will suggest how the young Ibsen profited from these established theatre traditions during his practical theatre career – before he dissociated himself from Norwegian theatre and the Norwegian national character in 1864. This means that I disagree with Benedict Anderson (1991, 44) when he argues that the development of printed national languages laid the basis for national consciousness and for the modern nation state
When Ibsen and his contemporaries were fighting for a Norwegian theatre and theatre aesthetics in the 1850s and early 1860s, a written Norwegian language, which was distinctly different from written Danish, did not exist
In order to explain how the Norwegians could have a common imagined community before 1814 and the background for the young Ibsen’s theatre aesthetics, it is necessary to take a look at the theatre traditions Ibsen and his generation of 1848 inherited from what is often referred to as the generation of 1814
Summary
This perspective implies a focus on human action and makes it possible to see how an imagined community was expressed through socio-cultural and aesthetic practices in and around the theatre. The generation of 1814 and the Norwegian mountains as national monuments In the dramatic societies the mountains – and first of all the mountains of Dovre – were established as a symbol for solidity and eternal promises. The mountains – and above all Dovre – were both in Denmark and Norway accepted and celebrated as the source for the Norwegian national character.
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