Henrik IbsenHenrik Ibsen

This overview of Henrik Ibsen's life and writing from the Famous Authors series contextualizes Ibsen's upbringing in tight-knit, strictly religious communities in isolated Norway. As a young man, he left his family home in a desire to break away from the staid and religious environment, and worked toward university and made friends that supported his talents. While he failed to pass matriculation exams in Oslo, he began to publish plays and continued to meet intellectual friends who supported his work, which led to a job as a theater director in Bergen. Ibsen eventually moved to Rome, where he met his publisher, Frederick Hegel, and began to gain some success, and later moved to Germany. The video discusses the way Ibsen's plays about small communities and everyday human drama, like A Doll's House and Hedda Gabler, changed the theater for years to come.