“The Lady from the Sea”: A Fresh Approach to an Analysis of Ibsen's Drama

Intelligent criticism is the worthiest tribute we can pay to Genius. Why has Henrik Ibsen been thus slighted? The universal appeal claimed by that vivid masterpiece of his, The Lady from the Sea, may be our excuse to analyze, review and examine rather more closely than has yet, in forty years, been attempted, the motif of its story and its theme. It is because the world of thought has so rarely been bequeathed a finer example of a poet's dissection of life and emotion that we, as psychologists, have a right to share in it; though we are no less mindful of the rich material he has provided for further reflection and analyses of our own. For beneath the placid waters of fjord and ocean comprising the foreground of this tense drama of the seas, repose a thousand and one elements in strife, rival and turbulent emotions, inter-rush of foreboding and desire, that form the ebb and flow of its never-wearying song. The Lady of the Sea is an intensely moving tour de force of drama, with a conception and vigor rarely reached in literature dealing with its particular theme before Ibsen's day; and scarcely equaled, we think, since, in the world's literature to the present time.* Exactly what hidden forces beneath the surface of his mind were responsible for this stir in the tides of thought, what motivated and activated our author to rise to this supreme task shall be our effort to lay bare. Further, we shall strive to light up the real background of that impressive and