"Henrik Ibsen - Hedda Gabler" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ibsen Henrik)

belongs to the history of _The Master Builder_ rather than to that of
_Hedda Gabler_, but the allusions to his work in his letters to her
during the winter of 1889 demand some examination.

So early as October 7, 1889, he writes to her: "A new poem begins to
dawn in me. I will execute it this winter, and try to transfer to it
the bright atmosphere of the summer. But I feel that it will end in
sadness--such is my nature." Was this "dawning" poem _Hedda Gabler_?
Or was it rather _The Master Builder_ that was germinating in his
mind? Who shall say? The latter hypothesis seems the more probable,
for it is hard to believe that at any stage in the incubation of
_Hedda Gabler_ he can have conceived it as even beginning in gaiety.
A week later, however, he appears to have made up his mind that the
time had not come for the poetic utilisation of his recent experiences.
He writes on October 15: "Here I sit as usual at my writing-table.
Now I would fain work, but am unable to. My fancy, indeed, is very
active. But it always wanders awayours. I cannot repress my summer
memories--nor do I wish to. I live through my experience again and
again and yet again. To transmute it all into a poem, I find, in the
meantime, impossible." Clearly, then, he felt that his imagination
ought to have been engaged on some theme having no relation to his
summer experiences--the theme, no doubt, of _Hedda Gabler_. In his
next letter, dated October 29, he writes: "Do not be troubled because
I cannot, in the meantime, create (_dichten_). In reality I am for
ever creating, or, at any rate, dreaming of something which, when in
the fulness of time it ripens, will reveal itself as a creation
(_Dichtung_)." On November 19 he says: "I am very busily occupied
with preparations for my new poem. I sit almost the whole day at my
writing-table. Go out only in the evening for a little while." The
five following letters contain no allusion to the play; but on
September 18, 1890, he wrote: "My wife and son are at present at
Riva, on the Lake of Garda, and will probably remain there until the
middle of October, or even longer. Thus I am quite alone here, and
cannot get away. The new play on which I am at present engaged will
probably not be ready until November, though I sit at my writing-
table daily, and almost the whole day long."

Here ends the history of _Hedda Gabler_, so far as the poet's letters
carry us. Its hard clear outlines, and perhaps somewhat bleak
atmosphere, seem to have resulted from a sort of reaction against
the sentimental "dreamery" begotten of his Gossensass experiences.
He sought refuge in the chill materialism of Hedda from the ardent
transcendentalism of Hilda, whom he already heard knocking at the
door. He was not yet in the mood to deal with her on the plane of
poetry.(3)

_Hedda Gabler_ was published in Copenhagen on December 16, 1890.
This was the first of Ibsen's plays to be translated from proof-
sheets and published in England and America almost simultaneously
with its first appearance in Scandinavia. The earliest theatrical