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Title: Four Major Plays: A Doll's House, Ghosts, Hedda Gabler, the Master Builder (Oxford World's Classics) by James McFarlane, Jens Arup, Henrik Johan Ibsen ISBN: 0-19-283387-1 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: July, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A translation to beat all others
Comment: James McFarlane's and Jens Arup's translations of Ibsen have long been classics and are arguably the best. Although they were published in England almost forty years ago, they still sound remarkably fresh and will be in print for many years to come.
In "A Doll's House" (1879), Ibsen casts us into the world of Nora Helmer, a young Norwegian housewife and Nordic Madame Bovary. Highlighting the restricted position of women in male-dominated society, the play sparked such an uproar in Scandinavia when it appeared that "many a social invitation during that winter bore the words: 'You are requested not to mention Ibsen's Doll's House!'" In fact, Hedwig Niemann-Raabe, the actress who was to play Nora on tour in Germany, was so appalled at the ending of this play -- at this female "monster" -- that she demanded Ibsen write an alternative one in German, which he did (a "barbaric outrage", in his words). McFarlane has appended this German-language ending (and a translation in English).
Based on the theme, "The sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children," "Ghosts" (1881) is one of Ibsen's most riveting plays. Like "A Doll's House", it, too, was denounced on its début ("crapulous stuff", "an open drain", one London reviewer called it -- certainly a Victorian exaggeration). As in most of his plays, Ibsen probes the hypocrisies of patriarchal society, which he deems to be rotten at its core, and stultifying provincial life ("Doesn't the sun ever shine here?"). Typically, he also casts women in a favorable light.
"A Doll's House" and "Ghosts" established Ibsen's reputation as one of the finest playwrights in Europe, but his next two plays -- "Hedda Gabler" (1890) and "The Master Builder" (1892) -- gave him undisputed international fame. As McFarlane points out, the 1890s "were the years when the publication of a new Ibsen play sent profound cultural reverberations throughout Europe and the world." "Hedda Gabler" marks Ibsen's shift away from highly controversial dramas primarily concerned with social and sexual injustice to "domestic" plays that addressed the struggle of individuals to control each other, people who "want to control the world, but cannot control [themselves]." "Hedda Gabler" is a thoroughly electrifying drama about a married woman's devouring sense of decay and confinement. "The Master Builder", which Ibsen coupled with "Hedda Gabler", is his riveting look into sexual potency and the domination of youth by age.
These plays are not as dark and dirty as they might seem. Whatever reviewers may have said about them when they came out and whatever gloomy stuff psychiatrists have written about them since, if you're at all familiar with prime-time television, they won't offend you -- in fact, you probably wont even lift an eyebrow. Still, I found myself glued to them for hours and I've read them before. Find a copy for your shelf!
Rating: 5
Summary: Four classic plays from Ibsen
Comment: Actually, I've only read two of these plays before but I did
want to list the names of the four included in this volume:
A Doll's House;
Ghosts;
Hedda Gabler;
The Master Builder.
Masterful social drama (to sound like a back-of-the-book blurb).
Seriously though, Ibsen's plays are wonderful.
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Title: Five Plays: Ivanov, the Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, and the Cherry Orchard (OXFORD WORLD'S CLASSICS) by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Ronald Hingley ISBN: 0192834126 Publisher: Anvil Press Poetry Pub. Date: July, 1998 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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Title: Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett ISBN: 0802130348 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: August, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Stranger by ALBERT CAMUS ISBN: 0679720200 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 13 March, 1989 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Chekhov: The Major Plays by Ann Dunnigan, Robert Brustein, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov ISBN: 0451527763 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: 09 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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Title: Miss Julie and Other Plays (Oxford World's Classics) by August Strindberg, Michael Robinson, Johan A. Strindberg ISBN: 0192833170 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: February, 1999 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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