The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare

• The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare
• About

Ibsen, Henrik

Ibsen, Henrik (1828–1906),
Norwegian playwright and poet. Ibsen, familiar with Shakespeare from his professional career as a dramaturg, later, for his ‘problem’ plays of contemporary life, sought to reject the artificial devices of blank verse, soliloquy, mistaken identity, overheard conversations, intercepted letters. But the structure of Ghosts (1881), with its dead father, powerful mother, and sensitive son, bears many resemblances to Hamlet; and some of the symbolism of his last play When We Dead Awaken (1899) seems to echo Shakespearian ‘romance’.

Tom Matheson

Oxford University Press Titles

• The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology
• The Oxford Dictionary of Economics
• The Oxford Companion to American Literature
• The Oxford Companion to American Military History
• The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization
• The Oxford Companion to English Literature
• The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales
• The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare
• The Oxford Dictionary of Plays
• The Oxford Dictionary of Art
• Oxford Dictionary of Sociology
• Oxford Dictionary of World History
• Oxford Dictionary of World Mythology