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The Wild Duck | The Tragic and Comic Elements in The Wild Duck.

Korb has a master’s degree in English literature and creative writing and has written for a wide variety of educational publishers. In the following essay, she discuss the tragic and comic elements in The Wild Duck.

In comparison to current esteem for Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck, the play was vastly underappreciated upon its initial appearance on the stages of Europe. In Scandinavia, the play was somewhat successful but drew little interest from critics. While its Berlin audience applauded it, the play was booed in Rome, disliked in London, and received with indifference in Paris. The criticism it drew in the first few decades after its publication and performance was, generally, negative. Edmund Gosse wrote in an 1889 collection that it was ‘‘the least interesting’’ of Ibsen’s...

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