With Vine-Leaves in His Hair: The Role of the Artist in Ibsen's Plays

The title of this study of the artist in Ibsen's work is taken from Hedda Gabler's ambitions for the heroic death of her former lover, Ejlert Lovborg, and points to a cultural inheritance from both Greek tragedy and Romanticism's concept of the artist-as-rebel. In his great sequence of prose plays the figure of the artist (or would-be artist) is of the greatest importance to Ibsen in his presentation of the tensions inside contemporary society. His empathy with his 'dramatis personae' and his exact and scrupulously accurate placing of them in context means that we need to appreciate his artist-characters in relation to their respective pursuits if we are to see those plays in which they appear in all their depth.