Sign-In
Cart
Hedda Gabler: A Play
Paperback
Literary CriticismRelationshipsWomen's Studies
ISBN13: 9781523263790
Publisher: Createspace
Published: Jan 6 2016
Pages: 212
Weight: 0.83
Height: 0.45 Width: 7.01 Depth: 10.00
Language: English
Hedda Gabler
By Henrik Ibsen
Translated by Edmund Gosse and William Archer
Hedda, the daughter of an aristocratic and enigmatic general, has just returned to her villa in Kristiania (now Oslo) from her honeymoon. Her husband is George Tesman, a young, aspiring, and reliable (but not brilliant) academic who continued his research during their honeymoon. It becomes clear in the course of the play that she has never loved him but married him because she thinks her years of youthful abandon are over. It is also suggested that she may be pregnant.
The reappearance of George's academic rival, Eilert Lovborg, throws their lives into disarray. Eilert, a writer, is also a recovered alcoholic who has wasted his talent until now. Thanks to a relationship with Hedda's old schoolmate Thea Elvsted (who has left her husband for him), Eilert shows signs of rehabilitation and has just published a bestseller in the same field as George. When Hedda and Eilert talk privately together, it becomes apparent that they are former lovers.
From Munich, on June 29, 1890, Ibsen wrote to the Swedish poet, Count Carl Soilsky: Our intention has all along been to spend the summer in the Tyrol again. But circumstances are against our doing so. I am at present engaged upon a new dramatic work, which for several reasons has made very slow progress, and I do not leave Munich until I can take with me the completed first draft. There is little or no prospect of my being able to complete it in July. Ibsen did not leave Munich at all that season. On October 30 he wrote: At present I am utterly engrossed in a new play. Not one leisure hour have I had for several months. Three weeks later (November 20) he wrote to his French translator, Count Prozor: My new play is finished; the manuscript went off to Copenhagen the day before yesterday.... It produces a curious feeling of emptiness to be thus suddenly separated from a work which has occupied one's time and thoughts for several months, to the exclusion of all else. But it is a good thing, too, to have done with it. The constant intercourse with the fictitious personages was beginning to make me quite nervous. To the same correspondent he wrote on December 4: The title of the play is Hedda Gabler. My intention in giving it this name was to indicate that Hedda, as a personality, is to be regarded rather as her father's daughter than as her husband's wife. It was not my desire to deal in this play with so-called problems. What I principally wanted to do was to depict human beings, human emotions, and human destinies, upon a groundwork of certain of the social conditions and principles of the present day.
So far we read the history of the play in the official Correspondence.(A) Some interesting glimpses into the poet's moods during the period between the completion of The Lady from the Sea and the publication of Hedda Gabler are to be found in the series of letters to Fraulein Emilie Bardach, of Vienna, published by Dr. George Brandes.(B) This young lady Ibsen met at Gossensass in the Tyrol in the autumn of 1889. The record of their brief friendship 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.
28 different editions
Also available
Hedda Gabler: A Modern Drama of Power, Constraint, and Psychological Conflict
Ibsen, Henrik
Hardcover
Hedda Gabler: Play In Four Acts Translated By Edmund Gosse And William Archer
Ibsen, Henrik
Paperback
Hedda Gabler: A Drama in Four Acts - Translated from the Norwegian by Edmund Gosse
Ibsen, Henrik
Paperback
Also in
Literary Criticism
Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times
Sachs, Aaron
Hardcover
Queer Faith: Reading Promiscuity and Race in the Secular Love Tradition
Sanchez, Melissa E.
Paperback
Ancient Rome at the Cinema: Story and Spectacle in Hollywood and Rome
Theodorakopoulos, Elena
Paperback
How to Be a Cat: (Cat Books for Kids, Cat Gifts for Kids, Cat Picture Book)
Lazar, Ralph
Swerling, Lisa
Hardcover
Hidden Hemingway: Inside the Ernest Hemingway Archives of Oak Park
Cirino, Mark
Elder
Vetch, Aaron
Hardcover
Dante's Vita Nuova, New Edition: A Translation and an Essay
Pitavy, Francois
Alighieri, Dante
Paperback
How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines (Large Print Edition)
Foster, Thomas C.
Paperback
Much ADO about Nothing: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Sparknotes
Shakespeare, William
Paperback
Twelfth Night: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Sparknotes
Shakespeare, William
Paperback
Penelope's Bones: A New History of Homer's World Through the Women Written Out of It
Hauser, Emily
Paperback
Romeo and Juliet: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Shakespeare, William
Sparknotes
Paperback
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
Saunders, George
Paperback
Mythology (75th Anniversary Illustrated Edition): Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes
Hamilton, Edith
Hardcover
Mean Dads for a Better America: The Generous Rewards of an Old-Fashioned Childhood
Shillue, Tom
Paperback
The Language of the Night: Essays on Writing, Science Fiction, and Fantasy
Le Guin, Ursula K.
Paperback
But Have You Read the Book? Romance Edition: 40 Love Stories That Inspired Our Favorite Films
Lopez, Kristen
Hardcover
Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise
Rundell, Katherine
Hardcover
Jane Austen's Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend
Romney, Rebecca
Paperback
Women of the Fairy Tale Resistance: The Forgotten Founding Mothers of the Fairy Tale and the Stories That They Spun
Harrington, Jane
Hardcover
Somewhere, a Boy and a Bear: A. A. Milne and the Creation of Winnie-The-Pooh
Brandreth, Gyles
Hardcover
A Midsummer Night's Dream: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Sparknotes
Shakespeare, William
Paperback
The Jane Austen Insult Guide for Well-Bred Women: Serving Tea with a Side of Scorn
Reed, Emily
Hardcover
The Odyssey: An Illustrated Guide: A Character-By-Character Guide to the Story of Odysseus
Metzger, Doug
Hardcover
Julius Caesar: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Sparknotes
Shakespeare, William
Paperback
The Dream Factory: London's First Playhouse and the Making of William Shakespeare
Swift, Daniel
Hardcover
The New Lifetime Reading Plan: The Classical Guide to World Literature, Revised and Expanded
Fadiman, Clifton
Major, John S.
Paperback
The Greek Tragedies: Seventeen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides
Aeschylus
Sophocles
Euripides
Paperback
Darkness Becomes Bright: On the Brief Life and Immortal Art of Edgar Allan Poe
Ogden, Emily
Hardcover
Trace Elements: Conversations on the Project of Science Fiction and Fantasy
Walton, Jo
Palmer, Ada
Hardcover
A Treacherous Secret Agent: How Literature Spoke Truth to Power During the Red Scare
Garber, Marjorie
Hardcover
Taylor Swift by the Book: The Literature Behind the Lyrics, from Fairy Tales to Tortured Poets
Feder, Rachel
Tatreau, Tiffany
Hardcover