John Gabriel Borkman

John Gabriel Borkman, by
Henrik Ibsen,

The Project Gutenberg eBook, John Gabriel Borkman, by Henrik Ibsen,
Translated by William Archer
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: John Gabriel Borkman
Author: Henrik Ibsen

Release Date: July 8, 2006 [eBook #18792]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOHN
GABRIEL BORKMAN***
E-text prepared by Douglas Levy

The Collected Works of Henrik Ibsen, Volume XI

JOHN GABRIEL BORKMAN.
by
HENRIK IBSEN
Translation and Introduction by William Archer.

INTRODUCTION.*
The anecdotic history of John Gabriel Borkman is even scantier than
that of Little Eyolf. It is true that two mentions of it occur in Ibsen's
letters, but they throw no light whatever upon its spiritual antecedents.
Writing to George Brandes from Christiania, on April 24, 1896, Ibsen
says: "In your last letter you make the suggestion that I should visit
London. If I knew enough English, I might perhaps go. But as I
unfortunately do not, I must give up the idea altogether. Besides, I am
engaged in preparing for a big new work, and I do not wish to put off
the writing of it longer than necessary. It might so easily happen that a
roof-tile fell on my head before I had 'found time to make the last
verse.' And what then?" On October 3 of the same year, writing to the
same correspondent, he again alludes to his work as "a new long play,
which must be completed as soon as possible." It was, as a matter of
fact, completed with very little delay, for it appeared in Copenhagen on
December 15, 1896.
The irresponsible gossip of the time made out that Bjornson discerned
in the play some personal allusions to himself; but this Bjornson
emphatically denied. I am not aware that any attempt has been made to
identify the original of the various characters. It need scarcely be
pointed out that in the sisters Gunhild and Ella we have the pair of
women, one strong and masterful, the other tender and devoted, who
run through so many of Ibsen's plays, from The Feast at Solhoug
onwards--nay, even from Catalina. In my Introduction to The Lady
from the Sea (p. xxii) it is pointed out that Ibsen had the character of
Foldal clearly in his mind when, in March 1880, he made the first draft

of that play. The character there appears as: "The old married clerk.
Has written a play in his youth which was only once acted. Is for ever
touching it up, and lives in the illusion that it will be published and will
make a great success. Takes no steps, however, to bring this about.
Nevertheless accounts himself one of the 'literary' class. His wife and
children believe blindly in the play." By the time Foldal actually came
to life, the faith of his wife and children had sadly dwindled away.
There was scarcely a theatre in Scandinavia or Finland at which John
Gabriel Borkman was not acted in the course of January 1897.
Helsingors led the way with performances both at the Swedish and the
Finnish Theatres on January 10. Christiania and Stockholm followed on
January 25, Copenhagen on January 31; and meanwhile the piece had
been presented at many provincial theatres as well. In Christiania,
Borkman, Gunhild, and Ella were played by Garmann, Fru Gundersen,
and Froken Reimers respectively; in Copenhagen, by Emil Pousen, Fru
Eckhardt, and Fru Hennings. In the course of 1897 it spread all over
Germany, beginning with Frankfort on Main, where, oddly enough, it
was somewhat maltreated by the Censorship. In London, an
organization calling itself the New Century Theatre presented John
Gabriel Borkman at the Strand Theatre on the afternoon of May 3,
1897, with Mr. W. H. Vernon as Borkman, Miss Genevieve Ward as
Gunhild, Miss Elizabeth Robins as Ella Rentheim, Mr. Martin Harvey
as Erhart, Mr. James Welch as Foldal, and Mrs. Beerbohm Tree as Mrs.
Wilton. The first performance in America was given by the Criterion
Independent Theatre of New York on November 18, 1897, Mr. E. J.
Henley playing Borkman, Mr. John Blair Erhart, Miss Maude Banks
Gunhild, and Miss Ann Warrington Ella. For some reason, which I can
only conjecture to be the weakness of the the third act, the play seems
nowhere to have taken a very firm hold on the stage.
Dr. Brahm has drawn attention to the great similarity between the
theme of John Gabriel Borkman and that of Pillars of Society. "In
both," he says, "we have a business man of great ability