Kristin Gjesdal: The Drama of History

Abstract

Kristin Gjesdal has already published a long series of articles and one anthology on the philosophical impact of Ibsen’s dramatic works. With the present volume she delivers a more comprehensive and more deeply analyzed study on the subject that focuses on Ibsen’s discussion of the philosophy of history. In the seven chapters of the study, she discusses Ibsen’s relation to the aesthetic writings of Lessing and Herder, she debates his ambivalent reactions towards Hegel’s aesthetics and philosophy of history, and finally she goes into the complex relation between the attempts by Ibsen and Nietzsche to revitalize modern forms of tragedy. One of the virtues of the study is that Gjesdal not only pays attention to this German context, but also to Scandinavian philosophers who transmitted and modified German philosophy (besides Kierkegaard and Brandes she repeatedly refers to Johan Ludvig Heiberg’s philosophical writings). One could, of course, say that all of these complex intertextual relations have already been treated in older studies by Harald Beyer, Ole Koppang, Asbjørn Aarseth, Thomas F. Van Laan, Brian Johnston, and Matthias Straßner (to name just a few important representatives). But Gjesdal is certainly right when she states that the focus of these studies has been “lighter on philosophical content and detail” (p. 8) and heavier on dramaturgical observations. This should not insinuate that she is blind for the literary dimensions of Ibsen’s works. On the contrary, all of the presented readings are characterized by an attempt to take drama and the dramatical forms of representation seriously. This