Preface

“Computational methods are not taking over the humanities,” Matthew Wilkens wrote in 2015 (11). If this may be true on a general basis, it seems safe to say that digital humanities have clearly made their way into Ibsen Studies, as the monograph A Global Doll’s House. Ibsen and Distant Visions (2016) by Julie Holledge et al. clearly shows. Jens Morten Hanssen’s article “Digital Humanities and Theatre Studies: New Perspectives on the Early Reception of Ibsen on the German Stage” is an important addition to this growing field of studies, and shows how computational methodologies can provide new insights into materials – such as the introduction of Ibsen in Germany – that were previously thought to be thoroughly studied. For instance, computational approaches provide new answers to what probably is the greatest enigma of the German reception of Ibsen, namely, the failure of A Doll’s House after the positive reception of Pillars of Society. Liyang Xia’s article “A Myth that Glorifies: Rethinking Ibsen’s early reception in China” also engages with an established narrative and brings significantly new evidence, as well as historiographical reflections, on the legacy of Ibsen on the Chinese stage. Xia shows how there are strong reasons to doubt that the 1914 Shanghai staging of A Doll’s House by the Spring Willow Society, which has long been considered the first performance of Ibsen in China, actually took place. If this is the case, the history of Ibsen in China has to be rewritten, and later actors, especially female student groups, should be given credit for having introduced Ibsen’s plays to the country. Besides historical research, Xia also engages in a critical reflection on the narrative about Ibsen’s Chinese reception that has been proposed in the last four decades. The third article, Marit Aalen’s and Anders Zachrisson’s “Peer Gynt and Freud’s The Uncanny,” draws upon the rich bibliography on Ibsen and Freud, but by focusing on a play, Peer Gynt, that is not usually read from this perspective. Through a close reading of scenes from the play, Aalen and Zachrisson show how the