372 Norivay mid the Norwegians 



Norway, lie had in his character all the energy and all 

 the perverseness which marks their works. We might 

 give him the title which was applied to a bard of Olaf 

 Tryggvason's court, and call him Yandrseda Skald, the 

 perverse poet. 



Eefusing absolutely to go by hearsay and tradition 

 or to accept anything on authority, this apothecary's 

 apprentice with the spirit of the viking, soon set him- 

 self to work to destroy all his country's illusions about 

 the simplicity and beauty of Norwegian society, the 

 hardiness and worth of the people. He began, it is 

 true, like his predecessors, with historic and mythic 

 dramas, such as the Heroes in Helgoland, of which we 

 have spoken. But he very soon changed from that tone 

 to one of criticism and satire ; and in this tone he has 

 continued ever since, with scarcely any break, whether 

 he express himself in verse as in Brand and Peer Gynt, 

 or in prose as in the social dramas. 



Ibsen is generally spoken of as a realist. But we 

 must use the word, which is employed in so many 

 different senses, in rather a peculiar one if we apply it 

 to him. His characters are all natural. But the object 

 of the writer has not been merely to follow the bent of 

 his own imagination, and to mirror nature from out of 

 his own experiences. What has been said of Bjornson's 

 later work must be said of all Ibsen's social dramas, 

 that though not precisely works with a purpose, they 

 are works with a ' tendency,' which has been mapped 

 out for the characters by the author. We hardly see 

 character moulding destiny as upon the whole it does 

 in real life ; more, at any rate, than it fulfils any 

 fixed destiny prescribed for it by fate, or heredity, or 



