“Henrik Ibsen and Modern Chinese Drama” (Publication, 2004)
Year
2004
Text
He, Chengzhou. Henrik Ibsen and Modern Chinese Drama. (Oslo : Academic Press, 2004). Diss. Univ. of Oslo, 2001.
http://www.ibseninchina.com.cn/wwwrootOriginal/Sample.pdf. (Ibs25)
http://www.ibseninchina.com.cn/wwwrootOriginal/Sample.pdf. (Ibs25)
Type
Publication
Contributors (1)
He, Chengzhou
(1967-) : Professor für englische und skandinavische Literatur, English Department, Nanjing-Universität
Mentioned People (1)
Ibsen, Henrik
(Skien 1828-1896 Kristiania = Oslo) : Dramatiker, Dichter
Subjects
Literature : Occident : Norway
/
References / Sources
Chronology Entries (27)
| # | Year | Text | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1908-2000 |
Henrik Ibsen : Rezeption in China. Tam Kwok-kan : Ibsen has been considered by many literary historians as the most important source, besides Goethe, of Western influence in modern Chinese literary thinking. Most of Ibsen's major plays have been translated and staged in China, and scholars in the field of modern Chinese intellectual history fully acknowledge the contribution Ibsen made to the May 4th movement that marked the beginning of modern Chinese culture. To the European critics, Ibsen belongs to the present and is mainly a dramatist, not a social critic. But in China, Ibsen is often considered a revolutonary figure and has been variously represented in Chinese politics in the past ninty years. The 19th-century critics tended to think of Ibsen's plays as stage reproductions of actual experiences in life. In the reception of Ibsen in both the East and the West, there have been different emphases, each of which employs the use of a different interpretive strategy. The two kinds of interpretation, Marxist-socialist on the one hand and aesthetic-formalist on the other, are the result of not only a difference in reception strategies, but also a difference in politics. In regarding Ibsen as a dramatist or as a social critic, the difference lies in the critics' choice of strategy whether or not there is the belief of correspondence between a dramatist's works and social reality. Ibsen's works were introduced to China much later than they were in Japan and in the countries in Western Europe and North America. China's nation-wide reception of Ibsen occured around the end of the 1910s and was necessarily affected by the coexistence of the moralist and socialist-Marxist codes in European interpretations of Ibsen. From the beginning, the modern Chinese theatre was a social and political theatre. Although there were no distinctively formed Ibsenite groups in China, there were dramatists, such as Hong Shen and Tian Han, who openly professed themselves 'Chinese Ibsens'. Ibsen's influence in China is manifested in two aspects : sociopolitical and artistic (both literary and theatrical). Ibsen was regarded by the Chinese critics and dramatists both as a social-realist and as a romantic playwright. The history of the reception of ibsen in China can be divided roughtly into four major periods : 1908-1927, 1928-1948, 1949-1976, and 1977-present. In the first period, Chinese interpretations of Ibsen were closely associated with social movements and were greatly influenced by the moralist code then prevalent in Europe. Ibsen's social influence was first seen in the advocycy of individualism and iconoclasm in the writings of Lu Xun and Hu Shi. The social movements in China gave the interpretation of Ibsens's plays a new political context by which the critics conveyed their messages to Chinese readers. Ibsen was hailed as a champion of individualism, uncompromising moralist, and advocate of feminism. The iconoclastic elements derived from Iben's plays were most valued in this period as a means of resistance against the traditioal moral system deeply rooted in China's confucian collectivism. One of the major reasons for introducing Ibsen to China was that the messages derived from his plays constituted a powerful attack on the conventional moral institutions in China. Ibsen was hailed as a figure of hope and new values. Chinese dramatists werde more attracted to his explosive themes than to his dramatic subtlety. Almost all the social problem plays in the early 1920s were modelled after Ibsen's plays, without considering the appropriateness of such an approach to the theatre. The influence became so powerful that even well established Chinese dramatists could not resist the temptation to imitate Ibsen, which at that time was considered by some critics as an act of contempt equivalent to plagiarism. The second period in the reception of Ibsen was accompanied by the gradual maturity of modern Chinese drama and literary criticism. Ibsen attracted the attention of more and more serious Chinese dramatists and critics, such as Xiong Foxi and Chen Zhice. Chinese dramatists gradually shifted their interest to the artistry in Ibsen's dram in the late 1920s when the zeal for social reform in China was in low tide. In the late 1920s and 1930s some Chinese critics called for a reconsideration of Ibsen from the perspective of art, still the general tendency was to moralize him, which was supported by the practical view that Ibsen's drama was useful for social reform in China. Unfortunately the war between China and Japan broke out and destroyed the hope of developing Chinese drama along a normal artistic path. Political considerations and the nationalist responsibility of saving China from disgrace and sufferings again became the first concern of serious, patriotic writers. The Chinese interest in Ibsen revived during the war years because of the need for a new dramatic form that could arouse the reader's emotional response. In a new context of oppression and invasion, the theme of A doll's house already interpreted as 'exploitation of women' was redefined as 'exploitation of Chinese women under foreign invasion'. Almost all the Chinese stage productions of A doll's house in the years from 1937 to 1945 were adaptations to serve as a nationalist discourse for the patriotic cause. The third period in the reception of Ibsen in China started in 1949 and ended around 1976. In these years, Chinese interpretations followed closely the footsteps of the Soviet bloc. Friedrich Engels's analysis of Ibsen's plays in terms of 'class struggle' and the redefinition of the 'Ibsenian concept of majority', which were considered necessarily reactionary with reference to 'the bourgeois class in the 19th-century semi-feudal Norwegian society'. Although social and political events similar to those depicted in Ibsen's social plays did not exist in China in these thirty years, Ibsen was still revered in terms of his historic importance as a critic of the bourgeois social system and thus was taken as politically useful to the new socialist system. The well-made dramatic conflicts in Ibsen's plays were taken as reflections of class struggle in capitalist society. Hence, for the Chinese Marxists every reading of Ibsen's social plays was a lession on the evils of capitalism. For Chinese dramatists, Ibsen's plays, redefined in the light of socialist realism, were excellent examples to learn how to reproduce class struggles as dramatic conflicts on the stage. The new social and political reality in China after 1976 allows Ibsen readers to see that there are alternatives to the vulgarized political doctrines in the interpretation of literature. There was in effect little literary criticism in the first thirty years of the People's republic. Government intervention in the interpretation of an author allowed little freedom beyond politics. The new political and social environment has given rise to the influx of the one-condemned 'Western bourgeois literary criticism' into socialist China. Chinese critics thus have an opportunity to come into contact with contemporary Western orientation in literary studies, resulting in the gradual adoption of the easthetic-formalist code. One of Ibsen's contributions to the Chinese theatre is the inception of a realistic stage. For many years, illusionistic acting in the fashion of Stanislavsky's style and Ibsen's realistic drama has been the main-stream in the modern Chinese theatre. Ibsen's first and obvious impact on the Chinese stage was upon the style of acting, the use of props and stage design : the first elements of external realistic technique. Ibsen was regarded as a realistic playwright in China mainly for the social implications of his plays, very seldom for the true-to-life presentation of his themes and even less often for the dramatic techniques, which enable his plays to be realistic. With regard to the stage conventions in contemporary China, Ibsen's social problem play and 'the fourth wall' mode of presentation, together with Stanislavky's acting style, have become the mainstream in Chinese theatre, which also affects the perspective of drama critics, who have gradually and unconsciously formed a fixed view of drama that excludes other possibilities of stage style. In the reception of Ibsen, the Chinese views had been subjected to influences from both the Anglo-American and socialist sources. While the socialist views emphasized social reference and class struggle, the Anglo-American views tended to stress the aesthetic values of Ibsen's works. Elisabeth Eide ; Neither Hu Shi nor Lu Xun ever evaluated Ibsen from an aesthetic point of view. Ibsen was constantly regarded as an ideological writer whose characters might be transformed into positive or negative stereotypes. The complexita of Ibsen's characters had to be reduced to schematically idealized stereotypes in order to function in the Chines society as generative models. The role of Nora could not be invested with sufficient positive elements to serve as an emblem for female emancipation in China. Realism is one of the elements that was underlined in the transmission of Ibsen's ideas, but it must not be regarded as originating with Ibsen. Ibsen was regarded as a bourgeois author, and Chinese writers who took up his views also set them in a bourgeois context. They emphasized elements in Ibsen's creative works that are associated with a liberal bourgeois society such as freedom and liberation. Hu Shi introduced his concept of Ibsenism in drama as well as in intellectual debate. The Chinese recrated the world that Ibsen had created and adapted it to Chinese circumstances. Ibsen's role was always that of an iconoclast. He was regarded as a representative of the new thought needed to transform the Chinese world. His dramatic version of topics such as heredity were taken as science dramatized. Ibsen represented ideology more than aestheticism in so far as his plays were evaluated from the point of view of what model or ideal his characters might serve in the formation of a new, liberal policy in China. He Chengzhou : The development of Chinese modern drama has been closely associated with the reception of Ibsen, which has undergone a process of widening vision of Ibsen from a realist, to a romantic and then to a symbolist. |
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| 2 | 1916-1922 | Tian Han studiert in Japan und liest die meisten realistischen Theaterstücke von Henrik Ibsen. | |
| 3 | 1918 |
Mao, Dun. Wen hao Yibusheng. [ID D26253]. He Chengzhou : The biographical essay on Ibsen is notable for its rich details of both, Ibsen's life and his works. |
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| 4 | 1918 |
Hu, Shi. Yibusheng zhu yi [ID D26214]. Hu Shi schreibt : "Ibsenism ! This is a difficult ropic. I am not a specialist on Ibsen, how can I be qualified to write such an essay ? However, since we have to produce an Ibsen issue, and to introduce Ibsen in a spectacular manner to China, it is necessary to provide an essay on Ibsenism. Anyway, I will offer the Ibsenism I have in mind as an introduction to the special issue." "In Ibsen's drama, there is a prominent theme which states that society and the individual are in opposition and mutually harmful to each other. Society is aristocratic and will destroy individuality by force. It suppresses the individual's free will and independence. When individuality is lost, the spirit of freedom and independence are gone ; society will lose its vitality and will not progress. Ibsen reveals the real nature of the family and society. His purpose is to shock the readers and let them know that there are darker sides in the family and society so as to induce them to reform and revolt - this is Ibsenism. On the surface, it is destructive, but in reality, it is constructive, but in reality, it is constructive. It is like what a doctor does in his diagnosis of an illness : can we say that this is destructive ? Although Ibsen diagnoses many diseases, he is not willing to give prescriptions. He knows that human society is a very complex organization made up of inumerable small parts. Its diseases are of many types and there is no cure-all prescription. Therefore, he only diagnoses the symptoms and let the patien find the prescription that will suit his case." "Ibsen tells us a good way to protect the health of society. He seems to say : 'The health of the human body depends on the large number of white blood corpuscles which are always fighting with the different kinds of diseases. The health of society and the state in the same way relies on the numerous white blood corpuscles which are never satisfied and are always fighting against the evildoers. If we want to defend the health of society we need to have the white blood corpuscles like Dr. Stockman. When society has obtained the spirit of these white blood corpuscles, there is no way that it will not reform and progress." "Nora in A doll's house suddenly discovers that the family is a stage for monkey performances and she herself is one of the monkeys. She has the courage, and does not want to wear a mask, therefore she says goodby to the stage manager and jumps down from the stage to live her own life." "Mrs. Alving in Ghosts is a coward, thus she is persuaded by the pastor to return home and resume her role as a wife." Elisabeth Eide : Hu Shi's version of Ibsenism as a coherent doctrine consisted of three major elements : an attack on the traditional family system, a defence of individualism, a demand for acceptance of the position of a persecuted and reviled minorty. This was needed for a China that wanted to grow strong. Chinese critics from the 1930s have generally agreed that Ibsenism was an essential part of Hu Shi's philosophy of life. The basic premise of Hu's Ibsenism was his assertion, that Ibsen pitted the individual against society in an extreme and forceful manner. According to Hu, Ibsen attributed to society evil intentions that might not be deliberate, but were unavoidable. Hu claimed that society could not progress if it did not contain the yeast of the strong individual. His exposure, in plays like Ghosts and The wild duck, of the evil forces within society. His protest against all that was moribund in the old society was set in an artistically acceptable framework that made his exposition very forceful. His creation of strong individuals serving as fresh streams in a backwater and scapegoats for society's anger. His offer of a remedy that was sufficiently loose to be applicable also in China. Tam Kwok-kan : Hu Shi attacks the Confucian moral order as a dying institution in China. He cites Ibsen's revolutionary ideas in denouncing traditional Chinese institution of law, religion, and morality which are all based on the Confucian concept of role-self, and he regards them as social evils culminating in selfishness, slavishness, falsehood, and cowardice. The individual is seen as always being repressed by society, and Hu Shi thinks that only when traditional society collapses will the individual be freed from the repression of all traditional bondage. Hu Shi believed that the events described in Ibsen's plays have correspondence in the real world. Realism is not treated as a technique with the purpose of creating illusions. Realism was regarded by many Chinese dramatists shallowly as a reflection on stage of an event that could be found in real life. In terms of acting, this kind of external realism has the advantage of breaking away from the traditional Chinese theatre, which is symbolic and impressionistic in style. Hu Shi's interpretation of Nora's decision to leave home was influenced by George Bernard Shaw. He interpreted Nora as a feminist work and argued that Nora suddenly discovered that the family was a stage for monkey performances and that she herself was simply one of the performers. Hu Shi further said that Nora had 'the courage to tear off the mask, say goodby to the stage manager and jump down from the stage to live her own life, but on the other hand Mrs. Alving in Ghosts was a coward and thus she was persuaded by the pastor to return home and resume her role as a housewife'. He Chengzhou : That he applauds Ibsen, says Hu, is because "he tells us the truth, describing the various evil situations of society so that we can have a close look at them". Hu Shi summarizes the subjects Ibsen has discussed in his plays, namely family, the social power factors (law, religon and morals) and the relationship between individual and society. At almost every point, his summary ends with an uncontrollable angry abuse of the related Chinese reality. In the last section of his essay, Hu Shi explains explicitly what he thinks Ibsenism means. "We are moved by Ibsen's descriptions of family and society and realize that our family and society are in facto so currupted that reform becomes really indispensable. And this is Ibsenism." |
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| 5 | 1919 |
Hu, Shi. Zhong shen da shi = The greatest event in life. In : Xin Qing nian (1919). Einakter. Erstes modernes chinesisches Theaterstück, das von Nora von Henrik Ibsen beeinflusst wurde. 终身大事 |
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| 6 | 1923 |
Lu, Xun. Nuola zou hou zen yang ? = Lu, Xun. After Nora walks out, what then ? : a talk given at the Peking Womens Normal College = Beijing shi fan da xue on December 26, 1923. [ID D26227]. What I would like to talk about today is this : After Nora walks out, what then ? Ibsen is a Norwegian literary figure who lived in the second half of the nineteenth century. His works, with the exception of a dozen or so poems, are all plays. There was a period when most of his plays dealt with social issues – these are known to the world as "realistic problem plays". Nora is one of these "problem plays". Nora is also known as Ein Puppenheim, the Chinese translation for which is Family of puppets. But the term "puppe" refers not only to puppets on strings – it also covers dolls that children play with ; by way of metaphorical extension, the term also includes people who do whatever other people tell them to do. In the beginning, Nora was living contentedly in a so-called "happy family"; but she was eventually to wake up to the fact that she was a mere puppet manipulated by her husband, and her children were puppets manipulated by her. And so she walked out. We hear the slam of the door, and then the curtain falls. But I'm sure you're already familiar with all of this, so I won't go into the details. What would it take for Nora not to leave ? We might say that Ibsen himself has already provided us with an answer, which is the play The Lady from the Sea (Die Frau vom Meer), also translated as Sea Madame in China. This is about a woman who was already married, but had a lover before the marriage who lived across the sea. One day, the lover appeared out of nowhere and came looking for her, asking her to go away with him. She went and told her husband that she wanted to meet with this outsider. Towards the end of the play, the husband says to her : now you're totally free. You're free to choose [whether or not to leave], but you'll have to bear the consequences yourself. And that changed everything. She decided not to leave. Had Nora been given the same kind of freedom, then perhaps she would have chosen to stay put. But Nora did leave after all. What next ? Ibsen does not provide us with an answer – what's more, he's dead. But even if he weren't dead, he wouldn't have been responsible for giving us an answer anyway. This is because Ibsen is a writer of poetry – he is not the kind of person who identifies social problems and figures out solutions on our behalf. He is like an oriole : the oriole sings because it wants to sing ; it is not singing because it wants to amuse people, or because it wants people to benefit from it in some way or other. Ibsen is a man not very attuned to the ways of the world. It is said that, once, at a banquet in which some women got together to show their appreciation for his writing of A Doll's House, which gave people new insights into issues such as female self-consciousness and the emancipation of women, Ibsen announced, to everybody's surprise : "That isn't what I meant when I was writing the piece – I was simply composing poetry". So what happens after Nora leaves ? Others have expressed their views. An Englishman once wrote a play about a 'modern' woman who walked out on her family, but then had nowhere to go and ended up a degenerate in a brothel. And there was a Chinese chap – what shall I call him ? – let's say, a writer from Shanghai – he said he had seen a version of Nora that was different from the present translationiv : Nora comes back in the end. It's a shame no one else has ever seen this version – unless Ibsen himself sent the manuscript to him. But if we were to work at it with some common sense, then Nora, really, is left with only two ways out : either go home, or go to the dogs. Because - imagine if it were a little bird. While it's true that there's no freedom in a cage, once the bird leaves the cage, there are cats and hawks and other such [predators] outside. And, if it were a bird that's been caged for so long that its wings have become paralyzed – it no longer remembers how to fly – then, really, there's no way out for this bird. Well, there is another way out, which is to starve to death. But if it starves to death, then it would no longer be living, which would mean that it would no longer have any problems to deal with – so that's hardly a valid way out. The most painful thing in life is to wake up from a dream and have nowhere to go. People who dream are in bliss. So unless you can see a way out for these dreamers, it is important not to wake them up. Look at Tang dynasty poet Li He. Now isn't he a man who's spent his entire life in the dregs ? Yet on his deathbed he said to his mother : "Mamma, God built this mansion of white jade, and wants me to go and write a piece to celebrate the occasion". Now how can this be anything but a lie ? How can it be anything but a dream ? Yet here you have a young one facing an old one, one who's dying facing one who lives on ; [thanks to these lies and dreams] the dying one is able to die happily, and the living one lives on, at peace with oneself. It is at times like this that lies and dreams serve a great purpose. For this reason, I believe that if there is no way out, then what we need is a dream. But one should never, ever, dream of the future. Artsybashevv once used his novel to question those idealists who dreamt of building a golden world of opportunity, who encouraged others to suffer in the pursuit of this cause. He said : "You promise a golden world of opportunity to their sons and grandsons, but what have you left for they themselves to enjoy ?" Well, there is something for them to enjoy, and that is their hopes for the future. But this is to be enjoyed at a price. In order to have these hopes, the senses are fine tuned to be so acute as to feel one's pain and suffering in all their intensity; the spirit is summoned to witness one's rotting corpse of a body. At times like this, dreams and lies become vital. So I believe that if there is no way out, then what we need is a dream – not a dream of the future, but a dream in the present. But since Nora has already woken up from her dream, it is difficult for her to return to that dream state, and she is left with no choice but to leave. Yet once she leaves, at times it seems that her only options are return or ruin. Otherwise, what we need to ask is this : Has she brought anything with her, other than her emancipated mind ? If all she has is a mauve woolen scarf like the kind you women in the audience are wearing now, then, be it a two-foot scarf or a three-foot scarf, however wide it is, it is totally useless. She needs to be rich – she needs to have possessions in her suitcase. To put it bluntly, she needs money. Dreams are fine ; otherwise money is essential... In fact, these days, if somebody like Nora were to leave home, she probably wouldn't have too much trouble surviving, because this is a special person we're talking about – many people will sympathize with her and help her sustain a living. But relying on other people's sympathy for a living already implies giving up one's own freedom. Now suppose there were a hundred Noras who left home, then there would be a lot less sympathy to go around ; now suppose there were tens of thousands of Noras who left home – people would start to get annoyed. Far more reliable [than sympathy] would be to have some form of economic leverage in one's own hands. Now if we manage to acquire economic freedom, does this mean that we are no longer puppets manipulated by others ? Puppets we still are. The only difference is that we are less at the mercy of others, and have more people under our thumbs. Because, in modern society, it's not just women who are at the mercy of men, men are at the mercy of other men, and women at the mercy of other women ; there are also men who are at the mercy of women – this isn't something that will change overnight with a few women acquiring economic privileges. But then again we can't just sit there hungrily waiting for our ideal world to drop out of the sky ; like a fish lying on a wagon trail desperate for a sprinkling of water, we need something to ease our gasping, and the quest for down-to-earth economic privileges does just that – it is something to keep us going while we ponder other alternatives. Then again, so far we've been treating Nora as an ordinary person. Suppose she was special. Suppose she was the kind of person who would be willing to stick her neck out for others – that would make it a different story altogether. We have no right to encourage or entice people to make sacrifices ; nor do we have the right to stop people from sacrificing themselves. Mind you, the world is full of people all too happy to make sacrifices, all too happy to suffer pain... A pity it is that change does not come easily in China – this is a place where anything from moving a table to refitting a stove will almost always end in bloodshed – and the shedding of blood does not always guarantee that the table can be moved, that the stove can be refitted. It will take some hard lashing on the back with a giant whip [to bring about change] – China simply is not going to move of its own accord. I believe this lashing is going to come sooner or later (whether or not it’s a good thing is another matter), but China is definitely going to be hit hard. As for where this blow will come from, how it's going to come, I really cannot say with any certainty. And that concludes my talk. He Chengzhou : In his lecture, Lu Xun is not so much concerned with Ibsen's Nora as with the fate of a Chinese woman who dares to leave home. It seems that he only borrows the image of Nora and develops it into a polemic about the current situation of Chinese women. The solution for a Chinese Nora, according to Lu Xun, is that she will 'either degrade herself, or come back home... another alternative is to starve to death'. For women to avoid being puppets, it is very important to have equal economic rights with men. 'First, there must be a fair sharing between men and women in the family ; secondly, women should enjoy equal rights with men in society'. But Lu Xun immediately confesses that he has no idea about how women can win these rights. All he knows is that they must fight for it, and fight hard. |
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| 7 | 1925 |
Mao, Dun. Tan tan Wan'ou zhi jia [ID D26254]. He Chengzhou : Mao Dun discusses the contrast between Nora's superficial contentedness and her inner nervousness, the mixed emotions of fear, expectation and determination, and the use of dialogue as a means of exposition in the play. |
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| 8 | 1925 |
Ouyang, Yuqian. Pofu. In : Ju ben hui kan (1925). Einakter, beeinflusst von Nora von Henrik Ibsen. 泼妇 |
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| 9 | 1926 |
[Ibsen, Henrik]. Yibusheng ji. Pan Jiaxun yi [ID D26174]. He Chengzhou : Pan calls Ibsen a social reformer in favour of individual development. "For Ibsen, democracy and the politics of the majority are but nonsense. The only way to reform society is to let individuals have their talent fully devloped". Regarding Ibsen's change of language from verse to prose, Pan explains : "Ibsen was determined to diagnose the symptomes of the sick all over society, so he had to employ a clear and exact prose as his tool. Otherwise, the symptoms cannot be explained thoroughly". Pan suggests at the end of his essay, that it is difficult to interpret what Ibsen really means in his plays. "For readers who are careless and can't really get into Ibsen's dramatic world, Ibsen is certainly very difficult to comprehend. Even those who read him very carefully and with all attention won't always be able to get what the writer really means". |
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| 10 | 1926 |
Guo, Moruo. San ge pan ni de nu xing. (Shanghai : Guang hua shu ju, 1926). Enthält drei Theaterstücke, beeinflusst von Nora von Henrik Ibsen. 三个叛逆的女性 |
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| 11 | 1928 | Feier zum 100. Geburtstag von Henrik Ibsen in China. |
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| 12 | 1928 |
Yu, Shangyuan. Yibusheng de yi shu [ID D26243]. Tam Kwok-kan : Yu states that Ibsen is basically an artist rather than a philoospher, thinker, and idealist. He points out Ibsen's achievements in dramatic tehnique. The greatness of Ibsen lies in his artistic presentation of a complex idea. He accounts for Ibsen's success by his realistic treatment of contemporary issues. Ibsen's realism in characterization, dialogue, and setting is particularly powerful. "Ibsen's greatness lies in his use of life as subject-matter and realism as a means for artistic achievement, and the use of technique as a medium to blend and balance thought and art." "In modern China, Ibsen is among those who have had the bad luck of being misinterpreted." |
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| 13 | 1929 |
Xiong, Foxi. Lun Qun gui [ID D26238]. Xiong schreibt : "Ibsen thinks that all those people opposing Nora are ghosts. The corrupt ideas and false morals are also ghosts. Although Mrs. Alving has fulfilled her duties as a good wife and mother, she ruins her life. For fear that the hypocritical and corrupt power will spread, Ibsen advocates a thorough clearance and thus brings out the problem of heredity in Ghosts. By the heredity of syphilis Ibsen implies that social corruption and hypocrisy can also pass to the next generation. Ghosts is a great tragedy of world significance, but it is not a Greek tragedy. Nor is it a Shakespearean tragedy. It is a modern tragedy. The classical tr4agedies are not free from the tricks of fighting and killing, just as in the works of the Greeks and Shakespeare. Only in a modern tragedy is this changed. There is no fighting or death. To the modern dramatists, death is not miserable. Real tragedy lies in the state of 'being neither able to die, nor able to live'. Therefore on the modern stage there is seldom 'death'. We find only inner conflicts, psychological wars, and spiritual battles and miseries that make people 'being neither able to laugh nor able to cry'. Psychological depiction is an essential element in modern tragedy. Ghosts is the first one of this kind. Ibsen likes to criticize and argue, but he talks in a reasonable way and never says anything redundant. Every sentence has a meaning and every word is necessary. There is plenty of dialogue in Ghosts, but none of it is nonsense. Here lies both the weakness and strength of Ibsen. Yet on the modern stage too much dialogue is really boring, discusting and makes people sleep. Especially in China, people do not like plays with too much dialogue. Our audience need to think and need patience when they watch Ghosts. He Chengzhou : On the occasion of the production of Ghosts Xiong published the essay Lun Qun gui. One central idea in that essay is that Ghosts is one of the greatest tragedies in the world, and a pioneering work of its kind in modern Drama. Tam Kwok-kan : Xiong Foxi thinks that Ibsen used 'ghosts' as a metaphor for those people opposing Nora, as well as for corrupt ideas and false morals. Althought Mrs. Alving has fulfilled her duties as a good wife and mother, she ruins her life. For fear that the hypocritical and corrupt power will spread, Ibsen proposes a thorough clearance and thus brings ou the problem of heredity in Ghosts. |
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| 14 | 1929 |
Xiong, Foxi. She hui gai zao jia de Yibusheng yu xi ju jia de Yibusheng [ID D26239]. He Chengzhou : Xiong's essay begins with a summary of the current conception of China's Ibsen : "We know Ibsen because he advocated women's liberation ; we agree with him because he called for social reforms ; we support him because he fought against all that he thought was false, rotten and insane ; we respect him because he propagated individualism." In the rest of his essay, Xiong focuses on Ibsen's achievement and mentions specially the following three aspects : the structure of the 'well-made' play, the creative use of suggestion, and the reform of dramatic language. |
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| 15 | 1929 |
Cao Yu erhält The complete works of Ibsen vom Direktor des Nankai xin ju tuang (Nankai New Theatre) Tianjin. He Chengzhou : Cao Yu managed to read all Ibsen's plays in that collection, which opened his eyes to the dramaturgy of modern drama. "Reading all Ibsen's plays in English, played an important role in my dramatic career. From Ibsen's plays I realized that the dramatic art can have a number of ways of expression. Characters can become so real and at the same time so complicated." |
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| 16 | 1933 | Cao Yu schreibt seine B.A.-Arbeit über Henrik Ibsen. | |
| 17 | 1935 |
Mao, Dun. Han yi xi yang wen xue ming zhu [ID D26255]. Mao Dun schreibt : "Ibsen tries to use symbolical methods to make up for the inadequacies of his artistic imagery. It is in them that we see the bourgeois intellectual Ibsen, who falls into the trap of the ambiguities of thinking predetermined by his birth when his social problems extend to the future end of the industrialized bourgeois society." |
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| 18 | 1936 |
Tian, Han. Tian Han san wen ji [ID D26272]. Brief an Guo Moruo. Tian Han erwähnt einige Theaterstücke von Henrik Ibsen. He Chengzhou : Tian Han reads Ibsen and has an independent view of him as few others did. He is attracted to both the realistic and the romantic aspects of Ibsen. And his understanding of Ibsen as a dramatist is not limited to the thematic isssues, but includes the dramatic techniques and structure as well. His plays clearly indicate how much he is indebted to Ibsen ; while at the same time they also show just how creative and original a playwright Tian Han is. |
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| 19 | 1936 |
Cao, Yu. Lei yu. (Xianggang : Hong zhi shu dian, 1936). Beeinflusst von Ghosts von Henrik Ibsen. Cao, Yu. Ri chu. (Shanghai : Wen hua sheng huo chu ban she, 1936). Beeinflusst von Hedda Gabler von Henrik Ibsen. |
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| 20 | 1938 |
Mao, Dun. Cong Nuola shuo qi [ID D26230]. Mao Dun schreibt : "Women problems had already been discusses in Xin Qing nian before Nora was introduced, but independent women did not appear until Nala was published and became well known. Ever since, women's movement is no longer just a topic on paper. If we say that the women's movement after the time of May 4th is nothing but 'Noraism', this is no exaggeration." As to why Chinese Noras ended up returning home, Mao Dun explains : "Naturally, one of the main reasons is, that Nora does not have a correct political and social ideology, but merely enthusiasm for rebellion." |
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| 21 | 1949 |
Xiao, Qian. Pei'er Jinte : yi bu qing suan ge ren zhu yi de shi ju [ID D26256]. Xiao schreibt : "Ibsen is no longer suitable for us, not only because he belonged to far away Northern Europe. Yet as a forerunner of our profession [writers], we cannot deny that he had observed the organization of society with critical eyes and pointed out its rotten parts. His weakness lay in the fact that he just attacked the corruptions of society but did not analyse the economic causes. Therefore he recongnized only the existence of the individual, but did not see that there were the masses. He advocated the improvement of the individual, but neber that of the environment. Ibsen was spiritually an anarchist. Today China has stepped into socialism, in which everything is put under organization and becomes part of a larger syste, from the anarchism of thirty years ago, which produced a spirit of rebellion in favour of individualism.. We have inherited from Ibsen the poisonous idea of perfecting oneself without much care for the others. As for our self-reform, can Ibsen contribute something to compensate the losses he has caused us ? Yes, Ibsen can. He gives us Peer Gynt which has a grander atmosphere, profounder significance and higher artistic accomplishment than A doll's hous and An enemy of the people. Tam Kwok-kan : Xiao believes that Ibsenism is no longer needed in China, not only because Ibsen was a writer of the last century, but also because he belongs to the faraway Northern Europe, where the society is essentially different from that in China. As a forerunner of literary realism, Ibsen, Xiao said, examined the organization of society with critical eyes and pointed out the roots of its evilness. Xiao believed that Ibsen's weakness lay in the fact that he attacked only the surface corruptions of society and did not analyze their economic causes. He therefore attacked Ibsen for his advocacy of individualism. He thought that Ibsen recognized only the importance of the individual and not of the masses, because Ibsen failed to relate the victimization of the individual to the injustice hidden in the social structure. Xiao claimed that Ibsen's play Peer Gynt should be read as a critique of individualism. According to Xiao Qian, the play is a caricature of selfishness as exemplified in the self-centered Peer Gynt. Xiao asserted that the object of attack throughout Peer Gynt was the idea of individualism. |
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| 22 | 1957 |
[Shaw, Bernard]. Yibusheng xi ju de xin ji qiao. Pan Jiaxun yi. [ID D30757]. In his essay, Shaw illustrates the technique of 'discussion' by using Nora as an example. Shaw's criticism of Ibsen was of the most important references in Chinese Ibsen research. Shaw schreibt : "Up to a certain point in the last act, A doll's house is a play that might be turned into a very ordinary French drama by the excision of a few lines, and the substitution of a sentimental happy ending for the famous last scene... But at just that point in the last act, the heroine very unexpectedly (by the wiseacres) stops her emotional acting and says : We must sit down and discuss all this that has been happening between us'. And it was by this new technical feature : this addition of a new movement, as musicians would say, to the dramatic form, that A doll's house conquered Europe and founded a new school of dramatic art." |
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| 23 | 1973 |
Lu, Xun. Lu Xun quan ji. (Beijing : Ren min wen xue chu ban she, 1973). When the Marxist influence became stronger, Lu Xun turned away from his early enthusiasm for Ibsen, and became more and more critical. Ibsen's returning to Norway after 27 years of exile became in Lu Xun's opinion a compromise that Ibsen made with the bourgeois society at home. The change of Lu Xun's attitude towards Ibsen represents a tendency in the Chinese reception of Ibsen. |
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| 24 | 1978 |
Cao, Yu. Ji nian Yibusheng dan chen yi bai wu shi [ID D26273]. Er schreibt : "I have worked at drama for decades. When I began to be interested in drama and playwriting, I certainly received a lot of influence from Ibsen." |
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| 25 | 1982 |
Sun, Jiaxiu. Yibusheng he ta de xi ju [26258]. Sun Jiaxiu schreibt über Rosmersholm von Henrik Ibsen : "In this play, Ibsen uses the illusion of white horses as a symbol, which obviously goes together with the theme and the event. But in fact, the symbol has the play covered with the atmosphere of mysticism and decadent emotion. We feel that it damages the realistic quality of the play, and at the same time reflects a negative element in the writer's emotion." Ibsen's last play When we dead awaken seems to Sun the most disappointing : "The play has achieved nothing so far as dramatic techniques are concerned. It lacks dramatic action and life. The characters are very abstract. We perhaps can see further how the limitations in his thinking and emotion have brought Ibsen sadness and disappointment." |
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| 26 | 1983 |
Xu, Xiaozhong. Zai xian Yibusheng : dao yan Pei'er Jinte de si kao [IDD26257]. Xu schreibt : "In Peer Gynt, the writer raises sharply the problem of morality. But his answer regarding the solution of this problem is essentially based on idealism and the bourgeois humanism because Ibsen thinks that 'with, love and faith' can save a degraded soul and solve the problem of morality. Peer pursues his effort in finding out who he is and the real significance of being a man, blindly and stubbornly. With this will and hope, he has been from his homeland to overseas, from paradise to hell, and from living a man's life to that of trolls. Throughout his life he can neither have the heart to destroy nor live life anew. He has always been walking around in front of difficulties. Such an action of Peer is the unifying force among the inserted conflicts, dispersed opponents and incoherent stories." |
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| 27 | 1984 |
Chen, Maiping. Yibusheng xi ju zhong de xiang zhen [ID D26259]. Chen schreibt : "It is obvious that Ibsen's use of symbolism is different from that of other great modern writers. Whether the symbol is an object (the orphanage in Ghosts, The wild duck, and the tower in The master builder), a character (the stranger in The lady from the sea), a belief, or an illusion (the white horse in Rosmersholm), they appear so frequently in many different scenes that they have a variety of meanings. Ibsen's thought goes beyond reality and enters into the sphere of abstraction, but he won't stay there. Instead of being a thinker and philosopher, ibsen is determined to be a poet, expressing his thoughts with poetic language and illustrating his philosophical ideas in dramatic images." |
Sources (6)
| # | Year | Bibliographical Data | Type / Abbreviation | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1918 |
Mao, Dun. Wen hao Yibusheng. In : Xue sheng za zhi ; vol. 5, no 2 (1918). [The great writer Ibsen]. 文豪易卜生 |
Publication / Ibs96 | |
| 2 | 1925 | Mao, Dun. Tan tan Wan'ou zhi jia. In : Wen xue zhou bao ; 21. Mai (1925). [Über Nora von Henrik Ibsen]. | Publication / Ibs97 | |
| 3 | 1978 | Cao, Yu. Ji nian Yibusheng dan chen yi bai wu shi. In : Ren min ri bao (21. Febr. 1978). [To celebrate the hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of Ibsen]. | Publication / Ibs114 | |
| 4 | 1981 |
Xiao, Qian. Yibusheng de "Pei'er Jinte. In : Wai guo xi ju ; no 4 (1981). 易卜生的培尔金特 |
Publication / Ibs110 | |
| 5 | 1982 |
Sun, Jiaxiu. Yibusheng he ta de xi ju. In : Xi ju xue xi ; no 3 (1982). [Ibsen and his drama]. 易卜生和他的戏剧 |
Publication / Ibs101 | |
| 6 | 1984 | Chen, Maiping. Yibusheng xi ju zhong de xiang zhen. In : Xi ju xue xi ; no 2 (1984). [Symbols in Ibsen's drama]. | Publication / Ibs102 |
Cited by (1)
| # | Year | Bibliographical Data | Type / Abbreviation | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2000- | Asien-Orient-Institut Universität Zürich | Organisation / AOI |
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