Henrik Ibsen

In 1846, while living at Grimstad, Henrik Ibsen developed a liaison with his employer’s maid, Else Sophie Jensdatter Birkedalen, fathering a boy named Hans Jacob Hendrichsen Birkdalen with her. Although he did not legalize the relationship, he paid for the boy’s upbringing until he was fourteen years old.

On 18 June 1858, he married Suzannah Thoresen. Their only son, Sigurd Ibsen, grew up to become a renowned lawyer and statesman, playing an important role in the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905. He also authored number of books.

In March 1900, Henrik Ibsen suffered from his first stroke, which left him incapable of writing. Thereafter, he suffered a series of strokes, dying from it on 23 May 1906. in his home in Kristiana. He was later buried in Vår Frelsers gravlund in the center of the city.

Henrik Johan Ibsen was born on 20 March, 1828 in Skien, a small port town in Telemark county of Norway, noted for timber trading. Both his parents, Knud Ibsen and Marichen Cornelia Martine nee Altenburg came from prominent families of the area.

Henrik was born second of his parents’ six children. But with the premature death of his elder brother; Johan Altenburg, he was treated as the eldest. He has three brothers, namely, Johan Andreas, Nicolai Alexander and Ole Paus and one sister called Hedvig.

Knud Ibsen was initially a wealthy merchant. He lived in a palatial building, known as Stockmannsgarden (Stockmann House), located in the heart of the town and maintained a lavish lifestyle, offering hospitality to one and all. It all changed when he lost his money in 1835.

In 1836, the family sold Stockmannsgarden, moving to their sole properly, a small and dilapidated farmhouse called Venstøp, located in the outskirts of Skien. Later, it is not known when, they moved back to the city, living in a house belonging to Knud's half-brother Christopher Blom Paus at Snipetorp.

Bankrupt and declassed, Knud Ibsen resorted to alcoholism, taking much of his ire on his family. His wife, a quite lovable woman, bore his ruin without any reproach or bitterness.

After leaving school, Ibsen remained at home for few months. In 1844, shortly before his sixteenth birthday, he left home for good, moving to the southeastern part of Norway. Here in the small town of Grimstad, he became an apprentice to a pharmacist known by the name of Mann.

Happy to be able to get away from Skien, he lived in Grimstad for next six years. For the first three years, he spent a lonely life, too shy to make friends and too poor to find entertainment. The inhabitants of the town also avoided him, finding him rather strange.

To fill up his time, he now began to read a lot, especially contemporary poetry. Soon this isolated town, with old fashioned Danish elegance, imported from nearby Copenhagen, started having an impact on his creativity. He now started experimenting with poetry writing, soon gathering a circle of friends around him.

Sometime in 1849, he wrote his first play ‘Catiline’. This was also the period, he became interested in a career in medicine and started preparing himself for that, studying throughout the night. By 1850, he had saved enough money to leave for Oslo, at that time known as Christiana (Kristiania).

Moving to Christiana in 1850, he first enrolled himself at a coaching school, but he never became a physician. While some biographers believe that he failed at the entrance examination, others claim that he gave it up soon after entering the university; instead taking up writing as his profession.

At that time, Norway, after four hundred years’ of Danish rule, was experiencing a nationalistic awakening. Seeking to revive the country’s glorious history and medieval literature, Ole Bull, the great violinist, planned to establish a Norse theater, named Det norske Theater, at Bergen on the west coast of Norway.

To raise money for the project, a benefit performance was held in 1850. At this program, Ibsen presented a poem glorifying Norway's past. It moved Ole Bull to such an extent that he appointed twenty-two year old Ibsen as the theater poet and stage manager.

In 1851, Ibsen moved to Bergen, taking up his new responsibility. Other than staging plays written by others, he was required to write one original play each year. Until 1858, Ibsen staged around 150 plays, which helped him to gain experiences. Slowly he developed into a matured playwright.

Among his major works in this period were ‘Sancthansnatten’ (St. John's Eve, 1852), ‘Fru Inger til Østeraad’ (Lady Inger of Oestraat, 1854), ‘Gildet paa Solhaug’ (The Feast at Solhaug, 1855), ‘Olaf Liljekrans’ (1856) and ‘Hærmændene paa Helgeland’ (The Vikings at Helgeland, 1858)

In 1858, he moved back to the capital, joining Kristiania Theatre at a much higher salary. Remaining with the establishment until its closure in 1862 and busy with his duties at the theatre, he produced very little.