Hedda Gabler, most of it objecting to Hedda’s being considered “a deeply erotic, tragic heroine of great stature.”  The one Ibsen heroine she took seriously was Solveig, from Peer Gynt, whom she called “the most radical woman in Norwegian literature.”  If for no other reason, the essay is worth reading because Undset is amusing, especially when she is comparing Ibsen unfavorably to Jane Austen.
            Eivind Engebretsen (22) provides a lucid account of deconstruction and then applies it to Hedda Gabler.  His main focus consists of the oppositions in the play between coherence and breaking apart (tilhørighet and løsvivelse) and rupture and continuity, centering his analysis of them on the flowers in the opening scene and Hedda’s attitude toward them and on Løvborg’s manuscript.  With a certain amount of fancy dancing, he argues that “the different perspectives are put forth in order at the same time to be undermined.  No voice speaks to us with a claim of authority.  No voice is marginalized.  Every harmonizing interpretation is precluded, broken up, or fragmented.”  His conclusion: “We get a deepened image of the tragedy by ‘opening it up’ rather than ‘closing’ it around a fixed meaning.  It’s only by having an eye for the breakdown of meaning in the text that we can get an ‘adequate’ understanding of it.  The essence of meaning in Hedda Gabler is, in my opinion, its lack of essence.”
            Bentein Baardsen (23) provides an  interesting account of the abandoned quarry near Grimstad, Norway, in which he has staged productions of Catiline (1993), When We Dead Awaken (1996), and Peer Gynt (1998 and subsequently).  He describes the quarry in order to indicate its ideal nature as a stage for these plays, tells how the quarry was transformed into the Agder Theater Fjæreheia, and reports on the theater company’s gradually acquiring a budget adequate enough to stage a theater piece as formidable as Peer Gynt. 

1. Charles R. Lyons, “Word and Visual Image in Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler: Framing the Tableau of the Suicide,” Nordic Theatre Studies, 10 (1997) 10-22.
2. Erik Østerud, “A Doll’s House: Ibsen’s Italian Masquerade”, see note 1, 23-35.       
3. Kamilla Aslaksen, “Ibsen and Melodrama: Observations on an Uneasy Relationship,” see note 1, 6-50.
4. Keld Hyldig, “Symbolic and Allegoric Approaches to Ibsen: Two ‘Golden Age’ Productions of Rosmersholm,” see note 1, 51-73.

5. Egil Törnqvist, “Ibsen’s Double Audience,” see note 1, 74-83.
6. Jon Nygaard, “Ibsen and the Drama of Modernity,” see note 1, 84-99.
7. William Mishler, “Mimetic Desire and Poetic Vocation in Ibsen’s Poems,” see note 1, 100-16.
8. Roland Lysell, “The Dramatic Text—Henrik Ibsen’s Rosmersholm,” see note 1, 117-30.
9. Anne Brit Gran, “Teatralitetens fall på Ibsens tid,” in Den optiske fordring: Pejlinger i den visuelle kultur omkring Henrik Ibsens forfatterskab, edited by Erik Østerud (Aarhus Universitets Forlag, 1997, pp. 30-44.
10.  Uwe Englert, “Teatralitet og maskerade i text og scenetext: Ibsens Vildanden i Berlin 1934,” see previous citation, pp.164-82.
11.  Philip E. Larson and B o Elbrønd-Bek, “A  Selection of Henrik Ibsen’s Letters,” Edda, (1998) 58-87.
12. Anne-Marie Stanton-Ife, “Happiness and Duty in Ibsen’s Brand,” Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 3:1 (1998) 127-35. 
13. Christine Kiebuzinska, “Elfriede Jelinek’s Nora Project: Or What Happens When Nora Meets the Capitalists,” Modern Drama, 41 (1998) 134-45.          
14. Marie Wells, “Ghosts and White Horses: Ibsen’s Gengangere and Rosmersholm Revisited,” Scandinavica, 37 (1988), 197-214.
15. Ingard Hauge, “Welhavens utopi – og Ibsens,” in Stemmer i tiden: fra humanistisk collegium (Oslo: Aschehoug, 1998), 46-60.
16. Erik Bjerck Hagen, “Ibsens forsoning, eller hvorfor Rosmersholm egentlig er en politisk komedie,” Edda, 1998, 245-58.
17.  Vigdis Ystad, “Ibsen, Drachmann and The Lady from the Sea,” Scandinavica, 37 (1998) 185-196.
18.  James Leigh, “Ebb and Flow: Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea and the Possibility of Feminine Discourse,” Modern Drama, 41 (1998) 119-33.
19.  Håvard Skaar, “Dramaets fortæring av ‘den store centrale tanke’: Hedda Gabler som forarbeid og ferdig tekst,” Nor-skrift, 96 (1998) 63-73.
20. Finn-Erik Vinje, “Ibsen – og språket,” Ordet, no. 3, 1998, 15-19.
21.  Liv Bliksrud, “Sigrid Undset ser på Ibsen,” see note 20, 21-23.
22.  Eivind Engebretsen, “Ibsen deconstruert,” see note 20, 24-28.
23.  Bentein Baardsen, “Steinbruddet som Ibsenscene,” see note 20, 30-33.

Thomas Van Laan
Emeritus, Rutgers University.