A
list of them cannot be spared in this place to the most indolent of
readers, since it offers, in a nutshell, a resume of what the busy
imagination of Ibsen was at work upon up to his thirtieth year. His
earliest new-year's gift to the play-goers of Bergen was _St. John's
Night_, 1853, a piece which has not been printed; in 1854 he revived
_The Warrior's Barrow_; in 1855 he made an immense although irregular
advance with _Lady Inger at Oestraat_; in 1856 he produced _The Feast at
Solhoug_; in 1857 a rewritten version of the early _Olaf Liljekrans_.
These are the juvenile works of Ibsen, which are scarcely counted in the
recognized canon of his writings. None of them is completely
representative of his genius, and several are not yet within reach of
the English reader. Yet they have a considerable importance, and must
detain us for a while. They are remarkable as showing the vigor of the
effort by which he attempted to create an independent style for himself,
no less than the great difficulties which he encountered in following
this admirable aim.
_Lady Inger at Oestraat_, written in the winter of 1854 but not published
until 1857, is unique among Ibsen's works as a romantic exercise in the
manner of Scribe.
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