It was at this low and miserable moment that Ibsen's talent suddenly
took wings; he conceived, in the summer of 1858, what finally became,
five years later, his first acknowledged masterpiece, and perhaps the
most finished of all his writings, the sculptural tragedy of _The
Pretenders_.
_The Pretenders_ (_Kongsemnerne_, properly stuff from which Kings can be
made) is the earliest of the plays of Ibsen in which the psychological
interest is predominant, and in which there is no attempt to disguise
the fact. Nothing that has since been written about this drama, the very
perfection of which is baffling to criticism, has improved upon the
impression which Georg Brandes received from it when he first read it
forty years ago. The passage is classic, and deserves to be cited, if
only as perhaps the very earliest instance in which the genius of Ibsen
was rewarded by the analysis of a great critic. Brandes wrote (in
1867):--
What is it that The Pretenders treats of? Looked at simply, it is an old
story. We all know the tale of Aladdin and Nureddin, the simple legend
in the Arabian Nights, and our great poet's [Oehlenschlaeger's]
incomparable poem.
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