What was open to him was what an old
writer of our own defined as "a sharp, well-mannered way of laughing a
folly out of countenance."
Unfortunately, the people laughed at will never consent to think the way
well mannered, and Ibsen was bitterly blamed for "want of taste," that
vaguest and most insidious of accusations. We are told that he began his
enterprise in prose [Note: "_Svanhild_: a Comedy in three acts and in
prose: 1860," is understood to exist still in manuscript], but found
that too stiff and bald a medium for a satire on the social crudity of
Norway. In writing satire, it is all-important that the form should be
adequate, and at this time Ibsen had not reached the impeccable
perfection of his later colloquial prose. He started _Love's Comedy_,
therefore, anew, and he wrote it as a pamphlet in rhyme. It is not
certain that he had any very definite idea of the line which his attack
should take. He was very poor, very sore, very uncomfortable, and he was
easily convinced that the times were out of joint. Then he observed that
if there was anything that the Norwegian upper classes prided themselves
upon it was their conduct of betrothal and marriage.
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