But if there were
elements of tragicomedy in the Ibsen idolatry, there were far more
important elements of vigorous and wholesome intellectual independence;
and it was during this period of Ibsen's almost hectic popularity that
the foundations of a new fiction and a new drama were laid in Sweden,
Denmark and Norway. A whole generation sucked strength and energy from
his early writings, since it is to be remarked that, from 1880 to 1890,
the great prestige of Ibsen did not depend so much on the dramas he was
then producing, as on the earlier works of his poetic youth, now reread
with an unexampled fervor. So, with us, the tardy popularity of Robert
Browning, which faintly resembles that of Ibsen, did not attract the
younger generation to the volumes which succeed _The Ring and the Book_,
but sent them back to the books which their fathers had despised, to
_Pippa Passes_ and _Men and Women_. To the generation of 1880, Ibsen was
not so much the author of the realistic social dramas as of those old
but now rediscovered miracles of poetry and wit, _The Pretenders_,
_Brand_ and _Peer Gynt_.
In 1889 Ibsen had been made very pleasantly conscious of this strong
personal feeling in his favor among young men and women.
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