Quotes4study

Nietzschean individualism was only one of many factors which contributed to the new literary development. The realistic movement, as it had manifested itself in France under Flaubert, the Goncourts, Zola and Maupassant, in Russia under Dostoievsky and Tolstoi, and in Norway under Ibsen and Björnson, was, for a time, the dominant force in Germany, and the younger generation of critics hailed it with undisguised satisfaction; most characteristic and significant of all, the centre of this revival was Berlin, which, since it had become the imperial capital, was rapidly establishing its claim to be also the literary metropolis. It was the best testimony to the vitality of the movement that it rarely descended to slavish imitation of the realistic masterpieces of other literatures; realism in Germany was, in fact, only an episode of the 'eighties, a stimulating influence rather than an accepted principle or dogma. And its suggestive character is to be seen not merely in the writings of the young _Stürmer und Dränger_ of this time, but also in those of the older generation who, in temperament, were naturally more inclined to the ideals of a past age. Entry: VI

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 11, Slice 7 "Geoponici" to "Germany"     1910-1911

Still more distinctly, the dramatic literature of the Scandinavian peoples springs from foreign growths. In Denmark, where the beginnings of the drama in the plays of the schoolmaster Chr. Hansen recall the mixture of religious and farcical elements in contemporary German efforts, the drama in the latter half of the 16th century remained essentially scholastic, and treated scriptural or classical subjects, chiefly in the Latin tongue. J. Ranch (1539-1607) and H. S. Sthen were authors of this type. But often in the course of the 17th century, German and French had become the tongues of Danish literature and of the Danish theatre; in the 18th Denmark could boast a comic dramatist of thorough originality and of a wholly national cast. L. Holberg, one of the most noteworthy comic poets of modern literature, not only marks an epoch in the dramatic literature of his native land, but he contributed to overthrow the trivialities of the German stage in its worst period, which he satirized with merciless humour,[318] and set an example, never surpassed, of a series of comedies[319] deriving their types from popular life and ridiculing with healthy directness those vices and follies which are the proper theme of the most widely effective species of the comic drama. Among his followers, P. A. Heiberg is specially noted. Under the influence of the Romantic school, whose influence has nowhere proved so long-lived as in the Scandinavian north, A. Ohlenschläger began a new era of Danish literature. His productivity, which belongs partly to his native and partly to German literary history, turned from foreign[320] to native themes; and other writers followed him in his endeavours to revive the figures of Northern heroic legend. But these themes have in their turn given way in the Scandinavian theatre to subjects coming nearer home to the popular consciousness, and treated with a direct appeal to the common experience of human life, and with a searching insight into the actual motives of human action. The most remarkable movement to be noted in the history of the Scandinavian drama, and one of the most widely effective of those which mark the more recent history of the Western drama in general, had its origin in Norway. Two Norwegian dramatists, H. Ibsen and Björnsterne Björnson, standing as it were side by side, though by no means always judging eye to eye, have vitally influenced the whole course of modern dramatic literature in the direction of a fearlessly candid and close delineation of human nature. The lesser of the pair in inventive genius, and in the power of exhibiting with scornful defiance the conflict between soul and circumstance, but the stronger by virtue of the conviction of hope which lies at the root of achievement, is Björnson.[321] Ibsen's long career as a dramatist exhibits a succession of many changes, but at no point any failure in the self-trust of his genius. His early masterpieces were dramatic only in form.[322] His world-drama of _Emperor and Galilean_ was still unsuited to a stage rarely trodden to much purpose by idealists of Julian's type. The beginnings of his real and revolutionary significance as a dramatist date from the production of his first plays of contemporary life, the admirable satirical comedy _The Pillars of Society_ (1877), the subtle domestic drama _A Doll's House_ (1879), and the powerful but repellent _Ghosts_ (1881),[323] which last, with the effects of its appearance, modern dramatic literature may even to this day be said to have failed altogether to assimilate. Ibsen's later prose comedies--(verse, he writes, has immensely damaged the art of acting, and a tragedy in iambics belongs to the species Dodo)--for the most part written during an exile which accounts for the note of isolation so audible in many of them, succeeded one another at regular biennial intervals, growing more and more abrupt in form, cruel in method, and intense in elemental dramatic force. The prophet at last spoke to a listening world, but without the amplitude, the grace and the wholeheartedness which are necessary for subduing it. But it may be long before the art which he had chosen as the vehicle of his comments on human life and society altogether ceases to show the impress of his genius. Entry: F

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 7 "Drama" to "Dublin"     1910-1911

The impulse which led to the establishment of the Théâtre Libre was, in the first instance, entirely French. If any foreign influence helped to shape its course, it was that of the great Russian novelists. Tolstoi's _Puissance des ténèbres_ was the only "exotic" play announced in Antoine's opening manifesto. But the whole movement was soon to receive a potent stimulus from the Norwegian poet Henrik Ibsen. Entry: P

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 7 "Drama" to "Dublin"     1910-1911

HYDROMECHANICS HYTHE HYDROMEDUSAE I HYDROMETER IAMBIC HYDROPATHY IAMBLICHUS (Greek philosopher) HYDROPHOBIA IAMBLICHUS (Greek romance writer) HYDROSPHERE IANNINA HYDROSTATICS IAPETUS HYDROXYLAMINE IAPYDES HYDROZOA IATROCHEMISTRY HYENA IAZYGES HYÈRES IBADAN HYGIEIA IBAGUÉ HYGIENE IBARRA HYGINUS (eighth pope) IBERIANS HYGINUS (Latin writer) IBEX HYGINUS, GAIUS JULIUS IBIS HYGROMETER IBLIS HYKSOS IBN 'ABD RABBIHI HYLAS IBN 'ARABI HYLOZOISM IBN ATHIR HYMEN IBN BATUTA HYMENOPTERA IBN DURAID HYMETTUS IBN FARADI HYMNS IBN FARID HYPAETHROS IBN GABIROL HYPALLAGE IBN HAUKAL HYPATIA IBN HAZM HYPERBATON IBN HISHAM HYPERBOLA IBN ISHAQ HYPERBOLE IBN JUBAIR HYPERBOREANS IBN KHALDUN HYPEREIDES IBN KHALLIKAN HYPERION IBN QUTAIBA HYPERSTHENE IBN SA'D HYPERTROPHY IBN TIBBON HYPNOTISM IBN TUFAIL HYPOCAUST IBN USAIBI'A HYPOCHONDRIASIS IBO HYPOCRISY IBRAHIM AL-MAUSILI HYPOSTASIS IBRAHIM PASHA HYPOSTYLE IBSEN, HENRIK HYPOSULPHITE OF SODA IBYCUS HYPOTHEC ICA HYPOTHESIS ICE HYPOTRACHELIUM ICEBERG HYPSOMETER ICELAND HYRACOIDEA ICELAND MOSS HYRCANIA ICE-PLANT HYRCANUS ICE-YACHTING HYSSOP I-CH'ANG HYSTASPES ICHNEUMON HYSTERESIS ICHNEUMON-FLY HYSTERIA ICHNOGRAPHY HYSTERON-PROTERON Entry: HYDROMECHANICS

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 14, Slice 2 "Hydromechanics" to "Ichnography"     1910-1911

BANG, HERMANN JOACHIM (1858- ), Danish author, was born of a noble family in the island of Zealand. When he was twenty he published two volumes of critical essays on the realistic movement. In 1880 he published his novel _Haablöse Slaegter_ ("Families without hope"), which at once aroused attention. After some time spent in travel and a successful lecturing tour in Norway and Sweden, he settled in Copenhagen, and produced a series of novels and collections of short stories, which placed him in the front rank of Scandinavian novelists. Among his more famous stories are _Faedra_ (1883) and _Tine_ (1889). The latter won for its author the friendship of Ibsen and the enthusiastic admiration of Jonas Lie. Among his other works are:--_Det hvide Hus_ (The White House, 1898), _Excentriske Noveller_ (1885), _Stille Eksistenzer_ (1886), _Liv og Död_ (Life and Death, 1899), _Englen Michael_ (1902), a volume of poems (1889) and of recollections (_Ti Aar,_ 1891). Entry: BANG

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy"     1910-1911

LIE, JONAS LAURITZ EDEMIL (1833-1908), Norwegian novelist, was born on the 6th of November 1833 close to Hougsund (Eker), near Drammen. In 1838, his father being appointed sheriff of Tromsö, the family removed to that Arctic town. Here the future novelist enjoyed an untrammelled childhood among the shipping of the little Nordland capital, and gained acquaintance with the wild seafaring life which he was afterwards to describe. In 1846 he was sent to the naval school at Frederiksvaern, but his extreme near-sight unfitted him for the service, and he was transferred to the Latin school at Bergen. In 1851 he went to the university of Christiania, where Ibsen and Björnson were among his fellow-students. Jonas Lie, however, showed at this time no inclination to literature. He pursued his studies as a lawyer, took his degrees in law in 1858, and settled down to practice as a solicitor in the little town of Kongsvinger. In 1860 he married his cousin, Thomasine Lie, whose collaboration in his work he acknowledged in 1893 in a graceful article in the _Samtiden_ entitled "Min hustru." In 1866 he published his first book, a volume of poems. He made unlucky speculations in wood, and the consequent financial embarrassment induced him to return to Christiania to try his luck as a man of letters. As a journalist he had no success, but in 1870 he published a melancholy little romance, _Den Fremsynte_ (Eng. trans., _The Visionary_, 1894), which made him famous. Lie proceeded to Rome, and published Tales in 1871 and _Tremasteren "Fremtiden"_ (Eng. trans., _The Barque "Future,"_ Chicago, 1879), a novel, in 1872. His first great book, however, was _Lodsen og hans Hustru_ (_The Pilot and his Wife_, 1874), which placed him at the head of Norwegian novelists; it was written in the little town of Rocca di Papa in the Albano mountains. From that time Lie enjoyed, with Björnson and Ibsen, a stipend as poet from the Norwegian government. Lie spent the next few years partly in Dresden, partly in Stuttgart, with frequent summer excursions to Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian highlands. During his exile he produced the drama in verse called _Faustina Strozzi_ (1876). Returning to Norway, Lie began a series of romances of modern life in Christiania, of which _Thomas Ross_ (1878) and _Adam Schrader_ (1879) were the earliest. He returned to Germany, and settled first in Dresden again, then in Hamburg, until 1882, when he took up his abode in Paris, where he lived in close retirement in the society of Scandinavian friends. His summers were spent at Berchtesgaden in Tirol. The novels of his German period are _Rutland_ (1881) and _Gaa paa_ ("_Go Ahead!_" 1882), tales of life in the Norwegian merchant navy. His subsequent works, produced with great regularity, enjoyed an immense reputation in Norway. Among the best of them are: _Livsslaven_ (1883, Eng. trans., "_One of Life's Slaves_," 1895); _Familjen paa Gilje_ ("_The Family of Gilje_," 1883); _Malstroem_ (1885), describing the gradual ruin of a Norwegian family; _Et Samliv_ ("_Life in Common_," 1887), describing a marriage of convenience. Two of the most successful of his novels were _The Commodore's Daughters_ (1886) and Niobe (1894), both of which were presented to English readers in the International library, edited by Mr Gosse. In 1891-1892 he wrote, under the influence of the new romantic impulse, twenty-four folk-tales, printed in two volumes entitled _Trold_. Some of these were translated by R. N. Bain in _Weird Tales_ (1893), illustrated by L. Housman. Among his later works were the romance _Naar Sol gaar ned_ ("_When the Sun goes down_," 1895), the powerful novel of _Dyre Rein_ (1896), the fairy drama of _Lindelin_ (1897), _Faste Forland_ (1899), a romance which contains much which is autobiographical, _When the Iron Curtain falls_ (1901), and _The Consul_ (1904). _His Samlede Vaerker_ were published at Copenhagen in 14 vols. (1902-1904). Jonas Lie left Paris in 1891, and, after spending a year in Rome, returned to Norway, establishing himself at Holskogen, near Christiansand. He died at Christiania on the 5th of July 1908. As a novelist he stands with those minute and unobtrusive painters of contemporary manners who defy arrangement in this or that school. He is with Mrs Gaskell or Ferdinand Fabre; he is not entirely without relation with that old-fashioned favourite of the public, Fredrika Bremer. Entry: LIE

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 16, Slice 5 "Letter" to "Lightfoot, John"     1910-1911

None the less is it true that the ferment of fresh energy, which between 1887 and 1893 had created a new dramatic literature both in France and in Germany, was distinctly felt in England as well. England did not take at all kindly to it. The productions of Ibsen's plays, in particular, were received with an outcry of reprobation. A great part of this clamour was due to sheer misunderstanding; but some of it, no doubt, arose from genuine and deep-seated distaste. As for the dramatists of recognized standing, they one and all, both from policy and from conviction, adopted a hostile attitude towards Ibsen, expressing at most a theoretical respect overborne by practical dislike. Yet his influence permeated the atmosphere. He had revealed possibilities of technical stagecraft and psychological delineation that, once realized, were not to be banished from the mind of the thoughtful playwright. They haunted him in spite of himself. Still subtler was the influence exerted over the critics and the more intelligent public. Deeply and genuinely as many of them disliked Ibsen's works, they found, when they returned to the old-fashioned play, the adapted frivolity or the homegrown sentimentalism, that they disliked this still more. On every side, then, there was an instinctive or deliberate reaching forward towards something new; and once again it was Pinero who ventured the decisive step. Entry: P

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 7 "Drama" to "Dublin"     1910-1911

As a composer Grieg's distinguishing quality is lyrical. Whether his orchestral works or his songs or his best pianoforte works are submitted to examination, it is almost always the note of song that tells. Sometimes, as in the music to Ibsen's _Peer Gynt_, or in the suite for stringed orchestra, _Aus Holbergs Zeit_, this characteristic is combined with a strong power for raising pictures in the listener's mind, and the romantic "programme" tendency in Grieg's music becomes clearer the farther writers like Richard Strauss carry this movement. Grieg's songs may be said to be generally the more spontaneous the more closely they conform to the simple model of the _Volkslied_; yet the much sung "Ich liebe dich" is a song of a different kind, which has hardly ever been surpassed for the perfection with which it depicts a strong momentary emotion, and it is difficult to ascribe greater merits to songs of Grieg even so characteristic as "Solvejg's Lied" and "Ein Schwan." The pianoforte concerto is brilliant and spontaneous; it has been performed by most pianists of the first rank, but its essential qualities and the pure nationality of its themes have been brought out to their perfection by one player only--the Norwegian pianist Knudsen. The first and second of Grieg's violin sonatas are agreeable, so free and artless is the flow of their melody. In his numerous piano pieces and in those of his songs which are devoid of a definitely national inspiration the impression made is less permanent. Bülow called Grieg the "Chopin of the North." The phrase is an exaggeration rather than an expression of the truth, for the range of the appeal in Chopin is far wider, nor has the national movement inaugurated by Grieg shown promise of great development. He is rather to be regarded as the pioneer of a musical mission which has been perfectly carried out by himself alone. Entry: GRIEG

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 5 "Greek Law" to "Ground-Squirrel"     1910-1911

The new printed and acted drama dates almost entirely from the late 'eighties. Tom Robertson in the 'seventies printed nothing, and his plays were at most a timid recognition of the claims of the drama to represent reality and truth. The enormous superiority of the French drama as represented by Augier, Dumas _fils_ and Sardou began to dawn slowly upon the English consciousness. Then in the 'eighties came Ibsen, whose daring in handling actuality was only equalled by his intrepid stage-craft. Oscar Wilde and A.W. Pinero were the first to discover how the spirit of these new discoveries might be adapted to the English stage. Gilbert Murray, with his fascinating and tantalizing versions from Euripides, gave a new flexibility to the expansion that was going on in English dramatic ideas. Bernard Shaw and his disciples, conspicuous among them Granville Barker, gave a new seasoning of wit to the absolute novelties of subject, treatment and application with which they transfixed the public which had so long abandoned thought upon entering the theatre. This new adventure enjoyed a _succès de stupeur_, the precise range of which can hardly be estimated, and the force of which is clearly by no means spent. Entry: VI

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 6 "English Language" to "Epsom Salts"     1910-1911

GOSSE, EDMUND (1849- ), English poet and critic, was born in London on the 21st of September 1849, son of the zoologist P. H. Gosse. In 1867 he became an assistant in the department of printed books in the British Museum, where he remained until he became in 1875 translator to the Board of Trade. In 1904 he was appointed librarian to the House of Lords. In 1884-1890 he was Clark Lecturer in English literature at Trinity College, Cambridge. Himself a writer of literary verse of much grace, and master of a prose style admirably expressive of a wide and appreciative culture, he was conspicuous for his valuable work in bringing foreign literature home to English readers. _Northern Studies_ (1879), a collection of essays on the literature of Holland and Scandinavia, was the outcome of a prolonged visit to those countries, and was followed by later work in the same direction. He translated Ibsen's _Hedda Gabler_ (1891), and, with W. Archer, _The Master-Builder_ (1893), and in 1907 he wrote a life of Ibsen for the "Literary Lives" series. He also edited the English translation of the works of Björnson. His services to Scandinavian letters were acknowledged in 1901, when he was made a knight of the Norwegian order of St Olaf of the first class. Mr Gosse's published volumes of verse include _On Viol and Flute_ (1873), _King Erik_ (1876), _New Poems_ (1879), _Firdausi in Exile_ (1885), _In Russet and Silver_ (1894), _Collected Poems_ (1896). _Hypolympia, or the Gods on the Island_ (1901), an "ironic phantasy," the scene of which is laid in the 20th century, though the personages are Greek gods, is written in prose, with some blank verse. His _Seventeenth Century Studies_ (1883), _Life of William Congreve_ (1888), _The Jacobean Poets_ (1894), _Life and Letters of Dr John Donne, Dean of St Paul's_ (1899), _Jeremy Taylor_ (1904, "English Men of Letters"), and _Life of Sir Thomas Browne_ (1905) form a very considerable body of critical work on the English 17th-century writers. He also wrote a life of Thomas Gray, whose works he edited (4 vols., 1884); _A History of Eighteenth Century Literature_ (1889); a _History of Modern English Literature_ (1897), and vols. iii. and iv. of an _Illustrated Record of English Literature_ (1903-1904) undertaken in connexion with Dr Richard Garnett. Mr Gosse was always a sympathetic student of the younger school of French and Belgian writers, some of his papers on the subject being collected as _French Profiles_ (1905). _Critical Kit-Kats_ (1896) contains an admirable criticism of J. M. de Heredia, reminiscences of Lord de Tabley and others. He edited Heinemann's series of "Literature of the World" and the same publisher's "International Library." To the 9th edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ he contributed numerous articles, and his services as chief literary adviser in the preparation of the 10th and 11th editions incidentally testify to the high position held by him in the contemporary world of letters. In 1905 he was entertained in Paris by the leading _littérateurs_ as a representative of English literary culture. In 1907 Mr Gosse published anonymously _Father and Son_, an intimate study of his own early family life. He married Ellen, daughter of Dr G. W. Epps, and had a son and two daughters. Entry: GOSSE

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 3 "Gordon, Lord George" to "Grasses"     1910-1911

EDGREN-LEFFLER, ANNE CHARLOTTE, duchess of Cajanello (1849-1892), Swedish author, daughter of the mathematician Prof. C.O. Leffler, was born on the 1st of October 1849. Her first volume of stories appeared in 1869, but the first to which she attached her name was _Ur Lifvet_ ("From Life," 1882), a series of realistic sketches of the upper circles of Swedish society, followed by three other collections with the same title. Her earliest plays, _Skådespelerskan_ ("The Actress," 1873), and its successors, were produced anonymously in Stockholm, but in 1883 her reputation was established by the success of _Sanna Kvinnor_ ("True Women"), and _En Räddande engel_ ("An Angel of Deliverance"). _Sanna Kvinnor_ is directed against false femininity, and was well received in Germany as well as in Sweden. Anne Leffler had married in 1872 G. Edgren, but about 1884 she was separated from her husband, who did not share her advanced views. She spent some time in England, and in 1885 produced her _Hur man gör godt_ ("How men do good"), followed in 1888 by _Kampen för lyckan_ ("The Struggle for Happiness"), in which she had the help of Sophie Kovalevsky. Another volume of the _Ur Lisvet_ series appeared in 1889; and _Familjelycka_ ("Domestic Happiness," 1891) was produced in the year after her second marriage, with the Italian mathematician, Pasquale del Pezzo, duca di Cajanello. She died at Naples on the 21st of October 1892. Her dramatic method forms a connecting link between Ibsen and Strindberg, and its masculine directness, freedom from prejudice, and frankness gave her work a high estimation in Sweden. Her last book was a biography (1892) of her friend Sophie (Sonya) Kovalevsky, by way of introduction to Sonya's autobiography. An English translation (1895) by A. de Furnhjelm and A.M. Clive Bayley contains a biographical note on Fru Edgren-Leffler by Lily Wolffsohn, based on private sources. Entry: EDGREN

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 10 "Echinoderma" to "Edward"     1910-1911

ARCHER, WILLIAM (1856- ), English critic, was born at Perth on the 23rd of September 1856, and was educated at Edinburgh University. He became a leader-writer on the _Edinburgh Evening News_ in 1875, and after a year in Australia returned to Edinburgh. In 1879 he became dramatic critic of the _London Figaro_, and in 1884 of the _World_. In London he soon took a prominent literary place. Mr Archer had much to do with introducing Ibsen to the English public by his translation of _The Pillars of Society_, produced at the Gaiety Theatre, London, in 1880. He also translated, alone or in collaboration, other productions of the Scandinavian stage: Ibsen's _Doll's House_ (1889), _Master Builder_ (1893); Edvard Brandes's _A Visit_ (1892); Ibsen's _Peer Gynt_ (1892); _Little Eyolf_ (1895); and _John Gabriel Borkman_ (1897); and he edited _Henrik Ibsen's Prose Dramas_ (5 vols., 1890-1891). Among his critical works are:--_English Dramatists of To-day_ (1882); _Masks or Faces?_ (1888); five vols. of critical notices reprinted, _The Theatrical World_ (1893-1897); _America To-day, Observations and Reflections_; _Poets of the Younger Generation_ (1901); _Real Conversations_ (1904). Entry: ARCHER

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Slice 4 "Aram, Eugene" to "Arcueil"     1910-1911