Just to defy Dr. Brewton (I think I have given ample warning that I have a troll personality), I have this to say: "Henrik Ibsen was a Norwegian playwright..."
Now I may have alluded to this before, but I write fantasy stories set in a little world of my own. As Sir Walter Scott bemoans in his introduction to Ivanhoe, an author is always on the search for good names. I am an author, and, yes, I am alwas on the lookout for names that I think are cool. When I see one I like, I write it down. I actually have a list of names I think would be suitable for future characters. Sometimes I change them up a bit first. Now, these names come from all over. I take them from random things and assign them randomly based on the feel of the word and what it sounds like to me. What brings me back to our Norwegian playwright is the fact that I must have seen Ibsen's last name somewhere a while back, changed it to Ibzan, and applied it to a wyvern-like creature in my world.
No joke.
Back on topic!
The fact that he was Norwegian is fascinating to me, for reasons I cannot fully comprehend myself. I think it is the fact that Norse is a Germanic language, and I have seen Old Norse words in the dictionary so often from looking up the etymologies of things. (Yes, I read dictionaries. You should probably start running right now.) So in doing NEW RESEARCH (do you see that, Dr. Brewton? NEW RESEARCH!) for my blog, I decided to look up the etymology of Henrik.
Henrik is, of course, related to 'Henry'. Both words derive from the Old Germanic name of Heimrich, which means 'home ruler', from heim 'home' and ric 'ruler', according to Behind The Name. The ending sound of 'k' was dropped in English, of course, just like the initial or final 'g' was dropped in so many of our words when they have not been dropped in German, for instance. (Contrast 'day', which was originally daeg, with German tag.)
Apparently, Henrik is the 11th most popular name for boys in Norway, but Henry is only the 57th most popular name in America. That's quite a difference. It just goes to illustrate the fact that traditional names have sadly declined among children in America, in favor of giving each child their very own, unique name. Now, my name is rather uncommon and its spelling is even more uncommon, but it's an old name. It's derived from 'Elizabeth' (which itself means, 'God is my oath', according to some translators). It's not like some names where you can't tell if they belong to a boy or a girl and if the parent just did a keyboard smash to come up with the name.
Because, seriously, sometimes they are like that.
I'm not knocking ethnic names, though. Ethnic names are fine, as long as they actually belong to people of that ethnicity who presumably carry on those customs and that language. But just making up random stuff that bewilders announcers and formatters for SAT tests... Pointless.
Besides, I like traditional names.
ANYWAY. Back to the subject at hand!
Since I love using TVTropes for all my research, I have decided to look up Ibsen on there. If I'm unfortunate, there'll only be bare bones about him, but if I'm lucky, there may be something interesting...
Aha! There is a nice article for him and several individual articles for his plays. How wonderful! Now let us investigate them, precious, and share our findings with everyone else. First, a picture of Henrik Ibsen, since our blogs are supposed to be interactive, precious...
Nice beard.
Now, I think we discussed A Doll's House pretty well in class today (complete with dramatizations, which I think none of us were expecting... o.O), so I will not rehash it, but go out in search of NEW RESEARCH. (No, Dr. Brewton. I never let anyone forget things like that.) Instead, let us go explore a different one of his plays. What all did he write? (Yes, I am typing this post while looking up stuff.)
Let's see. He wrote Brand, which is apparently about a preacher who goes off the deep end and which ends with everyone dying; Peer Gynt; Emperor and Galilean (does that have anything to do with Julian the Apostate's dying words as he flung a handful of his blood in the air, screaming, "Thou hast conquered, Pale Galilean; the world has gone gray with Thy breath?" or did Julian only do that in poetry?); Ghosts; An Enemy of the People; The Wild Duck; Hedda Gabler; and The Master Builder.
Amusingly, Henrik Ibsen seems to have had an enemy in the Swedish playright August Strindberg. (I have heard that Norwegians and Swedish have a semi-friendly rivalry before, and this would seem to corroborate that account.) The Swedish playright apparently accused Ibsen of stealing ideas from him, such as ripping off his own Miss Julie and making Hedda Gabler out of it. His accusations seemed to have had the opposite effect on Ibsen, however, as he was apparently delighted by having an archrival (this sounds like comic books now) and hung a large picture of Mr. Strindberg over his desk. He said it helped him concentrate.
And this, my friends, is why reality can sometimes be so much better than fiction. Seriously, you just can't make this stuff up.
I think Peer Gynt looks interesting. I've heard the name before, and I do believe it was set to music... Yep, it says here that Edvard Grieg, who was a Norweigan composer, wrote the theme music for this play. I have actually heard of Edvard Grieg before, since he was in a composer go-fish game my piano teacher has, but all I know about him is that (1) he was Norwegian and (2) he wrote Norwegian Mountain Tunes, Peer Gynt, and I Love Thee. So anything else I learn about him will be NEW RESEARCH!
Besides, Dr. Brewton said to make personal connections and to look up stuff that interests us, so I am going to look up about how one of Ibsen's play was set to music!
All righty. Peer Gynt is a play about a Norwegian farm boy named Peer Gynt (what else did you expect?), a womanizer who prefers to run away and shirk all responsibility rather than face the consequences of his actions. Along the way he encounters trolls and a Boyg (an undefinable creature of slime and fog). A virtuous girl named Solveig, who is associated with light and the sun ("Sol" ring any bells?), is trying to save his soul. However, after being confronted with another set of consequences, Peer Gynt runs away from her and goes overseas, where he has various misadventures and eventually gets consigned to a madhouse. (And we wonder why.) An old man now, he returns to Norway to find his farm in ruins, the villagers mocking him, and Solveig still waiting for him to try to redeem him.
I have to admit, it certainly is reminiscent of the medieval Everyman plays. I actually like the Everyman play, even after reading it in high school. I just can't help it. I love it when an anthropomophic representation of Death shows up. (Favorite character in the Discworld? Either Death or Vetinari, unsurprisingly.) My favorite character in my own fantasy stories is my Angel of Death (he's called the Summoner), and so on account of that I like seeing how other authors depict Death.
Now, onto Edvard Grieg!
TVTropes (since I am apparently not to use Wickedpedia) says that the incidental music Edvard Grieg wrote for Peer Gynt was published in two different Peer Gynt Suites. The most famous of which are "The Hall of the Mountain King" and "Morning Mood". I think I shall look them up and then share them with you all. Because I love music, and so should you.
There are many comments on this song to the effect of "RIP earbud users", so I would recommend caution. It starts out very quiet, but gets lower towards the end. So use caution! I personally do not like using earbuds unless the music is very soft because I value my hearing, but I know that a lot of people use them with their iPods (I am not one of them, for I do not have an iPod). So just warning you all!
Huh. The first part of it reminds me strongly of a song by Liszt (oh, no, here I go with Liszt again!). It was actually a fun song to play, but was hard. Most of his songs were hard. They were hard like video games by Nintendo are hard. Not to mention it wasn't the most coherent of pieces, but, hey, this was Liszt....
I think I shall find it and post a video of it as well!
It's called "Dance of the Gnomes" by the way. I think it's an evocative enough title. The pianist is apparently Italian.
The other famous song by Edvard Grieg for Peer Gynt is "Morning Mood".
So there. I have made a personal connection with Henrik Ibsen's name and the music associated with his works. I have shared beautiful music with you all. And it has been NEW RESEARCH! What more do I need to do?
In Pace Christi,
Elyse
No comments:
Post a Comment