Henrik Ibsen was a playwright and theatre director from Norway. He was known as the father of “Realism” as he was one of the best and influential writers of his time. He was born on 20th March 1828. Skein, Telemark, Norway. He belonged to a very affluent merchant family in Norway. His father was Knud Ibsen and mother was Marichen Altenburg. When Henrik was seven years old, his father’s fortunes took a drastic turn due to which they had to sell the Altenburg building and shifted to their large summer house – Venstop.
At the age of fifteen, Ibsen had to leave school. He moved to Grimstad to become a pharmacist and at the same time he began writing plays. In the year 1846, he had a liaison with Else Sophie Jensdatter Birkedalen which produced a son named Hans Jacob. Ibsen paid for his upbringing until he was fourteen years old. In the year 1850, Ibsen published his first play named The Tragedy Catilina under the pseudonym “Brynjolf Bjarme”. He was 22 at that time and his play was not performed at any theatre. In the same year his play The Burial Mount was the first one to be staged and he received a little bit of attention.
For the next few years Ibsen was employed at Det Norske theatre and was involved there in the production of plays. He was involved in more then 145 plays as a writer, director and a producer. He even produced five new plays during this period which were highly unremarkable. Despite of his failure he continued writing and had a lot good experience from the Norwegian theatre.
In 1858 Ibsen returned to Christiania and became the creative director of Christiania theatre. He got married to Suzannah Toreson in the year 1858 and they had a child named sigurd on 23rd December 1859. Due to their poor circumstances Ibsen left Christiania and went to Italy.
In the year 1865 he got critically acclaimed for his play “Brand”. In the year 1867 he wrote “Peer Gynt” and both these plays brought him critical and financial success. He moved to Germany from Italy in the year 1868 where he wrote Emperor and Galilean in the year 1873. In the year 1875 he moved to Munich and worked on his realistic drama named The Pillars of Society which got published in the year 1877. A Doll’s House was published in the year 1879. Some of his famous works were – An Enemy of the People, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, The Master Builder and many more. On 23rd May 1906, Ibsen died due to series of strokes and was buried in Var Frelsers Gravlund.
