HENRIK IBSEN MADE his country known. Norway became ‘Ibsen's land’. In his famous plays, he achieved the true greatness he had dreamed of. The first play, Kjæmpehøyen(The Burial Mound), was staged at the Christiania Theater in 1850. Apparently, at the opening night Ibsen was so terrified of the reception the play might receive that he hid away in a dark corner of the theatre. He need not have worried.

Samfunnets støtter (Pillars of Society) was performed in Berlin in 1875 and marked his international breakthrough. Et Dukkehjem (A Doll's House) appeared in Cairo in 1896, in Tokyo in 1912 and arrived in Shanghai in 1914. Since then Peer Gynt, Brand, Gengangere (Ghosts), En folkefiende (An Enemy of the People), Vilanden (The Wild Duck), Bygmester Solnes (The Master Builder), Fruen fra havet (The Lady from the Sea) and Hedda Gabler have spread to stages around the world, most notably in the USA, England, Germany and Japan.

Ibsen's plays give a strong image of societies in rapid change, including the advancement of women's liberation. Many countries and societies (I won't mention them all) might benefit from staging A Doll's House today. The anecdote that Ibsen on his deathbed suddenly sat up and shouted Tvert imot! (On the contrary!) then fell back dead, is probably untrue, but a relevant laconism. Many writers and literary historians have seen these words, the idea of opposition and resistance, as the key feature of Ibsen's creative writing. This feature of his work suggests a refusal to comply and implies a questioning of established truths, habits, conventions and institutions, the hypocrisy and suppression, the ghosts, that keep them alive.

Arguably, this Ibsen spirit of non-acceptance, the courage to look at and into Norwegian society, might still be lacking and needed today?

Great as he is, however, there is so much more in the literary landscape before and after Ibsen. For example, the first poem in the Edda (great grandmother) collection from the old Norse period is called ‘Voluspå’ (the Volva's prophesy), a comprehensive account of mythology, the creation and the life of the gods, the origins of conflict, prophesies for the future and the promise of a new world.