Henrik Ibsen’s reputation as one of the world’s greatest playwrights is today, well over a hundred years after his death, firmly established. His international popularity naturally owes much to the translation of his work into a large number of languages over the years, and several versions of most of his plays already exist in English. When being translated again, for these Penguin editions, Ibsen no longer needs to be ‘introduced’ or ‘rediscovered’ – as was the case a hundred years ago or during the 1960s and ’70s – and this has given us the confidence to delve deeper into the texture of his writing, safe in the knowledge that Ibsen’s brilliance in turning social, political and psychological subject matters into compelling theatre is beyond dispute. Looking closely at the plays, it soon became apparent to us that Ibsen’s theatrical genius is found not only at the structural level but with equal precision at the micro-level of his texts. We discovered that the preservation of even seemingly insignificant linguistic details might enhance the reader’s interpretation of a character or scene. In particular we became alert to the theatrical significance of the repetition of words and phrases within Ibsen’s texts, and to the imagery used by his characters that is both explicitly and subtly embedded in everyday language. Attention to linguistic accuracy also allowed for some of the more idiosyncratic aspects of Ibsen’s characters to emerge more clearly. During our work we have consulted electronic versions of all Ibsen’s plays, comparing them to the works of other Norwegian writers at the time, fiction as well as non-fiction, in addition to a five-volume contemporary encyclopaedia. Doing so made it possible for us to quantify phrase and word frequency within and between Ibsen’s plays, and with greater accuracy to identify instances when Ibsen was being creative with the verbal conventions of his time. Our aim has been the recreation of dialogue that preserves the plays’ dramatic ‘performability’, while paying closer attention to the linguistic fabric of Ibsen’s original than has been ventured in previous translations. We have selected here a few representative examples to illustrate our approach.
One example pertaining to linguistic fidelity is to be found in Ghosts, where Pastor Manders in Act One suggests that children are best brought up in ‘fædrenehjemmet’, literally the patriarchal home. The temptation for a translator is to use the colloquial family home. Ibsen could, however, easily have used this term in Norwegian, and here in fact gender is important: far from being the morally upright patriarch to whom Osvald should look up, his father is revealed as a wastrel. Indeed, it was precisely to avoid the potential infection of the patriarchal home that Mrs Alving sent Osvald away to school.
Previous translations of Pastor Manders’ lines have preserved his eloquence and self-importance but overlooked the linguistically violent aspect of some of them. In the same act, Manders recounts with pride how he once made Mrs Alving submit to her moral duty and return to her husband, employing a turn of phrase that in Norwegian is very brutal. He uses the words ‘jeg fik Dem bøjet ind under pligt og lydighed’, which literally translates as I got you bent in under duty and obedience. It is significant that this is not the most obvious choice to describe submission in Norwegian. Whether this reflects an earlier passion or an aggressive aspect of Pastor Manders’ character is open to interpretation, but the challenge it gives the translator in producing convincing dialogue makes it all too tempting to tone down.
All of Ibsen’s characters have distinct voices that in previous translations often have been normalized: Hilmar Tønnesen’s ineffectual bravado, Dr Rank’s dark humour, the childish eagerness of Mr Billing’s revolutionary interjections, Nora’s effusive language, the impulsive and belligerent tone of Dr Stockmann, the mysterious and spiteful voice of Old Morten Kiil, the outspokenness of Miss Hessel, the malapropisms of Mr Engstrand and Regine. All of these are dependent on the translator giving close attention not only to the rhythm, register and speech patterns, but also each character’s idiosyncratic use of vocabulary and imagery.
Mr Rummel, in Pillars of the Community, is in many translations made to speak in quite everyday terms, yet in Norwegian he talks with a distinctly brusque and rumbustious tone. In Act Four Mr Rummel tries to convince a jittery Consul Bernick that their opponents must be suppressed by an overwhelming display of confidence. He uses words associated with weight, such as heavy, crush, swell and ample, to create a graphic image of manipulation of the townsfolk. Beyond its semi-political resonance, there may also be a comic dimension to this speech: Rummel not only speaks loudly (as his wife tells us), but is possibly an overweight character – his name in Norwegian suggests hollow noise and rotundity. It would at any rate be remiss of us to ignore the associations with weight in the words Ibsen has chosen for him.
By contrast Mr Krap, in the same play, speaks with absolute directness, regularly omitting the grammatical subject in his speech. This not only serves to create a specific idiolect, but brings pace to the opening scene of the play and strengthens the tension between the modern, efficient bureaucrat (Mr Krap) and the older, working-class shipbuilder (Aune), a tension that is central to the play, in which the new industrial world is replacing the old order. It also undoubtedly reflects Ibsen’s determination to bring to the stage Norwegian as it was really spoken.
An aspect of Ibsen’s writing that has affected much of our translation work is his use of repeated words and phrases. It is generally recognized that there are a number of key words that correspond to key themes in Ibsen’s plays, but Ibsen goes much further. Certain words may only ever be used by one character, or may be shared by two, or used in one play by several characters. Repetition is a powerful tool in the theatre: while an audience may not consciously notice the repetition of a word or phrase, it will nonetheless resonate subliminally. By limiting his vocabulary Ibsen creates a palette for each play, and thereby a unique, self-contained linguistic world carefully woven into the everyday language of its inhabitants.
This is particularly true of A Doll’s House, in which there are several notable repeats. Among these are Nora’s favourite word ‘dejligt’ (lovely), which is used by or about her twenty-four times, Helmer’s ‘lille’ (little), employed twenty-seven times only to describe Nora, and the crucial ‘vidunderlig’ (wonderful/miraculous), which stands in contrast to ‘forfærdelig’ (dreadful/disastrous), appearing nineteen and fourteen times respectively throughout the play. Nora also views life or emotional experiences as either ‘let’ (light/easy) or ‘tungt’ (heavy/difficult), sometimes with only a few lines between them. Other repeats, and another contrasting pair, are that of ‘smukt’ (beautiful) and ‘stygt’ (ugly). The first is used twelve times in describing Nora’s dress and appearance, the house and Christmas decorations, etc. The second is used sixteen times in a variety of expressions including for unpleasant talk, bad weather, bad teeth, ugly words or foul newspapers – all things that threaten the perfection of the home or even Helmer’s love for Nora. Finally, the word ‘udvej’ (a way out) appears in this play nine times, used only occasionally in a few of Ibsen’s other plays. The word is spoken by Nora (seven times) or someone talking to her (twice). Nora says she is looking for an ‘udvej’ to get money, literally a way out to get money. Ibsen could easily have used the word ‘måde’ (method/means) or ‘kilde’ (source) but chooses to make Nora say ‘udvej’, reflecting her sense of being trapped. The challenge for the translator is that each manifestation of these words in Ibsen’s Norwegian does not consistently correspond to the same word in English. This is not normally a problem in translation, unless the very act of repeating is significant – which we believe it is. Reluctantly we have occasionally had to settle for minimal variation, instead of a complete match, when no other solution was acceptable.
However, for some words it is not the high frequency that counts. The only person using the word ‘bedærvet’ in A Doll’s House is Dr Rank, only twice, yet in Norwegian it is so stark and unpleasant as to stick out. The physician jokes to a slightly fatigued Mrs Linde that perhaps she is a tad ‘bedærvet’ on the inside – the word means rotten, rancid, gone off (indeed it is used in Enemy of the People to describe the putrefied waters at the Spa). Dr Rank has relatively few lines in the play, and this is almost the first thing he says. Yet only a few lines later Dr Rank repeats the word by describing Mr Krogstad as being ‘bedærvet’ to the very roots of his character. While previous translators have reflected the image of rottenness in relation to Krogstad, they have perhaps been too polite to parallel the unpleasantness in Dr Rank’s remark to Mrs Linde. However, it seems too noticeable a wording to ignore. Dr Rank’s use of the adjective is open to interpretation; it may simply mark his morbid humour induced by his own illness or his misanthropic tendencies or serve to foreshadow the relationship between Mrs Linde and Krogstad and the destruction they will bring to the Helmer household. Whatever the case, this verbal feature should be available to readers of Ibsen in English.
There is another arena for repeats in Norwegian that often automatically disappears in translation: the Norwegian predilection for creating compounds, where simpler words are combined to make a new concept. A noun like ‘stridslyst’ (directed at Dr Stockmann in Enemy of the People) might well be translated as belligerence, but it is actually made up of battle and wish and will therefore resonate with the two words ‘strid’ or ‘lyst’ elsewhere in the play. Similarly, Mr Billing uses ‘stridsmod’, which can mean determination or pluck, yet the word in Norwegian is made up from battle and courage. Such compounds and their simpler (often more graphic) components appear throughout the play, and to readers of the original they become part of a through-line of references to revolution, war, conflict and fighting at many points in the text. The linguistic options offered by composite words in Norwegian may be fortuitous in Ibsen’s writing, but never accidental. For the translator it is a particular challenge to keep this tightly woven textuality intact in English.
Finally, humour is always difficult to preserve in translation, but all the more important when we consider that Ibsen is mainly known as a serious, naturalistic dramatist. In particular, Pillars of the Community, in many respects a joyously theatrical play predating Ibsen’s more naturalistic works, moves with a rhythmic tempo largely sustained by comedic stage business.
Ibsen has a distinct tendency to poke fun at characters who think too highly of themselves, most often minor characters, including Aslaksen and Billing in Enemy of the People, and Rummel and Rørlund in Pillars of the Community. In the latter play Bernick’s egotistical view of the world is mostly expressed in unconscious little remarks, revealing his lack of self-awareness. Talking about his single sister, Bernick reassures Johan, who suspects she is rather unhappy, that she has plenty to keep her occupied: ‘hun har jo mig og Betty og Olaf og mig’ (literally meaning ‘after all, she has me and Betty and Olaf and me’), thus mentioning himself twice. Surprisingly, Ibsen’s carefully placed verbal slip has been ‘tidied up’ in previous translations.
We should also mention the difficulties of translating swear-words in Ibsen – a type of vulgarity that may also have a humorous effect – since these are impossible to reflect accurately, as indeed they generally are from language to language. The distribution of the related swear-words ‘fanden’ or ‘fan’/fa’n’ is telling in Ibsen’s plays. Both have their origin in the word for devil, and both words turn up in other plays, generally serving as a marker of class. The former, longer version is tolerable for a man of the middle class if used in a moment of exasperation and is used liberally by Dr Stockmann and Mr Billing. The shorter pronunciation is far more vulgar and is generally used by working-class characters, and at a lower threshold of emotion. Those who use it in these plays are the carpenter Mr Engstrand in Ghosts, the old tanner Morten Kiil in An Enemy of the People and a couple of people in the crowd scene in Enemy of the People, one of whom shouts ‘fy for fan”. This, even to a modern Norwegian, is as offensive as the f-word in today’s English.
Although these four plays are translated with the reader in mind, we have sought to reflect the spirit and playability of Ibsen’s dialogue. For a long time there has been a tendency, particularly in the social dramas featured in this volume, to focus wholly on the moment-by-moment believability of the dialogue. Yet Ibsen’s genius lies in his capacity to create an intricate dramatic tapestry that works on multiple levels, simultaneously naturalistic and highly theatrical. Ultimately it is this craftsmanship that we hope we have captured. Most importantly, we hope that these translations offer the Anglophone reader without direct access to the original the possibility of interrogating and interpreting these texts anew.
Of course, however hard a translator aims at objectivity, translation is always a matter of interpretation, and true ‘meaning’ a source of endless debate. Ultimately our translations can only contribute to the on-going discussion about Ibsen’s work. We have to thank our editorial team for setting the exciting parameters within which we have worked, and our expert readers, who have often presented us with alternative and insightful readings and who have contributed so generously and patiently to our journey of investigation.
Deborah Dawkin
Erik Skuggevik