Extended excerpt [Play dialogue. ‘Billing’ addressing group, including ‘Horster,’ ‘Hovstad,’ ‘Dr. Thomas Stockmann’ & ‘Mrs. Stockmann]

“Billing. But do you not take an interest in public affairs?

Horster. No, I don’t know anything about politics.

Billing. All the same, one ought to vote, at any rate.

Horster. Even if one doesn’t know anything about what is going on?

Billing. Doesn’t know! What do you mean by that? A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.”

Source link: An Enemy of the People (1882) online via Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2446/2446-h/2446-h.htm

Extended excerpt: [Letter to friend & editor Paul Botten-Hansen] “My Dear Friend, – I write these lines I the greatest haste; you ought to have heard from me long ago, but – . If only I could master that demon of procrastination that goes about like a roaring lion and devours all my good intentions, I should become the most punctual man in the world.” (p. 56)

Source link: Letters of Henrik Ibsen (1905 Fox Duffield & Co., edition) online via Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=litcAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA56&lpg

Extended excerpt [Play dialogue. ‘Dr. Rellling’ to ‘Gregers’]

Gregers. Do you think the two things are related?

Relling. Yes, just about as closely as typhus and putrid fever.

Gregers. Dr. Relling, I shall not give up the struggle until I have rescued Hialmar from your clutches!

Relling. So much the worse for him. Rob the average man of his life-illusion, and you rob him of his happiness at the same stroke.”

Source note: The cited version of The Wild Duck includes the publisher’s 1907 introduction & background of the play. The introduction can be found on pages 221-232

Source link: The Works of Henrik Ibsen: An Enemy of the People; The Wild Duck (1911 Charles Scribner|Viking edition) online via Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=3D0PAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA433&dq=Rob+the+average+man+of+his+life-illusion+and+you+rob+him+of+his+happiness+at+one+stroke

Extended excerpt: [Letter to George Brandes]

“You say that you have no friends at home. That is what I have fancied for a long time. When a man stands, as you do, in an intimately personal relationship to his life-work, he cannot really expect to keep his “friends.” But I believe that it is better for you that you go without leaving friends at home. Friends are an expensive luxury; and when a man’s whole capital is invested in a calling and a mission in life, he cannot afford to keep them. The costliness of keeping friends does not lie in what one does for them, but in what one, out of consideration for them, refrains from doing. This means the crushing of many an intellectual germ.” (p. 183)

Source link: Letters of Henrik Ibsen (1905 Fox Duffield & Co., edition) online via Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=litcAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA183&lpg

Extended excerpt: [Letter to Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson]

“The thought of the cargo of nonsense which I shipped to you in my last epistle had not left me at peace with myself for an hour in the interval. The worst that a man can do to himself is to do injustice to others. Thank you, noble-minded man that you are, for taking the matter as you have done.” (p. 149)

Source link: Letters of Henrik Ibsen (1905 Fox Duffield & Co., edition) online via Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=litcAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA149&lpg

Re-quote notes:

Ibsen repeated his “A Verse” lines in a June 1890 letter to German translator Ludwig Passarge:

“Everything that I have written is most minutely connected with what I have lived through, if not personally experience; every new work has had for me the object of serving as a process of spiritual liberation and catharsis; for every man shares the responsibility and the guilt of the society to which he belongs. That was why I once inscribed in a copy of one of my books the following dedicatory lines:

To live is to war with trolls in heart and soul.

To write is to sit in judgment on oneself.”

[Re-quote source: Henrik Ibsen, Letter to German translator Ludwig Passarge (16 June 1890) Ibsen Plays: Six Six [Peer Gynt & The Pretenders] trans. Michael Meyer [R. Clay Ltd, Suffolk: England] 1987 edition, p. 28]

Extended excerpt [Poem, cited in an English-language essay about Ibsen & his work] “A single verse, placed at the end of Ibsen’s collected volume of minor poems runs thus:

“To live is – to war with trolls in the chamber of the heart and the brain.

To write poetry – that is to hold judgment-day over oneself.” (p. 628)

Norwegian text:

“A leve er – krig med trolde

i hjertets og hjernens hvælv;

at digte, – det er at holde

dommedag over sig selv.” (p. 203)

[Norwegian source: Henrik Ibsen, “Et vers.” (c. 1877) Digte, København: F. Hegel & Son, 1886, p. 203; online via Harvard University & HathiTrust, babel.hathitrust.org]

Original source note: Ibsen’s Digte was published in 1871 – and extended versions in 1875 & 1879 – but “Et. vers” did not appear in these early editions.

Alternative translation:

“Hence I once wrote the following dedicatory lines in a copy of one of my books:

“To live – is to war with fiends

That infest the brain and the heart;

To write – is to summon one’s self,

And play the judge’s part.”

[Alternative translation source: Henrik Ibsen, Letter to Ludwig Passarge (16 June 1890) Letters of Henrik Ibsen, trans. John Nilsen Laurvik & Mary Morison, New York: Fox, Duffield & Co., 1905 edition, p. 334; online via The University of Michigan & Google Books, books.google.com]

Source link: [Featured English translation]: “Henrik Ibsen: His Men and Women” (1889) The Westminster Review, online via Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=2jGgAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA628&dq=henrik+ibsen+%2B+A+Verse+%2B+war+with+trolls

Source [Ibsen 1890 Re-quote]: Ibsen Plays: Six (1987 Methuen) International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 0-413-15300-2

Source link [Norwegian text]: Digte (1886 edition) online via HathiTrust https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hwww7l;view=1up;seq=215

Source link [Alternative translation]: Letters of Henrik Ibsen (1905 Fox Duffield & Co., edition) online via Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=litcAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA334&lpg

Extended excerpt: [Play dialogue. ‘Dr. Thomas Stockmann’ to ‘Mrs. Stockmann]

“Dr. Stockmann. Are you suggesting that I should stay here, where they have pilloried me as an enemy of the people – branded me – broken my windows! And just look here, Katherine – they have torn a great rent in my black trousers too!

Mrs. Stockmann. Oh, dear! – and they are the best pair your have got!

Dr. Stockmann. You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth. It is not that I care so much about the trousers, you know; you can always sew them up again for me. But that the common herd should dare to make this attack on me, as if they were my equals – that is what I cannot, for the life of me, swallow!”

Original Norwegian title: En folkefiende

Original Norwegian text:

Doktor Stockman. En skulde aldrig ha’ sine bedste buxer på, når en er ude og strider for frihed og sandhed. Ja, jeg bryr mig ikke så stort om buxerne, skønner du; for de kan du altid snurpe sammen for mig.” (p. 179)

[Norwegian source: Henrik Ibsen, En folkefiende (1882) København: F. Hegel & Søn, p. 179; online via Harvard University & Google Books, books.google.com]

Source link: An Enemy of the People (1882) online via Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2446/2446-h/2446-h.htm

Source link [Norwegian text]: En Folkefiende (1882) online via Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=asUOAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq