SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
ONII■141.•■■• (Tinder this heading vs notice ouch Books of the week as have not bun reserved for review in other forms.1 Prom ,Ibsen's Workshop. Translated by A. G. Chater. With an Introduction by William Archer. (W. Heinemann. 4s.)—It is always interesting to watch an artist at work, and to other artists it may even be useful. This volume of rough drafts and scenarios of Iften's plays—it forms the twelfth volume of the collected edition—is sure to be eagerly studied, and especially by young dramatists. These fragments, which Ibsen, in his characteris- tically methodical way, had preserved in his pigeon-holes, show that ho wrote out his plays in considerable detail at a very early stage of their growth. The revising process, that is, was with him of the greatest importance. The draft of "A Doll's House," for instance, is sufficiently complete to serve, or be mistaken for, a finished play ; but the improvements that were made in it were of the greatest number and importance. The whole incident of the macaroons at the beginning of the play, to take an example, is absent from the draft. There is something "fright- fully thrilling," as Hilda would say, in watching the unerring judgment with which the improvements are made. Never does a weak spot in the draft seem to escape correction; never is the right word replaced by a wrong one. The same sensation of the inevit- able correctness of an artist's judgment may be felt by studying a facsimile of the Trinity College manuscript of Milton's minor poems.—Wo may at the same time mention Henrik Ibsen : a Critical Study, by R. Ellis Roberts. (Martin Seeker. 7s. 6d. net.) —A brief biography opens the volume, which then deals with the plays chronologically. Mr. Roberts in a last chapter of " Con- clusions" arrives at the fact that Ibsen's "message" was "a belief in the final reality and unconquerable trust in the over- whelming might of love."
Previous page
