Mr. Ibsen I presume ?

While Dr. Livingstone raved around in central Africa on an official commission to discover the sources of the Nile, the author Henrik Ibsen simultaneously found the flood a pleasant place in which to sail in uttermost luxury.

The sources of the Nile never was found by Dr. Livingstone - and Ibsen's unique travelogue never reached its readers. Reason? Writings were suddenly put away as the work he came to consider his life work - "Emperor and Galilee" - put the spell on him. A travelogue passed away on a Nile breeze and ended up in an untranslated, highly scientifical, hardly accessible & limited edition of his total writing...

I discovered his long lost writing after raving like a Livingstone around nooks and corners of the vast and dangerous jungle of the University Library in Oslo. Exhausted, with only prior rumors of the possibility of this text - I suddenly stood there with one of the huge books in my hand. Hands shivering in anxiety, the magic text appeared; in the same moment as a lonely phrase backflashed Stanley-like through my mind; "Mr. Ibsen I presume?"

Ibsen traveled to Egypt in 1869 through an invitation from the Swedish (& Norwegian) King to attend the opening of the Suez Canal, but in his mind he had been there before... The long poem "Peer Gynt" (yes poem!) takes the unfaithful Norwegian folksoul to Egypt as well. Here Peer meets first the Bedouin girl Anitra in the desert and later the representatives of the European political landscape - in a madhouse in Cairo.

The same poem was later dramatized for stage, with illustrations by Edvard Munch who was much enchanted by the poem "Peer Gynt", and music by Edvard Grieg - the first and last time the "three greats" co-operated. Grieg, in his famous "Peer Gynt Suite101", wrote the three compositions "Anitra's dance", "Arabic Dance" and "Morning Mood" for the Egyptian scenes. So Peer Gynt was most likely the main reason Ibsen was invited as official guest to the opening of the Suez Canal.

Until now, it's been another work that has been known to the public from this journey, and that is another long poem with the somewhat strange title "Balloon-letter to a Swedish Lady". This poem express a negative attitude towards what Ibsen imagined had been an "anthill society" in Ancient Egypt. So dark is his impression that he only finds black birds here and no carrier pigeons & this is his reason for sending the poem as a "balloon letter".

Go To Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6