Peer Gynt

Peer Gynt is classical drama written by Henrik Ibsen. This modern version is rewritten by Sadr al-Din Arabi. His aim is to criticize the decadent lifestyle in the West from an Islamic point of view. Peer Gynt is obsessed about being himself, but the way he sees himself is not reflective of who he truly is. The well-known scene with the onion depicts this quite clearly. There is no core inside an onion, just as there is no core in a false self. Peer Gynt’s journey is a psychological struggle to discover his true self, his core. A core based on empathy, morality and religious meaning. In this rewritten version is Solveig, a symbol of spiritually, the pure and innocent. She is helping Peer Gynt to be reborn into a spiritual life. - There will be a new enlightenment!

Among the masterpieces of world literature, this great verse drama by Norway's famed playwright humorously yet profoundly explores the virtues, vices, and follies common to all humanity as it follows the roguish life of a charming but arrogant young man. A literary delight since it was first published in 1875.

A new Penguin edition of Ibsen's two great verse plays, in masterful versions by one of our greatest living poets, Geoffrey Hill. These two powerful and contrasting verse dramas by Ibsen made his reputation as a playwright. The fantastical adventures of the irrepressible Peer Gynt - poet, idler, procrastinator, seducer - draw on Norwegian folklore to conjure up mountains, kidnappings, shipwrecks and trolls in an exuberant examination of truth and the self; while Brand, an unsparing vision of an idealistic priest who lives by his steely faith, explores free will and sacrifice. This volume brings together the poet Geoffrey Hill's acclaimed stage version of Brand with a new poetic rendering of Peer Gynt, published for the first time. This Penguin edition includes an interview with Geoffrey Hill about recreating Ibsen in English, an introduction by Janet Garton and editorial materials by Tore Rem.

"Was Ibsen influenced by Greek culture? Were allusions to the Greeks configured in the Norwegian playwright's works? According to author Norman Rhodes, whether consciously or unconsciously, many of Ibsen's plays are encoded with veiled references to ancient Greek culture. Rhodes also postulates that Ibsen's perception of the importance of the Greeks was most likely mediated to him through German Romanticism and Scandinavian culture." "According to Rhodes, numerous echoes of Greek literature resonate in such early Ibsen plays as Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljerkrans, and Love's Comedy. Ibsen's Brand and Peer Gynt are a dialectic pair which in key ways are suggestive of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, A Doll House has important parallels with Sophocles' Antigone, and An Enemy of the People correlates with both Plato's Apology and Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannos. Moreover, a Euripidean sense of fatal irrationality seems inscribed in Ibsen's final plays: the protagonists John Rosmer, Hedda Gabler, Master Builder Solness, John Gabriel Borkman, and the sculptor Rubek all destroy themselves."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

These four plays, written during the reigns of James I and Charles I, took revenge tragedy in dark and ambiguous new directions. In The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil, John Webster explores the role of women and the problems of power, sex and corruption in the Italian court, creating two unforgettable anti-heroines. In The Broken Heart, John Ford questions the value of emotional repression as his characters attempt to subdue their desires and hatreds in ancient Greece. Finally, Ford's masterpiece 'Tis Pity She's a Whore explores the taboo theme of incest and forbidden lust in a daring reworking of Romeo and Juliet. Jane Kingsley-Smith has edited the plays from the earliest quartos and added invaluable editorial material, including explanatory glosses and a new introduction that discusses how the playwrights explored issues around women, sex, power and violence. JOHN WEBSTER was born in about 1578 in London. He studied law at the Middle Temple before embarking on a career in the theatre, collaborating on many plays with contemporary dramatists. But it was his two solo-authored tragedies, The White Devil (1612) and The Duchess of Malfi (1614), which sealed his reputation. He died in the 1630s. JOHN FORD was born in 1586 in Devon. His early career was wholly concerned with poetry and philosophical works, and it was not until the 1620s that he began collaborating on stage plays. In the late 1620s, he began writing alone, producing the eight plays on which his reputation would be based, including The Broken Heart (1620) and 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (c.1630). Nothing more is known of Ford after the performance of his last play in 1638. JANE KINGSLEY-SMITH completed her PhD at the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon and is the author of two monographs: Shakespeare's Drama of Exile (2003) and Cupid in Early Modern Literature and Culture (2010). She is a Reader at Roehampton University, London, and a regular guest speaker at Shakespeare's Globe.

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