Ibsen’s Happy Endings; or, The Vaudeville Origins of Modern Drama

Abstract This article critiques the prevailing narrative about the adherence by the dramatist Henrik Ibsen to aesthetic idealism, arguing that he took an anti-idealist position much earlier than most scholars assume. The main claim is that he recycled elements from the popular and profoundly anti-idealist comédies-vaudevilles that he staged while working in the theater, in a practice that Linda Hutcheon identifies as modern parody. A secondary claim challenges the evidence that Ibsen ascribed to the form of aesthetic idealism propounded by the Danish dramatist Johan Ludvig Heiberg. Finally, the article gives examples of Ibsen’s parodic use in his Love’s Comedy (1862) and The Lady from the Sea (1888) of specific vaudevilles written by the French dramatist Eugène Scribe and the Danish dramatist Erik Bøgh. This evidence strongly suggests that Ibsen strategically parodied the vaudeville, which has broader implications for understanding both his break with aesthetic idealism and the development of modern drama.