Memory of the World; 2012 - unesdoc - Unesco

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Henrik Ibsen: A Doll’s House
Inscribed 2001
What is it
The original manuscript of the play A Doll’s House.
Why was it inscribed
This is the only autograph manuscript of A Doll’s House,
a play that has had global impact both as an innovative
dramatic work and as a groundbreaking work on
women’s rights.
Where is it
National Library of Norway, Oslo, Norway
Few plays have had the global impact on social norms
and conditions as Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. First
produced in 1879, the play had an immediate, shock effect,
at times to the point of upheaval. Regarded as a serious
attack on social stability, it quickly made the playwright
world-famous.
The play revolutionized contemporary Western drama,
both formally and thematically. In the 20th century, the
effect of the play spread to include Asia and the Third
World, where its form became symbolic of a modern
Western drama and its content reflected values such as
human rights and existential freedom. It was widely staged
throughout the world, and is still regularly performed.
In A Doll’s House Henrik Ibsen portrayed his main female
character, Nora Helmer, as a dependent woman who is
searching for the freedom to develop as an adult in her
own right. The story is that of the individual in opposition
to the majority, to society’s oppressive authority.
More than anyone, Ibsen gave theatrical art a new vitality
by bringing into European bourgeois drama an ethical
gravity, a psychological depth and a social significance
that the theatre had not seen since the days of William
Shakespeare. His realistic contemporary drama was a
continuation of the European tradition of tragic plays.
In these works he portrays middle class people whose
routines are suddenly upset as they are confronted with a
deep crisis in their lives. They have been blindly following
a way of life leading to the troubles and are themselves
� French advertisement (c.1900)
showing a scene from A Doll’s House
responsible for the crisis. Looking back on their lives,
they are forced to confront themselves.
The first known draft of the play is entitled Notes on
the Tragedy of the Present Age (Rome, 19 October 1878).
The draft material gives direct access to the playwright’s
work processes. The reader can clearly follow the
development of Ibsen’s artistic imagination and the
sharpening of ideological content. In the manuscripts,
Ibsen expresses his revolutionary ideas more directly
than in the finished work, which for artistic reasons is
rendered more ambiguous. The manuscripts include
all material known to exist from the creation and first
printing of the play. The notes, drafts and papers for
Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House are the most detailed and
interesting manuscript material from the hand of this
great playwright.
A Doll’s House is an exceptional achievement. In spite
of Nora’s uncertain future prospects – confronting the
problems of a divorced woman without means in the
19th-century society – she has served and serves as a
symbol throughout the world for women fighting for
liberation and equality.
Henrik Ibsen: A Doll’s House 379