The Two Epic Plays

The two epic plays in this volume stand, together with Peer Gynt and The Pretenders, at the fulcrum of Ibsen's career. Brand (1865) stated sharply and vividly the necessity of following one's private conscience and being oneself. It created an immediate sensation and was hailed by Strindberg as the voice of a Savonarola. Emperor and Galilean (1873), which Ibsen referred to as his masterpiece, is both his farewell to the epic drama and the forerunner of his great naturalistic prose plays that were to burst on the nineteenth century.

Michael Meyer’s translations are crisp and cobweb-free, purged of verbal Victoriana (Kenneth Tynan).