INTRODUCTION.[1]
Brand was written in the summer of 1865, at
Ariccia, near Rome. Fifteen months before, Ibsen
had left Christiania, a voluntary exile, eager to escape
from the narrow Scandinavian world, and burning
with the sense of national disgrace Denmark was
in the throes of the heroic but hopeless struggle to
which her northern kinsmen had sent only a handful
of volunteers. He had travelled southward, almost
within hearing of the Prussian guns; and among the
passengers on the steamer was that venerable silver-haired
mother who, as his sarcastic verses tell,
believed so firmly in the safety of her soldier-son, and
with such good ground, "for he was a Norwegian
soldier."[2] On arriving at Rome he turned resolutely
away from these rankling memories, broke all the
bonds that tied him to his country, plunged into the
study of the ancient world, and made preparation for
- ↑ For a more detailed discussion of Brand the reader may be referred to the Introduction prefixed to the original edition of the present translation (London, 1894).
- ↑ The poem Troens grund. It is translated by Mr. Wicksteed, Lect. p. 24. This admirable little volume is indispensable to the English student of Ibsen's poetry.
