our great poet’s [Oehlenschläger’s] incomparable poem. In The Pretenders two figures again stand opposed to one another as the superior and the inferior being, an Aladdin and a Nureddin nature. It is towards this contrast that Ibsen has hitherto unconsciously directed his endeavors, just as Nature feels her way in her blind preliminary attempts to form her types. Håkon and Skule are pretenders to the same throne, scions of royalty out of whom a king may be made. But the first is the incarnation of fortune, victory, right and confidence; the second—the principal figure in the play, masterly in its truth and originality—is the broader, a prey to inward struggle and endless distrust, brave and ambitious, with perhaps every qualification and claim to be king, but lacking the inexpressible, impalpable somewhat that would give a value to all the rest—the wonderful Lamp. “I am a king’s arm,” he says, “mayhap a king’s brain as well; but Håkon is the whole king.” “You have wisdom and courage, and all noble gifts of the mind,” says Håkon to him; “you are born to stand nearest a king, but not to be a king yourself.”
To a poet the achievements of his greatest contemporaries in their common art have all the importance of high deeds in statesmanship and war. It is, therefore, by no means extravagant to see in the noble emulation of the two dukes in The Pretenders some reflection of Ibsen’s attitude to the youthful and brilliant Björnson. The luminous self-reliance, the ardor and confidence and good fortune of Björnson-Håkon could not but offer a violent contrast with the gloom and
