Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) is one of the greatest dramatists of world literature. His verse dramas Brand (1866) and Peer Gynt (1867) brought him fame in Scandinavia, but he became known throughout the world with twelve prose plays in which he invented what is known as theatrical realism: The Pillars of Society (1877), A Doll House (1879), Ghosts (1881), An Enemy of the People (1882), The Wild Duck (1884), Rosmersholm (1886), The Lady from the Sea (1888), Hedda Gabler (1890), The Master Builder (1892), Little Eyolf (1894), John Gabriel Borkman (1896), and When We Dead Awaken (1899). Ibsen made ordinary people speaking about contemporary topics in the language of everyday life proper subjects for the stage, and in so doing, he earned the title “the father of modern drama.” Ibsen is the second-most widely produced dramatist in the world after Shakespeare.

Rolf Fjelde (1926–2002) is America’s foremost translator of Ibsen. His Ibsen: The Complete Major Prose Plays (1978) and his verse translation of Peer Gynt (1980) are landmarks in Ibsen studies. In 1978, Fjelde was elected founding President of the Ibsen Society of America, an office he held for fifteen years. Fjelde was also a widely published poet and founding editor of the Yale Poetry Review. He was honored by Norway with the Order of St. Olaf, and by his compatriots with membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Terry Otten , Professor Emeritus of English at Wittenberg University, has published four books about the stage and contemporary literature, and more than fifty essays for a variety of journals, including essays on Ibsen in Modern Drama, Comparative Drama , and Mosaic. Professor Otten was named Ohio Professor of the Year and National Bronze Medalist by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. psvOOUfUb4seSAOgtw+sUvfU3cilwuxZ6bichLbEr3NFjHFk5QHuhnKtIQh0005s