Brian Johnston (14 April 1932 – 2 March 2013) was a British literary researcher, especially renowned for his works on the Norwegian dramatist

Henrik Ibsen Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playw ...

(1828–1906), including his three influential books, ''

The Ibsen Cycle ''The Ibsen Cycle: The Design of the Plays from Pillars of Society to When We Dead Awaken'' (1975, revised 1992) is a book by the British literary researcher and Ibsen scholar Brian Johnston (1932–2013). Johnston emphasizes the impact of the Ge ...

'' (1975, revised 1992), ''To the Third Empire: Ibsen's Early Plays'' (1980), and ''Text and Supertext in Ibsen's Drama'' (1988).

Life and work

Brian Peter Johnston was the second child of Edward Thomas & Hilda Margaret Johnston having an elder brother and three younger sisters. Although he never married, he had very close contact with his extended family. He left school at 13, and had several unskilled jobs including reading gas meters and removing the pips from raspberry jam. He attended college in Birmingham from where he gained a place to read classics at

Gonville and Caius College Gonville and Caius College, often referred to simply as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and one of th ...

, Cambridge In 1960, Johnston gained a First Class Honors Degree at Cambridge University, where he taught later in his life, holding a multitude of roles at Trondheim Lærerhøgskole (Norway), Northwestern University, the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Amman (Jordan), Beirut University College (Lebanon), and several other institutions. He joined the faculty of the School of Drama, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, in 1986, where he remained until his retirement in 2007. Johnston edited the Norton Critical Edition of Ibsen's plays published in 2004. His translations of Ibsen include ''A Doll's House'', ''Ghosts'', ''Hedda Gabler'', ''The Lady from the Sea'', ''Rosmersholm'', ''Emperor and Galilean'', and ''Peer Gynt''. They have been produced at major professional theatres across the United States. His course in dramatic literature from ancient to modern drama is available online on the site Courses in Drama. The essays presented derive from a Survey of Drama Course Johnston taught at Carnegie Mellon University between 1987 and 2007. His ''discussions'', as Johnston terms his essays, are divided into four sections: # Greek (Athenian) Drama # European Drama (Medieval to Spanish Golden Age) # European Drama (Neoclassical to Romantic) # Modern Drama – (Ibsen to 20th Century; Modern Arab Drama)

Hegelian perspective

A key to understanding Brian Johnston's interpretation of Ibsen is his emphasis on the importance of the German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel's (1770–1831) influence on Ibsen's drama. In the Introduction to ''The Ibsen Cycle'' he describes his project as follows:

Storehouse of Western civilisation

Johnston insists that there are rich and wide-ranging references to the whole of

Western civilisation Leonardo da Vinci's ''Vitruvian Man''. Based on the correlations of ideal Body proportions">human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise ''De architectura''. image:Plato Pio-Cle ...

in Ibsen's final twelve contemporary plays. He contends that the plays are structured with references to the 'three major spiritual traditions' of the West— 'the Hellenic, the Judeo-Christian, and the Germanic':Brian Johnston: ''The Ibsen Cycle'', Pennsylvania State University Press 1992, p. 181

References

External links

Ibsen Voyages: Brian Johnston's collected articles and lectures on Ibsen

Courses in Drama with Brian Johnston

The Ibsen Cycle

To the Third Empire: Ibsen's Early Plays

Text and Supertext in Ibsen's Drama

An overview of Brian Johnston's translations of Ibsen
{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnston, Brian Henrik Ibsen researchers Carnegie Mellon University faculty Alumni of the University of Cambridge English non-fiction writers British translators English translators Norwegian–English translators English male dramatists and playwrights 1932 births 2013 deaths Male non-fiction writers