''Catiline'' or ''Catilina'' was

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 ...

's first play. It was written during winter 1848–49Prologue to the second edition by Henrik Ibsen, Henrik Ibsens skrifter, Universitetet i Oslo. www.ibsen.net - 2005 and first performed under Ibsen's name on 3 December 1881 at the Nya Teatern (New Theater),

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

. The first performance of ''Catilina'' in Norway not under Ibsen's pseudonym (Brynjolf Bjarme) was at

Det Nye Teater Det Nye Teater was a theatre that opened in Oslo in 1929, and ended as an independent theatre in 1959, when it merged with Folketeatret to form Oslo Nye Teater. The theatre's original purpose was to support contemporary Norwegian drama. History Th ...

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

on 24 August 1935.

Background

Forced to support himself after his father's economic downfall during a national economic crisis, Ibsen went to

Grimstad Grimstad () is a municipality in Agder county, Norway. It belongs to the geographical region of Sørlandet. The administrative center of the municipality is the town of Grimstad. Some of the villages in Grimstad include Eide, Espenes, Fevik, ...

as a pharmacist's apprentice. There he both prepared himself for university and experimented with various forms of poetry. While studying, he found himself passionately drawn into the ''

Catiline orations The Catilinarian Orations (; also simply the ''Catilinarians'') are a set of speeches to the Roman Senate given in 63 BC by Marcus Tullius Cicero, one of the year's consuls, accusing a senator, Lucius Sergius Catilina (Catiline), of leading a p ...

'', famous speeches by

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the estab ...

against the elected questor

Catiline Lucius Sergius Catilina ( 108 BC – January 62 BC), known in English as Catiline (), was a Roman politician and soldier. He is best known for instigating the Catilinarian conspiracy, a failed attempt to violently seize control of the R ...

and his conspiracy to overthrow the republic. Ibsen chose this conspirator as the subject for his initial effort, finishing ''Catiline'' in 1849. Ibsen expresses in the prologue to the second edition (1875) that he was profoundly inspired by the contemporary political situation of Europe, and that he favored the Magyar uprising against the Habsburg empire. He explains that the case of Catiline had special interest for him, because ''"there are given few examples of historical persons, whose memory has been more entirely in the possession of their conquerors, than

"''. Thus, Catiline can be read as one of Ibsen's troubled (and troubling) heroes, alongside

Brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...

and Gregers Werle.

History and content

The play appeared in Christiania the following spring under Ibsen's early pseudonym, ''Brynjolf Bjarme''. The main character in this historical drama is the noble Roman Lucius Catilina, based on the historical figure of Catiline. He is torn between two women, his wife Aurelia and the

Vestal virgin In ancient Rome, the Vestal Virgins or Vestals ( la, Vestālēs, singular ) were priestesses of Vesta, virgin goddess of Rome's sacred hearth and its flame. The Vestals were unlike any other public priesthood. They were chosen before puberty ...

Furia. As characteristic of Ibsen's early work, the play is in

blank verse Blank verse is poetry written with regular metrical but unrhymed lines, almost always in iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th century", and P ...

. Although ''Catiline'' may not be among Ibsen's best plays, it foreshadows many of the themes found in his later works. Catilina, full of doubts and torn between love and duty, is similar to protagonists in ''

John Gabriel Borkman ''John Gabriel Borkman'' is a 1896 play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was his penultimate work. Plot The Borkman family fortunes have been brought low by the imprisonment of John Gabriel who used his position as a bank manager to s ...

'' and ''

The Master Builder ''The Master Builder'' ( no, Bygmester Solness) is a play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was first published in December 1892 and is regarded as one of Ibsen's more significant and revealing works. Performance The play was published ...

''. Furia is also the prototype of some of the later female characters, such as

Hedda Gabler ''Hedda Gabler'' () is a play written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. The world premiere was staged on 31 January 1891 at the Residenztheater in Munich. Ibsen himself was in attendance, although he remained back-stage. The play has been can ...

. Asked later what he had read when he wrote Catiline, Ibsen replied that he had read only the Danish Norse saga-inspired Romantic tragedian

Adam Oehlenschläger Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger (14 November 177920 January 1850) was a Danish poet and playwright. He introduced romanticism into Danish literature. He wrote the lyrics to the song ''Der er et yndigt land'', which is one of the national anthems ...

and

Ludvig Holberg Ludvig Holberg, Baron of Holberg (3 December 1684 – 28 January 1754) was a writer, essayist, philosopher, historian and playwright born in Bergen, Norway, during the time of the Dano-Norwegian dual monarchy. He was influenced by Humanism, ...

, "the Scandinavian Molière". BC Radio 4's In Our Time from Thursday, May 31, 2018, www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b42q58Halvdan Koht (in ''Efterladte Skrifter'', Vol. I) claims that Ibsen relied on

Friedrich Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, and philosopher. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller developed a productive, if complicated, friends ...

's ''

The Robbers ''The Robbers'' (', ) is the first drama by German playwright Friedrich Schiller. The play was published in 1781 and premiered on 13 January 1782 in Mannheim, Germany, and was inspired by Leisewitz' earlier play ''Julius of Taranto''. It wa ...

'' (1781/82) and on

Henrik Wergeland Henrik Arnold Thaulow Wergeland (17 June 1808 – 12 July 1845) was a Norwegian writer, most celebrated for his poetry but also a prolific playwright, polemicist, historian, and linguist. He is often described as a leading pioneer in the develop ...

's tragedy ''Sinklars Død''.

References

Biography of Henrik Ibsen by Edmund Gosse

External links

{{Authority control Plays by Henrik Ibsen Plays set in the Roman Republic 1850 plays 1850s debut plays Plays set in the 1st century BC Cultural depictions of Catiline