literature had been cultivated with extreme diligence, the drama had
hitherto been totally neglected. With the exception of a graceful opera
by Bjerregaard, which enjoyed a success sustained over a quarter of a
century, the only writings in dramatic form produced in Norway between
1815 and 1850 were the absurd lyrical farces of Wergeland, which were
devoid of all importance. Such a thing as a three-act tragedy in blank
verse was unknown in modern Norway, so that the youthful apothecary in
Grimstad, whatever he was doing, was not slavishly copying the fashions
of his own countrymen.

The principal, if not the only influence which acted upon Ibsen at this
moment, was that of the great Danish tragedian, Adam Oehlenschlaeger. It
might be fantastically held that the leading romantic luminary of
Scandinavia withdrew on purpose to make room for his realistic
successor, since Oehlenschlaeger's latest play, _Kiartan and Gudrun_,
appeared just when Ibsen was planning _Catilina_, while the death of the
Danish poet (January 20, 1850) was practically simultaneous with Ibsen's
arrival in Christiania. In later years, Ibsen thought that Holberg and
Oehlenschlaeger were the only dramatists he had read when his own first
play was written; he was sure that he knew nothing of Schiller,
Shakespeare or the French. Of the rich and varied dramatic literature of
Denmark, in the generation between Oehlenschlaeger's and his own, he must
also for the present have known nothing. The influence of Heiberg and of
Hertz, presently to be so potent, had evidently not yet begun. But it is
important to perceive that already Norway, and Norwegian taste and
opinion, were nothing to him in his selection of themes and forms.

It is not to be supposed that the taste for dramatic performances did
not exist in Norway, because no Norwegian plays were written. On the
contrary, in most of the large towns there were, and had long been,