Hedda Gabler – Methuen Student Edition

Title: Hedda Gabler - Methuen Student Edition
Author: Ibsen, Henrik
Price: $26.95

Hedda is an intelligent and ambitious woman, trapped in the stifling environment of a bourgeois 19th-century marriage. When writer Eilert Loevborg, an old flame returns to Hedda's life with a masterpiece that might threaten her husband's career, Hedda decides to take drastic and fatal action. Universally condemned in 1890 when it was written,
Hedda Gabler has since become one of Ibsen's most frequently performed plays. Its title role is elusive and complex - Hedda is an intelligent and ambitious woman, who has no means of finding personal fulfilment in the stifling world of late nineteenth-century bourgeois society. Too frightened of scandal to become involved with a brilliant, wayward writer, she opts for a conventional but loveless marriage in the hope of finding surrogate satisfaction through her husband's career. Blending comedy and tragedy disconcertingly together, Ibsen probes the thwarted aspirations and hidden anxieties of his characters against a background of contemporary social conditions and attitudes.

Author Biography - Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) was a Norwegian playwright and poet whose realistic, symbolic and often controversial plays revolutionised European theatre. He is widely regarded as the father of modern drama. His acclaimed plays include A Doll's House, Ghosts, Hedda Gabler, An Enemy of the People and The Pillars of the Community. His centenary is celebrated in 2006.

Promotional Information - A Student Edition featuring a scene-by-scene summary, a commentary on the dramatic, social and political context, and on the themes, characters, language and structure of the play. Questions for further study, notes on the words and phrases in the text and a further reading list all assist students and teachers of the play. Hedda Gabler is a classic play - frequently performed and studied.

Publication date: 25/04/2002
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9780413770707
Publishing status: OS Archived