- Year Published: 1876.
- Pages: 144.
Peer Gynt Summary
A five-act play written in verse format by Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen in 1867, Peer Gynt is a famous and widely performed Norwegian Play. Based on a well-known Norwegian Fairytale of the same name, the characters in the play actually resemble members of Ibsen’s own family.
The play voices the story of the fall and then the redemption of a peasant rogue of Norway. Though it wasn’t written for a stage play it was first performed on February 24, 1876, with music produced and conducted by Edvard Greig (a friend of the writer). The first performance was lavishly shown at the Miller garden Theater (in Oslo) with a live orchestra.
Peer Gynt Summary
Peer Gynt is the son of Jon Gynt, who was once a rich and extremely regarded man but then began drinking too much and lost all his money, leaving Aase (Peer’s mother) and Peer to live in poverty and heavy debt.
Peer wishes to get back the status and life that his father ruined, but gets digressed in day dreaming and self-importance. He gets involved in a fight at the wedding of his beloved Ingrid (the daughter of the richest merchant in town) and kidnaps her from her own wedding.
In the next Act, – he was banished from town for this act and so flees the town. He goes wandering in the mountains where he meets three passionate dairy-maids (the women wearing green, the daughter of the old man from Dovre mountains and Boygen), who are all waiting to be courted. He gets intoxicated with them and in most of this Act he waste his time chasing them.
Then he meets Solveig (the sister of Ingrid) who he had also met at Ingrid’s wedding and falls in love with her. She comes to his cabin to live with Peer but he leaves her too and gets back to his travels.
He is away from home for many years, during which he takes on many occupation and roles. He becomes a businessman who is engaged in shady work in Morocco, also passes through Spinx and Colossi