Ibsen Cycle

“Johnston’s analysis of the design of Ibsen’s mature plays from Pillars of Society to When We Dead Awaken is the single most provocative and critically exciting book of Ibsen criticism in decades and will most likely alter significantly the course of Ibsen criticism.”

—Choice

“In the less than two decades since The Ibsen Cycle, Johnston’s impact has been so profound that there has been an almost complete turnaround in Ibsen criticism and Ibsen production. . . . No one writes about Ibsen like Brian Johnston.”

—Michael X. Zelenak,Yale University (Comparitive Drama)

“Attempting no less a task than to demonstrate that Ibsen planned his last twelve plays, beginning with Pillars of Society, as a cycle paralleling exactly Hegel’s account of the evolution of the human consciousness, The Phenomenology of Mind, Johnston offers a fresh look at the Norwegian master. Although there is little specific biographical data is support of the author’s thesis, he argues Hegel’s dramatic method of exposition and Ibsen’s philosophy, Johnston examines each of the twelve plays in considerable detail. Provocative and sophisticated in its approach, this volume should be widely available to scholars and advanced students of modern drama.”

—Library Journal