wife Suzanna. In 1870 he wrote that the play was "much debated in Norway, where people related it to the circumstances of my personal life. I lost a great deal of face." Robert Ferguson suggests that it is Ibsen's "greatest love story", adding that "our knowledge that [Falk] is lying, that he and Svandhild voluntarily turn to a future with this act of emotional self-mutilation [...] gives Love's Comedy such extraordinary poignancy". As "the brilliant culmination of a long and awkward apprenticeship," the play is, Brian Johnson writes, Ibsen's first "assured masterpiece". Plot summary Two students – Falk and Lind – are staying at the country house of Mrs. Halm, romancing her two daughters Anna and Svanhild. Lind has ambitions to be a missionary, Falk a great poet. Falk criticises bourgeois society in his verse and insists that we live in the passionate moment. Lind’s proposal of marriage to Anna is accepted, but Svanhild rejects the chance to become Falk’s muse, as poetry is merely writing, and he can do that on his own and without really risking himself for his beliefs. Falk is liberated by his words and decides to put ideas into action. When Lind is persuaded by Anna’s friends not to leave as a missionary but stay in a cosy existence looking after his wife, Falk denounces the lot of them – saying that their marriages have nothing to do with love. Society is outraged and does not wish to be reminded of the split between ideal and reality. Falk is ostracized but Svanhild admires his courage. They plan to run off together and live the ideal. The pastor Strawman and the clerk Styver attempt to persuade Falk from his course but the demands of respectability and security cannot assuage him. Finally, the rich businessman Guldstad asks whether their relationship can survive the waning of the first flush of love. Falk and Svanhild admit that it cannot and Svanhild accepts Guldstad’s proposal of a safe, financially secure marriage rather than sully the experience of her love for Falk by seeing it die. Falk leaves to write songs which celebrate an untainted love and Svanhild sits gloomily amongst the world of convention – a housewife who once had passion and now lives on its memory. References Sources Ferguson, Robert. 1996. Henrik Ibsen, A New Biography. London: Richard Cohen. Johnston, Brian. 1980. To the Third Empire: Ibsen's Early Drama.