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Title: Patterns in Ibsen's canon
Review: This book-length study ties all Ibsen's dramatic works together with an underlying motif pattern first articulated in Cataline, an early verse work. By identifying the same elements -- happy home in the valley, dangerous climb to the heights, two child-deaths, etc. -- in each of Ibsen's works, Hurt reveals autobiographical elements imbedded in symbolic structures. For example, Hedda Gabler contains two "child-deaths," Lovborg's manuscript and Hedda's unwanted pregnancy. While occasionally struggling with his examples, Hurt succeeds in removing Ibsen from a mere front-runner in chamber theatre to a significant psychological observer of the human condition.
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