The Wild Duck in the context of Play (theatre)

Henrik Johan Ibsen (/ˈɪbsən/; Norwegian: [ˈhɛ̀nrɪk ˈɪ̀psn̩]; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright. He is considered one of the world's pre-eminent writers of the 19th century and is often referred to as "the father of modern drama." He pioneered theatrical realism but also wrote lyrical epic works. His major works include Brand, Peer Gynt, Emperor and Galilean, A Doll's House, Ghosts, An Enemy of the People, The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm, Hedda Gabler, The Master Builder, and When We Dead Awaken. Ibsen is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare. Store norske leksikon describes him as "the center of the Norwegian literary canon."

Ibsen was born into the merchant elite of the port town of Skien and had strong family ties to the Paus family and other families who had held power and wealth in Telemark since the mid-1500s. He established himself as a theater director in Norway during the 1850s and gained international recognition as a playwright with the plays Brand and Peer Gynt in the 1860s. From 1864, he lived for 27 years in Italy and Germany, primarily in Rome, Dresden, and Munich, making only brief visits to Norway, before moving to Christiania (Oslo) in 1891. Most of Ibsen's plays are set in Norway, often in bourgeois environments and places reminiscent of Skien, and he frequently drew inspiration from family members. Ibsen's early verse play Peer Gynt has strong surreal elements. After Peer Gynt Ibsen abandoned verse and wrote in realistic prose. Several of his later dramas were considered scandalous to many of his era, when European theatre was expected to model strict morals of family life and propriety. Ibsen's later work examined the realities that lay behind the façades, revealing much that was disquieting to a number of his contemporaries. He had a critical eye and conducted a free inquiry into the conditions of life and issues of morality. Critics frequently rate The Wild Duck and Rosmersholm as Ibsen's best works; the playwright himself regarded Emperor and Galilean as his masterpiece.

Rosmersholm (pronounced [ˈrɔ̀sməʂˌhɔɫm]) is an 1886 play written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It tells the story of Johannes Rosmer, an aristocratic former clergyman and owner of the Rosmersholm manor who is haunted by his wife's suicide and his own idealistic desires for societal reform, and Rebecca West, a strong-willed companion who challenges his convictions, leading to a deep exploration of morality, political activism, and the struggle for personal and social change amidst a backdrop of intense personal and political turmoil. Rosmersholm has been described as one of Ibsen's darkest, most complex, subtle, beautiful, mystical, multilayered and ambiguous plays. The play explores the tension between old and new, between liberation and servitude, between narratives, action or inaction, and of "what to do with ourselves when the world collapses around us." Rosmersholm and The Wild Duck are "often to be observed in the critics' estimates vying with each other as rivals for the top place among Ibsen's works."

Ibsen scholar Jon Nygaard writes that the loss of joy of life is an underlying theme of several of Ibsen's plays, including Rosmersholm, in which "the spirit of the dead and the aristocracy of officials [lingers heavily] over the manor [and] the Rosmerian view of life ennobles man – but it kills happiness". A key theme in Rosmersholm and other plays was, according to Nygaard, "the joy of life that was lost – and the new Puritan Civil Servant State that was coming. It was the spirit of civil servants from Upper Telemark, the Paus family."

Knud Plesner Ibsen (3 October 1797, in Skien – 24 October 1877, in Skien) was a Norwegian merchant from the city of Skien and the father of the playwright Henrik Ibsen. He is widely considered the model for many central characters in his son's plays, including Jon Gynt in Peer Gynt and Old Ekdahl in The Wild Duck. Through the Paus family—the family of Knud's stepfather Ole Paus and Marichen's mother Hedevig—Knud was raised as a close relative of his would-be wife Marichen Altenburg, although they were not closely related biologically.

Scandinavian literature, also referred to as Nordic literature, comprises literature written in the languages of the Nordic countries of Northern Europe. The Nordic countries include Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway (including Svalbard), and Sweden, as well as the associated autonomous territories of Åland, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland. The majority of these nations and regions use North Germanic languages, in addition to Finnish, Saami languages and Greenlandic. Although the majority of Finns speak a Uralic language, Finnish history and literature are clearly interrelated with those of both Sweden and Norway who have shared control of various areas and who have substantial Sami populations/influences.

These peoples have produced an important and influential literature. Henrik Ibsen, a Norwegian playwright, was largely responsible for the popularity of modern realistic drama in Europe, with plays like The Wild Duck and A Doll's House. Nobel Prizes in Literature, itself a Scandinavian award, have been awarded to Selma Lagerlöf, Verner von Heidenstam, Karl Adolph Gjellerup, Henrik Pontoppidan, Knut Hamsun, Sigrid Undset, Erik Axel Karlfeldt, Frans Eemil Sillanpää, Johannes Vilhelm Jensen, Pär Lagerkvist, Halldór Laxness, Nelly Sachs, Eyvind Johnson, Harry Martinson, Tomas Tranströmer, and Jon Fosse.