Lady Inger of Ostrat: Henrik Ibsen's Prose Dramas Vol III

Before Ibsen revolutionized drama with A Doll's House and Ghosts, he wrote this fierce early masterpiece about a nation fighting to define itself. Lady Inger of Ostrat unfolds at a storm-lashed manor in occupied Norway, where the widowed Lady Inger harbors dangerous secrets: she once pledged to lead a peasant rebellion against Danish rule, and now she must navigate the consequences of that promise while protecting her daughter Elina. When a mysterious Dutch knight arrives at Ostrat, the political and personal stakes collide with devastating force. Elina begins to question her mother's compromises, and Lady Inger must choose between maternal protection and national liberation. This is Ibsen at his most politically charged, tracing the impossible burdens carried by those who dare to resist oppressive power. The play pulses with romantic intensity and theatrical grandeur, yet already contains the seeds of his later revolutionary dramas: what does one owe to family, and what does one owe to a suffering people? For readers who want to understand where modern drama began, this is essential ground.