Peer Gynt and Brand

Description

Masterful versions of Ibsen’s two great verse plays by one of our greatest living poets, Geoffrey Hill
 
These two masterly and contrasting verse dramas by Ibsen made his reputation as a playwright. The fantastical adventures of the irrepressible Peer Gynt—poet, idler, procrastinator, seducer—draw on Norwegian folklore to conjure up mountains, kidnappings, shipwrecks, and trolls in an exuberant celebration of life; while Brand, an unsparing vision of an idealistic priest who lives by his steely faith, explores free will, sacrifice, and the self. This volume brings together the poet Geoffrey Hill’s acclaimed stage version of Brand with a new poetic rendering of Peer Gynt, published for the first time.
 
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) is often called “the Father of Modern Drama.” Born in Norway in 1828, he enjoyed successes with the verse dramas Brand and Peer Gynt before embarking on his great twelve-play cycle of society dramas, which included A Doll’s House and Ghosts. After twenty-one years of self-imposed exile in Italy and Germany, Ibsen died in Norway.
 
Geoffrey Hill (translator), an English poet, was Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford from 2010 to 2015. He has published many volumes of poetry and critical writing, and his Broken Hierarchies: Collected Poems 1952–2012 appeared in 2013.GB