Definitions

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • proper noun The dramatic practice or purpose characteristic of the writings of Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), Norwegian poet and dramatist, whose best-known plays deal with conventional hypocrisies, the story in each play thus developing a definite moral problem.

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Examples

  • But that kind of well-constructed Ibsenism is what Chekhov was rebelling against as a writer.

    Chekov's Bullets and the Second View Michael Alan Nelson 2009

  • In "The Quintessence of Ibsenism," his 1891 tribute to the man who cleared the way for his own plays of ideas, Shaw described Ibsen's

    The Heart That Victoria Broke 2009

  • It attempted to bring Ibsenism to the UK, but Bernard Shaw had already assimilated and expanded Ibsen's innovations, and Ibsen's own plays were quite popular.

    Archive 2004-10-01 2004

  • Whether we are admirers of the great Norwegian poet or not, whether we are afflicted with Ibsenism, or regard his peculiar genius in a more critical and dispassionate light, no one would deny to him that deep intuitive insight which belongs to a poet, and which borders so closely on the prophet's gift.

    The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis Ellice Hopkins

  • It is interesting, as an evidence of the shallowness of most contemporary dramatic criticism, to read over, in the course of Mr. Shaw's nimble essay on _The Quintessence of Ibsenism_, the collection which the author has made of the adverse notices of _Ghosts_ which appeared in the

    The Theory of the Theatre Clayton Hamilton

  • Ibsenism, Walt Whitmania -- all the movements and sensations of the day, social, political, and artistic, in so far as they are follies -- have been shot at as they rose.

    The History of "Punch" M. H. Spielmann

  • It is my solemn belief that it was my Quintessence of Ibsenism that rescued you and all your ungrateful generation from Materialism and

    Gilbert Keith Chesterton Maisie Ward 1932

  • Considering that I had Cecil's own assurance that my Quintessence of Ibsenism rescued him from Rationalism, and that it was written in

    Gilbert Keith Chesterton Maisie Ward 1932

  • (The Quintessence of Ibsenism, 1891) he decided to write plays in order to illustrate his criticism of the English stage.

    George Bernard Shaw - Biography 1925

  • Thus reasoned Mrs. Failing, in the facile vein of Ibsenism.

    The Longest Journey 1924

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