Brief description
In October 1851 Ibsen was appointed to Det norske Theater in Bergen to «assist the theatre as dramatist». It was Ole Bull, the initiator and founder of the theatre, who offered him the post. One of Ibsen's important duties was to provide plays for the foundation day of the theatre, 2 January, and St. John's Night was his first play in that connection.
St. John's Night was written during the spring and summer of 1852. It was begun in Bergen, and finished during Ibsen's stay abroad in the summer of 1852, probably in Dresden.
From April to August of that year Ibsen was on a study tour to Copenhagen and Dresden. The management of Det norske Theater wished to improve the competence of their staff, and awarded travel grants to Ibsen and the actors Johannes and Louise Brun to enable them to visit the two cities and study theatre there.
The journey was of great importance to Ibsen's development as a writer. Three concrete impulses may be mentioned as having had an important effect on his work on St. John's Night. One was his meeting with Johan Ludvig Heiberg, head of Det Kongelige (Royal) Teater in Copenhagen. Not only did he give Ibsen free access to all the productions of the theatre and all its facilities – Heiberg was also an important dramatist himself, and it was particularly his comedy Syvsoverdag («Sleepyhead Day») that inspired Ibsen in writing St. John's Night.
The second impulse was Hermann Hettner's book Das Moderne Drama. Ibsen found this recently published book in Dresden and read it there. In one of the chapters Hettner deals with romantic fairytale comedies, and St. John's Night is precisely an experiment in that genre.
William Shakespeare provided a third important impulse that has to be mentioned. Ibsen saw Shakespeare productions in both Copenhagen and Dresden, where he saw a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. It is easy to see that this play was a central source of inspiration to Ibsen in writing St. John's Night.
St. John's Night had its first performance at Det norske Theater in Bergen on 2 January 1853. This was the first play Ibsen wrote for the theatre's foundation day.
The production was not a success. The audience whistled and booed during the first performance, which played to a full house. It was only repeated once, and there were many vacant seats in the theatre.
St. John's Night was never published in any form during Ibsen's lifetime. It was first published in 1909, in the first volume of Efterladte Skrifter («Posthumous Works»), edited by Halvdan Koht and Julius Elias. The latter, a German history of literature scholar, tried to obtain Ibsen's permission to include the play in the first German edition of his collected works (the first volume appeared in 1898), but Ibsen refused. In a letter to Julius Elias dated 19 September 1897 he wrote irritably:
For the last time I must hereby categorically declare that I neither will nor can let the play «St. John's Night» be included in my collected works. The play is a miserable product and not really one from my hand. It is based on a loose, dabbling draft I was once given by a fellow student, and which I adapted under my own name, but which it is now impossible for me to recognize as mine. Therefore I must earnestly request you and Dr. Schlenther to stop insisting that this very poor piece of work be published. Far from throwing light on any of my other works, it has no connection whatsoever with any of them; I have therefore for many years regarded it as unwritten and non-existent.
[read the letter in HISe]
The fellow student to whom Ibsen refers but does not name was Theodor Christian Bernhoft. He was a fellow student of Ibsen's in Christiania 1850–51. Bernhoft is supposed to have given Ibsen the idea for St. John's Night. However the final manuscript of the play is supposed to have been written by Ibsen himself. So Ibsen – of course quite deliberately – claims less «merit» for the play than he might have done in his letter to Julius Elias.
(From ibsen.net)
Read St. John's Night (in Norwegian)
In the online version of the official Ibsen edition (HISe), you can read St. John's Night in various formats. This content is currently only available in Norwegian. Follow the links below to read the play:
Introduction to the work (in Norwegian)
The online version of the official Ibsen edition (HISe) offers extensive information about St. John's Night in Norwegian. Follow the links below to read about various aspects connected to the play.
Reviews
Here you can find reviews in full text and an overview of registered reviews in various languages.