Ibsen's Eschatology

Emile Durkheim and Henrik Ibsen were both products ofthe intellectual milieu that saw the birth ofsociology and the advent of an intellectual interestin the individual. Suicide, that most taboo oftopics, was examined in the work of both thinkers,and both concluded independently that it was the gorysymptom of societies that failed to balance the needsof the community and the individual. Durkheim'stheories about the three social causes of suicide canbe effectively applied to the suicides (both symbolicand literal) in Ibsen's prose corpus. The connectionbetween the two iconic thinkers, separated ingeographical distance but not in ideologies, revealsthat the tides of European thought had becomefundamentally concerned with exploring the balancebetween a person's fierce need for individuality, anda society's desperate need for internal cohesion.

Autorentext

Heather Elise Hamilton holds a PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is an Assistant Professor in the Theatre department at Minnesota State University, and an adjunct lecturer in the Graduate English program at Plymouth State University. She is an active performer and director in the NH theatre community.

Klappentext
Emile Durkheim and Henrik Ibsen were both products of the intellectual milieu that saw the birth of sociology and the advent of an intellectual interest in the individual. Suicide, that most taboo of topics, was examined in the work of both thinkers, and both concluded independently that it was the gory symptom of societies that failed to balance the needs of the community and the individual. Durkheim's theories about the three social causes of suicide can be effectively applied to the suicides (both symbolic and literal) in Ibsen's prose corpus. The connection between the two iconic thinkers, separated in geographical distance but not in ideologies, reveals that the tides of European thought had become fundamentally concerned with exploring the balance between a person's fierce need for individuality, and a society's desperate need for internal cohesion.