THE FEAST AT SOLHOUG. by HENRIK IBSEN From The Collected Works of Henrik Ibsen, Volume 1 Revised and Edited by William Archer Translation by William Archer and Mary Morrison INTRODUCTION* Exactly a year after the production of _Lady Inger of Ostrat_--that is to say on the "Foundation Day" of the Bergen Theatre, January 2, 1866--_The Feast at Solhoug_ was produced. The poet himself has written its history in full in the Preface to the second edition. The only comment that need be made upon his rejoinder to his critics has been made, with perfect fairness as it seems to me, by George Brandes in the following passage:** "No one who is unacquainted with the Scandinavian languages can fully understand the charm that the style and melody of the old ballads exercise upon the Scandinavian mind. The beautiful ballads and songs of _Des Knaben Wunderhorn_ have perhaps had a similar power over German minds; but, as far as I am aware, no German poet has has ever succeeded in inventing a metre suitable for dramatic purposes, which yet retained the mediaeval ballad's sonorous swing and rich aroma. The explanation of the powerful impression produced in its day by Henrik Hertz's _Svend Dyring's House_ is to be found in the fact that in it, for the first time, the problem was solved of how to fashion a metre akin to that of the heroic ballads, a metre possessing as great mobility as the verse of the _Niebelungenlied_, along with a dramatic value not inferior to that of the pentameter. Henrik Ibsen, it is true, has justly pointed out that, as regards the mutual relations of the principal characters, _Svend Dyring's House_ owes more to Kleist's _Kathchen von Heubronn_ than _The Feast at Solhoug_ owes to _Svend Dyring's House_. But the fact remains that the versified parts of the dialogue of both _The Feast at Solhoug_ and _Olaf Liliekrans_ are written in that imitation of the tone and style of the heroic ballad, of which Hertz was the happily-inspired originator. There seems to me to be no depreciation whatever of Ibsen in the assertion of Hertz's right to rank as his model. Even the greatest must have learnt from