James Joyce, as a young man, was an enormous fan of Henrik Ibsen – who, as everyone agrees, was doing something very radical and very new with his plays. Here’s an excerpt from Richard Ellmann’s biography in regards to Joyce and Ibsen:
To read Ibsen in the original, Joyce began to study Dano-Norwegian. He quoted Ibsen’s lyric from Brand, “Agnes, my lovely butterfly”, to his friends in that language. When they praised Ibsen’s better-known works, he dismissed those by saying, “A postcard written by Ibsen will be regarded as important, and so will A Doll’s House.” When they evinced an interest in Ibsen’s thought, he responded by discoursing instead on the technique, especially of lesser known plays like Love’s Comedy. Yet the theme of that play, the artist’s compulsion to renounce love and marriage for the sake of life on the mountain peaks, must have also been congenial.
When Joyce was 18 years old, in 1900, he wrote a review of Ibsen in a small literary magazine called The Fortnightly Review – and somehow – Ibsen got a copy of it. Ibsen did not know English, so he painstakingly spelled out for himself what Joyce had written, so that he could get a feel for it.
And then – and this was one of those moments which changes a person’s life forever – Ibsen wrote a note to the editor of The Fortnightly Review. In his own language. The unexpected note was then passed on to the teenage prodigy, Jim Joyce.
Ibsen’s note read:
Jeg har ogso laest — eller stavet mig igennem en anmeldelse af Mr. James Joyce i ‘Fortnightly Review’ som er meget velvillig og som jeg vel skulde have lyst til at takke forfatteren for dersom jeg blot var sproget maegtig.
Joyce translated it as:
I have read or rather spelt out, a review by Mr. James Joyce in the Fortnightly Review which is very benevolent and for which I should greatly like to thank the author if only I had sufficient knowledge of the language.
Richard Ellmann, in his biography of Joyce, describes the impact as: “…He had entered the world of literature under the best auspices in that world.”
Joyce wrote a short note back to Ibsen, his idol:
Dear Sir
I wish to thank you for your kindness in writing to me. I am a young Irishman, eighteen years old, and the words of Ibsen I shall keep in my heart all my life.
Faithfully yours,
Jas. A. Joyce
Richard Ellmann writes:
Before Ibsen’s letter Joyce was an Irishman; after it he was a European.
