The French language, indeed, is the only one which
has a word--_quiproquo_--to indicate the class of misunderstanding
which, from _Lady Inger_ down to the _League of Youth_, Ibsen
employed without scruple.
Ibsen's first visit to the home of his future wife took place after
the production of _The Feast at Solhoug_. It seems doubtful whether
this was actually his first meeting with her; but at any rate we
can scarcely suppose that he knew her during the previous summer,
when he was writing his play. It is a curious coincidence, then,
that he should have found in Susanna Thoresen and her sister Marie
very much the same contrast of characters which had occupied him
in his first dramatic effort, _Catilina_, and which had formed
the main subject of the play he had just produced. It is less
wonderful that the same contrast should so often recur in his later
works, even down to _John Gabriel Borkman_. Ibsen was greatly
attached to his gentle and retiring sister-in-law, who died
unmarried in 1874.
_The Feast at Solhoug_ has been translated by Miss Morison and
myself, only because no one else could be found to undertake the
task. We have done our best; but neither of us lays claim to any
great metrical skill, and the light movement of Ibsen's verse is
often, if not always, rendered in a sadly halting fashion. It is,
however, impossible to exaggerate the irregularity of the verse
in the original, or its defiance of strict metrical law.
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