Record Number: 12491
Reading Experience:
Evidence:
'28th September 1928 (Friday). I have been reading an article on Ibsen by Thomas Vladesco in the ?Mercure de France?. The writer sets out to prove Ibsen a bon bourgeois, a person with a wholesome respect for human institutions who merely created ?characters? and balanced individualisms. Whilst to my mind, thus denuding Ibsen of all the greatness, which the world has attributed to him, the writer claims rather to be clearing him of false and foul charges of anarchism, so heightening his renown by a purification of his ideas and intentions. The article is a rank failure. The writer proves nothing, ?clears? Ibsen of all sorts of ?charges? which no thinking reader makes against him, and gives him a philosophy, small, and shallow, which a most superficial acquaintance with his work would show to be untrue of the dramatist. Even the oft repeated claim that he belauds individualism is unsound. What Ibsen does do is to show in ?Peer Gynt? and in ?Brand? that both by individualistic and by self-effacing methods of life man fails to attain the goal. Man?s end is failure (though perhaps a great failure). He sets the question and there leaves it. Ibsen is a questioner. In that, Shaw goes beyond him, for Shaw has always an answer though it is Shaw?s answer.'
Century:1900-1945
Date:28 Sep 1928
Country:France
Timen/a
Place:city: Paris
Type of Experience(Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
(Listener):
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
Reader / Listener / Reading Group:
Reader: Age:Adult (18-100+)
Gender:Male
Date of Birth:16 Jun 1903
Socio-Economic Group:Professional / academic / merchant / farmer
Occupation:Coffee then Cocoa broker, working for Unilever - United Africa Company
Religion:none
Country of Origin:England
Country of Experience:France
Listeners present if any:e.g family, servants, friends
n/a
Additional Comments:
n/a
Text Being Read:
Author: Title:[article on Henrik Ibsen]
Genre:Essays / Criticism
Form of Text:Print: Newspaper
Publication DetailsPublished in the "Mercure de France"
Provenanceunknown
Source Information:
Record ID:12491
Source:Manuscript
Author:Gerald Moore
Title:MS Diary 1928
Location:Private Collection
Call No:MS Diary 1928
Page/Folio:n/a
Additional Information:
For further information about this diary, please contact the Reading Experience Database project: http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/contacts.php
Citation:
Gerald Moore, MS Diary 1928, Private Collection, MS Diary 1928, n/a, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=12491, accessed: 18 July 2024
Additional Comments:
This material Copyright Andrew Neill Vanson Moore, and Shirley Frances Gould-Smith.