The Form of Finitude: AASE’s Death in Peer Gynt

Abstract

Given how thoroughly Ibsen is identified with his prose dramas it is perhaps unsurprising that relatively little attention has been paid to his verse. When it is discussed at all, it tends to be in terms of the light it sheds on his later production or, at best, in the context of the closet dramas Brand and Peer Gynt. In studies of these latter works, however, purely poetic considerations are mostly sidelined by attention to questions of character or plot. If understandable, this tendency is nevertheless highly regrettable since Ibsen was an eminently accomplished poet whose craft amply rewards detailed examination. Perhaps this is nowhere as apparent as in the magnificent scene of Aase’s death in Peer Gynt (584–595), made famous, not least, by Edvard Grieg’s musical version. The passage is widely recognized as an extraordinary achievement and yet, to the best of my knowledge, it has not previously been subjected to detailed analysis. In what follows, I offer a close reading of some of this scene’s poetic features, both as a way to unpack its overall dynamic and to suggest a few of its broader aesthetic implications. In basic terms, my argument is that the scene divides in two. The first half consists of three distinct attempts to escape the fact of death by deploying the creative force of poetry and narrative in three different temporal