Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
All characters reduced
John Gabriel Borkman - Enriched edition - cover

John Gabriel Borkman - Enriched edition

Henrik Ibsen

Translator William Archer

Publisher: DigiCat

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

Summary

Henrik Ibsen's "John Gabriel Borkman" presents a stark exploration of ambition, despair, and the consequences of personal failure. Written in 1896, this late work encapsulates Ibsen's departure from naturalism toward a more symbolic and expressive style. The play revolves around Borkman, a man imprisoned for financial crimes who becomes obsessed with reclaiming his lost ideals and status, reflecting the turbulent socio-economic landscape of late 19th-century Europe. With its richly layered characters and sharp dialogue, Ibsen critiques the hollowness of societal aspirations while probing the deeply personal realms of guilt and longing. Henrik Ibsen, often hailed as the father of modern drama, was influenced by the political and familial upheavals of his own life, as well as the growing tensions within European society. His experiences in a suffocating society that values material success over individuality are palpable throughout his works. "John Gabriel Borkman" can be seen as an extension of Ibsen's enduring themes of social criticism and psychological complexity, showcasing his continued evolution as a playwright dedicated to exposing human flaws. This profound play is recommended for readers seeking to understand the intricacies of human ambition and morality. Ibsen's masterful narrative offers not only a vivid character study but also a timeless examination of the lengths to which individuals will go to achieve their dreams, making it essential reading for anyone interested in modernist literature and the evolution of theatrical expression.

In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience:
- A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes.
- The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists.
- A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing.
- An Author Biography reveals milestones in the author's life, illuminating the personal insights behind the text.
- A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings.
- Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life.
- Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance.
- Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
Available since: 09/16/2022.
Print length: 68 pages.

Other books that might interest you

  • Ladies Unleashed - cover

    Ladies Unleashed

    Amanda Whittington

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Pearl, Jan and Linda are enjoying a long-awaited break on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, when a surprise visitor turns up. They haven't seen Shelley for years, and their retreat becomes a reunion – and pretty soon, a riot.
    But a lot has changed since they were last together and, cut off from the mainland, tensions rise with the tide. As the sky darkens, the island grows restless with echoes of the past. Will the four still be friends when dawn breaks?
    Following the smash hits Ladies' Day and Ladies Down Under, Amanda Whittington's Ladies Unleashed is the third play in her Ladies Trilogy. A moving comedy about friendship, growing older and living for today, it was first performed at Hull Truck Theatre in September 2022, directed by Mark Babych.
    The Ladies are back, and amateur theatre companies – as well as their audiences – are sure to delight in their riotous exploits.
    Show book
  • Drive - cover

    Drive

    Elaine Sexton

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    Poems exploring our most fragile points of connection to lovers and family, to the living and the dead, and to oneself, one's own life's work--with the care and wisdom of one who knows these roads.'Silently / pulling for itself, / the will wants the body to // give it what it wants,' Sexton writes in 'Between the Car and the Sea,' at once a description of a carís body propelling her onward, and of the poet herself, the one behind the wheel of this masterful fourth collection. In an extraordinary act of volition, the author does not stop at the trope of ambition, but powers instead toward the urgent concerns of the will, and intention.
    Show book
  • Ten Bridges I've Burnt - A Memoir in Verse - cover

    Ten Bridges I've Burnt - A...

    Brontez Purnell

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    In Ten Bridges I've Burnt, Brontez Purnell—the bard of the underloved and overlooked—turns his gaze inward. A storyteller with a musical eye for the absurdity of his own existence, he is peerless in his ability to find the levity within the stormiest of crises. Here, in his first collection of genre-defying verse, Purnell reflects on his peripatetic life, whose ups and downs have nothing on the turmoil within. "The most high-risk homosexual behavior I engage in," Purnell writes, "is simply existing." 
     
     
     
    The thirty-eight autobiographical pieces pulsing in Ten Bridges I've Burnt find Purnell at his no-holds-barred best. He remembers a vicious brawl he participated in at a poetry conference and reckons with packaging his trauma for TV writers' rooms; wrestles with the curses, and gifts, passed down from generations of family members; and chronicles, with breathless verve, a list of hell-raising misadventures and sexcapades. Through it all, he muses on everything from love and loneliness to capitalism and Blackness to jogging and the ethics of art, always with unpredictable clarity and movement. 
     
     
     
    With the same balance of wit and wisdom that made 100 Boyfriends a sensation, Purnell unleashes another collection of boundary-pushing writing with Ten Bridges I've Burnt, a book as original and thrilling as the author himself.
    Show book
  • The Merry Wives of Windsor - cover

    The Merry Wives of Windsor

    William Shakespeare

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    First published in 1602 by William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor features the popular figure Sir John Falstaff, who first appeared in Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2. Some speculate that Merry Wives was written at the behest of Queen Elizabeth I, who wanted to see Falstaff in love; and that Shakespeare was forced to rush its creation as a result, and so it remains one of Shakespeare's lesser-regarded plays.
    The play revolves around two intertwined plots: the adventures of the rogue Falstaff who plans to seduce several local wives, and the story of young Anne Page who is being wooed by prominent citizens while she has her sights set on young Fenton. The wives come together to teach Falstaff a lesson, and in the end love triumphs.
    The Merry Wives of Windsor is believed to have been first performed in 1597 and was subsequently published in quarto in 1602, in a second quarto in 1619, and then in the 1623 First Folio. Despite holding a lesser place in Shakespeare's canon, it was one of the first Shakespearean plays to be performed in 1660, after the reinstatement of Charles II and theatre once again was permitted to be performed in London.
    Show book
  • When Winston Went to War with the Wireless - cover

    When Winston Went to War with...

    Jack Thorne

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0
    In May 1926, Britain grinds to a halt, as workers down tools for the General Strike.
    With the printing presses shut down, the only sources of news are the government's British Gazette, edited by Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill, and the independent, fledgling British Broadcasting Company, led by John Reith. The stage is set for a fierce battle over control of the news and who gets to define the truth.
    Jack Thorne's When Winston Went To War With The Wireless is a gripping play about the birth of a great British institution and its efforts to stay impartial. It premiered at the Donmar Warehouse, London, in June 2023, directed by Katy Rudd, with Stephen Campbell Moore as Reith, Adrian Scarborough as Churchill, and Haydn Gwynne as Stanley Baldwin.
    'Jack Thorne never ceases to stimulate and entertain'Evening Standard
    Show book
  • Unterstadt - A Novel - cover

    Unterstadt - A Novel

    Ivana Šojat

    • 1
    • 0
    • 0
    The novel Unterstadt tells the story of an urban family of German origin living in Osijek from the end of the nineteenth till the end of the twentieth century. It is narrated through the portrayal of the destinies of four generations of women – a great grandmother, a grandmother, mother, and a daughter – their shattered illusions, the education of their children, the historical events that brutally lash out at them.
     
    Ivana Šojat creates a world rich in detail and nuance, all her characters, both major and minor, are expressive and suggestive, abundant in virtues and flaws, complex and multidimensional, as life itself is. By depicting a clash of generations through the female characters of a family, the author creates a world in which, often due to bizarre strokes of fate or wrongly selected life-cards, both horrible and beautiful events occur. Yet the central theme, running through all the generations and all the characters, is that of hiding away from the past, fleeing from it, concealing it, which sooner or later leads to traumas and misunderstandings.
     
    Unterstadt is a book about a family and a town, written in the manner of the best and greatest modernist novels. Through the history of one family, it speaks of the twentieth century in a multiethnic town, of dictatorships, of wrongly selected sides, of fate which one can hardly defy.Unterstadt reveals the richness of Ivana Šojat’s narrative talent, and it is thus not surprising that she has emerged as one of the most interesting writers of contemporary Croatian prose.
     
    The book Understadt was published as part of the Growing Together project, co-financed by the European Union.
    Show book