Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 60, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 April 1917 — WAS MODEL FOR “PEER GYNT” [ARTICLE]

WAS MODEL FOR “PEER GYNT”

Ibsen Inspired in Creating Masterpiece Partly by an Eccentric Young Dane. There are many models back oi “Peer Gynt,” and among them a young Dane. Ibsen met the young man frequently in Italy. He was a peculiarly conceited and affected young bluffer, Georg Brandes writes in the Century Magazine. He used to tell the Italian girls at Ischia and Capri that his father, a schoolteacher in reality, was the best friend of the king of Denmark, and that he himself was one of the greatest men in Denmark. To prove this, he often appeared tn entire suits oi white satin. He called himself a poet, but could find poetical inspiration only in the wilderness or in desolate, dreary spots. He once went to Crete to write, he said, a great drama of tragedy. He returned, however, without having accomplished his purpose. He averred that he could feel tragic emotion only in the mountains, and lived in selfdelusion and illusion. Some of his characteristics have passed in “Peer Gynt.” Otherwise “Peer Gynt” is supposed to be an in -carnation of Norwegian foibles. Peer’s lies are not really falsehoods; if this Implies the intention to deceive others. They are rather self-deceptions. “Peer Gynt” has something in common with Cervantes’ “Don Quixote,” and is more closely related to Daudet’s “Tartarin?'