A Doll House《玩偶之家》
女主人公娜拉出身中等家庭，美丽活泼，天真热情。她热烈而真诚地爱着自己的丈夫海尔茂。为替丈夫治病，她曾冒名举债，又熬夜抄写文件，挣钱、省钱，偷偷还债。如果需要，她甚至表示可以为丈夫而死。但她的丈夫(过去的银行职员，现在的银行经理)，却是个虚伪自私的资产阶级市侩，他平时管她叫“小鸟儿”“小松鼠儿”，可一旦知道娜拉曾冒名举债，危及自己的社会名声和地位时，便一反常态，大骂她是“犯罪女人”，还扬言要剥夺他教育子女的权利，要对她进行法律、宗教制裁。后来，当债主受女友感化，退回了冒名借据时，他又转变态度，表示要永远爱她和保护她。经此转折，娜拉终于看清了自己的“泥娃娃”处境，发现自己不过是丈夫的“玩偶”，于是对保护这家庭关系的资产阶级法律、道德、宗教，提出了严重怀疑和激烈批判，并毅然离开了这个“玩偶之家”。娜拉是个具有资产阶级个性解放思想的叛逆女性。她对社会的背叛和弃家出走，被誉为妇女解放的“独立宣言”。然而，在素把妇女当作玩偶的社会里，娜拉真能求得独立解放吗？茫茫黑夜，她又能走向何处？
The Wild Duck《野鸭》
剧情在两个家庭间展开，一家是工商业资本家老威利和儿子格瑞格斯；另一家是照相馆老板雅尔马、父亲老艾克达尔、妻子基纳和女儿海特维格。威利和艾克达尔曾合伙经营一家公司，由于非法交易和威利的狡诈避责，艾克达尔独自一人锒铛入狱。出狱后，威利把自己玩弄过的女仆基纳许配给雅尔马，“帮助”成家立业。格瑞格斯对父亲威利的卑劣行为感到愤怒，他在抨击威利的罪过后离家，并向雅尔马讲了基纳和威利通奸的丑事。雅尔马开始疏远妻子，并怀疑和厌恶女儿。而海特维格知晓自己的身世后，感到无比耻辱，开枪自杀。
Hedda Gabler《海达 高布乐》
海达贵为高布乐将军的女儿、大家闺秀，却嫁给了在她眼里平庸又无趣的学者泰斯曼；她渴望拥有一个品位高尚的社交圈子，可是目之所及却只有和法官布拉克的暧昧与纠缠；她在才华横溢、放荡不羁的浪子勒夫伯格身上寄托着自己也解释不清的情感和期待，却又一步一步把他带向毁灭。海达所期望的世界必须是美的世界。当她发现美在自己的生活里遥不可及之时，她会如何呢？
Master Builder《建筑大师》
讲述了一位毁灭性天才的故事。数十年前一场神秘的大火成就了他成为建筑大师的梦想，功成名就的他在晚年渴望更上一层楼。超常的活力、不羁的魅力吸引了年轻女子簇拥在他身边；年迈的大师行走在道德的边缘，对青春无限向往，但又惧怕青春的威胁。但惹人艳羡的声誉背后，索尔尼斯的生活过得并不快乐。
Four Major Plays 1《易卜生四大戏剧1》精选19世纪挪威作家亨利克 易卜生的四部戏剧，包括《玩偶之家》《野鸭》《海达 高布乐》《建筑大师》。其中《玩偶之家》是易卜生的代表作，曾被比做“妇女解放运动的宣言书”，主要写主人公娜拉从爱护丈夫、信赖丈夫到与丈夫决裂，后来离家出走，摆脱玩偶地位的自我觉醒过程。剧本结构紧凑，情节集中。全剧采用追溯的手法，通过债主的要挟，海尔茂收到揭发信，交代剧情发展的关键事件娜拉伪造签名，然后集中刻画他们冲突、决裂的过程。
本书为Signet Classics推出的英文原版，由Rolf Fjelde翻译并作序，Joan Templeton后记，内容完整无删减，书本小巧便携。
Four Major Plays
Volume I
A Doll House
The Wild Duck
Hedda Gabler
The Master Builder
Among the greatest and best known of Ibsen’s works, these four plays brilliantly exemplify his landmark contributions to the theater: his realistic dialogue, probing of social problems, and depiction of characters’ inner lives as well as their actions. Rich in symbolism and often autobiographical, each of these dramas deals convincingly and provocatively with such universal themes as greed, fear, and sexual hostility, and confronts the eternal conflict between reality and illusion. These Rolf Fjelde translations have been widely acclaimed as the definitive versions of the major works of the father of modern theater.
Translated and with a Foreword by Rolf Fjelde And an Afterword by Joan Templeton
亨利克 易卜生(1828~1906)，挪威剧作家、诗人、评论家。生于木材商家庭，当过学徒、编辑、剧院艺术指导，具有强烈的个人精神反叛色彩和神秘主义倾向。他的戏剧抨击时弊，宣传社会改革，塑造了众多个人主义英雄形象，反映了激进的小资产阶段民主意识。他开拓了欧洲戏剧发展的新道路，被称为现代戏剧之父。主要作品有：诗剧《彼尔 京特》(1867)，社会悲剧《玩偶之家》(1879)、《群鬼》(1881)、《人民公敌》(1882)、《海达 加布勒》(1890)；其象征性剧作《野鸭》(1884)、《当我们死而复醒时》(1899)等反映其“精神死亡”的思想。
Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) is one of the greatest dramatists of world literature. His verse dramas Brand (1865) and Peer Gynt (1867) brought him fame in Scandinavia, but he became known throughout the world with twelve prose plays in which he invented what is known as theatrical realism: Pillars of Society (1877), A Doll House(1879), Ghosts (1881), An Enemy of the People (1882), The Wild Duck (1884), Rosmersholm (1886), The Lady from the Sea (1888), Hedda Gabler (1890), The Master Builder (1892), Little Eyolf (1894), John Gabriel Borkman (1896), and When We Dead Awaken (1899). Ibsen made ordinary people, talking about contemporary things in everyday language, proper subjects for the stage, and in so doing earned the title “the father of modern drama.” Ibsen is the second-most widely produced dramatist in the world after Shakespeare.
Rolf Fjelde (1926–2002) is America’s foremost translator of Ibsen. His Ibsen: The Complete Major Prose Plays (1978) and his verse translation of Peer Gynt (1980) are landmarks in Ibsen studies. In 1978, Fjelde was elected founding President of the Ibsen Society of America, an office he held for fifteen years. Fjelde was also a widely published poet and was founding editor of the Yale Poetry Review. He was honored by Norway with the Order of St. Olaf, and by his compatriots with membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Joan Templeton is the author of the critically acclaimed four-hundred-page monograph Ibsen’s Women, along with many articles on drama in PMLA, Scandinavian Studies, Modern Drama, and elsewhere. She has lectured widely on Ibsen worldwide. She is President of the Ibsen Society of America, a member of the International Ibsen Committee, and editor of Ibsen News and Comment.
