Peer Gynt: A Dramatic Poem About a Decadent Young Man’s Hallucination

Henrik Ibsen · Sadr al-Din Arabi

Apr 2015 · FlokkPress

About this ebook

Peer Gynt is classical drama written by Henrik Ibsen. This modern version is rewritten by Sadr al-Din Arabi. His aim is to criticize the decadent lifestyle in the West from an Islamic point of view. Peer Gynt is obsessed about being himself, but the way he sees himself is not reflective of who he truly is. The well-known scene with the onion depicts this quite clearly. There is no core inside an onion, just as there is no core in a false self. Peer Gynt’s journey is a psychological struggle to discover his true self, his core. A core based on empathy, morality and religious meaning. In this rewritten version is Solveig, a symbol of spiritually, the pure and innocent. She is helping Peer Gynt to be reborn into a spiritual life. - There will be a new enlightenment!

About the author

Henrik Ibsen, poet and playwright was born in Skein, Norway, in 1828. His creative work spanned 50 years, from 1849-1899, and included 25 plays and numerous poems. During his middle, romantic period (1840-1875), Ibsen wrote two important dramatic poems, Brand and Peer Gynt, while the period from 1875-1899 saw the creation of 11 realistic plays with contemporary settings, the most famous of which are A Doll's House, Ghosts, Hedda Gabler, and The Wild Duck. Henrik Ibsen died in Christiania (now Oslo), Norway in 1906.