Tag Archives: 1800s

Four Major Plays, Volume II, by Henrik Ibsen (1881-1896)

Comment

Prior to this I’d only read Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and Hedda Gabler, and while these four plays are less significant, they built off of the other Ibsen I’d read while covering more thematic ground.  Ibsen was a progressive decades ahead of his time, and today these plays seem more relevant than ever, covering environmental protection, the place of women in society, the dangers of populism, parents wielding control over children, and choosing money over love.  I enjoyed the denser John Gabriel Borkman much less due to its heavy exposition, but maybe also because I haven’t gotten old yet.

Rating

Ghosts 

An Enemy of the People  

The Lady From the Sea  

John Gabriel Borkman  

Aphorisms on Love and Hate, by Friedrich Nietzsche (1878)

Comment

This pocket-sized British edition of Nietzsche reflections is pretty awesome: it’s more manageable than the full-length essays by Nietzsche I’d read previously, but more substantial than the 140 character Nietzsche Twitter feed.  The editors picked 55 pages of reflections from Human, All Too Human that tackle such truths as how we despise the people we pretend to like, how we can’t ever really promise to always love someone, why rich people just don’t understand their own cruelties, and why those who seek to understand life will always undergo struggle.  Nietzsche’s ideas are relatable and real, so check ‘em out.

Rating:

Where I Got It

Picked up from the break room free table at the university press where I used to work, sometime in the spring of 2015.

More

Nietzsche quotes on Twitter

Nietzsche on Love (essay)