Brief description
Emperor and Galilean is Ibsen's play with the longest creative process. It lasted for nine years, from 1864 to 1873. Having just moved to Italy, Ibsen passed the summer months of 1864 in the small mountain village of Genzano, where he spent much of his time with Lorentz Dietrichson. In his memoirs Past Times Dietrichson writes:
I particularly remember that one day I was lying reading Ammianus Marcellinus's description of Julian the Apostate's campaign, and Ibsen became greatly interested in this reading. We came to talk about Julian, and I know it was then that the idea of a literary treatment of this subject became seriously fixed in his mind. At least he said at the end of the conversation that he hoped no-one would forestall him in dealing with this subject.
[The Documentation Project at the University of Oslo has digitalized the whole of this work: link]
The original plan was to finish writing the play by the summer of 1865, but as we know, however, Ibsen started on Brand at the same time, and this got in the way of his work on the Julian material. Peer Gynt (1867) and The League of Youth (1869) then followed. After finishing the latter play he spent two months in Stockholm before embarking on his lengthy visit to Egypt. In the spring and summer of 1870 he was occupied with the new edition of The Pretenders.
However he never gave up the Julian project during all this time, but merely postponed it time after time. Around New Year 1870/71 he began work on a first draft, but was once again engaged on another publication, this time Digte (Poems), which came out on 3 May 1871. When he again took up the draft he had started on at the turn of the year, he chose to discard it, and on 24 July 1871 he started on a fresh draft.
At this point Ibsen was planning a work in three parts, the first one being entitled «Julian and his friends in wisdom». The fair copy of this was finished by the end of 1871. The second part, entitled «Julian's apostasy» was written in the spring and finished in fair copy in the summer of 1872. In the early autumn he began the third part, «Julian on the imperial throne», but decided to combine the first two parts in what finally became the first part of the work «Cæsar's Apostasy» in five acts. The third part, which now became part II, «The Emperor Julian», also in five acts, was written in the period between 21 November 1872 and 13 February 1873. Later in the spring it was finished in fair copy and sent off for printing.
Emperor and Galilean appeared in the bookshops on 16 October 1873. It was published by Gyldendalske Boghandel (F. Hegel) in Copenhagen. The first edition consisted of 4 000 copies and was quickly sold out, partly through advance orders. On 16 December the same year a reprint of 2 000 copies appeared.
On several occasions Ibsen called Emperor and Galilean his major work. Among most critics this is a controversial judgement, to put it mildly. It is true that the book was favourably reviewed on the whole, but since then it has hardly ever been considered Ibsen's best piece of work.
As in the case of Brand and Peer Gynt, Emperor and Galilean was not written for the stage. A mastodon of a drama in ten acts set in the Roman Empire in the fourth century was hardly meant to appeal either theatre directors or audiences.
All the same, various adaptations of the play have found their way to the stage. The first performance of the play was on 5 December 1896 at Leipzig Stadttheater in Germany. The adaptation consisted of six acts and was the work of Leopold Adler. The performance lasted for four hours, and was said to have made a very strong impression – although the critics found a large number of weaknesses in it. The first performance in Norway was on 30 March 1903 at Nationaltheatret in Christiania. This time only the first part, «Cæsar's Apostasy», was staged.
(From ibsen.net)
Plot summary
The play covers a period of twelve years, from 351 to 363 A.D., in a time of conflict between Christianity and Hellenism. At the opening of the play Julian is nineteen years old and with his step-brother Gallos, the heir to the throne, he lives in terror of the Christian Emperor Konstanzios, who has had the whole of Julian's and Gallos's family murdered. Julian has been brought up as a Christian, but is haunted by doubt. Under the influence of his tutor, the philosopher Libanios, he goes to Athens to learn about the religion of the heathens. But he is unable to feel at ease with the belief in the old gods either, and he longs for a revelation to show him the way forward. Maximos, the Ephesus mystic, proclaims to him the vision of the «third kingdom», a kingdom to be based on both Christian ethics and heathen wisdom and joy in life. Maximos brings about a «symposium of the spirits» in which he calls upon the three men who have changed the course of history without knowing that they were tools for the «will of the world». The first two are Cain and Judas Iscariot, but the third one does not appear, and Maximos realizes that either Julian or he himself must be the one to play this part.
Julian has high ideas of his own future, and feels that he is loved by the gods and appointed to carry out great deeds. He believes that he would be able to change the course of history if he could marry a «pure woman». He is informed that Gallos, the heir to the throne, has been killed, and so he receives the title of Cæsar and Helena, the Emperor's sister, becomes his wife. He interprets this as a sign of the mission decided for him by fate. He is sent to Gaul to stop the barbarians, and there he performs feats of war which arouse the suspicion of the Emperor, who sends a tribune to Julian to ensure that he does not proceed towards Rome. The tribune brings poisoned fruit for Helena, who turns out to be with child. Before she dies she hints in delirium that the child is not Julian's. He now abandons all his scruples and leads the army towards Rome. He declares publicly that he is no longer a Christian, and anointed with sacrificial blood he demonstrates his apostasy and his adherence to the old gods: Apollo, Cybele and Dionysos. This marks the end of the first part of the double drama.
It turns out that the Emperor Konstanzios had died before Julian reached Rome, and in the second part of the play Julian has himself become Emperor. He declares freedom of religion for all citizens, and emphasizes that the Christians may retain their faith although he himself is a heathen. But the Christians adopt violent means to combat the re-introduction of heathen religions, and Julian gradually develops into a tyrant who hits back hard at the Christians. With his power diminishing, he goes to war against the Persians, but this time the fortunes of war are against him. He is now regarded more or less as an anti-Christ, and is killed in the desert by a former friend who is a Christian. It becomes evident that his inhuman rule has aroused the Christians and aided their cause. Like Cain and Judas he has served the «will of the world» and changed the course of history – in the opposite direction to his wishes, and without realizing it himself.
(Source: Merete Morken Andersen, Ibsenhåndboken, Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, 1995.)
Read Emperor and Galilean (in Norwegian)
In the online version of the official Ibsen edition (HISe) you can read Emperor and Galilean in various formats. This content is currently only available in Norwegian. Follow the links below to read the play:
Introduction to the work (in Norwegian)
The online version of the official Ibsen edition (HISe) offers extensive information about Emperor and Galilean in Norwegian. Follow the links below to read about various aspects connected to the play.
Reviews
Here you can find reviews in full text and an overview of registered reviews in various languages.
- Reviews from Ibsen's life time in full text
- Reviews registered in the Ibsen bibliography (nb.no)
- Reviews registered in "Norsk litteraturkritikk" (UiO)
Translations
- The Multilingual Ibsen
- Translations in various languages
- Overview of translations from Ibsen's lifetime (HISe)