Peer Gynt: a Dramatic Poem

Ibsen's last work to use poetry as a medium of dramatic expression, Peer Gynt carries the marks of his later, prose plays. Its literary antecedents include Faust and Hans Christian Andersen, but the play draws on Ibsen's own childhood and character. He wrote that he derived many features of Peer Gynt from "self-dissection," creating a self-centered and irresponsible, but ultimately forgiveable, rogue.