Recommendations
Books Like Brand
Best books to read after Brand by Henrik Ibsen
Readers who love Brand by Henrik Ibsen are drawn to its combination of the uncompromising philosophical idealism of the 'all or nothing' principle, the dramatic poem's extraordinary formal ambition, and the tragic investigation of what happens when a man is right in principle but cannot survive the reality that his principle requires him to sacrifice. They want works that deal with the limits of idealism, the Kierkegaardian absolute, the Scandinavian dramatic tradition, and the question of what genuine commitment demands of the person who holds it.
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Peer Gynt
by Henrik Ibsen
The companion dramatic poem — Peer's life of evasion. The companion as the perfect opposite: Brand commits himself absolutely; Peer avoids himself absolutely. Together they define the two poles of the same philosophical investigation
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A Doll's House
by Henrik Ibsen
The companion — Nora's departure. The companion investigation of the 'all or nothing' principle in the domestic sphere: Nora's final choice is the Brand-principle applied to marriage
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The Wild Duck
by Henrik Ibsen
Ibsen's critique of the idealist who demands truth at any cost — Gregers Werle with Brand's idealism. The companion as a critique of Brand: Gregers's demand for truth destroys the Ekdal family, and Ibsen uses The Wild Duck partly as an investigation of the limits of Brand's position
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Either/Or
by Søren Kierkegaard
Kierkegaard's companion investigation of the aesthetic and ethical stages of existence. Ibsen said Brand was partly a portrait of Kierkegaard; the play's 'all or nothing' principle is directly related to Kierkegaard's distinction between the aesthetic life (which avoids commitment) and the ethical life (which requires absolute choice)
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Fear and Trembling
by Søren Kierkegaard
Kierkegaard's companion investigation of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. The companion philosophical text: Brand asks his wife Agnes to sacrifice their dying child (as Abraham was asked to sacrifice Isaac), and the play is a tragic investigation of what it means to demand that kind of sacrifice in God's name
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The Possessed
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Dostoevsky's companion investigation of the idealist who is willing to destroy everything for his principle. Both Dostoevsky's Stavrogin and Brand are men whose intellectual and spiritual power is devoted to an absolute that destroys the people around them
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Hedda Gabler
by Henrik Ibsen
The companion — Hedda's trapped idealism. Hedda is the heir of Brand's idealism in a world that no longer has a place for it: she wants beauty and intensity and finds herself trapped in a bourgeois life that cannot contain either
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Antigone
by Sophocles
Sophocles's companion investigation of the person who holds to principle at the cost of everything. Antigone and Brand are companion figures: both refuse to compromise with the authority that demands it, both are destroyed by their refusal, and both are organized around the question of whether their destruction makes them right
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