Record Number: 12491

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'28th September 1928 (Friday). I have been reading an article on Ibsen by Thomas Vladesco in the ?Mercure de France?. The writer sets out to prove Ibsen a bon bourgeois, a person with a wholesome respect for human institutions who merely created ?characters? and balanced individualisms. Whilst to my mind, thus denuding Ibsen of all the greatness, which the world has attributed to him, the writer claims rather to be clearing him of false and foul charges of anarchism, so heightening his renown by a purification of his ideas and intentions. The article is a rank failure. The writer proves nothing, ?clears? Ibsen of all sorts of ?charges? which no thinking reader makes against him, and gives him a philosophy, small, and shallow, which a most superficial acquaintance with his work would show to be untrue of the dramatist. Even the oft repeated claim that he belauds individualism is unsound. What Ibsen does do is to show in ?Peer Gynt? and in ?Brand? that both by individualistic and by self-effacing methods of life man fails to attain the goal. Man?s end is failure (though perhaps a great failure). He sets the question and there leaves it. Ibsen is a questioner. In that, Shaw goes beyond him, for Shaw has always an answer though it is Shaw?s answer.'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

28 Sep 1928

Country:

France

Time

n/a

Place:

city: Paris

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Gerald Moore

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

16 Jun 1903

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Coffee then Cocoa broker, working for Unilever - United Africa Company

Religion:

none

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

France

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Thomas Vladesco

Title:

[article on Henrik Ibsen]

Genre:

Essays / Criticism

Form of Text:

Print: Newspaper

Publication Details

Published in the "Mercure de France"

Provenance

unknown

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Source Information:

Record ID:

12491

Source:

Manuscript

Author:

Gerald Moore

Title:

MS Diary 1928

Location:

Private Collection

Call No:

MS Diary 1928

Page/Folio:

n/a

Citation:

Gerald Moore, MS Diary 1928 Private Collection, p. MS Diary 1928, p. n/a, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/RED/record_details.php?id=12491, accessed: 18 April 2024

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Additional Comments:

This material Copyright Andrew Neill Vanson Moore, and Shirley Frances Gould-Smith.