Pt. I: Ibsen's place in history. Ibsen and the ideology of modernism ; Postcolonial Norway? Ibsen's cultural resources ; Rethinking literary history: idealism, realism, and the birth of modernism ; Ibsen's visual world: spectacles, painting, theater.
Pt. II: Ibsen's modern breakthrough. The idealist straitjacket: Ibsen's early aesthetics ; Becoming modern: modernity and theater in Emperor and Galilean.
Pt. III: Ibsen's modernism: love in an age of skepticism. "First and foremost a human being": idealism, theater, and gender in A doll's house ; Losing touch with the everyday: love and language in The wild duck ; Losing faith in language: fantasies of perfect communication in Rosmersholm ; The art of transformation: art, marriage, and freedom in The lady from the sea.
Epilogue: Idealism and the "bad" everyday.
Appendix I: Synopsis of Emperor and Galilean.
Appendix II: Translating Ibsen.