The poet, by giving Solveig the last word, seems to think it possible. According to Mr. Archer, the Ibsen of to-day would know it to be impossible. He knows (none better) that "No man can save his brother's soul or pay his brother's debt." "No, nor women neither," adds Mr. Archer.
Is Peer's Redemption a romantic Fallacy?
But is this so? Peer Gynt was published in 1867. I turn to A Doll's House, written twelve years later, and I find there a woman preparing to redeem a man just as Solveig prepares to redeem Peer. I find in Mr. Archer's translation of that play the following page of dialogue:—
Mrs. Linden: There's no happiness in working for oneself, Nils; give me somebody and something to work for.
Krogstad: No, no; that can never be. It's simply a woman's romantic notion of self-sacrifice.
Mrs. Linden: Have you ever found me romantic?
Krogstad: Would you really—? Tell me, do you know my past?
Mrs. Linden: Yes.
Krogstad: And do you know what people say of me?
Mrs. Linden: Didn't you say just now that with me you could have been another man?