Ibsen's Prose Dramas

A lone among Ibsen smodern dramas, Rosmersholm has its origin in a definite set of political circumstances. It may assist tlie reader to grasp tne situation il i SKeich ma few words the history of the constitutional crisis which so exasperated party spirit in Norway during the ten or twelve years before this play was written. The Norwegian constitution of 1814 gave the King of Norway and Sweden a suspensive veto on the enactments of the Norwegian Storthing or Parliament, but provided that a bill passed by three successive triennial Storthings should become law without the royal assent This arrangement worked well enough until about 1870, when the Liberal party became alive to a flaw in the Constitution. The whole legislative and financial power was vested in the Storthing; but the Ministers had no seats in it and acknowledged no responsibility save to the King. Thus the overwhelming Liberal majority in the Storthing found itself baulked at every turn by a Conservative ministry, over which it had no effective control In 1872, a Bill enacting that Ministers should sit in the Storthing was passed by 80 votes to 29, and was vetoed by the King.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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