The Quintessence of Ibsenism was based on a lecture that Shaw gave to the Fabian Society in July 1890. This lecture (although not The Quintessence itself as such) was brought to Ibsen's notice by the London newspaper the Daily Chronicle, and Ibsen made a brief response to it. Feeling he had been misquoted however, he issued a later clarification of his remarks, and during this process Shaw contacted Ibsen, via an intermediary, to try and clear up the problem. The process finally concluded with Ibsen reassuring Shaw that although he had been "infuriated" it was with the "Chronicle fellow" who had interviewed him, and not GBS or his lecture.
To keep track of the various events, it is useful to construct a chronology.
18 July 1890: Shaw gives a lecture, “Ibsen”, which he later expanded to become the book The Quintessence of Ibsen.
The lecture was the last in a series of talks on socialism and literature that featured Sydney Oliver on Zola, William Morris on Gothic Architecture, and Hubert Bland on socialist novels. Pease, in The History of the Fabian Society noted that:
This last may perhaps be regarded as the high-water mark in Fabian
lectures. The minutes, which rarely stray beyond bare facts, record
that "the paper was a long one," nearer two hours than one, if my
memory is accurate, and add: "The meeting was a very large one and the
lecture was well received." In fact the lecture was the bulk of the
volume "The Quintessence of Ibsenism," which some regard as the finest
of Bernard Shaw's works, and it is perhaps unnecessary to say that the
effect on the packed audience was overwhelming.
19 July: The Daily Chronicle published a brief account of the talk. Shaw described it as "a half column or so of sensational extracts from my lecture” (1).
In the talk Shaw made a number of connections between Ibsen and socialism, and in consequence the Daily Chronicle sent its Munich correspondent to interview Ibsen on the matter.
13 August: The Daily Chronicle publishes its interview with Ibsen, "Ibsen and Socialism" (2), a 200 word article, unsigned.
In consequence of the continued efforts of the Social Democrats to
represent Henrik Ibsen as one of their party, and especially on
account of the abuse of Ibsen's name made by certain new moral
philosophers in England ever since A Doll's House was performed in
London, The Berlin correspondent of the Chronicle has interviewed
Ibsen who, since his return from Italy, resides with his family
permanently in Munich. Ibsen declared he never was nor ever would be
a Social Democrat. He was surprised to find his name used as a means
for the propagation of Social Democrat dogmas. If a mere accidental
coincidence with certain tendencies or principles involved in his book
Nora with regard to the matrimonial or woman question are identified with or cover planks of the Social Democrat platform, his Nora is
not, he explained, an abstract hypothesis conceived to demonstrate
certain party dogmas, but was taken from life. Nora existed; but he
never intended to lay down a hard and fast rule that all women in a
similar situation should or must act like Nora.
[I have bolded some text to emphasise the main claims made here, that caught Shaw's attention and that Ibsen would later correct.]
17 August: Surprised by the column, Shaw asked Archer, the drama critic now famous as the editor and translator of Ibsen, to contact Ibsen on his behalf, to let him know that, in contrast to the the Chronicle's claim, he had not been trying to claim Ibsen was a Fabian socialist (2).
If you go to see Ibsen I wish you would explain a matter to him which
concerns me. The Daily Chronicle published a half column or so of
sensational extracts from my lecture; and its Munich correspondent
thereupon went to Ibsen and told him that the London Social Democrats
had been claiming him as one of themselves, and exploiting his
reputation to bolster up their theories. Naturally Henrik was
infuriated, and declared that he had nothing to do with the dogmas of
the Social Democrats. Will you tell him if you get the chance that the
true state of the case is that an eminent socialist critic made his
plays the text for a fierce attack on the idealist section of the
English Social Democrats, comparing them and their red flag to Hilmar
Tonnesen and his “banner of the ideal.”
...
I set great store by the setting-right of Ibsen about this matter; and even if you don’t see him I wish you would drop him a line to say
that his interviewer got hold of the wrong end of the stick, and that
any hasty strictures of his on Social Democracy, based on the
assumption that it is as dogmatic and unpractical in England as in
Germany, will be represented here as repudiations of the very section
which is trying, and so far with remarkable success, to rid socialism
of the dogmatism, sectarianism, and absolutism of which he complains.
[again, the bolding is mine.]
The letter ended on a characteristically Shavian note:
You may add, if you please, that I am extremely sorry that my total
ignorance of Norwegian prevented my calling on him during my stay in
Munich to explain his plays to him.
According to Shaw’s Ibsen: A Re-Appraisal by Joan Templeton, Archer indeed met Ibsen in Munich, and in a "reassuring post card" reported that although Ibsen was “infuriated”, it was not with Shaw but with the “Chronicle man”. Ibsen decided to clear up the matter, and did so in a letter to his friend Consul Braekstad, who translated it and got the Chronicle to publish it.
28 August: extracts from Ibsen’s letter to Braekstad were published in the Daily Chronicle. The letter can be read in Letters of Henrik Ibsen (3).
To Hans Lien BRAEKSTAD.
Munich, August 1890.
[I have had my attention called to a letter from Berlin relating to
myself in the Daily Chronicle of August 13 ; and as several of the
statements in this letter seem susceptible of misconstruction —
have, in fact, been already miscontrued in the Scandinavian papers — I
shall be very much obliged by your having some of the expressions
attributed to me corrected. It appears to me that certain of them are
not exact and complete reproductions of my utterances to the
correspondent of the paper.]
I did not, for instance, say that I have never studied the question
of Socialism — he fact being that I am much interested in the
question, and have endeavoured to the best of my ability to acquaint
myself with its different sides. I only said that I have never had
time to study the extensive literature dealing with the different
socialistic systems.
Where the correspondent repeats my assertion that I do not belong to
the Social-Democratic party, I wish that he had not omitted what I
expressly added, namely, that I never have belonged, and probably
never shall belong, to any party whatever.
I may add here that it has become an absolute necessity to me to work
quite independently and to shape my own course.
What the correspondent writes about my surprise at seeing my name put
forward by socialistic agitators as that of a supporter of their
dogmas is particularly liable to be misunderstood.
What I really said was that I was surprised that I, who had made it
my chief life-task to depict human characters and human destinies,
should, without conscious or direct intention, have arrived in
several matters at the same conclusions as the social-democratic moral
philosophers had arrived at by scientific processes.
What led me to express this surprise (and, I may here add,
satisfaction) was a statement made by the correspondent to the effect
that one or more lectures had lately been given in London, dealing,
according to him, chiefly with A Doll’s House.
[Here you have, briefly, what I wish explained to my friends. Please
make such use of these lines as you yourself consider best]
The final remark about A Doll's House is a little mysterious. Clearly from context, the Chronicle's Munich correspondent must have been talking about Shaw's lecture - and the description of "the abuse of Ibsen's name made by certain new moral philosophers in England" in the "Ibsen and Socialism" article surely can only refer to Shaw. Henderson, Shaw's biographer, noted that "The latter statement appears to be in error; although the correspondent may possibly have had in mind some lectures, delivered by Eleanor Marx, I believe, on A Doll’s House." (4).
So in summary, Ibsen was indeed informed of material which would later be published as The Quintessence. He appears to have not been offended by it, instead only being concerned with his comments being misquoted, and he and Shaw seem to have remained on good terms.
Shaw's letter to Archer, August 17, 1890: Bernard Shaw (collected Letters 1874-1897), pp 157-159, Max Reinhardt, London.
"Ibsen and Socialism," The Daily Chronicle, August 13, 1890, p.3.
Letter 215, Letters of Henrik Ibsen by Henrik Ibsen, John Nilsen Laurvik, 1905.
George Bernard Shaw: His Life and Works, Archibald Henderson, 1911.
