An Enemy of the People

by Miller, Arthur; Ibsen, Henrik

• ISBN13: 9780140481402
• ISBN10: 0140481400
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781101664971
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1977-11-17
• Publisher: Penguin Books
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Summary

"In one of his most provocative essays, Ibsen offers a rebuke to the Victorian notion of community as well as to the blessings of democracy. His An Enemy of the People creates a situation in which one must stand alone to face the forces allied against him." "In a coastal town, a community-minded physician has promoted the development of public baths in order to attract tourists. When he discovers that the water supply for the baths is contaminated and attempts to publicize the failing and correct it, he encounters political cowards, sold-out journalists, shortsighted armchair economists, and a benighted citizenry. His own principled idealism exacerbates the conflict, and after a public speech that turns into a tirade, the townsfolk label him an enemy of the people. He and his family are all but driven out of the town he was trying to save." "Nicholas Rudall's translations of Ibsen have brought a fresh perspective to the American theatre. His new rendering of An Enemy of the People makes the play more speakable, more American in its speech patterns, and more reflective of the levels of diction required by the class, education, and affectations of the characters."--BOOK JACKET.

Author Biography

Arthur Miller (1915-2005) was born in New York City and studied at the University of Michigan. His plays include All My Sons (1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), The Crucible (1953), A View from the Bridge and A Memory of Two Mondays (1955), After the Fall (1963), Incident at Vichy (1964), The Price (1968), The Creation of the World and Other Business (1972) and The American Clock (1980). He also wrote two novels, Focus (1945), and The Misfits, which was filmed in 1960, and the text for In Russia (1969), Chinese Encounters (1979), and In the Country (1977), three books of photographs by his wife, Inge Morath. His later work included a memoir, Timebends (1987); the plays The Ride Down Mt. Morgan (1991), The Last Yankee (1993), Broken Glass (1994), and Mr. Peter's Connections (1999); Echoes Down the Corridor: Collected Essays, 1944–2000; and On Politics and the Art of Acting (2001). He twice won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and in 1949 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Miller was the recipient of the National Book Foundation’s 2001 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the Prince of Asturias Award for Letters in 2002, and the Jerusalem Prize in 2003.