Peer Gynt in a Global Context

The paper gives an overview of how Hen-rik Ibsen’s dramatic poem Peer Gynt has been performed globally, with an emphasis on how it has been used to further the notion of nationalism in otherwise vastly different national contexts. Without generalizing what Peer Gynt means to different people and nations, it is fair to say that this play, being a national symbol of Norway, has been interpreted in a myriad of ways both inside and outside Norway. What these interpretations show us is that literary texts such as Peer Gynt can be put to use by different sociopolitical systems for different purposes. There is no fixed meaning about the text once it is put on stage. The meanings are then denoted in the performance and complicated by the social, cultural and political landscapes surrounding it.