In 1864 Henrik Ibsen left his native country and settled in Rome. This was the beginning of a period of 27 years abroad. During the first period in Rome he wrote the great philosophical dramas Brand and Peer Gynt. Brand was to be his first success on the Nordic book market. With Brand and Peer Gynt Ibsen definitively wrote himself out of the National Romantic tradition to which his plays of the 1850s and The Pretenders belonged and made his mark through his use of biting satire and criticism of his native country.
With A Doll's House (1879) Ibsen achieved his international breakthrough. This play has had an enormous significance in the struggle for equal rights for women worldwide and is one of the most performed play in the world in modern times.
Before Ibsen returned to Norway in 1891 he wrote The Wild Duck (1884), Rosmersholm (1886), The Lady from the Sea (1888) and Hedda Gabler (1890). These plays represent a gradual transition from the plays of realistic issues and social criticism to psychological and symbolic drama.
In 1891 Henrik Ibsen settled down in Kristiania and lived there until his death in 1906. His four last dramatic works, The Master Builder (1892), Little Eyolf (1894), John Gabriel Borkman (1896) and When We Dead Awaken (1899), are frequently characterised as dramatic self-portraits, as artistic confessions in the name of self-scrutiny and self-awareness. The main characters of these plays are male and aging, like Ibsen himself, with creative professions. They look back and take stock of the lives they have lived thus far.
In 1900 Ibsen suffered his first stroke. His "dramatic epilogue" When We Dead Awaken was thus and appropriately the last dramatic work that he wrote. In 1906, after several years of poor health, he died in his home in Kristiania (now: Oslo). Ibsen wrote 26 dramatic works and some 300 poems. His plays have retained a strong contemporary relevance and continue to be staged at innumerable theatres in all parts of the world.