Peer Gynt figure quite so exuberant, outrageous, vitalistic as Peer Gynt. He merely "seems" initially to be an unlikely candidate for such eminence: "What is he", we say, "except a kind of Norwegian roaring boy?" – marvelously attractive to women, a kind of bogus poet, a narcissist, absurd self-idolator, a liar, seducer, bombastic self-deceiver. But this is paltry moralizing – all too much like the scholarly chorus that rants against Falstaff. True, Peer, unlike Falstaff, is not a great wit. But in the Yahwistic, biblical sense, Peer the scamp bears the blessing: More life. On 5 January 1867 Ibsen wrote to Frederik
Peer Gynt In this place, he is finally hailed as one — the emperor of the "self". Peer despairs and calls for the "Keeper of all fools", i.e., God. Finally, on his way home as an old man, he is shipwrecked. Among those on board, he meets the Strange Passenger, who wants to make use of Peer's corpse to find out where dreams have their origin. This passenger scares Peer out of his wits. Peer lands on shore bereft of all of his possessions, a pitiful and grumpy old man. Back home in Norway, Peer Gynt attends a peasant funeral and an