Henrik Ibsen's place as the creator of the modern social drama of ideas is unquestioned. His unremitting attacks on the outworn institutions of society and the stifling hypocrisy of those who pretended to subscribe to them, brought storms of nervous protest from his critics. "Revoltingly suggestive and blasphemous," "scandalous," "noisome corruption," "foul and filthy," they said. Yet Ibsen persisted; he shocked the unthinking into thinking and blasted through the thick fog of convention to the restless human passions hidden underneath. Today, his plays continue to throw the bright light of reason into some murky corners of the Victorian mind.