The problem for Ibsen was to describe what he saw and experienced from a simultaneous position without knowing the outcome and consequences – what would happen. He described this problem in the speech he gave to the students in Kristiania in 1874:
And, then, what is it: to write a poem? It dawned on me late that to write a poem, it is essential to see, but, mind you, to see in such a way that the seat is appropriated by the recipient, as the poet saw it. But this is how only what is experienced is seen and thus received.
The basis was the lived , practical and actual experience and not the abstract, theoretical and calculated. This was in accordance with the tradition and mentality of the patrician class where one had to feel and sense, but could never know.
This was the opposite of the basic principles of the new bureaucratic state, which was based on calculation, calculation, management and control through established rules.
He had already described the basic principle for this way of writing in his review of Andreas Munch's Lord William Russell in 1857. Munch did not place himself between himself and the work by interpreting and commenting or in any other way, but the "Symbolism of Personality" and "the whole symbolic Basic Idea" wind "hiddenly through the Work, like the Silver in the Mountain".
The prerequisite for this is again, as Ibsen later emphasized in his speech to the students, that "the poetic Vision of the Beautiful and Meaningful" is "the common property of the Producer and the Receiver". That is to say, the artist cannot separate himself from the context in which he expresses himself and from those to whom he addresses himself: "the creative, the shaping Ability is his alone", but: "The ability for poetic recognition and enjoyment of what has already been formed belongs to the whole people."
The poet's task was therefore, according to Ibsen, "to manage the fermenting thoughts of the people."
“What we profane people do not have as knowledge, I believe we have to a certain extent as a hunch or instinct.” This is what he had written in Knappestøperens ord as a criticism of Monrad – that one should have a hunch.
What impressed Brandes was that Ibsen, without any bookish knowledge of literature and philosophy, nevertheless had "a kind of secret harmony with the fermenting, burgeoning Ideas of the Time."
It was therefore an important dimension that was lost with the patrician class in Skien. Over several centuries, it had developed a spontaneous, unreflective ability to adapt and to constantly see and exploit new opportunities. It is this ability to see, sense and foresee that Ibsen had acquired from the patrician class in Skien – and which enabled him to become a world-famous playwright.
The factual information Ibsen provides in the story of his childhood in Skien shows that Ibsen is not a mystery. He did not come from miserable circumstances in an insignificant small provincial town on a poor and backward outskirts of Europe. On the other hand, he was born into an upper class – the patrician class – in Skien. This upper class had for generations developed close internal ties through marriage and kinship and had close contacts to Europe and European culture through family and business. This had meant that Skien had been able to develop as a center for trade, shipping, technology and knowledge for several hundred years.
However, this upper class and the town of Skien went through a serious crisis after 1830. This crisis also affected Ibsen's family. It is this crisis and the fall of the old upper class that has characterized Ibsen's life and writing.
Ibsen's drama is therefore not about the modernization of his time, about steam engines, industrialization or the growth of cities. His drama is, however, about the old upper class, the dissolution and decay of the patrician class. The main characters, like Ibsen himself, belong to the last remnant of the former upper class who vainly try to maintain the old, but who perish with it – and new values, ideals, classes and actors take over.
Ibsen therefore hated the new classes and the new ideals that established themselves in Norway after 1830. He is against the modern state that was ruled by bureaucrats and bureaucratic rules and all the petty things he calls "politics."