He is called "the father of modern drama" because his extremely
influential plays dealing with domestic life dealt with some of the
most shocking issues of the day - venereal disease, a wife abandoning
her husband and children to discover her own worth as a human being,
suicide, etc. He also wrote a few verse dramas, among them "Peer Gynt".
However, Edvard Grieg's music for the original 1876 production is now
performed much more often than is the play.
