“The Boys in Helgeland” is a work unlike the usual ones by Ibsen. It did not spark the enthusiasm that accompanied his other later works, which introduce new social themes into a peculiar, Ibsen-like atmosphere, I would say, filled with reality and allegorical symbolism.

The audience was cautious in front of this work, which feels somewhat foreign to our time, yet the critics have described it as the most lyrical work of the 19th century.