Anton Chekhov, along with Ibsen and August Strindberg, is widely considered to be one of the three most influential playwrights in early modern drama. Like Ibsen's Brand, Chekhov's The Seagull, originally published in 1895, deliberately goes against the stage conventions of the day. Instead of building the dramatic action as the play goes on, Chekhov reduces it. Instead of introducing one major protagonist, Chekhov introduces several. The play also borrows the type of overt symbolism recognized in Ibsen's plays.

Ibsen's A Doll House, originally published in Norwegian in 1879 and translated into English in 1889 as A Doll's House, is one of Ibsen's most famous and most controversial plays. The story concerns the oppression and liberation of a woman in a middle-class marriage and was ahead of its time in its promotion of women's rights.

Peer Gynt (1867), the play Ibsen wrote directly after...