Peer Gynt (; ) is a five-
act play in
verse by the Norwegian dramatist
Henrik Ibsen. Written in the
Bokmål form of Norwegian, it is one of the most widely performed Norwegian plays. Ibsen believed
Per Gynt, the Norwegian fairy tale on which the play is loosely based, to be rooted in fact, and several of the characters are modelled after Ibsen's own family, notably his parents
Knud Ibsen and
Marichen Altenburg. He was also generally inspired by
Peter Christen Asbjørnsen's collection of Norwegian fairy tales, published in 1845 (
Huldre-Eventyr og Folkesagn).