Identifier: germanclassicsof18fran (find matches)
Title: The German classics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; masterpieces of German literature
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors: Francke, Kuno, 1855-1930 Howard, William Guild, b. 1868 Singer, Isidore, 1859-1939
Subjects: German literature German literature English literature
Publisher: Albany, N. Y. : J. B. Lyon company
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
the stagein defense of the secular institutions of the social order.Brieux has never written a play but to attack some evil,unveil some hypocrisy, or scourge some definite injustice.Shaw has attempted to undermine the emotional bases ofour civilization, and Galsworthy is devoting his admirabledramatic gift to the service of various causes. Haupt-mann has had the larger, and surely the wiser vision; forall these evils are but accidental and transitory elements inthe life of historic man. Man remains. And thus Haupt-mann, abandoning more and more the brief social ardor ofhis youth, has fixed his eye primarily upon humanity amidconditions and conflicts which, however exactly defined intime and space, partake, by their very nature, of the recur-rent and the enduring. This freedom from the heat of any immediate purposehas enabled Hauptmann to attain a higher degree of plas-ticity in the final aim of every creative artist — the shapingof characters. The men and women of Hervieu and Brieux
Text Appearing After Image:
Ptrmission Ikrtin Photo Co., Xcn; York GERHART HAUPTMANN GERHAET HAUPTMANN 3 must, for the plays necessary effectiveness, possess a givenset of traits, or, at least, these traits must be emphasizedat the expense of their complete selves; or, finally, theymust be placed in situations that serve to bring out tlieexpression of the specific energies and passions requiredby the argument. In other words, the play with a purposecan never divest itself wholly of intrigue in plot, or of arti-ficial emphasis in the drawing of character. Hauptmannhas plunged into the fullness of life. His themes have beenhunger and love, aspiration and death. Hence his char-acters are entire men and women, delineated without sup-pression or undue stress. To these two facts — Hauptmans sensitiveness to thespiritual temper of his time and his carelessness (since hisearliest plays) of its special and hence passing problems —may be set down the solidity and impressiveness of hiswork. That impressiveness has grad

Note About Images