Gerhart Hauptmann Biography and List of Works

Prominent German dramatist of the early 20th century. Hauptmann won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1912. His early naturalistic plays are still frequently performed.

"He is not a realist who sporadically suffers from whimsical fits of philosophical romanticizing but a realist in good style, which is to say that from beginning to the end he is always the same."
(Theodor Fontane, Sämtliche Werke, 1969)

Hauptmann was born in Obersalzbrunn (now Szczawno Drój), a fashionable resort in Eastern Germany. His father was the hotel owner Robert Hauptmann and mother Marie (Straehler) Hauptmann. After failing at the gymnasium in Breaslau, Gerhart was sent to his uncle's estate. There he became aware of the Pietism and learned to know the peasants with whom he worked. He then entered the art academy in Breslau, intending to become a sculptor, and studied history at the University of Jena (1882-1883).

From 1883 to 1884 Hauptmann studied art in Rome and wrote a romantic poem based on the myth of Prometheus. Ill health forced him to return to Germany. In 1885 he married Marie Thienemann, an heiress to a fortune, whom he had met in 1881, and settled in Berlin. Marie admired her husband, but did not much understand literature and was devastated when Gerhart's attention strayed. However, her wealth gave him the freedom to start his career as a writer. In 1885 he set up a home with his wife in the little lakeside village of Erkner, and became convinced of the anti-romantic and scientific necessity of depicting life as it is. His early stories 'Fasching' (1887) and 'Bahnwärter Thiel' (1988) were naturalistic tales of simply people.

In Berlin Hauptmann became in contact with progressive intellectuals, and published his first play, VOR SONNENAUFGANG in 1889, which attracted attention with its shocking realism. In the play, Alfred Loth, a young socialist, sets out to study conditions in the Silesian coal mines. He falls in love with Helene Krause, the sister-in-law of his former college friend, who virtually controls the mines. His friend and his family turn out to be corrupted by the power of money, and Alfred leaves Helene, who kills herself.

Hauptmann's early plays reflect the influence of Henrik Ibsen but the production of DIE WEBER, a compassionate dramatization of the Silesian weavers' revolt of 1844, brought him fame as the leading playwright of his generation. The play, taken to be revolutionary when it was merely humane, was first banned. The play showed great sympathy for ordinary people struggling against oppression and hard conditions.

In the 1890s Hauptmann wrote DER BIBERPELZ (1893), HANNELES HIMMELFAHRT (1894), in which he began to try to abandon the naturalistic style. FLORIAN GEYER (1896), dealt with the peasant wars of the sixteenth century, and DIE VERSUNKENE GLOCKE (1897) was a story of a struggling artist. After this Hauptman wrote three of what may well be his best plays: the tragedies FURHMANN HENSCHELL (1899), MICHAEL KRAMER (1900) and ROSE BERND (1903).

ENGELSGESANG

Wir bringen ein erstes Grüssen
durch Finsternisse getrageb;
wir haben auf unsern Federn
ein erstes Hauchen von Glück.

Wir führen am Saum unsrer Kleider
ein erstes Duften des Frühlings;
es blüht von unsern Lippen
die erste Röte des Tags.

Es leuchtet vor unsern Früssen
der grüne Schein unsrer Heimat;
es blitzen im Grund unsrer Augen
die Zinnen der ewigen Stadt.

These works also reflected the personal turmoil Hauptmann was then in - he had fallen for a fourteen-year-old girl, promising violinist Margarete Marschalk. In 1904 Hauptmann divorced the depressive Marie Thienemann, with whom he had had four children, and married in the same year Margarete Marschalk, with whom he had a child.

Hauptmann's journey to Greece in 1907 inspired the travel diary GRIECHISCHER FRÜHLING (1908), where he brought up the theme of Christian heritage and paganism. Hauptmann returned to the theme in two novels, DER NARR IN CHRISTO EMMANUEL QUINT (1910) and DIE INSEL DER GROSSEN MUTTER (1912).

In the 1920s Hauptmann took the subjects for plays from fantasy, mythical symbolism and folklore. He remained in Germany throughout Nazi regime. However, the Third Reich refused to allow him to receive the Schiller Prize, for which he was almost continuously recommended. In 1942 appeared a complete seventeen volume edition of his works. Hauptmann died on June 6, 1946 of pneumonia at his home in Agnetendorf. His last work, the unfinished DER NEUE CHRISTOPHORUS (1943) was again the story of suffering humanity.

"Thanks to this elemental feeling for his fellow men, Hauptmann has remained the foremost social poet of Germany. And thanks to this deep feeling for humanity he is counted among those modern dramatists who, like Ibsen, Strindberg, and Shaw, have outlasted the changes of time and fashion."
(Horst Frenz in Introdustion to Gerhart Hauptmann's Three Plays, 1977)

For further reading: Gerhart Hauptmann by K. Holl (1913); Gerhart Hauptmann by P. Fechter (1922); Gerhart Hauptmann by H.F. Garten (1954); Gerhart Hauptmann: The Prose Plays by M. Sinden (1957); Witness of Deceit by R.L. Shaw (1958); by G. Pohl (1962); Gerhart Hauptmann and Utopia by P.A. Mellen (1976); The Image of the Primitive Giant in Gerhart Hauptmann by C.T. Dussere (1979); Understanding Gerhart Hauptmann by W.R. Maurer (1982); Gerhart Hauptmann by P.A. Mellen (1984); Domination, Dependence, Denial and Despair by C.F. Good (1993)

PROMETHIDENLOOS, (1885)