Gerhart Hauptmann's artistic range encompasses all literary genres: the drama, the novel, the novella and shorter prose fiction, the verse epic and poetry, and the essay, as well as aphoristic and theoretical works. Equally diverse is the stylistic and thematic thrust of Hauptmann's work. He is the foremost author of German Naturalism, but he also wrote in the neoromantic and symbolist vein, evinced a strong interest in mysticism, and finally submitted to a pessimism that saw man as the victim of uncontrollable, sinister forces. But there are characteristics common to all his works. Of these, the most important is his ability to create "living" characters. In all of his excursions into regions remote from the real world, there is always a realistic base. While Hauptmann is best known as a dramatist, he also made significant contributions to German and world literature in the genres of the novel and...