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Dictionary of Literary Biography on Otto Erich Hartleben
Otto Erich Hartleben had a short and moderately successful career during the 1890s as a writer of gently satirical comedies. He was an accomplished craftsman with a talent for conversational dialogue and characterization and with a facility for imitating the conventions of the contemporary naturalist stage repertory. The one play, however, for which he is still remembered in literary histories is a turgid tragedy in five acts, Rosenmontag (1900; translated as Love's Carnival, 1904), a story of love and intrigue among officers in a Rhenish garrison. It is quite uncharacteristic of his style, and its sensational, albeit short-lived, success was a great surprise to its author. He also expressed irritation at the fact that the notoriety he had gained so suddenly was due more to a misapprehension of his intent, which was primarily ironic, than to the play's artistic and social merits. After 1900 the play was performed in virtually every...
This section contains 2,168 words (approx. 8 pages at 300 words per page) |
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