SOURCE: “Hauptmann, Bahnwärter Thiel (1887),” in Realism and Reality: Studies in the German Novelle of Poetic Realism, University of North Carolina Press, 1954, pp. 137-52.

In the following essay, Silz describes Bahnwärter Thiel as poised between Poetic Realism and Naturalism.

With Gerhart Hauptmann's Novelle Bahnwärter Thiel we stand at the threshold of a new age in German literature, the period of “Naturalismus” that was to succeed “Poetischer Realismus.” The little story was written and published in 1887, the year in which Berlin saw the performances of the visiting Théâtre libre that were to lead two years later to the establishment of the “Freie Bühne” and the debut of its chief talent, the young dramatist Hauptmann who quickly came to be regarded as the leader of the new literary revolt.

Bahnwärter Thiel, however, precedes that year of committal. It is a Janus-faced work, with traits both...