PORARY GERMAN DRAMA

By Amelia von Ende

A period of transition in a nation's life is not the best foundation
upon which to rear a new literature. The change of religious, moral,
I social and political standards from their well-established and
time-honored base to new and untried planes does not favor the
development of minds, well-defined and well-balanced, and of
characters, able to translate a clear purpose into consistent
achievement.

Germany passed through such a change toward the end of the nineteenth
century. The unification of the Empire with its era of material
prosperity and progress strengthened the roots of national
consciousness; the gospel of the superman with its absolute ego-cult
stimulated individual self-assertion; the wave of altruism which swept
across the world at the same time roused the slumbering sense of social
responsibility. These three forces--national consciousness, individual
self assertion, social responsibility--profoundly affected the
character of the young generation growing up in the newly reestablished
Empire. Embracing each of these principles in turn, theorizing about
them, the young men and women of the time became unsettled. With the
gradual realization of the seriousness of the underlying ideas grew the
desire to experiment with them in life, to prove them by practice. In
the attempt to live these new ideals the individual became involved in
a conflict with the old conscience that no philosophy had yet been able
to argue away, and the road out of this dilemma lay along the line of
least resistance, which consisted in drifting with the changing tides.
The result was the gradual evolution of a type of hero which modified
the drama of the country. While the hero of old encountered and
conquered obstacles mainly of external circumstance and complication,
the hero of the present is the victim of doubts and moods rooted within
himself, defeating his purpose and paralyzing his will.

The modern German drama deals with these conditions and characters. The
writers whose creative instinct awoke in the seventies stood upon the
firm ground of old traditions and were inspired by the optimism of the
national renascence. The writers who responded to the same instinct in
the eighties stood on the plane of a philosophy which had undermined
the old traditions and conventions and had not yet crystallized
into constructive principles that could safely guide the individual
through life. Their