souls wavered between self-realization and
self-renunciation; their minds eagerly followed the example of Ibsen
inquiring into individual motives and responsibilities, and their eyes
were at the same time opened to the economic struggle of the masses
which had roused the social conscience. A world unknown to the poets of
the previous generation, or ignored by them, had come within the range
of vision; it engaged not only the humanitarian's sympathy and the
philosopher's speculation, but the artist's interest. It was studied
for its scientific meaning and exploited for its esthetic
possibilities.

The floodgates of a literature rich in stimulating ideas were opened
and the new subject-matter demanded a new manner, a new style. The
influence of Darwin was not lost upon the young generation. The
significance of circumstance and environment in the making of man led
to a minute painting of the milieu, of the external setting of each
individual life at every moment of its existence in drama or fiction.
The language of the characters became the language of their class in
ordinary life. The action was immediately and directly transferred to
the written page and became a record of unadorned reality. The cry for
truth became one of the party cries of the period. Naturalistic fiction
and naturalistic drama came into being.

Within the brief space of less than twenty-five years were born three
men whose literary personalities represent this development of German
drama. Ernst von Wildenbruch in the main held fast to the traditions of
the past, which he treated in historical plays in the manner of a poet
who had matured in the period of Germany's unification and was inspired
with the consciousness of national renascence. Hermann Sudermann, who
rose on the horizon just as the old traditions began to weaken, chose
to ignore the past, took his cue from the social note of the present,
but sought a compromise with the old forms and with the taste of the
great mass of the people. Gerhart Hauptmann, the youngest of the three,
discarded all precedent and built upon new foundations with new
material in a new manner. By the success which he gained in spite of
his uncompromising attitude, he became the leader of the young
generation.

The intellectual atmosphere in the decade that witnessed the advent of
Sudermann and Hauptmann was extraordinarily alive and stimulating and
the drama was chosen by an amazing number of young aspirants to
lit