Hauptmann, Gerhart
Entry updated 25 November 2024. Tagged: Author, Theatre.
(1862-1946) German playwright and author, winner of the 1912 Nobel Prize for Literature, whose greatest plays were performed before the turn of the century and whose novels were written later. Some plays are fantasy: Hanneles Himmelfahrt (1893; trans William Archer as Hannele: A Dream Poem 1894 chap), Die versunkene Glocke: Ein Deutsche Märchendrama (1896; trans C H Meltzer as The Sunken Bell 1899) and Des Grossen Kampffliegers, Landfahrers, Gaukers und Magiers Till Eulenspiegel Abenteuer, Streiche, Gaukeleien, Gesichte und Träume (1928), a drama in verse about Till Eulenspiegel. One novel, Atlantis (1912; trans Adele and Thomas Seltzer 1912), which has nothing to do with Atlantis, does contain supernatural elements, including the mysterious sinking of a ship much like the Titanic (the book was serialized in Germany about a month before the disaster). The convict's "confession" in Phantom (1922; trans Bayard Quincy Morgan 1922) is based on his assertion that his acts were forced upon him by supernatural means. Of sf interest is Die Insel der grossen Mutter, oder Das Wunder von Ile des Dames: Eine Geschichte aus dem Utopischen Archipelagus (1924; trans Edwin Muir and Willa Muir as The Island of the Great Mother 1925). The subtitle – "The Miracle of the Île des Dames: A Tale from the Utopian Archipelago" – fairly describes the complex mood of Hauptmann's Robinsonade, which portrays an all-woman Island society founded after a shipwreck as a return-to-the-soil Utopia; sadly, they all simultaneously become pregnant (how this happens is not explained), and their male offspring, who soon reinvent Technology, eventually revolt against their mothers, ending an ideal enterprise but reintroducing needed dynamism (Hauptmann assures his readers), in the process creating an abstractly described but recognizable aftermath world (see World War One). [JC]
Gerhart Johann Robert Hauptmann
born Obersaltzbrunn, Germany [now Poland]: 15 November 1862
died Agnetendorf, Poland: 6 June 1946
works (selected)
- Atlantis (Berlin: S Fischer Verlag, 1912) [hb/]
- Atlantis (New York: B W Huebsch, 1912) [trans by Adele and Thomas Seltzer of the above: hb/]
- Phantom (Berlin: Ullstein, 1922) [binding unknown/]
- Phantom (New York: B W Huebsch, 1922) [trans by Bayard Quincy Morgan of the above: hb/]
- Die Insel der grossen Mutter, oder Das Wunder von Ile des Dames: Eine Geschichte aus dem Utopischen Archipelagus (Berlin: S Fischer Verlag, 1924) [hb/]
- The Island of the Great Mother (London: Martin Secker, 1925) [trans by Edwin Muir and Willa Muir of the above: hb/]
plays (highly selected)
- Hanneles Himmelfahrt (Berlin: S Fischer Verlag, 1893) [play: chap: hb/]
- Hannele: A Dream Poem (London: William Heinemann, 1894) [play: chap: trans by William Archer of the above: hb/]
- Die versunkene Glocke: Ein Deutsche Märchendrama (Berlin: S Fischer Verlag, 1896) [play: hb/]
- The Sunken Bell: A Fairy Play in Five Acts (New York: R H Russell, 1899) [play: trans by Charles Henry Meltzer of the above: hb/]
- Des Grossen Kampffliegers, Landfahrers, Gaukers und Magiers Till Eulenspiegel Abenteuer, Streiche, Gaukeleien, Gesichte und Träume (Berlin: S Fischer Verlag, 1928) [play: in verse: hb/]
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