Hermann Sudermann Biography

Dictionary of Literary Biography on Hermann Sudermann

Hermann Sudermann was considered by many of his contemporaries to be second among German naturalist writers only to the Nobel Prize-winning playwright Gerhart Hauptmann. His first drama, Die Ehre (performed, 1889; published, 1890; translated as Honor, 1915), won lavish praise when it premiered at Berlin's Lessingtheater within weeks of Hauptmann's first masterpiece, Vor Sonnenaufgang (1889; translated as Before Dawn, 1909). Sudermann is today placed among the lesser figures of turn-of-the-century German literature, perhaps because he failed to develop as a writer following his earliest successes. His preoccupation with such traditional themes as honor, fidelity, and the prodigal's return soon wearied audiences in an age of increased social consciousness and theatrical experimentation. Now his works are described as, at best, fine period pieces that generally lack modern relevance. Another reason for the decline of Sudermann's reputation was that some of the most prominent theater critics of his day, notably Alfred Kerr, Felix Maximilian Harden, and Hermann Bahr, vehemently attacked Sudermann as a plagiarist and a charlatan, with Kerr going so far as to remark that Sudermann's successes were the results of his mistakes.

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