Otto Erich Hartleben had a short and moderately successful career during the 1890s as a writer of gently satirical comedies. He was an accomplished craftsman with a talent for conversational dialogue and characterization and with a facility for imitating the conventions of the contemporary naturalist stage repertory. The one play, however, for which he is still remembered in literary histories is a turgid tragedy in five acts, Rosenmontag (1900; translated as Love's Carnival, 1904), a story of love and intrigue among officers in a Rhenish garrison. It is quite uncharacteristic of his style, and its sensational, albeit short-lived, success was a great surprise to its author. He also expressed irritation at the fact that the notoriety he had gained so suddenly was due more to a misapprehension of his intent, which was primarily ironic, than to the play's artistic and social merits. After 1900 the play was performed in virtually every...