SOURCE: “Symphony in Prose,” in Understanding Gerhart Hauptmann, University of South Carolina Press, 1992, pp. 127-39.

In the following essay, Maurer explores the models and sources of Bahnwärter Thiel, discussing its relation to the German Novelle and analyzing its symbolism.

Flagman Thiel

In Hauptmann's development as a dramatist, a distinct progression in the mastery of his craft is discernible from 1889 (Before Sunrise) to about 1911 (The Rats). In contrast to this pattern, Bahnwärter Thiel (1888) (Flagman Thiel) is a highly acclaimed masterpiece of prose fiction created at the beginning of his literary career and never quite equaled afterwards.¹ Written in Erkner during the early morning hours around the period of the birth of his second son and published in the Munich Naturalist periodical Die Gesellschaft (Society), this remarkable German novella marked Hauptmann's debut as an author of great potential. Although considerably milder than that occasioned by such dramas as...