SOURCE: “Early Prose,” in Gerhart Hauptmann, Twayne Publishers, 1982, pp. 13-24.

In the following essay, Maurer surveys Hauptmann's novellas Fasching and Bahnwärter Thiel.

Fasching

In 1887, upon submitting Fasching for publication, Hauptmann requested that his first name be spelled Gerhart (rather than Gerhard), an orthography he retained for the rest of his life.¹ This minor change coincides with a much more significant change of aesthetic signature which was soon to lead to his most popular and enduring contribution: those many works that reflect an intimate amalgamation of personal experience, a vibrant sense of landscape, and warm portrayal of ordinary people confronted by forces and events too overwhelming to comprehend.

Due to the general disrepute of contemporary theater, combined with his attraction to Turgenev, Tolstoy, Zola, and Daudet,² Hauptmann turned to prose fiction and his first successful efforts in his new style were the novellas Fasching [Carnival] and...