206 GERMAN LITERATURE 



going its own way. This has been more than ever the case during the past few years. 

 Germany rose into prominence as a power which had to be reckoned with in literary 

 Europe, towards the end of the eighties of the last century. The first phase of the 

 literary revival resulted from a combination of three powerful forces in European litera- 

 ture: the French naturalistic movement, the influence of the Russian novel of Tolstoi 

 and Dostoievsky, and the drama of ideas on a realistic basis which came from Scandina- 

 via. But no sooner had an amalgamation of these three outside forces been effected, 

 and Germany had begun to evolve a literature of her own from the union, than the wind 

 of popular favour changed. The phase of undiluted realism gave place to a movement 

 analogous to the symbolistic movement in France, but more deeply immersed in mysti- 

 cism than the French movement. With daring originality, the young quondam realists 

 introduced, side by side with the most painstaking and even sordid descriptions of, ac- 

 tuality, elements of faery lore, of idealism and symbolism, which resulted in the most 

 fantastic and incongruous combinations. But now it may be said that realism is virtual- 

 ly a thing of the past in Germany. 



As time goes on, the significance of the work of Friedrich Nietzsche for the literary 

 achievement of modern Germany becomes ever plainer. One can no longer regard this 

 influence as restricted to the unfettering of individualism noticeable in the lyric poetry of 

 the eighties and nineties. Nietzsche appears now rather as a force which is keeping 

 German literature in touch with the needs and demands of the actual life of the present 

 and is preventing it as has so often happened in the past, when a healthy realism be- 

 came a dead letter in Germany losing itself in the clouds of an unworldly idealism. 



The modern lyric has shown no abatement of its quest for new and original expres- 

 sion. And although neither Richard Dehmel nor Stefan George no doubt the two 

 most original of modern German singers in widely different fields has added to his 

 laurels in these years, younger men like Max Dauthendey (b. 1867), Rainer Maria 

 Rilke (b. 1875) and Alfred Mombert (b. 1872), have been establishing their claims to a 

 place in litdrary history. In epic poetry, the importance of the Swiss writer Carl 

 Spitteler (b. 1845), as one of the strong talents of his time, is now very generally recog- 

 nised, more especially since the republication in 1909 of his remarkable poem Olympischc 

 Fruhling in a revised form. With the death of Detlev von Liliencron (July 22, 1909), 

 the modern German lyric lost its first master; and with that of Otto Julius Bierbaum 

 (Feb. i, 1910) the leading spirit in that lighter phase of the modern lyric, which came to 

 Germany with the French cabaret, the so-called " Uberbrettl." Further losses have been 

 Martin Greif (Hermann Frey) (March 29, 1911), and, in other than lyric poetry, Wil- 

 helm Busch (Jan. 9, 1908) and Julius Wolff (June 30, 1910). 



With the waning of Dostoievsky's influence and that of naturalism generally, the 

 German novel has fallen back once more into an experimental stage. It is here, per- 

 haps, that the decentralizing tendencies have most surely made themselves felt, the so- 

 called " Los von Berlin " movement. The novel has entered the service of that " Heimat- 

 kunst " of which the Alsatian writer, Fritz Lienhart (b. 1865), has been the most per- 

 sistent advocate; it has fled to the country and the dialect; the novel of the large city 

 has given place to that of the province, and the gain in variety and poetic strength has 

 been undeniable. But along with this movement, there has also gone a tendency to- 

 wards idealizing symbolism, similar to what has taken place in drama. This is to be 

 seen notably in the work of the more promising younger writers, such as Hermann 

 Hesse (b. 1877), who is restricting himself more and more to the short story, Emil 

 Strauss (b. 1866), and Bernard Kellermann (b. 1879); while a distinctly novel note in 

 the fiction of the day has been struck by Hanns Heinz Ewers (b. 1871), a former con- 

 tributor to the literature of the " Uberbrettl," who, with his Dcr Zaubcrlehrling (1910), 

 harks back to the manner of E. A. T. Hoffmann, and is influenced by Baudelaire. Of 

 the writers of established reputation, Gustav Frenssen (b. 1863) has published one novel, 

 Klaus Hinrich Baas (1909), which, however, rather justifies our doubts as to whether 

 the author of Jorn Uhl has any higher poetic mission to fulfil towards his generation. 

 Thomas Mann (b. 18? 5) has produced only one novel, Konigliche Hohcit (1909), which 



