The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann, Volume II

Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Keren Vergon, Thomas Berger
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
(Authorized Edition)
Edited By LUDWIG LEWISOHN
Assistant Professor in The Ohio State University
1913
INTRODUCTION By the Editor .
DRAYMAN HENSCHEL (Fuhrmann Henschel) Translated by the Editor .
ROSE BERND (Rose Bernd) Translated by the Editor .
THE RATS (Die Ratten) Translated by the Editor .
The first volume of the present edition of Hauptmann's Dramatic Works is identical in content with the corresponding volume of the German edition. In the second volume The Rats has been substituted for two early prose tales which lie outside of the scope of our undertaking. Hence these two volumes include that entire group of dramas which Hauptmann himself specifically calls social. This term must not, of course, be pressed too rigidly. Only in Before Dawn and in The Weavers can the dramatic situation be said to arise wholly from social conditions rather than from the fate of the individual. It is true, however, that in the seven plays thus far presented all characters are viewed primarily as, in a large measure, the results of their social environment. This environment is, in all cases, proportionately stressed. To exhibit it fully Hauptmann uses, beyond any other dramatist, passages which, though always dramatic in form, are narrative and, above all, descriptive in intention. The silent burden of these plays, the ceaseless implication of their fables, is the injustice and inhumanity of the social order.
Hauptmann, however, has very little of the narrow and acrid temper of the special pleader. He is content to show humanity. It is quite conceivable that the future, forgetful of the special social problems and the humanitarian cult of to-day, may view these plays as simply bodying forth the passions and events that are timeless and constant in the inevitable march of human life. The tragedies of Drayman Henschel and of Rose Bernd , at all events, stand in no need of the label of any decade. They move us by their breadth and energy and fundamental tenderness.