HAUPTMANN, GERHART (1862- ), German dramatist, was born on the 15th of November 1862 at Obersalzbrunn in Silesia, the son of an hotel-keeper. From the village school of his native place he passed to the Realschule in Breslau, and was then sent to learn agriculture on his uncle’s farm at Jauer. Having, however, no taste for country life, he soon returned to Breslau and entered the art school, intending to become a sculptor. He then studied at Jena, and spent the greater part of the years 1883 and 1884 in Italy. In May 1885 Hauptmann married and settled in Berlin, and, devoting himself henceforth entirely to literary work, soon attained a great reputation as one of the chief representatives of the modern drama. In 1891 he retired to Schreiberhau in Silesia. Hauptmann’s first drama, Vor Sonnenaufgang (1889) inaugurated the realistic movement in modern German literature; it was followed by Das Friedensfest (1890), Einsame Menschen (1891) and Die Weber (1892), a powerful drama depicting the rising of the Silesian weavers in 1844. Of Hauptmann’s subsequent work mention may be made of the comedies Kollege Crampton (1892), Der Biberpelz (1893) and Der rote Hahn (1901), a “dream poem,” Hannele (1893), and an historical drama Florian Geyer (1895). He also wrote two tragedies of Silesian peasant life, Fuhrmann Henschel (1898) and Rose Berndt (1903), and the “dramatic fairy-tales” Die versunkene Glocke (1897) and Und Pippa tanzt (1905). Several of his works have been translated into English.
Biographies of Hauptmann and critical studies of his dramas have been published by A. Bartels (1897); P. Schlenther (1898); and U. C. Woerner (2nd ed., 1900). See also L. Benoist-Hanappier, Le Drame naturaliste en Allemagne (1905).
HAUPTMANN, MORITZ (1792-1868), German musical composer and writer, was born at Dresden, on the 13th of October 1792, and studied music under Scholz, Lanska, Grosse and Morlacchi, the rival of Weber. Afterwards he completed his education as a violinist and composer under Spohr, and till 1820 held various appointments in private families, varying his musical occupations with mathematical and other studies bearing chiefly on acoustics and kindred subjects. For a time also Hauptmann was employed as an architect, but all other pursuits gave place to music, and a grand tragic opera, Mathilde, belongs to the period just referred to. In 1822 he entered the orchestra of Cassel, again under Spohr’s direction, and it was then that he first taught composition and musical theory to such men as Ferdinand David, Burgmüller, Kiel and others. His compositions at this time chiefly consisted of motets, masses, cantatas and songs. His opera Mathilde was performed at Cassel with great success. In 1842 Hauptmann obtained the position of cantor at the Thomas-school of Leipzig (long previously occupied by the great Johann Sebastian Bach) together with that of professor at the conservatoire, and it was in this capacity that his unique gift as a teacher developed itself and was acknowledged by a crowd of enthusiastic and more or less distinguished pupils. He died on the 3rd of January 1868, and the universal regret felt at his death at Leipzig is said to have been all but equal to that caused by the loss of his friend Medelssohn many years before. Hauptmann’s compositions are marked by symmetry and perfection of workmanship rather than by spontaneous invention.
Amongst his vocal compositions—by far the most important portion of his work—may be mentioned two masses, choral songs for mixed voices (Op. 32, 47), and numerous part songs. The results of his scientific research were embodied in his book Die Natur der Harmonik und Metrik (1853), a standard work of its kind, in which a philosophic explanation of the forms of music is attempted.
HAURÉAU, (JEAN) BARTHÉLEMY (1812-1896), French historian and miscellaneous writer, was born in Paris. At the age of twenty he published a series of apologetic studies on the Montagnards. In later years he regretted the youthful enthusiasm of these papers, and endeavoured to destroy the copies. He joined the staff of the National, and was praised by Théophile Gautier as the “tribune” of romanticism. At that time he seemed to be destined to a political career, and, indeed, after the revolution of the 24th of February 1848 was elected member of the National Assembly; but close contact with revolutionary men and ideas gradually cooled his old ardour. Throughout his life he was an enemy to innovators, not only in politics and religion, but also in literature. This attitude sometimes led him to form unjust estimates, but only on very rare occasions, for his character was as just as his erudition was scrupulous. After the coup d’état he resigned his position as director of the MS. department of the Bibliothèque Nationale, to which he had been appointed in 1848, and he refused to accept any administrative post until after the fall of the empire. After having acted as director of the national printing press from 1870 to 1881, he retired, but in 1893 accepted the post of director of the Fondation Thiers. He was also a member of the council of improvement of the École des Chartes. He died on the 29th of April 1896. For over half a century he was engaged in writing on the religious, philosophical, and more particularly the literary history of the middle ages. Appointed librarian of the town of Le Mans in 1838, he was first attracted by the history of Maine, and in 1843 published the first volume of his Histoire littéraire du Maine (4 vols., 1843-1852), which he subsequently recast on a new plan (10 vols., 1870-1877). In 1845 he brought out an edition of vol. ii. of G. Ménage’s Histoire de Sablé. He then undertook the continuation of the Gallia Christiana, and produced vol. xiv. (1856) for the province of Tours, vol. xv. (1862) for the province of Besançon, and vol. xvi. (1865-1870) for the province of Vienne. This important work gained him admission to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (1862). In the Notices et extraits des manuscrits he inserted several papers which were afterwards published separately, with additions and corrections, under the title Notices et extraits de quelques manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale (6 vols., 1890-1893). To the Histoire littéraire de la France he contributed a number of studies, among which must be mentioned that relating to the sermon-writers (vol. xxvi., 1873), whose works, being often anonymous, raise many problems of attribution, and, though deficient in originality of thought and style, reflect the very spirit of the middle ages. Among his other works mention must be made of his remarkable Histoire de la philosophie scolastique (1872-1880), extending from the time of Charlemagne to the 13th century, which was expanded from a paper crowned by the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques in 1850; Les Mélanges poétiques d’Hildebert de Lavardin (1882); an edition of the Works of Hugh of St Victor (1886); a critical study of the Latin poems attributed to St Bernard (1890); and Bernard Délicieux et l’inquisition albigeoise (1877). To these must be added his contributions to the Dictionnaire des sciences philosophiques, Didot’s Biographie générale, the Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes, and the Journal des savants. From the time of his appointment to the Bibliothèque Nationale up to the last days of his life he was engaged in making abstracts of all the medieval Latin writings (many anonymous or of doubtful attribution) relating to philosophy, theology, grammar, canon law, and poetry, carefully noting on cards the first words of each passage. After his death this index of incipits, arranged alphabetically, was presented to the Académie des Inscriptions, and a copy was placed in the MS. department of the Bibliothèque Nationale.
See obituary notice read by Henri Wallon at a meeting of the Académie des Inscriptions on the 12th of November 1897; and the notice by Paul Meyer prefixed to vol. xxxiii. of the Histoire littéraire de la France.
HAUSA, sometimes incorrectly written Haussa, Houssa or Haoussa, a people inhabiting about half a million square miles in the western and central Sudan from the river Niger in the west to Bornu in the east. Heinrich Barth identifies them with the Atarantians of Herodotus. According to their own traditions the earliest home of the race was the divide between the Sokoto and Chad basins, and more particularly the eastern watershed, whence they spread gradually westward. In the middle ages, to which period the first authentic records refer, the Hausa, though never a conquering race, attained great political power. They were then divided into seven states known as “Hausa bokoy” (“the seven Hausa”) and named Biram, Daura, Gober, Kano, Rano, Katsena and Zegzeg, after the sons of their legendary ancestor. This confederation extended its authority over many of the neighbouring countries, and remained paramount till the Fula under Sheikh Dan Fodio in 1810 conquered the Hausa states and founded the Fula empire of Sokoto (see [Fula]).