Hither came, among many
others, the brothers Hart, the novelist Kretzer, Wilhelm Boelsche, the
inexhaustible prophet of the new science and the new art, and finally,
the founder of German naturalism as distinguished from that of
France--Arno Holz, The efforts of all these men harmonised with
Hauptmann's mood. Naturalistic art goes for its subject matter to the
forgotten and disinherited of the earth, and it was with these that
Hauptmann was primarily concerned. He read Darwin and Karl Marx,
Saint-Simon and Zola. He was absorbed not by any problem of art but by
the being and fate of humanity itself.
Under these influences and governed by such thoughts, he began his career
as a man of letters anew. But his progress was slow and uncertain. In
1887 he published in Conrad's _Gesellschaft_ an episodic story,
_Bahnwaerter Thiel_, weak in narrative technique and obviously inspired by
Zola. Even the sudden expansion of human characters into demonic symbols
of their ruling passions is imitated. The medium clearly irked him and
gave him no opportunity for personal expression. For many months his
activity was tentative and fruitless. Early in 1889, however, Arno Holz,
known until then only by a volume of brave and resonant verse, visited
Erkner and brought with him his theory of "consistent naturalism" as
illustrated by _Papa Hamlet_ and _Die Familie Selicke_, sketches and a
drama in manuscript.
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