Educated at the Realschule in Breslau where he studied art, Hauptmann met Josef Block who convinced him to pursue a literary career. Hauptmann studied for a time in Jena and travelled to Italy before returning to Berlin in 1885. He then published his first work, the verse novel Promethidenlos. In 1891, he moved to Schreiberhau in Silesia and became one of Germany's greatest dramatists and one of the founders of German naturalism in literature. In 1912, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. During the First World War, Hauptmann was a pacifist and his plays reflected this. He lived through the Hitler era and survived the fire-bombing of Dresden. Among his more memorable works are Vor Sonnenaufgang (1889), Das Friedensfest (1890), Einsame Menschen (1891), Die Weber (1892), The Conflagration (Der Rode Hahn) (1901), Rose Bernd (1903), Und Pippa Tanzt (1905), Atlantis (1912), Phantom (1923), Die Goldene Harfe (1933), Hamlet im Wittenberg (1935), Sonnen (1938) and Atriden-Tetralogie (1946) |
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