Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: GERMAN DRAMA FROM 1830-85 YOUNG GERMANY AND ITS FOLLOWERS The fifty-five years from 1830-85 present a picture of the condition of the German drama outwardly similar to that of the preceding period. Schiller remains, with few exceptions, the only model for tragedy, and the tradition of Romanticism continues with decreasing influence until it gradually dies out. The great changes in the political and social conditions of Germany do not find expression on the stage. The greatest writers of the times, who are aiming at a new art suited to their day, are scarcely noticed and gain no influence over the production of the others or the taste of the spectators. The German drama keeps sinking lower and lower to a powerless decadence. The theatre becomes more and more the home of hollow phrases and shallow entertainment while the belief in the exclusive rights of the idealizing form is strenuously upheld. Musical drama alone reaches the highest point of its development through the mighty creative work of Richard Wagner. How little it was possible in this period to convert the correct perception of the artistic needs of the present into deeds is shown by the example of that group of writers brought together under the name, Das junge Deutschland. They represented in general the demands of the Liberals in Paris in the July-revolution of 1830 and opposed the romanticist alienation from life and reality as well as all false idealism and visionary caprice. Ludolf Wienbarg, the aesthetic authority of "Young Germany," insists upon the treatment of subjects true to and full of life and emphasizes above all what is important for the present of any particular time. The place of poetic fancy is to be taken by that enthusiasm which inspires to deeds. The Middle Ages have outlived themselves and ...