"Bahnwärter Thiel" (1988), by far the best story ever written by Gerhart Hauptmann, follows the principles of the Naturalist movement in its detailed study of the life and milieu of a humble and apparently unexceptional Prussian railwayman. Yet in its exploitation of symbolism, of techniques sometimes close to Impressionism, and in its subtle use of a changing narrative perspective, this Novelle goes beyond the essentially 'scientific' Naturalist approach: Hauptmann thus succeeds in exploring the complex interaction of suppressed social, psychological, physiological, and religious impulses far better than in any other work of this era.
This new edition has been prepared with