CERN! AN Da.vm.v. The German drama is al most wholly dependent for its fame upon the names of Lessing, and Schiller. For while Ilans Sachs, Ayrer, and some others showed ability and some fertility, and while Oryphius, Cottsched, Gellert, and Schlegel made advanees in the appreciation of the laws of dramat is COM yet through the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries the I wrinan theatre was little more than a feeble re fit x t l'r•neli influence. Lessing, however. taught tft rn.any to appreciate the productitats it the ro t Antic drama, both by hi, ereations and by his riticisms. Ilis Mist: sears .xtralpsott, his comedy 111111i rue BOT11111( ha, and his later tragedies a new era for the drama. while in his //oat burgisehe Drama t rgic lie attacked Freneli elassici•m. praised Shakespeare, and pro fessed his adherence to the principles of _\ris ti t le. rt0(the., great is without doubt one of the xvorld's foremost geniuses: yet it is debatable whether his rank among writers for the stage i. quite so high. list must always retain its place as one of the greatest of nualt•rn compositions: but his chief purpose was complete self-cultivation. and in the pro logue to this, his last, and by far his most fa Molls production, lie sets forth why, although 'writing in the dramatic form, he could not al together aceommodate himself to the demands of a popular theatre. was more expressly the dramatic poet of (;'erinany than Coethe.
Cftwthe's genius was fuller and more com plete. Schiller made up for what he wanted in breadth of by the practical intensity of his powers. From his wild play of Die fettuttcr down to his last drama id i I hel m Tell, lie '1% irked with a vehemence that made an enduring impression upon the national theatre. his con temporary I Illand, actor and manager a- well as dramatist, sheath] not he left unmentioned; nor such actors as the Di'Vricut-, riider. 1)awison. Friedrich Haase, and who have maintained the of the before the public. Leading Cerman drannitists of to day are Suderniann, who is counted a member of the naturalistic sultool, a writer of problem plays in which, theatrical elicit is no les- carefully studied: Ilauptinalin. in whom
the evidences of symbolistic tendtmeies are more apparent : and, aunong the younger men, llalbe and I la rt leben.
Ift*•en, SCANDINAVIAN, AND 11/.11.61.%N DRANI.%. Among the Dutch. the drama has had but slight independent growth. In the sixteenth and seven teenth eenturies, van den •ondel and others par ticipated in the dramatic revival that followed the but the later Dutch stage large ly imitated that of Frantic. The Seandinavian eountries have more recently developed a drama of importanee. In the first half of the nineteenth century. nehlenschlitger. in Denmark. with his 11-e of the heroic figures of the northern mythol ogy. belongs among the followers of the roman tic school. The Norwegians Byanson and lb-en, following later tendencies, have bocome very dis I inet ive figures in the drama of p•ychologieal and st eial problems, the work of 'Ibsen especially having become a battleground of the critic.. In Belgium, white]] has been counted, from an artis tic point of view, as a province I if l'rance, the most noted work of repent years has been that of t he 11110 play• as an extreme type of some of the features of the ti ovenient.
Ilussi‘x Difv.xt is also of late di velopment.
then• had to•4•11 religious plays if an earlier 'lay, the first Russian theatre in Saint Petersburg was in 17r0t, and there its director. Sumarolsoff. and and others of the time wri to piece- in the French -tyke. Catharine II. herself wrote satirical comedies. and It/let-off is a writer of tragedies of some reputation. To the nineteenth century be long Griltoyt dia. the author of t;orc of Marna Ili-fortune of Being ton Clever•I tfogol, \chose comedy /t't ri:or made a great sensation: Pushkin. whose Boris i;ttftt. mg/ show- the change French to --hake influence: and fist•ovski, a writer of numerous vowed ies.