Max Halbe

Halbe, Max (Guettland nr. Danzig, 1865-1944, Neuötting, Bavaria), the son of a country gentleman, studied from 1883 to 1888 at Heidelberg, Munich, and Berlin universities, turned to writing, and in 1895 settled permanently in Munich. A follower of the Naturalistic movement (see Naturalismus), he was active both as a dramatist and as a writer of fiction. His early plays, Ein Emporkömmling (1889), a tragedy, Freie Liebe (1890), and Eisgang (1892), made little impression, but Jugend (1893) was an immediate and immense success, which he was never able to repeat.

The most notable of his later plays was Mutter Erde (1897). He also wrote the Renaissance tragedy Der Eroberer (1899) and Die Heimatlosen (1899), Das tausendjährige Reich (1900), Haus Rosenhagen (1901), Der Strom (1904), and Das wahre Gesicht (1907, also set in the Renaissance), Der Ring des Gauklers (1911), Freiheit (1913), Schloß Zeitvorbei (1917), Die Traumgesichte des Adam Thor (1929), and the historical play Heinrich von Plauen (1933). The early comedy Der Amerikafahrer (1894) was written in verse; his other comedies were Lebenswende (1896), Walpurgistag (1903), Die Insel der Seligen (1906), Blaue Berge (1909), and the grotesque Kikeriki (1921). Hortense Ruland (1917) was a late Naturalistic tragedy and Schloß Zeitvorbei (1917) a dramatic legend.

Some of Halbe's best work is in his fiction, which began with Frau Meseck (1897), the story of an aged peasant woman. Die Tat des Dietrich Stobäus (1911) is set in the country round Danzig and on the Baltic coast. The novel Jo (1917) alludes in its title to Io's erotic experience as imagined in Correggio's picture in Vienna. Halbe's later works include the novels Ge-neralkonsul Stenzel und sein gefährliches Ich (1931) and Die Elixiere des Glücks (1936) and the plays Erntefest (1936) and Kaiser Friedrich II (1940), a return to histor-ical drama. Sämtliche Werke (14 vols.) appeared in 1945-50; the autobiographical volume Jahrhundert-wende. Geschichte meines Lebens 1893-1914 (1935) was published in 1976 with the subtitle Erinnerungen an eine Epoche; his autobiography, Jugend, in 1984.