Papa Hamlet

Papa Hamlet, a collection of three stories published in 1889 with the sub-title Drei Skizzen, and alleged to be translated from the Norwegian of one Bjarne P. Holmsen. In fact they were German originals written jointly by A. Holz and J. Schlaf. Their true authorship was acknowledged when they were reprinted in 1892 in Neue Gleise.

The stories are Papa Hamlet, Der erste Schultag, and Ein Tod. All three are experiments, in which dialogue and soliloquy are used to turn the sketch into a hybrid between narrative and drama. Papa Hamlet presents the death of an ailing infant in poverty-stricken circumstances, and the eponymous principal speaker is an unsuccessful actor who had once played Hamlet. This story employs a minutely detailed realism which acquired the term Sekundenstil (see Naturalismus). Der erste Schultag portrays in a similar manner the anxieties and perplexities of Jonathan's first day at school. Ein Tod has as its subject the death by sepsis of a student wounded in a duel.