ABSTRACT
Max Halbe’s reputation rests almost entirely with the play Jugend (1893), a tragic ‘Liebesdrama’ which portrays the tender burgeoning of adolescent love and the fatal effects of religious mania and repressed sexuality in a West Prussian setting. The play Eisgang (1892) showed Halbe to be an ardent disciple of Ibsen; Der Strom (1904), a drama of brutality and greed, uses the symbol of the river (the Vistula) and its dikes in a manner reminiscent of Theodor Storm. Halbe’s more successful narrative work includes Frau Maske (1897), a story of village life and, later, Die Auferstehungsnacht des Doktors Adalbert (1929), which verges on the fantastic. The novel Die Tat des Dietrich Stobäus (1911) is little more than a conventional detective story enhanced by a framework structure. Halbe turned to historical novels, and also made use of mythological themes (most successfully in Io (1916), a tale based on a painting by Correggio). The later works include the play Die Traumgesichte des Adam Thor (1929) and the novel Generalkonsul Stenzel und sein gefährliches Ich (1931). Halbe’s autobiographical writings Scholle und Schicksal (1933) and Jahrhundertwende (1935) are enlightening accounts of the literary world in Munich. The Gesammelte Werke appeared from 1917 to 1923 (seven vols); Sämtliche Werke (fourteen vols) appeared from 1945 to 1950.
