ABSTRACT
The ten or so years which preceded the real breakthrough of Ibsen (with Ghosts in 1887) and Gerhart Hauptmann (with Vor Sonnenaufgang in 1889) are a very confused decade. Ten years is probably too long a period for any but the smallest and tightest literary circle to preserve its identity, and the term Naturalism, in the context of German literature, describes a very loose coalition within which no single figure or group succeeded in securing a dominant position, not even the slightly older Hart brothers. It was only in the early years of the movement, when the principal task was a negative one, that there was any very wide degree of agreement between the factions which went to make up the coalition.
