Sudermann, Hermann

Related Category: German Literature: Biographies

(hĕr´män z´dərmän), 1857–1928, German dramatist and novelist. His play Die Ehre (1889; tr. Honor, 1906) was one of the first successes of the burgeoning German naturalist movement. Sudermann's works became immensely popular, particularly the psychological novel Frau Sorge (1887; tr. Dame Care, 1891) and the play Heimat (1893; tr. Magda, 1896), a vehicle for Sarah Bernhardt and for Mrs. Patrick Campbell. His finest drama is probably Fritzchen, one of the three one-act plays published in Morituri (1897); it portrays the harshness of the Prussian officer code. Many of Sudermann's plays and such novels as Es war (1894) and Das hohe Lied (1908; tr. The Song of Songs, 1909) effectively bare the crudity and immorality of the Prussian aristocracy and the corruption of Berlin society.