These works, however, marked a transition. For with his thirtieth year Hofmannsthal entered upon a new period and a new manner. The study of the antique Greek drama and of early English dramatists diverted him from the self-absorption and self-reflection of his previous work, and may have brought home to him the necessity of finding a more fertile source for his art than his own individual soul. The extraordinary success of Wilde's _Salome_ opened possibilities of applying the pathological knowledge of the present to the interpretation of the past. He chose for this momentous departure the _Electra_ of Sophocles (1903). Taking from the Greek poet the mere skeleton of the story, he modified the characters according to his own vision and the psychopathic viewpoint of the time--a liberty which some critics justified, others branded as an unpardonable license. But the work was a turning-point for Hofmannsthal, for he has since begun to face life more directly and squarely and though he has not reached a wholesome reading of it, he has at least struck new and powerful notes that contrast strongly with the spirit of his previous works. Enforced by the music of Richard Strauss, whose naturalism is the immediate expression of his robust virility, Hofmannsthal's _Electra_ has made the name of the author known throughout the world. To his association with the sturdy Bavarian composer is also due the comedy _Der Rosenkavalier_ (1911), which with its daring situations and touches of drastic burlesque harks back to the spirit of the comedy of Moliere's time, though in its way it is also a product of the reaction against the puerile and commonplace inoffensiveness of mid-century letters inaugurated by Young Germany. Since his association with Richard Strauss has weaned Hofmannsthal from the somewhat effete estheticism and pessimism of his youth, it is a matter of interesting conjecture what further effect it may have upon his development.