Always he dealt in will, in inner urges, often specifically in “the hellish drive out of which no joy remains alive.” His characters, no matter how often balked, derided, or wounded, return to the attack Until they are killed. Emotion is an inexhaustible force. The drama of opposed views, of contrasted attitudes on points of conduct or belief, can offer nothing so enthralling as this insatiable struggle for the most fundamental pleasures humanity knows--which never ultimately or for long are pleasures! And the same Satanic return to the attack, repeated efforts at destruction, are seen in Wedekind’s own life, hurling play after play against conventional society. At last, after his death, conventional society broke down, and the forces of disruption honored him, and the confused masses sought in his other, Utopian, constructive work for light upon the society that is to come. To few writers is such posthumous homage given; by few can such a reversal of judgment be expected. Wedekind remained ever true to himself, his deeply divided, contrary self, now appearing through his plays, now vanishing again behind his characters, but always vividly alive: one could feel _him_, one had the sense of human passion and struggle, of something personally experienced and sweated out, in almost all his work. Hence, in the last analysis, his hold upon our later generation: we too want life, not literature--personality, not limpid art--original thought, even destructive and extravagant, not old truths, even the deepest, newly dressed. Wedekind, like Strindberg, like Andreiev, and like Shaw, meets these demands. If America should ever have reason to turn pessimistic, Wedekind will be waiting; and even as America is, in Wedekind she can find much that is vital, life-promoting, of immediate power and worth. SAMUEL A. ELIOT, JR. Smith College, January, 1923. SPRING’S AWAKENING (FRÜHLINGS ERWACHEN) A Children’s Tragedy _Dedicated to_ THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN CHARACTERS MELCHIOR GABOR } MORITZ STIEFEL } HÄNSCHEN RILOW } ERNEST ROEBEL } _Schoolboys, aged 14 to 17_ LÄMMERMEIER } OTTO } GEORGE } ROBERT } DIETHELM } REINHOLD } RUPRECHT } _Boys in a House of Correction_ HELMUTH } GASTON } MR. GABOR, a Judge } MRS. FANNY GABOR } _Melchior’s Parents_ MR. STIEFEL, _Moritz’s Father_ MR. ZIEGENMELKER, _his Friend_ MR. PROBST, _Moritz’s Uncle_ REV. MR. KAHLBAUGH, _Pastor_ DR. SONNENSTICH, Principal } DR. AFFENSCHMALZ } DR. KNOCHENBRUCH } _The Faculty of the DR. ZUNGENSCHLAG } Boys’ School_ DR. KNÜPPELDICK } DR. HUNGERGURT } DR. FLIEGENTOD }