The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Problematische Naturen
PROBLEMATISCHE NATUREN
(‘Problematical Natures’). Like Freytag and
Paul Heyse, Friedrich Spielhagen was chiefly
concerned, in his novels, with defining the
warring elements of German character and the
opposing springs of German action in the period
before and after the revolution of 1848. Like
Freytag and Heyse, Spielhagen saw clearly the
dangers that threatened the country, politically,

religiously and morally from a reactionary
aristocracy; like Heyse and unlike Freytag he
saw the hope of the nation in the spread of
an enlightened democracy rather than in a
spiritual renascence of the ruling classes.
Oswald Stein, the hero of his most famous novel,
‘Problematische Naturen,’ is the mouthpiece
for Spielhagen's revolutionary social theories.
He is modelled after those characters of whom
Goethe wrote “There are problematical natures
that do not fit into any situation and who
remain always unsatisfied. For them there arises
a terrible conflict that consumes life without
enjoyment.” For Spielhagen the conflict itself,
even though it ends in defeat, is victory; the
mere struggle against the domination of dead
ideas is progress. For such a philosophy there
could be no better historical background than
the Germany of 1848 and after, and ‘Problematische
Naturen’ with its sequel ‘Durch Nacht
zum Licht,’ although it squanders material for
half a dozen novels, idealizes Teutonic
morbidity, and forsakes art for tendency, tells with
remarkable vividness, the story of the men and
women who lived and thought and fought for
freedom in Germany's day of hope. A notable
description of the literature of this period is
to be found in Julian Schmidt's ‘Geschichte der
Deutschen Literatur.’