Carl Hauptmann’s early dramas were generally classified as belonging to naturalism. However in spite of his affiliation with the realistic and the concrete, he sought the essence of literature not in the material but rather in the spiritual and intellectual content. In addition to the well-known dramas, this volume contains the stage version, in five acts, of the ›Waldleute‹ (Forest People) and the previously unpublished prose version of the ›Austreibung‹ (The Expulsion).