HAUPTMANN, INVITED TO COME TO AMERICA, WILL GIVE SEVEN LECTURES

Dr. Gerhart Hauptmann, who is to speak on Gothe on Friday here, has come to America at the invitation of the Gormanistic Society of America and President Butler of Columbia University. The playwright will deliver four lectures in New York, one at Johns Hopkins University, and one in Washington. On his trip to this country he is accompanied by Mrs. Hauptman, their son, Benvenuto, who has already made a name for himself as a translator of English works into German, and his secretary.

Born December 15, 1862 at Ober-Salzbrunn, Silesia, he first became interested in agriculture, but later took up the studies of the fine arts in Bresiau, and studied at the University of Jena. In 1883 he travelled widely in Italy as a student of sculpture.

Upon his return to Germany, he turned entirely to literature and soon became a leader in the Naturalistic Movement. He soon was recognized as the outstanding of the younger generation. His first important drama, "Vor Sonnenaufgang," at its first performance in 1889, caused a tremendous uproar, and from that day on his new works were awaited with eagerness. Of his many plays, the best known is "The Weavers," which, since its first appearance in 1892, has run through over a hundred editions and countless stage performances in many languages.

Though it is as a dramatist that Hauptmann is best known, he has written a number of novels and short stories of which "The Fool in Christ" 1910, and "The Heretic of Soana" have obtained the widest circulation. He has also written verse-dramas and epics. Much discussion has been aroused by one of his latest works, which is based on the stories connected with the medieval Flemish jokester, Tyll Eulenspiegel. In the year 1912 Hauptmann received the Nobel prize and he has received honorary degree from various universities, among them Oxford.

Hauptmann is recognized as the most important German dramatist of the last half century and his name is usually mentioned together with that of Ibsen. His home is in his native Silesian mountains.

The meeting in Sanders Theatre Friday will be held under the auspices of the Germanistic Society of America and the Department of Germanic Languages.