82. Memorial Service for Theodor Fontane

The memorial service for Theodor Fontane, which was organized by the Berlin association “Freie Bühne” on October 16 [1898], included an interesting commemorative speech by Otto Brahms, director of the Deutsches Theater. Brahm was one of the first to put his critical talent at the service of the new literary movements that were emerging in Germany in the 1880s, and Theodor Fontane, although he was already one of the “old guard” at the time, warmly welcomed the “young” and showed them an understanding as if he had become young again with them. The critic Brahm had personal connections with Theodor Fontane, and in his speech he was able to share memories and passages from letters that shed a beautiful light on the poet's personality. After the establishment of the “Freie Bühne”, Fontane immediately pointed out Gerhart Hauptmann as the artist of the future and followed every further step of the same with heartfelt interest. He expressed this interest in his letters in a way that testifies to the high artistic sense as well as the fine humor of the poet. Fontane found significant and also witty words for what Sudermann, Georg Hirschfeld and other younger poets have achieved. Otto Brahm shed light on the relationship between the “Poet of the Mark” and the “Nordic liberator” Henrik Ibsen in a somewhat dry but nonetheless subtle manner. He showed how close the two poets were to each other in their understanding of human relationships and mental processes, and how they touched on social criticism in their works. Otto Brahm has excellently brought out the artistic and human physiognomy of Fontane. He counts the poet among the naturalists because he never believed in a legislative aesthetic in his whole life, but left himself to the free rule of his nature. Nobody can be more convinced than Fontane was that the ethical and artistic standards of people are constantly changing. He never asked how a work of art related to general rules, but always based his judgment on the individual impression it made on him. Even when the “young” behaved somewhat boisterously, Fontane did not confront them with the aesthetic rules in a blustering manner, as other “old” people did. He understood them even in their excesses, for he knew that many futile attempts must be made if something fruitful and future-proof is to develop in the end. For him, even the rejection of the younger generation by his contemporaries was incomprehensible. He could not really understand why the old trees did not want to tolerate the young offspring that had grown from the seeds they themselves had ripened.