Arno Holz

Arno Holz (born in Rastenburg in 1863, died in Berlin in 1929) was a German poet and dramatist who brought naturalism into German literature. He worked at a time when German-language writers were searching for new forms, and his lasting importance lies in his insistence that art should come as close to reality as possible.

The son of a pharmacist, he moved with his family to Berlin in 1875. After a short spell as a journalist, he chose to make his living as a freelance writer, a decision that left him short of money for most of his life. Around 1885 he became drawn to Ibsen's naturalism, and from 1888 he worked closely with the writer Johannes Schlaf. Together they developed the idea of "consistent naturalism" in their programmatic essay Art: Its Nature and Its Laws. They published plays such as Papa Hamlet and The Selicke Family under the joint pseudonym Bjarne P. Holmsen. The reception was mixed, and the partnership ended in quarrels over money and credit.

As a poet he looked for an inner rhythm that could replace regular metre and rhyme. His best-known book, Phantasus, portrays the hungry poets of Berlin's Wedding district in a densely worked language, and he kept revising it for much of his life. In the theatre he planned a large cycle inspired by Zola that was left unfinished. His first real financial success came late, with the tragicomedy Traumulus. He lived in extreme poverty and at one point sold toys he made himself. The Nazis pushed him to the margins, regarding his theatre as decadent.

His legacy lies mainly in the renewal of form: free verse, a language close to everyday speech, and an attempt to bring life onto the stage as it actually unfolds. He is associated with the new German theatre of the late nineteenth century and with Gerhart Hauptmann, and he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times.