164 RECENT FOREIGN LITERATURE. Few works in France are concerned with the history of the English language, and so Joseph Delcourt's learned work, c Essai sur la langue de Sir Thomas More d'apres ses oeuvres anglaises,' is the more welcome. The author comes to the conclusion that More's English is very modern. All More's autograph English letters in the British Museum are printed in the appendix, and the book contains a complete bibliography of More's English works. The scene of Sudermann's new play, ' Die Lobgesange des Claudian,' is Milan and its neigh- bourhood and Ravenna, at the beginning of the fifth century. Among the characters are Honorius, ruler of the Western Roman Empire, and Alaric, King of the Goths. It is in prose. Somehow these historical dramas are less interesting than the domestic subjecfts of Sudermann's earlier plays. Gerhart Hauptmann, in his new verse drama, c Der Bogen des Odysseus,' has chosen the subje6t of the return of Ulysses and the slaying of the suitors. The treatment is original, since Penelope, though much spoken of, does not appear in person. The simplicity, I had almost written the baldness, of the language is extraordinary. Much, there- fore, of the success of the play would depend on the afting. The a<5lion of the play is slow and drags in part at least, such is the impression produced in reading it but it is worth pursuing for the sake of the ending, which reminds me of that of some of the best modern French comedies. When Ulysses has accomplished the death of his
