Author: LESSING, Gotthold Ephraim
Biography:
LESSING, Gotthold Ephraim (1729-81: OCGL)
The son of a Protestant pastor, he was born at Kamenz in Saxony, Germany, and educated at Meissen. Initially destined for the ministry, he enrolled at the University of Leipzig but found the program of studies uncongenial and the theatrical opportunities of the city much more to his taste. His first comedies, starting with Der junge Gelehrte (The Young Scholar, 1748), were performed in Leipzig. To pacify his parents he transferred from theology to medicine. He left the university without a degree to avoid being arrested for debt. At Wittenberg he completed his medical training but instead of going into practice as a doctor moved to Berlin, where he established himself as a freelance writer, contributing to literary reviews and founding or editing periodicals concerned with the theatre, notably the Theatralische Bibliothek (Library of Theatre) in 1754. His collected works in six volumes (1753-5) included poems, articles, and letters on various subjects. His prose Fabeln (Fables) appeared in 1759, and his influential treatise on aesthetics, Laokoon, in 1766. Lessing’s plays became more adventurous. Miss Sara Sampson (1755) was a pioneering example of domestic drama and Minna von Bernheim (1767) a “serious” comedy. Financial security eluded him until he accepted the position of librarian to the Duke of Brunswick at Wolfenbüttel in 1770 and accompanied the duke’s son on his Grand Tour in 1775-6. In 1776 Lessing married a widow, Eva König, but she died in childbirth in 1778 and he himself died at Wolfenbüttel in 1781. He had continued to write and to engage in controversy: Emilia Galotti and the blank-verse “dramatic poem” Nathan der Weise belong to this period. Such translations as appeared in English were all in prose until William Taylor of Norwich (q.v.) undertook Nathan der Weise, printed in 1791 and published in 1805. MR acknowledged the value of Lessing’s attempt to portray “mutual indulgence between religious sects,” but had some complaints about the translation and thought the play too long. (OCGL; EB 12 Apr. 2025; MR 49 [1806], 244) HJ
Other Names:
- G. E. Lessing