Gotthold Ephraim Lessing summary

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Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, (born Jan. 22, 1729, Kamenz, Upper Lusatia, Saxony—died Feb. 15, 1781, Braunschweig, Brunswick), German playwright and critic. After writing several light comedies, he became a theatre critic in Berlin in 1748. His play Miss Sara Sampson (1755) was the first German domestic tragedy. After studying philosophy and aesthetics in Breslau, he wrote the influential treatise Laocoön: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry (1766). Minna von Barnhelm (1767), his finest play, marks the beginning of classical German comedy. He was adviser to the first Hamburg national theatre and published his reviews as essays on the principles of drama in Hamburg Dramaturgy (1767–69). His Wolfenbüttel Fragments (1774–78) attacked orthodox Christianity, arousing great controversy. He also wrote the tragedy Emilia Galotti (1772) and the famous dramatic poem Nathan the Wise (1779).

essay Summary

Essay, an analytic, interpretative, or critical literary composition usually much shorter and less systematic and formal than a dissertation or thesis and usually dealing with its subject from a limited and often personal point of view. Some early treatises—such as those of Cicero on the

literary criticism Summary

Literary criticism, the reasoned consideration of literary works and issues. It applies, as a term, to any argumentation about literature, whether or not specific works are analyzed. Plato’s cautions against the risky consequences of poetic inspiration in general in his Republic are thus often

poetry Summary

Poetry, literature that evokes a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience or a specific emotional response through language chosen and arranged for its meaning, sound, and rhythm. (Read Britannica’s biography of this author, Howard Nemerov.) Poetry is a vast subject, as old as history and

comedy Summary

Comedy, type of drama or other art form the chief object of which, according to modern notions, is to amuse. It is contrasted on the one hand with tragedy and on the other with farce, burlesque, and other forms of humorous amusement. The classic conception of comedy, which began with Aristotle in