Project Gutenberg's Minna von Barnhelm, by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

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Title: Minna von Barnhelm

Author: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Translator: Ernest Bell

Posting Date: December 25, 2008 [EBook #2663]
Release Date: June, 2001

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MINNA VON BARNHELM ***

Produced by Dagny, Emma Dudding, and John Bickers

MINNA VON BARNHELM

or, THE SOLDIER'S FORTUNE

By Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Translated By Ernest Bell

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was born at Kamenz, Germany, January 22,
1729, the son of a Lutheran minister. He was educated at Meissen
and Leipzic, and began writing for the stage before he was twenty.
In 1748 he went to Berlin, where he met Voltaire and for a time
was powerfully influenced by him. The most important product of
this period was his tragedy of "Miss Sara Samson," a modern
version of the story of Medea, which began the vogue of the
sentimental middle-class play in Germany. After a second sojourn
in Leipzic (1755-1758), during which he wrote criticism, lyrics,
and fables, Lessing returned to Berlin and began to publish his
"Literary Letters," making himself by the vigor and candor of his
criticism a real force in contemporary literature. From Berlin he
went to Breslau, where he made the first sketches of two of his
greatest works, "Laocoon" and "Minna von Barnhelm," both of which
were issued after his return to the Prussian capital. Failing in
his effort to be appointed Director of the Royal Library by
Frederick the Great, Lessing went to Hamburg in 1767 as critic of
a new national theatre, and in connection with this enterprise he
issued twice a week the "Hamburgische Dramaturgie," the two
volumes of which are a rich mine of dramatic criticism and theory.

His next residence was at Wolfenbuttel, where he had charge of the
ducal library from 1770 till his death in 1781. Here he wrote his
tragedy of "Emilia Galotti," founded on the story of Virginia, and
engaged for a time in violent religious controversies, one
important outcome of which was his "Education of the Human Race."
On being ordered by the Brunswick