Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
The founder of German classical drama, Lessing established a bourgeois realist theater in opposition to French neoclassical models. His criticism in Hamburg Dramaturgy was as influential as his plays. He championed religious tolerance and Enlightenment reason in works that still resonate.
Works
- Miss Sara SampsonSentimental tragedy about a virtuous woman seduced and abandoned by a nobleman
- Minna von BarnhelmComedy about reconciliation between a soldier and his fiancée after misunderstandings
- Emilia GalottiTragedy portraying a woman's destruction through tyrannical male authority
- Nathan the WiseEnlightenment play exploring religious tolerance and coexistence among different faiths
- LaokoonAesthetic treatise on the boundaries and relationship between painting and poetry