German playwright Gotthold ephraim lessing was born in Kamens, Saxony; on January 22, 1729.
Lessing, the first of the truly German playwrights, he was born into the family of a Lutheran clergyman. As was a frequent custom in clergy families, his father took care of his early education and then sent him to a famous school in Meissen. The young man Lessing He proved to be such an outstanding student that at 16 he was ready for the University of Leipzig.
The friendship couldn’t have lasted long, in any case, because Lessing he soon discovered that his own dramatic beliefs were directly opposed in principle to Voltaire’s pseudo-classicism. His revolt against the Voltaire school is expressed in a practical way in his first major work, Miss Sara Sampson (1755), a historically important bourgeois tragedy on the German scene.
In 1767 the famous Minna von Barnhelm from Lessing, the first German comedy with characters and action related to contemporary German life. So far, the income of Lessing they had been so independent that she hadn’t even considered marriage. In 1770, however, he was appointed court librarian to the Duke of Brunswick at Wolfenbuttel. With an income thus assured, he married, only to lose his wife and son at age two. To ease his pain, he immersed himself more deeply than ever in literary work. He completed during this period the remarkable prose tragedy, Emilia galotti, and wrote the mighty Nathan the Wise, a work that decidedly departed from the precedents in its choice of subject.
Lessing Not only was he the first truly German playwright, he is also known as the “father of German criticism.” Among his critical works stands out the famous Hamburg Dramaturgy, which should have been materially added to its author’s income. The Laökoön, another critical work, took poetry and painting as its theme.
The literary activity of Lessing He continued with intact vigor of mind until his sudden death, while traveling to Brunswick in 1781.