United States or New Caledonia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The conclusion of Emilia Galotti, for instance, makes one leave the theatre completely ill at ease; and, on the other hand, all the rules of female honor cannot prevent a certain sympathy with Clara in Egmont.
The comic secondary figures are drawn with much drollery and humour, and bear a genuine German stamp. Emilia Galotti was still more admired than Minna von Barnhelm, but hardly, I think, with justice. Its plan, perhaps, has been better considered, and worked out with still greater diligence; but Minna von Barnhelm answers better to the genuine idea of Comedy than Emilia Galotti to that of Tragedy.
Virginia is converted into a Countess Galotti, Virginius into Count Odoardo, an Italian prince takes the place of Appius Claudius, and a chamberlain that of the unblushing minister of his lusts, &c.
As a dramatist, the author of Miss Sara Sampson, of Emilia Galotti, and above all that noble dramatic poem, Nathan the Wise, could hardly have owed much to the author of such poor stuff as The Natural Son and The Father of the Family. Lessing had some dramatic fire, invention, spontaneous elevation; he had a certain measure, though not a very large one, of poetic impulse.
The former became by degrees quite epigrammatical in his poems, terse in "Minna," laconic in "Emilia Galotti," it was not till afterwards that he returned to that serene /naivete/ which becomes him so well in "Nathan."
As Von Paradies turned the book over to his daughter, she gave him a reproachful look. She opened it and read: "Emilia Galotti, by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing." "And, now," continued she, "if one of the ladies present will select a passage, and another will look over me as I read, the audience can thus convince themselves that I see."
They had laid Werther on the bed: his head was bound up, and the paleness of death was upon his face. His limbs were motionless; but he still breathed, at one time strongly, then weaker his death was momently expected. He had drunk only one glass of the wine. "Emilia Galotti" lay open upon his bureau. I shall say nothing of Albert's distress, or of Charlotte's grief.
In his "Minna von Barnhelm," he inculcates the finest feelings of honor; his "Nathan" is replete with the wisdom "that cometh from above" and with calm dignity; and in "Emilia Galotti" he has been the first to draw the veil, hitherto respected, from scenes in real life. His life was, like his mind, independent. He was the boldest, freest, finest spirit of the age.
In comparing the Messiah with the "Paradise Lost," Herder says: "Milton's poem Is a building resting on mighty pillars; Klopstock's, a magic picture hovering between heaven and earth, amid the tenderest emotions and the most moving scenes of human nature." He was equally eminent as a dramatist, critic, and philosopher. His principal dramatic productions are "Emilie Galotti" and "Nathan the Wise."
His "Emilia Galotti" still holds a high position on the German stage and has fine poetic qualities, but it is written in prose. His "Nathan the Wise" was written in verse, but did not prove a success as a drama. In one he attacked the tyranny of the German petty princes, and in the other the intolerance of the Established Church.
Word Of The Day