Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Nineteenth-Century America: Discourse and Criticism

Surveys the considerable nineteenth-century American discourse on and response to the writings of the German dramatist, critic, art theorist, and theological thinker. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) was a leading figure in the humanist revival in German culture that culminated in Weimar Classicism. His plays and drama criticism mark the rise of middle-class forms and values and influenced contemporaries and successors alike. His work in art theory still stimulates discussion, while his liberal theological writing has had a perhaps even greater impact. In the US, Lessing first drew major attention during the German craze of the early nineteenth century and achieved his greatest fame during the third quarter of the century. His drama criticism and views on theology and the arts became entrenched in a robust American discourse about those subjects. Many Americans thought of him less as a historical figure than as a virtual contemporary. This book surveys critical commentary on Lessing published in prominent journals and periodicals from 1796 to the end of the nineteenth century, a period before the professionalization of literary scholarship in America, when individuals of varying professional backgrounds routinely assessed foreign writers in the context of their own national experience. Chapters focus on the unfolding of Lessing's presence in the US, on broad assessments of his life and work, and, respectively, on American responses to his fables and epigrams, his plays and drama criticism, his art-historical and -theoretical writing, and his theological work.