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Gotthold Lessing was born on 22nd January 1729 in Kamenz, Upper Lusatia Saxony GermanyGotthold Ephraim Lessing. His father was a clergyman and the author of theological writings. After visiting The Latin School in Kamenz and the Furstenschule St. Aftra in Meissen, he studied theology and medicine in Leipzig.
At the age of 12, Lessing, even then an avid reader entered the famous Furstenschule (elector’s school) of St. Afra, in Meissen. A gifted and eager student, Lessing acquired a good knowledge of Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, while his admiration for the plays of the Latin dramatists Plautus and Terence fired him with the ambition to write comedies himself.
In the autumn of 1746 Lessing entered the University of Leipzig as a student of theology. His real interests, however, lay toward literature, philosophy, and art. Lessing became fascinated by the theatre in Leipzig, which had recently been revitalized by the work of a talented and energetic actress, Caroline. Neuber took an interest in the young poet and in 1748 successfully produced his comedy Der junge Gelehrte (The Young Scholar). The play is a delightful satire on an arrogant, superficial, vain, and easily offended scholar, a figure through which Lessing mocked his own bookishness. The other comedies belonging to this Leipzig period of 1747 - 1749 (Damon, Die alte Jungfer (The Old Maid), Der Misogyn (The Misogynist), Die Juden (The Jews), Der Freigeist (The Free Thinker) are witty commentaries on human weaknesses - bigotry, prejudice, nagging, fortune hunting, matchmaking, intrigue, hypocrisy, corruption, and frivolity.
Set against this background are virtuous men and women who are considerate and selfless, sensitive and helpful, forthright, and faithful in love. In Die Juden Lessing praised unappreciated nobility of mind and thus struck a blow against bigotry toward the Jews at a time when they were still confined to a ghetto life. Lessing had set himself the goal of becoming the German Moliere: in these comedies he most interestingly begins to draw his characters as recognizable individuals, breaking away from the traditional dramatic “types.”
Early in 1748 Lessing’s parents, who disapproved of his association with the theatre in Leipzig, summoned him home. But he managed to win their consent to begin studying medicine and was soon allowed to return to Leipzig.
While living in Leipzig and Berlin Gotthold Lessing worked as a reviewer and editor for amongst others, the Vossische Zeitung from 1748 to 1760. In 1752 he took his master’s degree in Wittenberg. From 1760 to 1765 he worked in Breslau as secretary to General Tauentzien. In 1765 he returned to Berlin, only to leave again in 1767 to work for three years as a dramaturge and adviser at the German National Theatre in Hamburg. There he met Eva Konig, His future wife.
Young Lessing was one of the first to dispute his authority. In his eighteenth year he completed a comedy which was produced on the stage. Even at that age he recognized clearly the characteristics of French and English literature, and became a partisan of the latter, in order to resist the overpowering Gallic influence which then prevailed in Germany. But he stood almost alone, and there were few hands that were not raised against him. So poor that he was barely able to live, he was stamped as immoral and profligate; his contempt of the reigning pedantry was ascribed to a barbaric want of taste; and his refusal to devote himself to theology was set down as atheism. The slanders prevalent in Leipzig reached his home, and were followed by angry and reproachful letters from his father. The patience and good sense with which he endured these troubles are remarkable in one so young.
In his twenty-first year Lessing went to Berlin, where he succeeded in supporting himself by literary labor. He made the acquaintance of Moses Mendelssohn, Ramler and the poets Gleim and Von Kleist, and his mind began to develop rapidly and vigorously in a fresher and freer intellectual atmosphere. Notwithstanding his scanty earnings, he managed to collect a valuable library, and to contribute small sums from time to time for the education of his younger brothers.
In 1755 his play of Miss Sara Sampson was produced. It was modeled on the English drama, and, as the German stage up to that time had been governed entirely by French ideas, it was a sudden and violent innovation, the success of which was not assured until ten years later, when Lessing wrote Minna von Barnhelm. The English authors of Queen Anne's time, especially Swift, Steele, Addison and Pope, had an equal share with the Greek and Latin classics in determining the character of his labors. He was also a careful student of Shakespeare and of Milton, and seems to have caught from them something of the compactness and strength of his style.
After ten years, passed partly in Wittenberg, but chiefly in Berlin, Lessing became the secretary of General Tauenzien, and in 1760 followed him to Breslau, where he wrote Minna von Barnhelm, a national comedy drawn from real life, and Laocoon, which deals with the limits of poetry and painting, and was published in 1766. It may be said that the great era of German literature commenced with these works. Laocoon, in its style, in its subtlety and clearness, in its breadth of intellectual vision, was a treatise the like of which had not been seen before. It was above popularity, for it appealed only to the highest minds.
Lessing spent two more years in Berlin, living from hand to mouth, and then removed to Hamburg to assist in establishing a new theatre. The experiment was not successful, and was followed by another and more disastrous failure. In partnership with a literary friend he commenced the printing and publishing business upon an entirely new plan; but as neither he nor his partner had any practical knowledge of printing, they speedily ended in bankruptcy.
1770, Lessing, at the age of forty-one, found himself penniless, deeply in debt, his library sold, his father writing to him for money and his sister reproaching him with being a heartless and undutiful son. But during the three years that he lived in Hamburg he had written his Dramaturgie, a work second in importance only to his Laocoon.
At this juncture the duke of Brunswick offered Lessing the post of librarian at Wolfenbuttel, with a salary of 600 thalers, or about $450 a year, which position he retained until his death. He visited Mannheim and Vienna, and accompanied the duke in a journey to Italy.
Early in his life, Lessing showed interest in the theatre. In his theoretical and critical writings on the subject - as in his own plays - he tried to contribute to the development of a new bourgeois theatre in Germany. With this he especially turned against the then predominant literary theory of Gottsched and his followers. He particularly criticized the simple imitation of the French example and pleaded for a recollection of the classic theorems of Aristotle and for a serious reception of Shakespeare's works. He worked with many theatre groups.
In Hamburg he tried with others to set up the German National Theatre. Today his works appear as prototypes of the later developed German drama. In his own literary existence he also constantly strove for independence. But his ideal of a possible life as a free author was hard to keep up against the economic constraints he faced. His project of authors self-publishing their works, which he tried to accomplish in Hamburg with C.J. Bode, failed.
Lessing is important as a literary critic for his work Laocoon: an Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry.
As the work of a brilliant, major dramatist and founding father of modern German literature, Lessing’s writings are self evidently still of interest. He was one of the most outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the development of German literature. He was widely considered by theatre historians to be the first dramaturge.
In his religious and philosophical writings, he defended the faithful Christian's right for freedom of thought. He argued against the belief in revelation and the holding on to a literal interpretation of the Bible by the predominant orthodox doctrine through a problem later to be called Lessing's Ditch.
He believed in freedom and preferred no or minimum political interference on people’s beliefs. He stood up for the liberation of the upcoming bourgeoisie from the nobility making up their minds for them.
He constantly strove for independence in his own literary existence. He spoke up for tolerance of the other world religions in many arguments with representatives of the predominant schools of thought. He was famous of his friendship with Jewish- German philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. A recent biography of Mendelssohn's grandson, Felix, describes their friendship as one of the most "illuminating metaphors for the clarion call of the Enlightenment for religious."
Quotations: "If God in His right hand held all truth and in His left hand the ever-active quest for truth, although with the reminder that I shall for ever and ever err, and said to me: 'Choose, ' I would in humility choose His left hand and say: 'Father, give. Pure truth is for You alone. '
He was manly and generous. “To the end he was always ready to help those who appealed to him for aid, and he devoted himself with growing ardor to the search for truth.” This is quoted from www.nndb.com. After his death, Goethe, the most influential German writer wrote "we lose much in him, more than we can imagine," meaning that he was a valuable person.
Physical Characteristics: There is no recorded information about Lessing’s exact height, weight and eye color but from the available photos, during his time as a dramaturge of Abel Seyler’s Hamburg National theatre, he was a fine, tall, handsome man with a long partially blonde hair. He was a writer, philosopher, dramatist, publicist and art critic. Lessing advocated that dramaturges’ should carry their work out working directly with theatre companies rather than in isolation.
Quotes from others about the person
"The most deadly fruit is borne by the hatred which one grafts on an extinguished friendship."
He was son of Johann Gottfried Lessing and Justine Salome Feller. In 1776 he married Eva Konig, who was widowed, in Jork (near Hamburg). She died in 1778 after giving birth to a short-lived son.
