Radicalism in Lessing’s Domestic Drama (Miss Sara Sampson, Minna von Barnhelm, and Emilia Galotti)
In: The Radical Enlightenment in GermanySearch for other papers by Carl Niekerk in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Purchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Abstract
The following essay seeks to identify radical figures of thought in Lessing’s three domestic dramas Miss Sara Sampson (1755), Minna von Barnhelm (1763/1767), and Emilia Galotti (1772). In order to accomplish this, the essay contrasts Lessing’s works with those of the Englishman Samuel Richardson, representing a rather moderate model of Enlightenment, and the Radical Enlightenment thinker Denis Diderot, with whose dramas and essays Lessing engaged extensively through translations and his own essayistic texts. Instead of reading Lessing’s domestic dramas as a straightforward defense of the Radical Enlightenment, this essay seeks to show how the conflict between Counter-Enlightenment, Moderate, and Radical Enlightenment is expressed in these texts. The essay’s goal is an open interpretation of Lessing’s texts that shows the conflicts and dilemmas that are at the root of their plots.