C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781)
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim (les’ing). A great German poet, and the foremost critic of German literature; born at Kamenz in Upper Lusatia, Jan. 22, 1729; died at Brunswick, Feb. 15, 1781. Among his writings are: ‘The Young Savant,’ a comedy (1750); ‘Trifles,’ a collection of his lyric poems (1751); ‘Rehabilitations’ (1751)—redeeming from obloquy the name and fame of sundry historical personages; ‘Miss Sara Sampson’ (1755), a tragedy; ‘The Free-Thinker,’ ‘The Jews,’ ‘The Woman-Hater’ (1755), comedies; ‘Pope a Metaphysician!’ (1755); ‘Letters on Literature’ (1758); ‘Philotas,’ a prose tragedy (1759); ‘Laocoön: on the Boundaries of Painting and Poetry,’ Part i. (1766),—the second part was never written; ‘Minna von Barnhelm,’ a comedy (1767); ‘Antiquarian Letters’ (1768); ‘Emilia Galotti,’ a tragedy (1772); ‘Nathan the Wise’ (1779); ‘Education of the Human Race’ (1780); ‘Ernst and Falk’ (1780). (See Critical and Biographical Introduction).