Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz

From Nwe


Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz (January 23, 1751, or January 12, in the Julian calendar – June 4, 1792, or May 24 in the Julian calendar) was a Russian-born German writer of the Sturm und Drang movement. Sturm and Drang or "Storm and Stress" was a movement in German literature that emphasized the volatile emotional life of the individual. It is most commonly viewed as occurring in the years 1767-1785, but sometimes 1769-1786 or 1765-1795. The name was derived from a play by Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger. The chief exponents of Sturm und Drang were Johann Georg Hamann, the young Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and his friend and collaborator Friedrich Schiller. Chief Sturm und Drang works are Goethe's play Götz von Berlichingen, his epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, and the poem "Prometheus". Sturm and Drang represented a response to the extreme rationalism of the Enlightenment.

He is considered to be an important precursor to nineteenth century Naturalism and twentieth century Expressionism in the theater.

Life

J. M. R. Lenz was born in Sesswegen, Livonia (now Cesvaine, Latvia), the son of the Pietist minister Christian David Lenz (1720-1798), later General Superintendent of Livonia. When Lenz was 9, in 1760, the family moved to Dorpat (now Tartu, Estonia), where his father had been offered a minister's post. His first published poem appeared when he was 15. From 1768 to 1770, he studied theology on a scholarship, first at Dorpat and then at Königsberg (now Kaliningrad). While there, he attended lectures by Immanuel Kant, who encouraged him to read Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He began increasingly to follow his literary interests and to neglect theology. His first independent publication, the long poem Die Landplagen ("Torments of the Land") appeared in 1769. He also studied music, most likely with either the Ukrainian virtuoso lutenist Timofey Belogradsky, then resident in Königsberg, or his student Reichardt.

In 1771, Lenz abandoned his studies in Königsberg. Much against the will of his father, who on that account broke off contact with him, he took a position little better than that of a servant with Friedrich Georg and Ernst Nikolaus von Kleist, barons from Courland and officer cadets about to begin their military service, whom he accompanied to Strasbourg. Once there, he came into contact with the actuary, Johann Daniel Salzmann, around who had formed the literary group of the Société de philosophie et de belles lettres. This was frequented also by the young Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who at this time happened to be in Strasbourg, and whose acquaintance Lenz made, as well as that of Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling. Goethe became Lenz's literary idol, and through him he made contact with Johann Gottfried Herder and Johann Kaspar Lavater, with whom he corresponded.

In the following year, 1772, he moved with his masters to the garrisons of Landau, Fort Louis and Wissembourg. He also fell in love with Friederike Brion, once the beloved of Goethe, though his feelings were not reciprocated.

In 1773, Lenz returned to Strasbourg and resumed his studies. The following year he gave up his position with the von Kleist brothers and lived as a freelance writer, earning his living through private tutoring. His relations with Goethe became friendlier: while the two of them were visiting Emmendingen, Goethe introduced Lenz to his sister Cornelia and her husband Johann Georg Schlosser.

In April 1776, Lenz followed Goethe to the court of Weimar, where he was at first amicably received. But in early December, on Goethe's instigation, he was expelled. The exact circumstances are not recorded; Goethe, who broke off all personal contact with him after this, refers only vaguely in his diary to "Lenz's idiocy" ("Lenzens Eseley").

Lenz then returned to Emmendingen, where the Schlossers took him in. From there he made a number of journeys into Alsace and Switzerland, including one to Lavater in Zürich in May 1777. The news of Cornelia Schlosser's death, which reached him there in June of that year, had a powerful effect on him. He returned to Emmendingen, and then went back to Lavater. In November, while staying in Winterthur with Christoph Kaufmann, he suffered an attack of paranoid schizophrenia. In January 1778, Kaufmann sent Lenz to the philanthropist, social reformer and clergyman Johann Friedrich Oberlin in Waldersbach in Alsace, where he stayed from January 20 to February 8. Despite the care of Oberlin and his wife, Lenz's mental condition grew worse. He returned to Schlosser at Emmendingen, where he was lodged with a shoemaker and then a forester.

His younger brother Karl fetched him in June 1779 from Hertingen, where he was under treatment by a doctor, and brought him to Riga, where their father by this time had risen to the position of General Superintendent.

Lenz was unable to establish himself professionally in Riga. An attempt to make him director of the cathedral school came to nothing, as Herder refused to give him a reference. Nor did he have any greater success in St. Petersburg, where he lived from February to September 1780. He then took a position as a private tutor on an estate near Dorpat, then, after another stay in St. Petersburg, he went to Moscow in September 1781, where initially he stayed with the historian Friedrich Müller and learned Russian.

He worked as a private tutor, mixed in the circles of Russian Freemasons and authors, helped work on a number of reformist schemes and translated books on Russian history into German. His mental condition however was steadily deteriorating all the while, and at last he became entirely dependent on the goodwill of Russian patrons for the means of living.

In the early morning of June 4, 1792 (May 24 in the Julian calendar) Lenz was found dead in a Moscow street. The place of his burial is unknown.

Lenz as a literary figure

Lenz' literary reputation comes from his Strasbourg years. His plays include "The Tutor: Or the Advantages of Private Education" (1774) and "The Soldiers," (1776) generally thought to be his best play. He also wrote some theater criticism, "Observations on the Theater," which not only contain a translation of William Shakespeare's "Love's Labour Lost," but also Lenz's own dramatic principles. He had little use of the Aristotlean "unities," (of time, place and action). He was groping for a more realistic manner of representation.

Despite his own success, he appears to have been obsessed with Goethe's place in the pantheon of German literature, producing some slavish imitations of his work and even imitating his personal life. The result was predictably disastrous. A tactless parody brought about disgrace, and his exile from court left him wandering aimlessly until his death, as insanity gradually set in.

Georg Büchner dealt with Lenz's visit to the evangelical minister Friedrich Oberlin in the Vosges in his novella Lenz. Lenz had visited Oberlin on the suggestion of Kaufmann, because of his reputation as a pastor and psychologist. Oberlin's account of the events of Lenz's visit furnished Büchner with the source of his story, which in its turn was the source of Wolfgang Rihm's chamber opera Jakob Lenz.

More recently the writers Peter Schneider, in his story Lenz (1973), and Gert Hoffmann, in his novella Die Rückkehr des verlorenen J.M.R. Lenz nach Riga (The Return of the Lost J.M.R. Lenz to Riga) (1984), have given literary form to the events of his life.

Also worth mentioning is Marc Buhl's novel of 2002, Der rote Domino ("The Red Domino"), which uses the friendship between Goethe and Lenz, and its abrupt end, as the inspiration for a detective story.

Selected works

Editions

Single works

English References

German References

Filmography

External links

All links retrieved March 14, 2018.

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