author
Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz
1751–1792
A restless, brilliant voice of the Sturm und Drang era, this dramatist and poet pushed German literature toward sharper realism and social criticism. His plays still feel alive for the way they expose class pressure, private desperation, and the strain of living against the rules.
8 Audiobooks
Die Soldaten
by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz
Der Hofmeister
by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz
Der Waldbruder, ein Pendant zu Werthers Leiden
by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz
Vertheidigung des Herrn Wieland gegen die Wolken, von dem Verfasser der Wolken Deutsche Litteraturdenkmale des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts, No. 121, Dritte Folge No. 1
by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz
Der Engländer
by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz
Der Dichter Lenz und Friedericke von Sesenheim Aus Briefen und gleichzeitigen Quellen; nebst Gedichten und Anderm von Lenz und Göthe
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz, James Macpherson
Zerbin, oder die neuere Philosophie
by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz
Der Landprediger
by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz
About the author
Born in 1751 in Sesswegen, in Livonia (now Cesvaine, Latvia), Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz was a Baltic German writer who became one of the striking talents of the Sturm und Drang movement. The son of a Pietist pastor, he studied theology at Königsberg before moving into literary life, and he spent time in Strasbourg, where he entered the circle around the young Goethe.
Lenz is best remembered for plays such as Der Hofmeister (The Tutor) and Die Soldaten (The Soldiers). These works stood out for their strong dramatic energy and their unusually direct attention to social inequality, humiliation, and the damage done by rigid class expectations. Later critics have often seen him as an important forerunner of modern realistic drama.
His life was troubled and unstable, especially after his break with the Weimar circle. He struggled with severe mental distress, wandered through different cities, and died in Moscow in 1792. Although he was long overshadowed by bigger names of his age, his writing has endured because of its intensity, sympathy for the vulnerable, and fearless view of society.