LESSING, GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM Ger man critic and dramatist, was born at Kamenz in Upper Lusatia (Oberlausitz), Saxony, on Jan. 22, 1729. His father, Johann Gottfried Lessing, was pastor primarius or chief pastor of Ka menz. After attending the Latin school of his native town, Gott hold was sent in 1741 to the famous school of St. Afra at Meissen.
In 1746 he entered the University of Leipzig, nominally as a the ological student. He was most interested, however, in the phil ological lectures of Johann Friedrich Christ (17oo-56) and Jo hann August Ernesti (1707-81), and in the philosophical dispu tations presided over by his friend A. G. Kastner. Among Lessing's chief friends in Leipzig were C. F. Weisse the dramatist, and Christlob Mylius (1722-54), who had made some name for himself as a journalist. He was particularly at tracted by the theatre then directed by the talented actress Karoline Neuber (1697-176o), who even accepted for perform ance Lessing's first comedy, Der junge Gelehrte (1748), which he had begun at school. His father disapproved of these activities and summoned him home. He was allowed to return to Leipzig only on condition that he devote himself to the study of medicine. Some medical lectures he did attend, but as long as Frau Neuber's company kept together the theatre had an irre sistible fascination for him.
In 1748, however, the company broke up, and Lessing, who had allowed himself to become surety for some of the actors' debts, was obliged to leave Leipzig too, in order to escape their creditors. He went to Wittenberg, and afterwards, towards the end of the year, to Berlin, where his friend Mylius was already established. In Berlin Lessing now spent three years, during which he developed his lucid prose style, and his admirable critical faculty. He translated three volumes of Charles Rollin's Histoire ancienne, wrote several plays—Der Misogyn, Der Freigeist, Die Juden—and in association with Mylius, began the Beitrdge zur Historie and Aufnahme des Theaters (175o), a periodical—which soon came to an end—for the discussion of matters connected with the drama. Early in 1751 he became literary critic to the Vos
siscize Zeitung. At the end of 1751 he was in Wittenberg again, where he spent about a year engaged in unremitting study and research and took his master's degree. He then returned to Berlin, and the next three years were among the busiest of his life. Be sides translating for the booksellers, he issued several numbers of the Theatralische Bibliothek, and continued his work as critic to the Vossische Zeitung.
In 1753 Lessing issued an edition of his collected writings (Schriften, 6 vols., 1753-55). They included his lyrics and epi grams, most of which had already appeared during his first resi dence in Berlin in a volume of Kleinigkeiten, published anony mously. Much more important were the papers entitled Rettun gen, in which he vindicated writers of the Reformation period, such as Cochlaeus and Cardanus—who had been misunderstood or falsely judged by preceding generations. The Schriften also con tained Lessing's early plays, and one new one, Miss Sara Sampson (1755), a landmark in the history of the German drama, which was at that time imitative of contemporary French drama. This play, based more or less on Lillo's Merchant of London, and in fluenced in its character-drawing by the novels of Richardson, is the first biirgerliches Trauerspiel, or "tragedy of common life" in German. It was performed for the first time at Frankfort-on Oder in the summer of 1755, and received with great favour. Among Lessing's chief friends during his second residence in Ber lin was the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, with whom he wrote in 1755 an admirable treatise. Pope ein Metaphysiker! tracing sharply the lines which separate the poet from the philosopher. He was also on intimate terms with C. F. Nicolai (1733-1811), a Berlin bookseller and rationalistic writer, and with the "German Horace" K. W. Ramler (1725-98); he had also made the acquaint ance of J. W. L. Gleim (1719-18°3), the Halberstadt poet, and E. C. von Kleist, a Prussian officer, whose fine poem, Der Frialing, had won for him Lessing's warm esteem.