KLEIST, EWALD CHRISTIAN VON (17151759)

This article appears in Volume V15, Page 846 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: KHA-KRI

KLEIST, EWALD CHRISTIAN VON (17151759) , German poet, was bore] at Zeblin, near Koslin in

Pomerania

POMERANIA (German, Pommern)

, on the 7th of

March

1715. After attending the Jesuit school in Deutschkrona and the gymnasium in Danzig, he proceeded in 1731 to the university of

Konigsberg

KONIGSBERG (Polish Krolewiec)

, where he studied law and mathematics. On the completion of his studies, he entered the Danish army, in which he became an officer in 1736. Recalled to Prussia by Frederick II. in 1740, he was appointed

lieutenant

LIEUTENANT

in a regiment stationed at Potsdam, where he became acquainted with J. W. L. Gleim (q.v.), who interested him in poetry. After distinguishing himself at the battle of Mollwitz (April lo, 1741) and the siege of Neisse (1741), he was promoted captain in 1749 and major in r7J6. Quartered during the winter of 17571758 in

Leipzig

LEIPZIG

, he found relief from his irksome military duties in the society of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (q.v.). Shortly afterwards in the battle of Kunersdorf, on the 12th of August 1759, he was mortally wounded while leading the attack, and died at Frankfort-on-Oder on the 24th of August following.
Kleist's

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

work

WORK

is a poem in hexameters, Der Fruhling (1749), for which Thomson's Seasons largely supplied ideas. In his description of the beauties of nature Kleist shows real poetical genius, an almost modern sentiment and fine

taste

TASTE (from Lat. taxare, to touch sharply; tangere, to touch)

.. He also wrote some charming odes, idylls and elegies, and a small epic poem Cissides and Paches (1759), the subject being two Thessaliaa friends who die an heroic death for their country in a battle against the Athenians.
Kleist published in 1756 the first collection of his Gedichte, which was followed by a second in 1758. After his death his friend Karl Wilhelm Ramler (q.v.) published an edition of Kleists sdmtliche Werke in 2 vols. (1760). A

critical

CRITICAL (in alphabetical order of authors)

edition was published by A. Sauer, in 3 vols. (1880-1882). Cf. further, A. Chuquet, De Ewaldi Kleistii vita et scriptis (Paris, 1887), and H. Prahle,

Friedrich

FRIEDRICH, JOHANN (1836— )

der Grosse and die deutsche Literatur (1872).

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