LENZ, JAKOB MICHAEL REINHOLD (1751-1792)

This article appears in Volume V16, Page 431 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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LENZ, JAKOB MICHAEL REINHOLD (1751-1792) , German . poet, was born at Sesswegen in

Livonia

LIVONIA, or LIVLAND (Russian, Liflandia)

, the son of the

village

VILLAGE

pastor, on the 12th of January 1751. He removed with his parents to Dorpat in 1759, and soon began to compose sacred odes, in the manner of Klopstock. In 1768 he entered the university of

Konigsberg

KONIGSBERG (Polish Krolewiec)

as a student of theology, and in 1771 accompanied, as tutor, two

young

German nobles, named von Kleist, to Strassburg, where they were to enter the Frencharmy. In Strassburg Lenz was received into the literary circle that gathered round

Friedrich

FRIEDRICH, JOHANN (1836— )

Rudolf Salzmann (17491821) and became acquainted with Goethe, at that time a student at the university. In order to be close to his

young

pupils, Lenz had to remove to Fort Louis in the neighbourhood, and while here became deeply enamoured of Goethe's friend, Friederike Elisabeth Brion (1752-1813), daughter of the pastor of Sesenheim. Lenz endeavoured, after Goethe's departure from Strassburg, to replace the

great

GREAT

poet in her affections, and to her he poured out songs and poems (Die Liebe auf dem Lande) which were long attributed to Goethe himself, as was also Lenz's first drama, the comedy, Der Hofmeister, oder Vorteile der Privaterziehung (1774). In 1776 he visited

Weimar

WEIMAR

and was most kindly received by the duke; but his rude, overbearing manner and vicious habits led to his expulsion. In 1777 he became insane, and in 1779 was removed from Emmendingen, where J. G. Schlosser (17391799), Goethe's brother-in-law, had given him a

home

, to his native

village

VILLAGE

. Here he lived in

great

GREAT

poverty for several years, and then was given, more out of charity than on account of his merits, the appointment of tutor in a pension school near Moscow, where he died on the 24th of May 1792. Lenz, though one of the most talented poets of the Sturm and Drang period, presented a strange medley of genius and childishness. His great, though neglected and distorted, abilities found vent in ill-conceived imitations of Shakespeare. His comedies, Der Hofineister; Der neue Menoza (1774); Die Soldaten (1776); Die Freunde machen den Philosophen (1776), though accounted the best of his works, are characterized by unnatural situations and an incongruous mixture of tragedy and comedy.
Lenz's Gesammelte Schriften were published by L. Tieck in three volumes (1828); supplementary to these volumes are E. Dorer-Egloff, J. M. R. Lenz and seine Schriften (1857) and K. Weinhold Dramatischer Nachlass von J. M. R. Lenz (1884) ; a selection ots Lenz's writings will be found in A. Sauer, Stiirmer und Dranger, ii.; Kiirschner's Deutsche Nationalliteratur, vol. lxxx., (1883). See further E. Schmidt, Lenz and Klinger (1878); J. Froitzheim, Lenz and Goethe (1891); H. Rauch, Lenz and Shakespeare (1892); F. Waldmann, Lenz in Briefen (1894).

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