Biography
Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811), born in Frankfurt an der Oder into a Prussian military family, is one of the most singular voices in German literature—a writer whose plays and novellas found full recognition only after his death. His verse comedies Amphitryon (1807) and Der zerbrochne Krug (1808), the fragmentary Die Familie Schroffenstein, and his late masterpieces Penthesilea, Käthchen von Heilbronn, and the posthumous Prinz Friedrich von Homburg (1821) represent a unique fusion of classical structure and proto-modernist psychological extremity. His novellas Michael Kohlhaas and Die Marquise von O... anticipated psychological realism by a century. Kleist also founded the Berliner Abendblätter newspaper, wrote essays on aesthetics, and composed the political pamphlet Die Hermannsschlacht. He committed suicide at thirty-four with his terminally ill friend Henriette Vogel at the Kleiner Wannsee in Berlin—a pact that has fascinated German literary culture ever since.
On Stagelog
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