Lenz, Jakob Michael Reinhold | Norman R. Diffey (essay date 1990)
Norman R. Diffey (essay date 1990)
SOURCE: Diffey, Norman R. “J. M. R. Lenz and the Humanizing Role of Literature.” In Man and Nature: Proceedings of the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Volume IX, edited by Hans-Günther Schwarz, David McNeil, and Roland Bonnel, pp. 109-17. Edmonton: Academic Printing and Publishing, 1990.
[In the following essay, Diffey explains Lenz's ambivalence, even pessimism, concerning the role of literature in improving society.]
The name J. M. R. Lenz stands in a symbolic relationship with the Sturm und Drang. In life and work, his destiny was intimately linked to that of the movement in a way less true of his contemporaries. His provocative plays and theoretical writings sprang from a consuming commitment to the artistic and social ideals expressed in the remarkable eruption of the early seventeen-seventies; thereafter he wrote little of enduring worth. A spent force, he was to incur...
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