Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz
Encyclopedia
Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz (23 January 1751, or 12 January in the Julian calendar
–4 June 1792, or 24 May in the Julian calendar) was a Baltic German
writer of the Sturm und Drang
movement.
, now Latvia
, the son of the pietistic
minister Christian David Lenz (1720–1798), later General Superintendent of Livonia. When Lenz was 9, in 1760, the family moved to Dorpat (Tartu)
, where his father had been offered a minister's post. His first published poem appeared when he was 15. From 1768 to 1770 he studied theology on a scholarship, first at Dorpat and then at Königsberg
. While there, he attended lectures by Immanuel Kant
, who encouraged him to read Jean-Jacques Rousseau
. He began increasingly to follow his literary interests and to neglect theology. His first independent publication, the long poem Die Landplagen ("Torments of the Land") appeared in 1769. He also studied music, most likely with either the Ukrainian virtuoso lutanist Timofey Belogradsky, then resident in Königsberg, or his student Johann Friedrich Reichardt
.
In 1771 Lenz abandoned his studies in Königsberg. Much against the will of his father, who on that account broke off contact with him, he took a position little better than that of a servant with Friedrich Georg and Ernst Nikolaus von Kleist (http://www.v-kleist.com/FG/Muttrin/fg0091.htm), barons from Courland
and officer cadets about to begin their military service, whom he accompanied to Strasbourg
. Once there, he came into contact with the actuary
Johann Daniel Salzmann, around whom had formed the literary group of the Société de philosophie et de belles lettres. This was frequented also by the young Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
, who at this time happened to be in Strasbourg, and whose acquaintance Lenz made, as well as that of Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling
. Goethe now became Lenz's literary idol, and through him he made contact with Johann Gottfried Herder
and Johann Kaspar Lavater
, with whom he corresponded.
In the following year, 1772, Lenz accompanied his masters to the garrisons of Landau
, Fort Louis
and Wissembourg
. He also fell in love with Friederike Brion, once the beloved of Goethe, but his feelings were not reciprocated.
In 1773 Lenz returned to Strasbourg and resumed his studies. The following year he gave up his position with the von Kleist brothers and lived as a freelance writer, earning his living by private tutoring. His relations with Goethe became friendlier: while the two of them were visiting Emmendingen
, Goethe introduced Lenz to his sister Cornelia and her husband Johann Georg Schlosser.
In April 1776 Lenz followed Goethe to the court of Weimar
, where he was at first amicably received. But in early December, on Goethe's instigation, he was expelled. The exact circumstances are not recorded; Goethe, who broke off all personal contact with him after this, refers only vaguely in his diary to "Lenz's asininity" ("Lenzens Eseley").
Lenz then returned to Emmendingen, where the Schlossers took him in. From there he made a number of journeys into Alsace
and Switzerland
, including one to Lavater in Zürich
in May 1777. The news of Cornelia Schlosser's death, which reached him there in June of that year, had a powerful effect on him. He returned to Emmendingen, and then went back to Lavater. In November, while staying in Winterthur
with Christoph Kaufmann, he suffered an attack of paranoid schizophrenia. In January 1778 Kaufmann sent Lenz to the philanthropist, social reformer and clergyman Johann Friedrich Oberlin in Waldersbach
in Alsace, where he stayed from 20 January to 8 February. Despite the care of Oberlin and his wife, Lenz's mental condition grew worse. He returned to Schlosser at Emmendingen, where he was lodged with a shoemaker and then a forester.
His younger brother Karl fetched him in June 1779 from Hertingen, where he was under treatment by a doctor, and brought him to Riga
, where their father by this time had risen to the position of General Superintendent.
Lenz was unable to establish himself professionally in Riga. An attempt to make him director of the cathedral school came to nothing, as Herder refused to give him a reference. Nor did he have any greater success in St. Petersburg, where he lived from February to September 1780. He then took a position as a private tutor on an estate near Dorpat, then, after another stay in St. Petersburg, he went to Moscow
in September 1781, where initially he stayed with the historian Friedrich Müller and learned Russian.
He worked as a private tutor, mixed in the circles of Russian Freemasons and authors, and helped produce a number of reformist schemes. He also translated books on Russian history into German. His mental condition however was steadily deteriorating all the while, and at last he became entirely dependent on the goodwill of Russian patrons for the means of living.
In the early morning of 4 June 1792 (24 May in the Julian calendar) Lenz was found dead in a Moscow street. The place of his burial is unknown.
, a novella fragment by Georg Büchner
, deals with Lenz's visit to the minister Friedrich Oberlin, in the Vosges
. Lenz had visited Oberlin, on the suggestion of Kaufmann, because of his reputation as a pastor and psychologist. Oberlin's account of the events of Lenz's visit furnished Büchner with the source of his story, which in its turn was the source of Wolfgang Rihm
's chamber opera Jakob Lenz.
In Paul Celan's acceptance speech for the Georg Büchner Prize for Literature in 1960, both the historical man and the "Lenz" of Büchner's fragment figure heavily. In the first line of Büchner's novella, Lenz sets off for the mountains on the 20th of January. Celan relates this to the life of the poem, asking, "Perhaps one can say that every poem has its 20th of January?" He adds that the poem remains mindful of such dates. Celan also says of his work "Conversation in the Mountains," composed after a missed encounter with Adorno, that it was written from such a date: that he started writing from his own "20th of January."
More recently the writers Peter Schneider, in his story Lenz (1973), and Gert Hoffmann, in his novella Die Rückkehr des verlorenen J.M.R. Lenz nach Riga ("The Return of the Lost J.M.R. Lenz to Riga", 1984), have given literary form to the events of his life.
Also worth mentioning is Marc Buhl's novel of 2002, Der rote Domino ("The Red Domino"), which uses the friendship between Goethe and Lenz, and its abrupt end, as the inspiration for a detective story.
Julian calendar
The Julian calendar began in 45 BC as a reform of the Roman calendar by Julius Caesar. It was chosen after consultation with the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria and was probably designed to approximate the tropical year .The Julian calendar has a regular year of 365 days divided into 12 months...
–4 June 1792, or 24 May in the Julian calendar) was a Baltic German
Baltic German
The Baltic Germans were mostly ethnically German inhabitants of the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, which today form the countries of Estonia and Latvia. The Baltic German population never made up more than 10% of the total. They formed the social, commercial, political and cultural élite in...
writer of the Sturm und Drang
Sturm und Drang
Sturm und Drang is a proto-Romantic movement in German literature and music taking place from the late 1760s through the early 1780s, in which individual subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of emotion were given free expression in reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism...
movement.
Life
Lenz was born in Sesswegen (Cesvaine)Cesvaine
Cesvaine is a town in Cesvaine municipality, Vidzeme Region, Latvia. It is home to the Cesvaine Palace, built in 1896 near the ruins of previous medieval castles....
, now Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
, the son of the pietistic
Pietism
Pietism was a movement within Lutheranism, lasting from the late 17th century to the mid-18th century and later. It proved to be very influential throughout Protestantism and Anabaptism, inspiring not only Anglican priest John Wesley to begin the Methodist movement, but also Alexander Mack to...
minister Christian David Lenz (1720–1798), later General Superintendent of Livonia. When Lenz was 9, in 1760, the family moved to Dorpat (Tartu)
Tartu
Tartu is the second largest city of Estonia. In contrast to Estonia's political and financial capital Tallinn, Tartu is often considered the intellectual and cultural hub, especially since it is home to Estonia's oldest and most renowned university. Situated 186 km southeast of Tallinn, the...
, where his father had been offered a minister's post. His first published poem appeared when he was 15. From 1768 to 1770 he studied theology on a scholarship, first at Dorpat and then at Königsberg
Königsberg
Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...
. While there, he attended lectures by Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
, who encouraged him to read Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...
. He began increasingly to follow his literary interests and to neglect theology. His first independent publication, the long poem Die Landplagen ("Torments of the Land") appeared in 1769. He also studied music, most likely with either the Ukrainian virtuoso lutanist Timofey Belogradsky, then resident in Königsberg, or his student Johann Friedrich Reichardt
Johann Friedrich Reichardt
Johann Friedrich Reichardt was a German composer, writer and music critic.-Early life:Reichardt was born in Königsberg, East Prussia, to lutenist and Stadtmusiker Johann Reichardt . Johann Friedrich began his musical training, in violin, keyboard, and lute, as a child...
.
In 1771 Lenz abandoned his studies in Königsberg. Much against the will of his father, who on that account broke off contact with him, he took a position little better than that of a servant with Friedrich Georg and Ernst Nikolaus von Kleist (http://www.v-kleist.com/FG/Muttrin/fg0091.htm), barons from Courland
Courland
Courland is one of the historical and cultural regions of Latvia. The regions of Semigallia and Selonia are sometimes considered as part of Courland.- Geography and climate :...
and officer cadets about to begin their military service, whom he accompanied to Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
. Once there, he came into contact with the actuary
Actuary
An actuary is a business professional who deals with the financial impact of risk and uncertainty. Actuaries provide expert assessments of financial security systems, with a focus on their complexity, their mathematics, and their mechanisms ....
Johann Daniel Salzmann, around whom had formed the literary group of the Société de philosophie et de belles lettres. This was frequented also by the young Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
, who at this time happened to be in Strasbourg, and whose acquaintance Lenz made, as well as that of Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling
Johann Heinrich Jung
Johann Heinrich Jung , best known by his assumed name of Heinrich Stilling, was a German author.-Life:He was born in the village of Grund in Westphalia...
. Goethe now became Lenz's literary idol, and through him he made contact with Johann Gottfried Herder
Johann Gottfried Herder
Johann Gottfried von Herder was a German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic. He is associated with the periods of Enlightenment, Sturm und Drang, and Weimar Classicism.-Biography:...
and Johann Kaspar Lavater
Johann Kaspar Lavater
Johann Kaspar Lavater was a Swiss poet and physiognomist.-Early life:Lavater was born at Zürich, and educated at the Gymnasium there, where J. J. Bodmer and J. J...
, with whom he corresponded.
In the following year, 1772, Lenz accompanied his masters to the garrisons of Landau
Landau
Landau or Landau in der Pfalz is an autonomous city surrounded by the Südliche Weinstraße district of southern Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is a university town , a long-standing cultural centre, and a market and shopping town, surrounded by vineyards and wine-growing villages of the...
, Fort Louis
Fort-Louis
Fort-Louis is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.It acquired its name and its principal raison d'être from a 17th century fort...
and Wissembourg
Wissembourg
Wissembourg is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace in northeastern France.It is situated on the little River Lauter close to the border between France and Germany approximately north of Strasbourg and west of Karlsruhe. Wissembourg is a sub-prefecture of the department...
. He also fell in love with Friederike Brion, once the beloved of Goethe, but his feelings were not reciprocated.
In 1773 Lenz returned to Strasbourg and resumed his studies. The following year he gave up his position with the von Kleist brothers and lived as a freelance writer, earning his living by private tutoring. His relations with Goethe became friendlier: while the two of them were visiting Emmendingen
Emmendingen
Emmendingen is a town in Baden-Württemberg, capital of the district Emmendingen of Germany. It is located at the Elz River, north of Freiburg im Breisgau...
, Goethe introduced Lenz to his sister Cornelia and her husband Johann Georg Schlosser.
In April 1776 Lenz followed Goethe to the court of Weimar
Weimar
Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...
, where he was at first amicably received. But in early December, on Goethe's instigation, he was expelled. The exact circumstances are not recorded; Goethe, who broke off all personal contact with him after this, refers only vaguely in his diary to "Lenz's asininity" ("Lenzens Eseley").
Lenz then returned to Emmendingen, where the Schlossers took him in. From there he made a number of journeys into Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
and Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, including one to Lavater in Zürich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
in May 1777. The news of Cornelia Schlosser's death, which reached him there in June of that year, had a powerful effect on him. He returned to Emmendingen, and then went back to Lavater. In November, while staying in Winterthur
Winterthur
Winterthur is a city in the canton of Zurich in northern Switzerland. It has the country's sixth largest population with an estimate of more than 100,000 people. In the local dialect and by its inhabitants, it is usually abbreviated to Winti...
with Christoph Kaufmann, he suffered an attack of paranoid schizophrenia. In January 1778 Kaufmann sent Lenz to the philanthropist, social reformer and clergyman Johann Friedrich Oberlin in Waldersbach
Waldersbach
Waldersbach is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.-References:*...
in Alsace, where he stayed from 20 January to 8 February. Despite the care of Oberlin and his wife, Lenz's mental condition grew worse. He returned to Schlosser at Emmendingen, where he was lodged with a shoemaker and then a forester.
His younger brother Karl fetched him in June 1779 from Hertingen, where he was under treatment by a doctor, and brought him to Riga
Riga
Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...
, where their father by this time had risen to the position of General Superintendent.
Lenz was unable to establish himself professionally in Riga. An attempt to make him director of the cathedral school came to nothing, as Herder refused to give him a reference. Nor did he have any greater success in St. Petersburg, where he lived from February to September 1780. He then took a position as a private tutor on an estate near Dorpat, then, after another stay in St. Petersburg, he went to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
in September 1781, where initially he stayed with the historian Friedrich Müller and learned Russian.
He worked as a private tutor, mixed in the circles of Russian Freemasons and authors, and helped produce a number of reformist schemes. He also translated books on Russian history into German. His mental condition however was steadily deteriorating all the while, and at last he became entirely dependent on the goodwill of Russian patrons for the means of living.
In the early morning of 4 June 1792 (24 May in the Julian calendar) Lenz was found dead in a Moscow street. The place of his burial is unknown.
Lenz as a literary figure
LenzLenz (fragment)
Lenz is a novella fragment written by Georg Büchner in Strasbourg in 1836. It is based on the documentary evidence of Jean Frédéric Oberlin's diary. Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz, a friend of Goethe, is the subject of the story. In March 1776 he met Goethe in Weimar. Later he suffered from mental...
, a novella fragment by Georg Büchner
Georg Büchner
Karl Georg Büchner was a German dramatist and writer of poetry and prose. He was the brother of physician and philosopher Ludwig Büchner. Büchner's talent is generally held in great esteem in Germany...
, deals with Lenz's visit to the minister Friedrich Oberlin, in the Vosges
Vosges
Vosges is a French department, named after the local mountain range. It contains the hometown of Joan of Arc, Domrémy.-History:The Vosges department is one of the original 83 departments of France, created on February 9, 1790 during the French Revolution. It was made of territories that had been...
. Lenz had visited Oberlin, on the suggestion of Kaufmann, because of his reputation as a pastor and psychologist. Oberlin's account of the events of Lenz's visit furnished Büchner with the source of his story, which in its turn was the source of Wolfgang Rihm
Wolfgang Rihm
Wolfgang Rihm is a German composer.Rihm is Head of the Institute of Modern Music at the Karlsruhe Conservatory of Music and has been composer in residence at the Lucerne Festival and the Salzburg Festival...
's chamber opera Jakob Lenz.
In Paul Celan's acceptance speech for the Georg Büchner Prize for Literature in 1960, both the historical man and the "Lenz" of Büchner's fragment figure heavily. In the first line of Büchner's novella, Lenz sets off for the mountains on the 20th of January. Celan relates this to the life of the poem, asking, "Perhaps one can say that every poem has its 20th of January?" He adds that the poem remains mindful of such dates. Celan also says of his work "Conversation in the Mountains," composed after a missed encounter with Adorno, that it was written from such a date: that he started writing from his own "20th of January."
More recently the writers Peter Schneider, in his story Lenz (1973), and Gert Hoffmann, in his novella Die Rückkehr des verlorenen J.M.R. Lenz nach Riga ("The Return of the Lost J.M.R. Lenz to Riga", 1984), have given literary form to the events of his life.
Also worth mentioning is Marc Buhl's novel of 2002, Der rote Domino ("The Red Domino"), which uses the friendship between Goethe and Lenz, and its abrupt end, as the inspiration for a detective story.
Selected works
- Die Landplagen ("The Torments of the Land"). Verse epic, 1769
- Der Hofmeister, oder Vorteile der PrivaterziehungThe TutorThe Tutor is an 18th-century German play by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz. It has the subtitle "Or The Benefits of a Private Education". In the 20th century, it was adapted by Bertolt Brecht — see The Tutor ....
("The Tutor, or, The Advantages of Private Education"). Drama, 1774 - Der neue Menoza ("The New Menoza"). Drama, 1774
- Anmerkungen übers Theater ("Observations on the Theatre"). Essay, 1774
- Meinungen eines Laien, den Geistlichen zugeeignet ("Opinions of a Layman, dedicated to the Clergy"). Essay, 1775
- Pandaemonium Germanicum. Drama, written in 1775, published posthumously 1819
- Die Soldaten ("The Soldiers"). Drama, 1776 (basis of the opera of the same nameDie SoldatenDie Soldaten is a four act opera in German by German composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann, based on the 1776 play by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz. It is dedicated to Hans Rosbaud. Zimmermann himself faithfully adapted the play into the libretto, the only changes to the text being repeats and small cuts...
by Bernd Alois ZimmermannBernd Alois ZimmermannBernd Alois Zimmermann was a post-WWII West German composer. He is perhaps best known for his opera Die Soldaten which is regarded as one of the most important operas of the 20th century...
and a source of Büchner's drama WoyzeckWoyzeckWoyzeck is a stage play written by Georg Büchner. He left the work incomplete at his death, but it has been variously and posthumously "finished" by a variety of authors, editors and translators. Woyzeck has become one of the most performed and influential plays in the German theatre...
) - Die Freunde machen den Philosophen ("Friends Make the Philosopher"). Drama, 1776
- Zerbin. Novella, 1776
- Der Waldbruder ("The Friar of the Forest"). Unfinished novel, published posthumously in 1882
Editions
- Damm, Sigrid (ed.), 1987. Werke und Briefe, 3 vols. Leipzig [München/Wien]: Insel Verlag [Lizenzausgabe im Hanser Verlag]. ISBN 3-446-14665-2
- Lauer, Karin (ed.), 1992. Werke. Hanser Verlag, München/Wien: Hanser Verlag. ISBN 3-446-16338-7
- Voit, Friedrich, (ed.), 1997. Werke [selection]. Stuttgart: Reclam Verlag. ISBN 3-15-008755-4
- Weiss, Christoph (ed.), 2001. Werke: Faksimiles der Erstausgaben seiner zu Lebzeiten selbständig erschienenen Texte, 12 vols. St. Ingbert: Röhrig Verlag. ISBN 3-86110-071-1
Single works
- Weiss, Christoph (ed.), 2003. Als Sr. Hochedelgebohrnen der Herr Professor Kant den 21sten August 1770 für die Professor-Würde disputierte (facsimile of the first edition, Königsberg 1770. Laatzen: Wehrhahn Verlag. ISBN 3-932324-68-4
Filmography
- Günther, Egon: Lenz (Federal Republic of Germany), with Jörg Schüttauf as J.M.R. Lenz and Christian Kuchenbuch as Goethe