Description

Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger (1752-1831) was a German dramatist and novelist. Klinger was a man of vigorous moral character and full of fine feeling, though the bitter experiences and deprivations of his youth are largely reflected in his dramas. It was one of his earliest works, Sturm und Drang (1776), which gave its name to this artistic epoch. In addition to this tragedy and Die Zwillinge (1776), the chief plays of his early period of passionate fervour and restless "storm and stress" are Die Neue Arria (1776), Simsone Grisaldo (1776) and Stilpo und Seine Kinder (1780). To a later period belongs the fine double tragedy of Medea in Korinth and Medea auf Dem Kaukasos (1791). In Russia he devoted himself mainly to the writing of philosophical romances, of which the best known are Fausts Leben, Taten und Höllenfahrt (1791), Geschichte Giafars des Barmeciden (1792) and Geschichte Raphaeis de Aquillas (1793). This series was closed in 1803 with Betrachtungen und Gedanken über Verschiedene Gegenstände der Welt und der Literatur. Klinger's works were published in twelve volumes (1809-1815), also 1832-1833 and 1842.