Johann Anton Leisewitz
Johann Anton Leisewitz was a notable figure in the Sturm and Drang movement of late 18th-century German literature, alongside renowned writers such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller. Born in 1752 in Hanover, he initially pursued law at Göttingen, where he became involved with the Göttinger Hain, a group of sentimental poets. Leisewitz is best known for his play *Julius von Tarent: Ein Trauerspiel* (1776), which, despite not winning a coveted literary prize, was praised by contemporaries as a significant precursor to later works of the Sturm and Drang. His drama explores the intense conflict between passion and duty through the tragic story of two brothers, highlighting the tension between revolutionary ideals and Enlightenment rationalism.
After his brief literary career, Leisewitz transitioned to a bureaucratic life, serving in various governmental roles while remaining active in literary circles, social reform, and diary writing. He became well-connected with leading literary figures of his time, including Lessing and Herder. His commitment to social issues was evident in his advocacy for the poor, as demonstrated by the large turnout at his funeral in 1806. Leisewitz’s work, while rooted in its historical context, reflects deeper philosophical questions about individuality and societal obligations, making it relevant for discussions of literature and social thought in his era.
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Johann Anton Leisewitz
Dramatist
- Born: May 9, 1752
- Birthplace: Hannover, Germany
- Died: September 10, 1806
- Place of death:
Biography
Johann Anton Leisewitz was part of the influential movement in German letters known as Sturm and Drang, which included such eminent writers as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Writers of the Sturm and Drang period rebelled against the conventions of neoclassicism, responded to the romantic philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and incorporated high drama and emotionalism in their work.
Leisewitz’s fame rests on only one play, which at the time seemed cast in the same mold as Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger’s melodramatic work, Die Zwillinge (1776). Leisewitz’s play, Julius von Tarent: Ein Trauerspiel (pb. 1776; Julius of Tarentum: A Tragedy, 1776), failed to garner a coveted prize, which was awarded to Klinger instead. However, according to J. G. Robertson in A History of German Literature, Leisewitz’s play is the better work of the two and clearly “the forerunner of the outstanding masterpiece of the later Sturm and Drang, Schiller’s Die Rauber (1781).”
Leisewitz was born in Hanover, Germany, in 1952, the son of Johann Eobald, a wine merchant, and Catharina Louisa von der Vecken. In 1770, he began law studies in Göttingen, where he beame a member of the Göttinger Hain, a group of sentimental poets, and wrote a few brief dramatic scenes for the group’s journal. These scenes focused on the contemporary antimonarchy, prorevolution zeitgeist that was sweeping Europe. After Leisewitz failed to win first prize for Julius von Tarent, he apparently interpreted that defeat as a sign to abandon literary pursuits.
In 1775, he returned to Hanover and found employment as a lawyer, and he subsequently held various bureaucratic positions, including district secretary in Brunswick, tutor, and eventually president of the Public Health Council. In 1781, Leisewitz married Sophie Seyler. After 1800, he dedicated his life to meticulous diary-writing and social issues. He maintained a literary social life, meeting regularly with Lessing and becoming acquainted with contemporary literary giants such as Goethe, Johann Gottfried Herder, and Christoph Martin Wieland. At his death in 1806, thousands of poor people participated in his funeral procession in homage to the man who had lobbyied for reform in Brunswick’s poverty-ridden neighborhoods.
Leisewitz’s drama, Julius von Tarent, remains a superior example of neoclassical expression, elegance, and restraint, compared with many other works of the period that featured loosely constructed, emotionally overwrought story lines. The play’s plot centers on two brothers with opposing personalities. A woman, Blanca, becomes the dramatic impetus for a clash between the two siblings. Julius, who represents unbridled sentimentality and passionate individualism, collides with Guido, an adventurous soldier, who epitomizes tradition, duty, and honor. Ultimately, one brother kills the other, forcing their father to murder the remaining errant son in order to restore justice and order to his court. This tragic situation is caused by both Julius’s disdain for rationalism and his father, Constantine’s, attempt to tyrannically control his sons. Passion is pitted against duty: hence, the two extremes embodied in one age—the passionate revolutionary focus of the Romantics and the rational order of the Enlightenment—clash, and the play illuminates both movements’ weaknesses. Thus, Leisewitz’s drama transcends its time while analyzing the era’s conflict between the value of the individual versus the welfare of the state.