Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s earlier comedies (

[

],

[

]) gained him a fair amount of immediate success, but

, the last comic play he ever wrote, is considered his most accomplished comedy. Presenting the year of the play’s composition, “verfertigt im Jahre 1763”, the title page emphasizes the timeliness and topicality of

. Whereas Lessing’s other famous plays all use devices of

, i. e. historical and geographical distancing –

takes place in Italy and is the reworking of an ancient Roman story,

unfolds in England and uses elements from the Medea myth,

is a crusade piece drawing on a novella by Boccaccio –

is set in Lessing’s present-day world, the immediate…

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Citation: von Schwerin-High, Friederike. "Minna von Barnhelm oder Das Soldatenglück". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 November 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16333, accessed 21 November 2024.]