Heinrich von Kleist
The dramatist, writer, lyricist, and publicist Heinrich von Kleist was born in Frankfurt an der Oder in 1777. Upon his father's early death in 1788 when he was ten, he was sent to the house of the preacher S. Cartel and attended the French Gymnasium. In 1792, Kleist entered the guard regiment in Potsdam and took part in the Rhein campaign against France in 1796. Kleist voluntarily resigned from army service in 1799 and until 1800 studied philosophy, physics, mathematics, and political science at Viadrina University in Frankfurt an der Oder. He went to Berlin early in the year 1800 and penned his drama "Die Familie Ghonorez". Kleist, who tended to irrationalism and was often tormented by a longing for death, then lit out restlessly through Germany, France, and Switzerland.
After several physical and nervous breakdowns, in which he even burned the manuscript of one of his dramas, Heinrich von Kleist reentered the Prussian army in 1804, working in Berlin and Königsberg. There he wrote "Amphitryon" and "Penthesilea."
After being discharged in 1807, Kleist was apprehended on suspicion of being a spy. After this he went to Dresden, where he edited the art journal "Phoebus" with Adam Müller and completed the comedy "The Broken Pitcher" ("Der zerbrochene Krug") and the folk play "Katchen von Heilbronn" ("Das Käthchen von Heilbronn").
Back in Berlin, the one time Rousseau devotee had become a bitter opponent of Napoleon. In 1811, he finished "Prinz Friedrich von Homburg." Finding himself again in financial and personal difficulties, Heinrich von Kleist, together with his lover, the terminally ill Henriette Vogel, committed suicide near the Wannsee in Berlin in 1811.
[From http://www.heinrich-von-kleist.com/]
“В М., един от големите градове на Горна Италия, овдовялата маркиза фон О., жена с отлична репутация и майка на няколко прекрасно възпитани деца, даде обявление във вестниците, че тя, без сама да подозира, се оказала в положение и моли бащата на очакваното от нея дете да се обади, тъй като по семейни съображения била готова да се омъжи за него.”
“Torheit, du regierst die Welt, und dein Sitz ist ein schöner weiblicher Mund!”
“Yasanın korumadığı kimseyi ben, devlet topluluğunun dışına atılmış sayarım.”
“Ben bu toplumun dışına atılmış olmasaydım, insan topluluğuna açtığım bu savaş, kötü bir davranış sayılabilirdi.”
“Adalet duygusu, Kohlhaas'ı bir haydut, bir katil yaptı.”
“Does that mean", I said in some bewilderment, "that we must eat again of the tree of knowledge in order to return to the state of innocence?""Of course", he said, "but that's the final chapter in the history of the world.”
“But paradise is locked and bolted....We must make a journey around the world to see if a back door has perhaps been left open.”
“Es gehört mehr Genie dazu, ein mittelmäßiges Kunstwerk zu würdigen, als ein vortreffliches. Schönheit und Wahrheit leuchten der menschlichen Natur in der allerersten Instanz ein; und so wie die erhabensten Sätze am Leichtesten zu verstehen sind (nur das Minutiöse ist schwer zu begreifen): so gefällt das Schöne leicht; nur das Mangelhafte und Manierirte genießt sich mit Mühe. (…) Wer also Schiller und Göthe lobt, der giebt mir dadurch noch gar nicht, wie er glaubt, den Beweis eines vorzüglichen und außerordentlichen Schönheitssinnes; wer aber mit Gellert und Kronegck hie und da zufrieden ist, der läßt mich, wenn er nur sonst in einer Rede Recht hat, vermuthen, daß er Verstand und Empfindungen, und zwar beide in einem seltenen Grade besitzt.”
“In M---, an important town in northern Italy, the widowed Marquise of O---, a lady of unblemished reputation and the mother of several well-brought-up children, inserted the following announcement in the newspapers: that she had, without knowledge of the cause, come to find herself in a certain situation; that she would like the father of the child she was expecting to disclose his identity to her; that she was resolved, out of consideration to her family, to marry him.”
“In Santiago, the capital of the kingdom of Chile, at the moment of the great earthquake of 1647 in which many thousands lost their lives, a young Spaniard called Jeronimo Rugera was standing beside one of the pillars in the prison to which he had been committed on a criminal charge, and he was about to hang himself.”
“Frauen stünde gelehrt sein nicht? Die Wahrheit zu sagen, nützlich ist es: Es steht Männern so wenig wie Fraun.”
“We see that in the organic world, to the same degree that reflection gets darker and weaker, grace grows ever more radiant and dominant. But just as two lines intersect on one side of a point, and after passing through infinity, suddenly come together again on the other side; or the image in a concave mirror suddenly reappears before us after drawing away into the infinite distance, so too, does grace return once perception, as it were, has traversed the infinite--such that it simultaneously appears the purest in human bodily structures that are either devoid of consciousness or which possess an infinite consciousness, such as in the jointed manikin or the god.”
“Misconceptions are unavoidable now that we've eaten of the Tree of Knowledge. But Paradise is locked and bolted, and the cherubim stands behind us. We have to go on and make the journey round the world to see if it is perhaps open somewhere at the back.”