ABSTRACT
Lessing was born in 1729, when the Neubers were making their first experiments with literary drama, and he only knew the company when he was a student in Leipzig, and Caroline Neuber was playing to audiences which often consisted of a few students. The next turning-point in the history of the German theatre and drama came in the 'sixties, with the mature Lessing's creation of plays which were both literary masterpieces and eminently stageworthy, and with the first attempts to found so-called 'National Theatres'. The details of Lessing's mature dramatic theory, his reinterpretation of Aristotle, do not concern so much as his practice, for this was much more important for the later development of the German drama. The name Enlightenment (Aufklärung) expresses 'the sense of relief and escape' that was everywhere in evidence among the enlightened few at having left the dark ages finally behind them.
