The German theatre which grew out of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment brilliantly reflected the spirit of that age and paved the way for modern drama. G. E. Lessing's Nathan the Wise is a moving expression of Western idealism. Goethe's tragedy, Egmont, with its romantic, revolutionist hero, and Schiller's drama of the last days of Mary Stuart were high lights of the movement. In The Prince of Homburg, Heinrich von Kleist, father of modern psychological drama, dealt with the disintegration of a military hero. Georg Büchner, a forerunner of naturalism and expressionism, drew inspiration from the French Revolution for Danton's Death.

Contents

• Nathan the Wise by G. E. Lessing
• Egmont by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Mary Stuart by Friedrich Schiller
• The Prince of Homburg by Heinrich von Kleist
• Danton's Death by Georg Büchner