Heinrich von Kleist

Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811), one of Germany’s most enigmatic and celebrated authors, was an aristocrat by birth, a rebel by inclination, a Romantic by temperament, and a stylist of uncompromising rigor whose writings in multiple modes, including drama, fiction and expository prose, have grown all the more pertinent over time. Kleist lived the restless, roving life of a dilettante, spending stints as a soldier, a bureaucrat, a prisoner, and an unsuccessful newspaper editor. Finding himself in financial straits and personal despair, Kleist, together with his terminally ill lover, committed suicide near the Wannsee in Berlin in 1811.