Ewald Christian von Kleist (7 March 171524 August 1759) was a German

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

and cavalry officer. His vast family was well-established in

Farther Pomerania Farther Pomerania, Hinder Pomerania, Rear Pomerania or Eastern Pomerania (; ), is a subregion of the historic region of Pomerania in north-western Poland, mostly within the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, while its easternmost parts are within the Po ...

; 58 male members of his family fought in

Frederick the Great Frederick II (; 24 January 171217 August 1786) was the monarch of Prussia from 1740 until his death in 1786. He was the last Hohenzollern monarch titled ''King in Prussia'', declaring himself ''King of Prussia'' after annexing Royal Prussia ...

's army of the

Seven Years' War The Seven Years' War, 1756 to 1763, was a Great Power conflict fought primarily in Europe, with significant subsidiary campaigns in North America and South Asia. The protagonists were Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of Prus ...

. Kleist was born at Zeblin, near Köslin (Koszalin) in

, to the

von Kleist The House of Kleist is the name of an old and distinguished Prussian noble family, originating in Pomerania, whose members obtained many important military and administrative positions within the Kingdom of Prussia and later in the German Empire. ...

family of cavalry leaders.

Family

The Kleist family is an old, established one in

whose roots date to the 12th century. Kleist's father, Joachim Ewald (1684–1738), son of Ewald von Kleist (died 1694), had been born on the family estate. On 7 July 1710, he married Marie Juliane von Manteuffel (sister of

Heinrich von Manteuffel Heinrich von Manteuffel (7 November 1696 – 10 July 1778), was a Prussian lieutenant general. He participated in the Pomeranian campaign of 1715 and the first two of Frederick II the Great, Frederick's Silesian wars, was wounded at Chotusitz, an ...

) from Groß-Poplow (near Polzin, in the district of Belgard). She died on 9 November 1719 after the birth of the sixth child.Rudolf Schwarze
Ewald Christian von Kleist
''Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie,'' Historischen Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Band 16 (1882), S. 113–121, Digitale Volltext-Ausgabe in Wikisource,(Version vom 3. April 2017, 19:29 Uhr UTC). Ewald Christian, the third child of this marriage, lived with his only brother, Franz Casimir, one year older, at the estate of a paternal uncle, Christian von Manteuffel, in Groß-Poplow. Both boys attended the

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

school in

Deutsch Krone Deutsch ( , ) or Deutsche ( , ) may refer to: * or : the German language or in particular Standard German, spoken in central European countries and other places *Old High German language refers to Deutsch as a way to define the primary characteris ...

(now Wałcz, Poland) and subsequently, in 1729, the Danzig Gymnasium; in 1731 Ewald von Kleist advanced to the

University of Königsberg The University of Königsberg () was the university of Königsberg in Duchy of Prussia, which was a fief of Poland. It was founded in 1544 as the world's second Protestant Reformation, Protestant academy (after the University of Marburg) by Duke A ...

, where he studied

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

and

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

. Either on the completion of his studies, or because his father was unhappy with the direction his studies took (he insisted on studying theology and modern languages and classics as well as law and mathematics) he entered the Danish army, in which he became an officer in 1736. He served in a unit commanded by a friend of his father. In 1738 he was sent to

Gdańsk Gdańsk is a city on the Baltic Sea, Baltic coast of northern Poland, and the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodeship. With a population of 486,492, Data for territorial unit 2261000. it is Poland's sixth-largest city and principal seaport. Gdań ...

to visit his father and sister, as well as to his good friend Battrow (north-east of Flatow), a distant relative, the widowed chief of Goltz, whose daughter Wilhelmine made an impression on him; he became betrothed to her, but they were separated by his military service and she married another man.

Military service

Recalled to Prussia by King Frederick II in 1740, he was appointed

lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a Junior officer, junior commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations, as well as fire services, emergency medical services, Security agency, security services ...

in a newly formed regiment stationed at

Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and largest city of the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the Havel, River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...

, where he became acquainted with J. W. L. Gleim, who interested him in poetry. After distinguishing himself at the

Battle of Mollwitz The Battle of Mollwitz was fought by Prussia and Austria on 10 April 1741, during the First Silesian War (in the early stages of the War of the Austrian Succession). It was the first battle of the new Prussian King Frederick II, in which both si ...

(10 April 1741) and the siege of

Neisse The Lusatian Neisse (; ; ; Upper Sorbian: ''Łužiska Nysa''; Lower Sorbian: ''Łužyska Nysa''), or Western Neisse, is a river in northern Central Europe.

(1741), he was promoted to captain in 1749 and major in 1756. Quartered during the winter of 1757–1758 in Leipzig during the

, he found relief from his irksome military duties in the society of

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (; ; 22 January 1729 – 15 February 1781) was a German philosopher, dramatist, publicist and art critic, and a representative of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the dev ...

. His regiment, the Schenckendorff Grenadiers, entered into summer campaigns. Shortly afterwards in the

Battle of Kunersdorf The Battle of Kunersdorf occurred on 12 August 1759 near Kunersdorf (now Kunowice, Poland) immediately east of Frankfurt an der Oder. Part of the Third Silesian War and the wider Seven Years' War, the battle involved over 100,000 men. An Alli ...

, on 12 August 1759, he was mortally wounded in the forefront of the attack. Thomas Carlyle offers a description of his death, possibly

apocryphal Apocrypha () are biblical or related writings not forming part of the accepted canon of scripture, some of which might be of doubtful authorship or authenticity. In Christianity, the word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to ...

: Kleist was attached to Finck's division at the Prussian right. He'd been hit several times by ricochets, and possibly musket balls, perhaps even 12 times. He continued to lead his troops forward, taking a third battery, when he was badly hurt on both arms. His "colonel" (Major Mark K. A. von Schwartz) fell; he led his regiment forward to the fourth battery when a case-shot smashed his leg into pieces; once he fell, Captain Sylvius von Swolinsky took command of the battalion. He fell from his horse, and was carried to the rear. In due course, a surgeon was brought to him, but was killed by case-shot. One of his friends tried to send a carriage to him, to move him out of danger, but it took so long he was cut off by the Russian advance. By evening, the Cossacks stripped him bare, and threw him into the nearest swamp. Later that night some Russian Hussars found Kleist in this situation, took him to a dry place, set a watch fire and gave him some bread. When they had left, the Cossacks returned and took the blanket the Russians had given him. Eventually a Russian cavalry troop passed by; one of their captains, had him sent to Frankfurt in a carriage. Under the care of a professor there, he had surgery and good nursing, although on the tenth night, the bone fell apart, cut an artery, and at 2 a.m. on the 24th he died. He received a soldier's funeral, his coffin borne by 12 Russian grenadiers, and attended by some officers; one staff officer laid his own sword on the bier.

Poetry

Kleist's chief work is a poem in

hexameter Hexameter is a metrical line of verses consisting of six feet (a "foot" here is the pulse, or major accent, of words in an English line of poetry; in Greek as well as in Latin a "foot" is not an accent, but describes various combinations of s ...

s, ''Der Frühling'' (1749), for which Thomson's ''Seasons'' largely supplied ideas. It earned him the nickname "the Poet of the Spring." He noted in his letters that Carl Wilhelm Ramler had given him belated commentary and improvements on his poem, which he self-published in December 1749. Subsequently, his poem received considerable notice, even from Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis. Kleist also wrote some

ode An ode (from ) is a type of lyric poetry, with its origins in Ancient Greece. Odes are elaborately structured poems praising or glorifying an event or individual, describing nature intellectually as well as emotionally. A classic ode is structu ...

idyll An idyll (, ; ; occasionally spelled ''idyl'' in American English) is a short poem, descriptive of rustic life, written in the style of Theocritus's short pastoral poems, the ''Idylls'' (Εἰδύλλια). Unlike Homer, Theocritus did not engag ...

s and

elegies An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to ''The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy'', "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometime ...

, and a small

epic poem In poetry, an epic is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants. With regard to ...

, ''Cissides und Paches'' (1759), the subject being two

Thessalia Thessaly ( ; ; ancient Aeolic Greek#Thessalian, Thessalian: , ) is a traditional geographic regions of Greece, geographic and modern administrative regions of Greece, administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient Thessaly, a ...

n friends who die an heroic death for their country in a battle against the

Athenians Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

. Likewise, he composed

epitaph An epitaph (; ) is a short text honoring a deceased person. Strictly speaking, it refers to text that is inscribed on a tombstone or plaque, but it may also be used in a figurative sense. Some epitaphs are specified by the person themselves be ...

s for his many friends who were killed in battle, such as Major Heinrich

von Blumenthal The Blumenthal family is a Lutheran and Roman Catholic German noble family, originally from Brandenburg-Prussia. Other (unrelated) families of this name exist in Switzerland and formerly in Russia, and many unrelated families (quite a few of them ...

, which eerily foretold his own: Kleist published in 1756 the first collection of his ''Gedichte'', which was followed by a second in 1758. After his death his friend

Karl Wilhelm Ramler Karl Wilhelm Ramler (25 February 1725 – 11 April 1798) was a German poet who was the Berlin Cadet School master. Ramler was born in Kolobrzeg, Kolberg. After graduating from the University of Halle, he went to Berlin, where, in 1748, he w ...

published an edition of Kleist's ''Sämtliche Werke'' in 2 vols (1760). A critical edition was published by

August Sauer August Sauer (12 October 1855, in Wiener Neustadt – 17 September 1926, in Prague) was an Austrian Germanist and literary historian. He is known for his publication of collected works by Franz Grillparzer, Ferdinand Raimund, Adalbert Stifter, ...

, in 3 vols (1880–1882). See also

Arthur Chuquet Arthur Maxime Chuquet (; 28 February 1853 – 7 June 1925) was a French historian and biographer. He was born in Rocroi, Ardennes. He is now best known for his ''Jeunesse de Napoléon'' appearing in three volumes from 1897 to 1899. He became a ...

, ''De Ewaldi Kleistii vita et scriptis'' (Paris, 1887), and

Heinrich Pröhle Christoph Ferdinand Heinrich Pröhle (June 4, 1822 – May 28, 1895) was a German literary historian, teacher ('' Oberlehrer''), writer and folk tale and fairy tale collector (a successor to the Brothers Grimm). Disambiguation of Heinrich The giv ...

, ''Friedrich der Grosse und die deutsche Literatur'' (1872). Research places the three Kleist poets—Ewald,

Franz Alexander von Kleist Franz Alexander von Kleist (24 December 1769 – 8 August 1797) was a German poet of the late 18th century. Life Franz Alexander was a member of the noble Pomeranian von Kleist family. He was born in Potsdam, son of General Franz Kasimir von ...

and

Heinrich von Kleist Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist (; 18 October 177721 November 1811) was a German poet, dramatist, novelist, short story writer and journalist. His best known works are the theatre plays ''The Prince of Homburg'', '' Das Käthchen von Heilbronn'' ...

to the same forefather at the start of the 15th century.Felix Bamberg
Kleist, Franz Alexander von
''Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie,'' Band 16 (1882), S. 121–122, (Version vom 3. April 2017, 19:53 Uhr UTC).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kleist, Ewald Christian Von 1715 births 1759 deaths People from Koszalin County People from the Province of Pomerania Ewald Christian German poets German male poets German-language poets University of Königsberg alumni Prussian Army personnel Prussian military personnel of the Seven Years' War Prussian military personnel killed in action