''Lenz'' is a novella fragment written by

Georg Büchner Karl Georg Büchner (17 October 1813 – 19 February 1837) was a German dramatist and writer of poetry and prose, considered part of the Young Germany movement. He was also a revolutionary and the brother of physician and philosopher Ludwig Büch ...

in Strasbourg in 1836. It is based on the documentary evidence of Jean Frédéric Oberlin's diary. Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz, a friend of

Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as t ...

, is the subject of the story. In March 1776 he met Goethe in

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state (Germany), state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany (cultural area), Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg an ...

. Later he suffered from mental disorder and was sent to Oberlin's vicarage in the Steintal. The story is concerned with this last incident. Although left unfinished at the time of Büchner's death in 1837, it has been seen as a precursor to literary

modernism Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, ...

. Its influence on later writers has been immense. The story has been adapted for the stage as '' Jakob Lenz'', a 1978

chamber opera Chamber opera is a designation for operas written to be performed with a chamber ensemble rather than a full orchestra. Early 20th-century operas of this type include Paul Hindemith's '' Cardillac'' (1926). Earlier small-scale operas such as Pergol ...

Wolfgang Rihm Wolfgang Rihm (born 13 March 1952) is a German composer and academic teacher. He is musical director of the Institute of New Music and Media at the University of Music Karlsruhe and has been composer in residence at the Lucerne Festival and the ...

Editions in English

* ''Lenz''. Translated by

Michael Hamburger Michael Peter Leopold Hamburger (22 March 1924 – 7 June 2007) was a noted German-British translator, poet, critic, memoirist and academic. He was known in particular for his translations of Friedrich Hölderlin, Paul Celan, Gottfried Benn an ...

. West Newbury: Frontier Press, 1969. * ''Woyzeck and Lenz''. Translated by Hedwig Rappolt. New York: TSL Press, 1988. * ''Lenz''. Translated by Richard Sieburth. Brooklyn: Archipelago Books, 2005. . * ''Complete Works and Letters'', pp. 139–162. Translated by Henry J. Schmidt. New York: Continuum, 1986. . * ''Complete Plays and Prose'', pp. 139–166. Translated by Carl Richard Mueller. New York: Hill and Wang, 1963. .

Film Adaptation

Alexandre Rockwell Charles Alexandre Rockwell is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and professor. Life and career Alexandre Rockwell is best known for his independent films made in NYC with a small group of actors he met on the lower east side in ...

wrote, directed, produced and edited a feature-length adaptation of ''Lenz'' in 1982. It was his debut film.

References

* Sieburth, Richard. "Translator's Afterword" and "Notes", in the 2005 Archipelago edition.

External links

* (german)
Richard Sieburth's English translation
at

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. German short stories 1836 short stories Novels adapted into operas Works by Georg Büchner {{story-stub