''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 Büchn ...

Strasbourg Strasbourg ( , ; ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est Regions of France, region of Geography of France, eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin Departmen ...

in 1836. It is based on the documentary evidence of Jean Frédéric Oberlin's diary.

Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz (; ; 23 January 1751 ( OS 12 January 1750) – 4 June 1792 .S. 24 May 1792 was a Baltic German writer of the ''Sturm und Drang'' movement. Life Lenz was born in Seßwegen (Cesvaine), Governorate of Livonia, Russia ...

, a friend of

Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...

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

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state (Germany), German state of Thuringia, in Central Germany (cultural area), Central Germany between Erfurt to the west and Jena to the east, southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together w ...

. 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 was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

. 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 music, chamber ensemble rather than a full orchestra. Early 20th-century operas of this type include Paul Hindemith's ''Cardillac'' (1926). Earlier small-scale operas ...

Wolfgang Rihm Wolfgang Rihm (; 13 March 1952 – 27 July 2024) was a German composer of contemporary classical music and an academic teacher based in Karlsruhe. He was an influential post-war European composer, as "one of the most original and independent mus ...

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 and ...

. West Newbury: Frontier Press, 1969. * ''Woyzeck and Lenz''. Translated by Hedwig Rappolt. New York: TSL Press, 1988. * ''Lenz''. Translated by

Richard Sieburth Richard Sieburth (born 1949) is Professor Emeritus of French Literature, Thought and Culture and Comparative Literature at New York University (NYU).

. 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 Works adapted into operas Works by Georg Büchner {{story-stub