Reason and Reality. Some Reflections on ‘Minna von Bamhelm’, Lessing and Frederick the Great

Abstract

ON A political level Minna von Barnhelm has elicited two opposing critical reactions. On the one hand, there are those critics who regard the playas a celebration of the Prussian virtues of honour, bravery, patriotism and loyalty, and on the other, there are those who perceive in it a thinly veiled attack on the Prussian king and his state. These two conflicting views were not an invention of the nineteenth century, although they are manifested in an extreme form in the works of Erich Schmidt and Franz Mehring; they can, in fact, already be detected in the reactions of Lessing's contemporaries. In his Briefe iiber die Wienerische Schaubiihne (1768) the Austrian nobleman, Joseph Freiherr von Sonnenfels, observed: ' ... Tellheims Handlungen sind die Handlungen eines Mannes, der edel denkt und noch mitten in seinem Ungliick der Ehrfurcht gegen seinen Fiirsten nichts vergibt.'l Whereas Lessing's brother Karl ascribed the difficulties the play encountered with the Prussian censor to its author's criticism of the government and the police: 'Denn alle Einwendungen gegen die Auffiihrung liefen dahin aus: man konne zwar tiber Gott rasonnieren und dramatisieren, aber nicht tiber Regierung und Polizei.'2 Friedrich Nicolai, too, regretted 'die vielen Stiche auf die preussische Regierung,.3 Tellheim's words in Act V Scene 9 were an obvious source of offence: 'Die Dienste der Grossen sind gefahrlich, und lohnen der Mtihe, des Zwanges, der Erniedrigung nicht, die sie kosten'; so, too, was the scene between the Innkeeper and Minna (11/2), in which the excessive exactitude of the Berlin police is satirized. In spite of these difficulties, however, Dobbelin was granted permission to perform the play in Berlin on the 21st March 1768 without any alteration to the text. In fact, the play was performed in Berlin nineteen times and achieved a resounding success.4 The popularity of Minna von Barnhelm in the theatre was ascribed at once to Lessing's realistic portrayal of contemporary