The Generic Constant in Lessing's Development of a Comedy of Institutions and Alienation

Abstract

With respect to the idea of the social, there is a clear difference between Minna von Barnhelm and Lessing's earlier comedies. In Der Freygeist, for example, the social as such, as defined by the entirely generalized categories of love, friendship, marriage, honor, religion, fair dealing and human considerateness, functions as a resilient medium that admits the resolution, or at least the circumvention, of certain serious difficulties in man's thought concerning his nature and duty, difficulties that appear insoluble in the medium of strictly rational discourse. The relatively abstract discussions that occur at several important points in the play raise grave religious and philosophical questions, to which neither the particular dialogue nor the play as a whole can provide satisfactory abstract answers; answers of a sort are provided only in the social medium, in that the personal and conventional relations among the characters prove stronger than their differences of opinion. But at the same time, those religious and philosophical disputes still compel the audience to approach the work, intellectually, on a relatively abstract level, and they all focus in one way or another upon the idea of the social ordering of existence. Even the conversation about truth between Adrast and Juliane concentrates finally on the question of how religious ideas operate in society, whether they bring people together on a significant intellectual and moral level, or are merely a sop to the ignorant masses. Thus it is impressed upon us that we must generalize even from the social aspect of the play-not only from the philosophical discussions in dialoguethat we must interpret the personal interactions in the plot as referring to a universal human phenomenon; the situations and spoken idiom are sufficiently specific to be intelligible, but in the final analysis they represent the social in a general sense, as it might also be manifested in completely different forms. In Minna-even though Der Freygeist may be regarded as its immediate stylistic forerunner'-the contrast is striking; we recognize from the outset that a particular society, defined by particular institutions, is being depicted. The opening dialogue focuses not upon general human and religious questions (as in Der Freygeist), but rather upon such issues as the status of demobilized officers at the end of a particular war (which the audience has no trouble identifying) and the particular signs of alter-