Emilia as Libertine, Reassessing G.E. Lessing’s Emilia Galotti

Abstract

This paper argues that G.E. Lessing’s Emilia Galotti is not as innocent as many critics see her. Because of the move into the city, away from the boring and shelterd environment of country life, and her mother’s tacit encouragement to become involved in the royal court, Emilia comes to appreciate and yearn for the free lifestyle that is practiced there. In the city she lacks her father’s moral strength and steadfastness. Instead, she is inundated with temptations that play to her emotions, making them supersede her rational thought. Once Odoardo Galotti returns into her life during her greatest hour of need, his moral conviction gives her the resolve to resist the temptation of immorality and to embrace her virtuousness, choosing death and everlasting life over the life of a libertine.