The Masterpieces

Abstract

Philotas was not the only work of Lessing which owed its inception to the war. A far more famous and popular work, the comedy Minna von Barnhelm, derives its setting and its principal male character from the effect of the war and its cessation on Lessing’s mind. Although Lessing himself set the date 1763 on the title-page as the date of completion, this is inaccurate, probably deliberately so, for the work was drafted in 1764 and not completed until the winter of 1766–7. By antedating the work, Lessing was seeking to emphasize its close connection with the war, which had at last reached its conclusion in that same year 1763.