/kloc-written by Lessing, the founder of German civil class national drama theory in the 0/8th century. The Hamburg National Theatre was founded in 1766, and the drama critic is Lessing. According to 52 performances, he wrote 104 articles, which were published in 1769 in two volumes, named "Hamburg Drama Review".
In Drama Review, Lessing "walked through every step here with the art of writers and actors", expounded his views on drama art at any time, "made readers find their own thinking materials in these thoughts" and "spread some" yeast of knowledge ",aiming at establishing German citizen drama.
Lessing chose French classical drama and its representative figures as the object of debate; Taking their drama performance as an opportunity, this paper makes a deep analysis and sharp criticism on the theme selection, language use and drama rules of classical drama by using comparative methods.
He believes that art should not simply imitate nature on the surface, but should imitate the essence of nature and educate people through this real imitation. "Everything in nature is interrelated, and everything is intertwined and transformed." The playwright describes the infinitely complex nature and draws a boundary for infinity, that is, in the kingdom of beauty, he replaces the audience, chooses various things, regroups them, makes the audience pay attention to them and feel acceptable, and produces educational effects. So creation and reasoning, genius and rules must be combined.
Lessing, as the spokesman of the emerging bourgeoisie, lashed out at the classical stereotype reflecting aristocratic consciousness, believing that it was a distortion of ancient literary theory. It is required to replace classicism with realism and aristocratic literature with citizen literature.
He demanded that the drama should describe civilian life. "The names of princes and heroes can give a script brilliance and majesty, but they can't impress people. The misfortune of the closest person will naturally touch our souls deeply. " If a playwright wants to write the truth of life, he must jump out of the aristocratic circle and enter the folk. "It is impossible for a poet to know the real life in the court." Advocate the use of simple, natural and everyday language, not flashy and lifeless language.
He also pointed out that the function of tragedy is to "arouse fear and pity, so as to purify these feelings", and further clarified this ancient definition and corrected Gao Naiyi's misinterpretation of Aristotle.
Classicism believes that comedy is to achieve educational goals through ridicule. Lessing believes that "comedy is to improve everything with laughter rather than ridicule;" What comedy needs to improve is not the bad lines it laughs at, not just those who have such ridiculous bad lines. The real universal function of comedy lies in laughter itself and in training our talent for finding interesting things. "Therefore, the educational means of comedy is to let people discover contradictions in social life through laughter, prevent all bad tendencies and maintain the healthy state of society.
Lessing's comments on Hamburg's plays, through comparison and debate, have aroused a healthy national spirit movement in Germany, which not only occupies an important position in the history of European literary theory, but also is an important national document in the process of Germany preparing to form a unified country in the18th century.