Heinrich von Kleist
| Heinrich von Kleist | |
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| Born | Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist 18 October 1777 Frankfurt (Oder), Margraviate of Brandenburg, Holy Roman Empire |
| Died | 21 November 1811 (aged 34) Kleiner Wannsee, Berlin, Kingdom of Prussia |
| Occupation | poet, dramatist, novelist, short story writer |
| Nationality | German |
| Literary movement | Romanticism |
| Notable works | The Broken Jug, The Marquise of O, Michael Kohlhaas, Penthesilea, The Prince of Homburg |
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Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist (18 October 1777 – 21 November 1811) was a German poet, dramatist, novelist, short story writer and journalist. The Kleist Prize, a prestigious prize for German literature, is named after him, as was the Kleist Theater in his birthplace.
Kleist was born into the von Kleist family in Frankfurt an der Oder in the Margraviate of Brandenburg. After a scanty education, he entered the Prussian Army in 1792, served in the Rhine campaign of 1796, and retired from the service in 1799 with the rank of lieutenant. He studied law and philosophy at the Viadrina University and in 1800 received a subordinate post in the Ministry of Finance at Berlin.
In the following year, Kleist's roving, restless spirit got the better of him, and procuring a lengthened leave of absence he visited Paris and then settled in Switzerland. There he found congenial friends in Heinrich Zschokke and Ludwig Wieland (1777–1819), son of the poet Christoph Martin Wieland; and to them he read his first drama, a gloomy tragedy, The Schroffenstein Family (1803).
In the autumn of 1802, Kleist returned to Germany; he visited Goethe, Schiller, and Wieland in Weimar, stayed for a while in Leipzig and Dresden, again proceeded to Paris, and returning in 1804 to his post in Berlin was transferred to the Domänenkammer (department for the administration of crown lands) at Königsberg. On a journey to Dresden in 1807, Kleist was arrested by the French as a spy; he remained a close prisoner of France in the Fort de Joux. On regaining his liberty, he proceeded to Dresden, where, in conjunction with Adam Heinrich Müller (1779–1829), he published the journal Phöbus in 1808.
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