Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist (18 October 177721 November 1811) was a German poet, dramatist, novelist, short story writer and journalist. His best known works are the theatre plays Das Käthchen von Heilbronn, The Broken Jug, Amphitryon and Penthesilea, and the novellas Michael Kohlhaas and The Marquise of O. Kleist died by suicide together with a close female friend who was terminally ill.
The Kleist Prize, a prestigious prize for German literature, is named after him, as was the Kleist Theater in his birthplace Frankfurt an der Oder.
Life
Kleist was born into the von Kleist family in Frankfurt an der Oder in the Margraviate of Brandenburg, a province of the Kingdom of Prussia. 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, 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, then settled in Switzerland. There, he found congenial friends in Heinrich Zschokke and (1777–1819), son of the poet Christoph Martin Wieland; and to them, he read his first drama, a gloomy tragedy, (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, returned to Paris. Returning in 1804 to his post in Berlin, he 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.
In 1809 Kleist went to Prague, and ultimately settled in Berlin. He edited (1810/1811) the . Captivated by the intellectual and musical accomplishments of the terminally-ill Henriette Vogel(de). Kleist, more disheartened and embittered than ever, agreed to do her bidding and die with her, carrying out this resolution by first shooting Vogel then himself on the shore of the Kleiner Wannsee (Little Wannsee) near Potsdam, on 21 November 1811.
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, "Kleist's whole life was filled by a restless striving after ideal and illusory happiness, and this is reflected in his work. He was by far the most important North German dramatist of the Romantic movement, and no other of the Romanticists approaches him in the energy with which he expresses patriotic indignation."
A life with a plan
In the spring of 1799, the 21-year-old Kleist wrote a letter to his half-sister in which he found it "incomprehensible how a human being can live without a life plan" (Lebensplan). In effect, Kleist sought and discovered an overwhelming sense of security by looking to the future with a definitive plan for his life. It brought him happiness and assured him of confidence, especially knowing life without a plan only saw despair and discomfort. The irony of his suicide is the fodder of his critics.
Relationship with Henriette Vogel and suicide pact
Kleist met Henriette Vogel in 1809 through his friend Adam Müller; a friendship flourished. They shared a fondness for music, and according to Ernest Peguilhen, Henriette Vogel asked her friend to explain to her the art of war, as well as to teach her fencing, for the dramatist was a soldier. The relationship between the two became intimate in the autumn of 1811. According to their contemporaries, there was no fire of passion but a purely spiritual love. His cousin Marie von Kleist, the most important sponsor and confidant of Heinrich von Kleist, also made sure these rumors spread. According to the autopsy report, Vogel was suffering from cancer.