Johann Anton Leisewitz was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 dramatic poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

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Biography

He went to Göttingen in 1770, and became a member of the circle of poets called Der Hainbund

Göttinger Hainbund

The Göttinger Hainbund was a German literary group in the late 18th century, nature-loving and classified as part of the Sturm und Drang movement.-Origin and description:...

, which included Stolberg and Voss, and contributed two poems to the Göttinger Musenalmanach

Göttinger Musenalmanach

Göttinger Musenalmanach was the title of two different literary magazines published in Göttingen, Germany, one running from 1770 to 1807, the other 1896 to 1953...

for 1775, both essentially dramatic and democratic in tone. In 1775, at Brunswick

Braunschweig

Braunschweig , is a city of 247,400 people, located in the federal-state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser....

, and later at Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 and Weimar

Weimar

Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...

, he met and soon counted among his friends Eschenburg

Johann Joachim Eschenburg

Johann Joachim Eschenburg was a German critic and literary historian.He was born and educated at Hamburg, going on to study at the University of Leipzig and University of Göttingen. In 1767 he was appointed tutor, and subsequently professor, at the Collegium Carolinum in Braunschweig...

, Moses Mendelssohn

Moses Mendelssohn

Moses Mendelssohn was a German Jewish philosopher to whose ideas the renaissance of European Jews, Haskalah is indebted...

, Lessing

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was a German writer, philosopher, dramatist, publicist, and art critic, and one of the most outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the development of German literature...

, Nicolai, Herder, and Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...

. His single complete play, Julius von Tarent (1776), was written in Lessing's style and with much of the latter's dramatic technique. The play was a favorite of Friedrich Schiller

Friedrich Schiller

Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...

, and was frequently acted in Germany.