Chapters: Heinrich von Kleist, Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist, Ewald Christian von Kleist, Friedrich Graf Kleist von Nollendorf, Ewald Georg von Kleist, Karl Friedrich Gottlob Wetzel, . Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 29. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist (18 October 1777 - 21 November 1811) was a poet, dramatist, novelist and short story writer. The Kleist Prize, a prestigious prize for German literature, is named after him. 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. Here he found congenial friends in Heinrich Zschokke and Ludwig Friedrich August Wieland (d. 1819), son of the poet Christoph Martin Wieland; and to them he read his first drama, a gloomy tragedy, The Schroffenstein Family (1803, originally entitled The Ghonorez Family). 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 Domanenkammer (department for the administration of crown lands) at Konigsberg. On a journey to Dresden in 1807, Kleist was arrested by the French as a spy; he remained a close prisoner of the France at Chalons-sur-Marne. On regaining his liberty, he proceeded ...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=2165