born Oct. 18, 1777, Frankfurt an der Oder, Brandenburg
died Nov. 21, 1811, Wannsee, near Berlin
German writer.
He served seven years in the Prussian army, and his work first attracted attention when he was in prison accused as a spy. The grim and intense drama Penthesilea (1808) contains some of his most powerful poetry, and The Broken Pitcher (1808) is a masterpiece of dramatic comedy; they were followed by Katherine of Heilbronn (1810), Die Hermannsschlacht (1821), and The Prince of Homburg (1821). In 1811 he published a collection of eight masterly novellas, including Michael Kohlhaas , The Earthquake in Chile, and The Marquise of O . Embittered by a lack of recognition, he ended his unhappy life in a joint suicide with a young woman at age 34. He is now considered the first of the great 19th-century German dramatists, and his disturbing and densely written fictions are widely admired by writers.