Prinz Friedrich von Homburg

Heinrich Heine, the incorruptible arbitrator between Enlightenment, Idealism and Romanticism, called Kleist's great drama an "apple of plenty in our aesthetic societies", i.e. an object of dispute such as the apple that Paris was to assign to the most beautiful of all goddesses, because Kleist's perhaps most beautiful play was also the subject of dispute without ever reaching agreement: Glorification or criticism of Prussia's military authoritarianism or dreamy infiltration? The Studienausgabe offers a critical text without revisions or modernizations and puts the reluctant attempts at interpretation up for discussion.