Nathan the Wise at Stratford Festival

Authors

• Ferdinand Bruckner

NATHAN THE WISE (German title Nathan der Weise) is a plea for religious tolerance. Lessing completed the first rough draft of the play in November 1778. He then began putting it into verse and was the first in Germany to use iambic pentameter. The play was published in May 1779, but did not receive its first public performance until April 1783, two years after Lessing's death. The character of Nathan is based on Lessing's good friend and German Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn.