Written when Lessing was just sixteen years old, this sparkling early comedy turns its sharp eye on a universal type: the young scholar who has read so much about life that he's forgotten how to live it. Damis lurks in his study, pontificating to his long-suffering servant Anton, convinced that his mastery of books has prepared him for everything the world has to offer. His father Chrysander has other ideas, arriving to demand that his son abandon dusty volumes for the considerably more complicated terrain of romance and responsibility. The object of desired affection is Juliane, but Damis proves far more adept at debating philosophy than navigating the simple fact that a young woman might want to be courted rather than lectured. The comedy unfolds from this delicious collision between scholarly confidence and emotional incompetence, a battle that Lessing skewers with a teenager's perfect instinct for pomposity and pretension. Though the play shows its author's youth in places, the wit crackles with genuine comic timing, and the satirical target remains wonderfully timeless: anyone who has ever confused knowing about life with knowing how to live it.
