Nathan der Weise and the Enlightenment: East, Tolerance, and Universal Ethics

Abstract

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Nathan the Wise (“Nathan der Wei­se,” 1779) is considered one of the major works of the Enlighte­nment. Lessing reflects on religious tolerance, humanism, and reason as the highest virtues. Despite Nathan the Wise has long stood as a symbol of Enlightenment ideals: reason, religious tolerance, and universal mor­ality, controversies followed after Edward Said’s “Orientalism” (1978). Criticism of approaches that present the East only as a passive figure has become particularly acute. Positioned during the Crusades, yet deeply embedded in the 18th-century German intellectual milieu, the drama offers a vision of interfaith harmony via its famed “Ring Par­able” and the moral wisdom of its Jewish protagonist, Nathan. Lit­erary discourse constructs the East as a symbolic space in which the West defines its identity. While postcolonial and critical critics critic­ized the limitations of Lessing’s Enlightenment universalism, e.g., Edw­ard Said’s critique of Eurocentric discourses (1978).  The critique of secular tolerance of recent scholarship remains in support of the play as an ongoing appeal for tolerance. Scholars, e.g. Shmuel Feiner (2012), Von Schwerin-High (2013), Albrecht Classen (2021, 2023) and more posit that Nathan der Weise is a foundational text of intercultural ethics, as well as of moral cosmopolitanism. Engaging with ongoing debates on Enlightenment humanism and pluralism, they support the standpoint that Lessing’s vision retains pedagogical and philosophical relevance in contemporary discussions on religious coexistence, civic virtue, and universal dignity. The article analyzes the significance of the play in historical, cultural and literary contexts. It explores and synthesizes the contemporary approaches, positioning them within the broader contestation over the Enlightenment’s legacy in a global, postcolonial world. Paying particular attention to the cultural and religious dimensions that make the drama an early literary bridge between the East and the West, we focus on the East as a cultural topoi in Lessing’s drama to reinforce universal humanist ideas and to affirm the phil­osophy of the Enlightenment.