The Country Preacher

Jakob Michael Reinhold LenzProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 109K words
Chapters: 11

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Der Landprediger by Jakob Michael Reinhold LenzAuthor: Lenz, Jakob Michael Reinhold, 1751-1792,Language: German, Class: PT: Language and Literatures: Germanic, Scandinavian, and Icelandic literatures, Release Date: Nov 1, 2004

Editor's review

Der Landprediger is a prose work by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz, a writer of the German Sturm und Drang period, and an early exploration of the country-pastor theme in German literature. In a sensitive, faintly sentimental style, Lenz depicts the country pastor's circumstances and inner life, casting light on the tension between religious life and worldly reality in the Age of Enlightenment. This Project Gutenberg edition is a public-domain electronic text; the main barrier to reading is the German original and the 18th-century style. For those studying the history of German literature, the Sturm und Drang movement, or the evolution of rural themes, it is a directly accessible primary source; general readers curious about Lenz can also get a sense of his narrative tone. The text is short and suited to course reading or textual comparison, but it should not be expected to offer a plot-driven novel in the modern sense.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Students of German literature who need to engage with original Sturm und Drang texts
Scholars and enthusiasts studying the 18th-century German country-pastor theme
Readers who want to understand Lenz's style through a short prose work
Self-learners accustomed to reading public-domain German e-books

Not a good fit for

General readers without German who depend on translations
Readers of modern fiction who expect strong plotting and fast pacing
Beginners who need detailed notes and an introduction

Reading tips

Familiarize yourself with the basic background of the Sturm und Drang movement before reading; the text will be easier to follow.
Read it alongside other works by Lenz to observe continuity in narrative perspective and emotional register.
Note the contrast between the pastor figure and the rural setting as you read, keeping brief notes for review.
The e-book has no notes; consult German reference works for unfamiliar words and passages.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a prose work?

The metadata identifies it only as a literary work by Lenz in the German language and literature class. Judging by the title and subject, it centers on a country pastor, and its length and scale suggest a prose narrative rather than a novel; the exact genre should be confirmed from the original text.

Can I read it without knowing German?

This is a German-language e-book, and the Gutenberg edition includes no translation or notes. Readers without German will find it difficult; consult a bilingual edition or related scholarship for support.

What are the features of this edition?

It is released by Project Gutenberg as a public-domain electronic text, free to access and easy to search and cite. It generally lacks modern editorial notes, an introduction, or detailed publication information, making it suitable as a source text rather than a scholarly reading edition.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz Author · German · 1751–1792

Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz (1751–1792) was a leading writer of the German Sturm und Drang movement, born in Livonia (present-day Latvia). He maintained close ties with Goethe and Herder, and his major works, Der Hofmeister and Die Soldaten, break free from the constraints of the dramatic unities, exposing social injustice in a realistic vein and anticipating naturalism and expressionism. Seven of his works are held in this collection, including the two plays above, a polemical defense of Wieland, the novel Der Waldbruder written as a counterpart to Werther, and Der Engländer, Der Landprediger and Zerbin, oder die neuere Philosophie. After 1778 he suffered from mental illness and died in poverty in Moscow; public information on his life is limited, while his works, often centering on lower-class figures, are passionate and direct in style.