JULIUS

See also:

• LEOPOLD (M.H. Ger. Liupolt; O.H. Ger. Liupald, from hut, Mod. Ger. Leute, " people," and paid, " bold," i.e. " bold for the people ")

LEOPOLD

See also:

• JULIUS LEOPOLD KLEIN (1810–1876)

KLEIN (1810–1876)  , German writer of Jewish origin, was born at Miskolcz, in Hungary . He was educated at the gymnasium in Pest, and studied medicine in Vienna and Berlin . After travelling in Italy and Greece, he settled as a man of letters in Berlin, where he remained until his death on the 2nd of August 1876 . He was the author of many dramatic works, among others the historical tragedies Maria von Medici (1841); Luines (1842); Zenobia (1847); Moreto (1859); Maria (1860); Strafford (1862) and Heliodora (1867); and the comedies DieHerzogin (1848) ; Ein Schutzling (1850) ; and Voltaire (1862) . The tendency of Klein as a dramatist was to become bombastic and obscure, but many of his characters are vigorously conceived, and in nearly all his tragedies there are passages of brilliant rhetoric . He is chiefly known as the author of the elaborate though uncompleted Geschichte des Dramas (1865–1876), in which he undertook to record the history of the drama from the earliest times . He died when about to enter upon the Elizabethan period, to the treatment of which he had looked forward as the chief part of his task . The work, which is in thirteen bulky volumes, gives proof of immense learning, but is marred by eccentricities of style and judgment . Klein's Dramatische Werke were collected in 7 vols . (1871–1872) .