Lessing’s Hamburg Dramaturgy in the “codes of hope” discourse of the Enlightenment
... Elightenment is based on trust in human sensibility, within which, probably unconsciously, in the conditions of newly established autonomy, he discovers the heteronomous orientation of the “compassion” and “fear” existentials underlying his theory of catharsis. In Lessing’s system, these “vertically” positioned psychological states prove to be bridges to nature, in which he seeks the truth. It explains his theory of realism in Hamburg Dramaturgy, which differs radically from Kant’s philosophy....