Wilfried Barner

Wilfried Barner (1937–2014) was a professor of modern German literature at the universities of Tübingen and Göttingen and a member of several academies. His research focused on literature from Humanism to the Goethe era, particularly Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, as well as post-1945 literature, literary theory, the history of scholarship, and German–classical literary relations. He served as chief editor of Lessing’s works and letters for the Deutscher Klassiker Verlag. His publications included “Produktive Rezeption. Lessing und die Tragödien Senecas” (1973), “Von Rahel Varnhagen bis Friedrich Gundolf” (1992), “Goethe und Lessing” (2001), and the edited volume “Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von 1945 bis zur Gegenwart” (2006).