The Battle of Herrmann

A first English translation of Heinrich von Kleist's Die Herrmannsschlacht, which retells the German foundational narrative of Arminus' defeat of the Roman legions in the Teutoburger Wald, this edition is fully annotated and accompanied by a selected bibliography, contextual materials, including excerpts from Kleist's letters and oeuvre, and commentaries on the play's two-fold and parallel historical contexts (Roman Germania and Napoleonic Germany) and on the play's reception. The translation and critical apparatus make this encrypted and subtle drame-à-clé accessible to a wider audience, revealing a text that is simultaneously an expression of incipient German nationalism at the time of the wars of liberation against Napoleon, and an unsettling, critical and, from a contemporary point of view, very timely reflection on the problems of leadership, national identity, war, and the practice and legitimacy of partisan or irregular warfare.