An essay by Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811)
Translated by Michael Hamburger
Read by Basil Taylor
It has been said that the dramatist Kleist was the only Prussian to be a writer of genius. His essay * On the Puppet Theatre,' though only a minor work, reveals many of his peculiarities: the ingenuity of a mind more intuitive than methodical, an interest in the occult and the mysterious, the inability to be content with the mere surface of things.