The biography and work of the Sturm und Drang author Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz (1751-1792) continue to exert a lasting fascination on writers and artists of our time. His persona and his unfortunate fate, which ended in exclusion and illness, still serve as a pattern of identification through which contemporary artists can process fears and desires related to their own roles. The fact that Lenz was overshadowed during his lifetime in the struggles for power and recognition in the literary field now garners him sympathy. This volume, stemming from a conference at the Humboldt University of Berlin (2005), addresses the question of how Lenz is present in our contemporary literature and literary studies, as well as in theater, music, and art, and in an exhibition; it examines what image of the author and his work emerges, in what aesthetic and/or thematic contexts Lenz is referenced, and how the engagement with the life and work history of this author is shaped based on our current state of consciousness.