Emilia Galotti is a drama of the Enlightenment, though it doesn't precisely follow the standard French model of the era.

Set in Italy , Emilia Galotti tells the story of a virtuous young woman of the bourgeoisie.

The absolutist prince of Guastalla, Hettore Gonzaga, becomes obsessed with the idea of making Emilia his lover after their first meeting.

He thus gives his conniving Chamberlain, Marinelli, the right to do anything in his power to delay the previously arranged marriage between Emilia and Count Appiani.

Lessing depicts aristocrats as having unfair powers in society and as ruining the happiness of the emerging middle class.

But the Englishman was surprised by the "impious oaths and execrations" of the script: "The interlocutors curse, swear, and call names, in a gross and outrageous manner.

"[1] In Arthur Schopenhauer's The Art of Literature, he criticised Emilia Galotti as a play with a "positively revolting" end.