STYLISTIC INDIVIDUALIZATION OF CHARACTER SPEECH IN NATHAN DER WEISE

Abstract

This thesis examines the stylistic individualization of character speech in Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Nathan der Weise. In dramatic discourse, character speech performs not only a communicative function but also an important stylistic and artistic role, since it reveals worldview, social position, emotional condition, and ideological orientation. In Lessing’s drama, the differentiation of speech becomes one of the main means of creating character individuality and expressing the philosophical depth of the work. The study analyzes the lexical, syntactic, pragmatic, and expressive features of the speech of the principal characters and shows how these features contribute to the formation of distinct speech portraits. The findings demonstrate that Nathan’s language is marked by rationality and moral balance, Saladin’s speech by authority and dialogic dynamism, Recha’s discourse by emotional intensity, and the Templar’s speech by inner tension and abruptness. The thesis concludes that stylistic individualization in Nathan der Weise functions as a central artistic device through which Lessing constructs polyphonic dramatic interaction and deepens the ideological structure of the text.