Background
The character of Nathan is to a large part modeled after Lessing's lifelong friend, the eminent philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. Similar to Nathan the Wise and Saladin, whom Lessing makes meet over the chess-board; they both shared a love for the game.
The motif of the Ring Parable is derived from a complex of medieval tales which first appeared in the German language in the story of Saladin's table in the Weltchronik of Jans der Enikel. Lessing probably had the story in the first instance from Boccaccio's Decameron.
Read more about this topic: Nathan The Wise
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“... every experience in life enriches one’s background and should teach valuable lessons.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)