Lessing and Voltaire first met at the Court of Frederick II in 1750, and shortly thereafter Lessing received permission to translate Voltaire’s essays and to have his daily dinner at Voltaire’s table. Eventually, however, the relationship between the two soured, and they would not meet again after Voltaire left Prussia in 1753. Carl Niekerk’s paper investigates the dynamics between the two authors. His main thesis is that Voltaire was an exemplary representative of the Moderate Enlightenment and opposed Enlightenment philosophies that would endanger the existing order of society. Lessing, in contrast, was intrigued by Radical Enlightenment thinking and willing to question all the many traditions and hierarchies that had shaped society.

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