“Pity and fear” (Mitleid und Furcht) – the formula with which Lessing translates the central terms of the Aristotelian Poetics (eleos and phobos in the original Greek) is one of the most often-quoted and memorable formulas of poetics ever. Whenever and wherever pity and fear are mentioned, Lessing is involved. Lessing’s reading of Aristotle takes the study of the Poetics to a new intellectual level. Its basis is an ingenious philology that attempts to place Aristotle’s treatise, which has not merely come down to us in fragments but was only roughly drafted in the first place, in the overall context of his thinking and interpret it from this perspective.