Modernity, according to some views, poses the problem of homo politicus -- the problem of how to act in a moral universe without a -master narrative, - without a final foundation. From this angle, the oeuvre of Heinrich von Kleist -- novellas, dramas, and essays -- addresses problems emerging from a new universe of Kantian provenance, in many ways the same universe we inhabit today. This volume of new essays investigates Kleist's position in our ever-changing conception of modernity, employing aesthetic, narrative, philosophical, biographical, political, economic, anthropological,...