What is "lenz"

Lenz may refer to:

• Lantsch/Lenz, the German name of the place in Grisons, Switzerland
• Lenz (fragment), literary fragment by Georg Büchner
• Lenasia, an Indian township in Gauteng, South Africa
• Lenz military base near Lenasia, Gauteng
• Lenz, Oregon (disambiguation), the name of two settlements in the U.S. state of Oregon
• Lenz, Stephanie, plaintiff in Lenz v. Universal Music Corp. who posted a YouTube video of children dancing to a Prince song
• Lents (crater)

Lenz is a novella fragment written by Georg Büchner in Strasbourg in 1836. It is based on the documentary evidence of Jean Frédéric Oberlin's diary. Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz, a friend of Goethe, is the subject of the story. In March 1776 he met Goethe in Weimar. Later he suffered from mental disorder and was sent to Oberlin's vicarage in the Steintal. The story is concerned with this last incident. Although left unfinished at the time of Büchner's death in 1837, it has been seen as a precursor to literary modernism. Its influence on later writers has been immense. The story has been adapted for the stage as Jacob Lenz, a 1978 chamber opera by Wolfgang Rihm.