This first-ever full-length study in English dealing with Heinse aims to show his central importance for the Sturm und Drang movement: as its art authority, its unsurpassed exuberant exponent of the descriptive possibilities of literary German, and its creator of the unsentimental 'Kernmensch' Ardinghello, the complement of Goethe's Werther. Heinse's status is illuminated by his reactions to Wieland's Rococo and Winckelmann's Classicism. Rubens, and indirectly the Rhine Falls of Schaffhausen are added by Heinse to the list of the Sturm und Drang's exceptional beings. Through Heinse the Sturm und Drang period gains a dimension of aesthetic brilliance with its focus on 'hoechstes Leben' unforgettably articulated.