The aplomb with which Lessing goes about his philological studies, as attested to by his modernised Medea, is just as evident in a correspondence with his friends, in which they explore (to quote Schiller) the “reason why we take pleasure in tragic subjects”. In October 1755, Lessing had left Berlin to move to Leipzig. What exactly he was looking for there is unknown – he may not have known himself. Already in the preceding spring he had resigned his position as editor of the Privileged Berlin Newspaper; in a letter to his father, he hints at feeling drawn “to Moscow”, where a university had been founded at the beginning of the year (Apr 11, 1755; B 11/1, 65).