Even more alluring than his life is his writing, in particular such plays as The Broken Jug or The Prince of Homburg, as well as his essays, stories and poems. Many of these works are classics, endlessly performed, studied and translated. As founder, editor and main contributor of the Berliner Abendblätter, he practically invented modern German newspaper journalism, weaving together sensational news and intellectual essays while avoiding official censorship.

Throughout history, Kleist's work has provoked radically opposed reactions and interpretations, with scholars appropriating him for a variety of causes. Critics in Nazi Germany laid claim to him as a heroic precursor. Later came existentialist, Marxist, feminist and psychoanalytic approaches to his works. 

But most problematic, especially for Germans, are Kleist's justifications of violence as a means to higher ends. Violence and brutality in literature is always a touchy subject, for it challenges our perception that art operates in a different sphere from reality. No wonder then that Kleist has been posthumously accused of oppressive ideological beliefs and patriarchal notions of gender.