"On the Marionette Theatre" by Henrich von Kleist

I ran across this essay because, apparently, it was a major inspiration for Philip Pullman in writing the His Dark Materials trilogy. I've never read the third book of the trilogy, but I was actually far more impressed by the essay than by the first two books! To be fair, my understanding is that the third book adds a lot of thematic material that corresponds to some of what makes the essay so interesting.