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GOTTSCHED, JOHANN CHRISTOPH (1700-1766)

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Originally appearing in Volume V12, Page 280 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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GOTTSCHED, JOHANN CHRISTOPH (1700-1766) , See also:German author and critic, was See also:born on the 2nd of See also:February 1700, at Judithenkirch near See also:Konigsberg, the son of a Lutheran clergyman. He studied See also:philosophy and See also:history at the university of his native See also:town, but immediately on taking the degree of Magister in 1723, fled to See also:Leipzig in See also:order to evade See also:impressment in the Prussian military service. Here he enjoyed the See also:protection of J. B. Mencke (1674-1732), who, under the name of " Philander von der Linde," was a well-known poet and also See also:president of the Deutschiibende poetische Gesellschaft in Leipzig. Of this society Qottsched was elected " See also:Senior" in 1726, and in the next See also:year reorganized it under the See also:title of the Deutsche Gesellschaft. In 1730 he was appointed extraordinary See also:professor of See also:poetry, and, in 1734, See also:ordinary professor of See also:logic and See also:metaphysics in the university. He died at Leipzig on the 12th of See also:December 1766. Gottsched's See also:chief See also:work was his Versuch einer kritischen Dichtkunst See also:fur See also:die Deutschen (1730), the first systematic See also:treatise in German on the See also:art of poetry from the standpoint of Boileau. His Ausfiihrliche Redekunst (1728) and his Grundlegung einer deutschen Sprachkunst (1748) were of importance for the development of German See also:style and the See also:purification of the See also:language. He wrote several plays, of which Der sterbende See also:Cato (1732), an See also:adaptation of See also:Addison's tragedy and a See also:French See also:play on the same theme, was See also:long popular on the See also:stage. In his Deutsche Schaubuhne (6 vols., 1740-1745), which contained mainly See also:translations from the French, he provided the German stage with a classical repertory, and his bibliography of the German See also:drama, Notiger Vorrat zur Geschichte der deutschen dramatischen Dichtkunst (1757—1765), is still valuable.

He was also the editor of several See also:

journals devoted to See also:literary See also:criticism. As a critic, Gottsched insisted on German literature being subordinated to the See also:laws of French classicism; he enunciated rules by which the playwright must be See also:bound, and abolished bombast and buffoonery from the serious stage. While such reforms obviously afforded a healthy corrective to the extravagance and want of See also:taste which were rampant in the German literature of the See also:time, Gottsched went too far. In 1740 he came into conflict with the Swiss writers Johann See also:Jakob See also:Bodmer (q.v.) and Johann Jakob Breitinger (1701—1776), who, under the See also:influence of Addison and contemporary See also:Italian critics, demanded that the poetic See also:imagination should not be hampered by artificial rules; they pointed to the See also:great See also:English poets, and especially to See also:Milton. Gottsched, although not See also:blind to the beauties of the English writers, clung the more tenaciously to his principle that poetry must be the product of rules, and, in the fierce controversy which for a time raged between Leipzig and See also:Zurich, he was inevitably defeated. His influence speedily declined, and before his See also:death his name became proverbial for pedantic folly. His wife, Luise Adelgunde Victorie,'nee Kulmus (1713—1762), in some respects her See also:husband's intellectual See also:superior, was an author of some reputation. She wrote several popular comedies, of which Das Testament is the best, and translated the Spectator (9 vols., 1739-1743), See also:Pope's See also:Rape of the See also:Lock (1744) and other English and French See also:works. After her death her husband edited her Samtliche kleinere Gedichte with a memoir (1763). See T. W. Danzel, Gottsched and See also:seine Zeit (Leipzig, 1848) ; J.

Crt1er, Gottsched, Bodmer, and Breitinger (with selections from their writings) (See also:

Stuttgart, 1884) ; F. Servaes, Die Poetik Gottscheds and der Schweizer (See also:Strassburg, 1887) ; E. See also:Wolff, Gottscheds Stellung See also:im deutschen Bildungsleben (2 vols., See also:Kiel, 1895-1897), and G. Waniek, Gottsched and die deutsche Literatur seiner Zeit (Leipzig, 1897). On Frau Gottsched, see P. Schlenther, Frau Gottsched and die biirgerliche Komodie (See also:Berlin, 1886).

End of Article: GOTTSCHED, JOHANN CHRISTOPH (1700-1766)

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