Johann Christoph Gottsched (1700-1766)

The monumental quality of Johann Christoph Gottsched's role in the history of Germany becomes apparent when one compares the situation at the beginning of the eighteenth century and the situation midway through the century. Prior to Gottsched there was no standard for German poetics. There was no repertoire for the German theater in its infancy. There was no standard reference work on German rhetoric. There was no German grammar which could lead to the establishment of a literary language. Gottsched (1700-66) filled all these lacunae and gained a position of eminence from about 1720 to - in many fields - until his death, but with regard to the drama only until 1758 when he was knocked from his pedestal, so to speak, by the young G. E. Lessing in the so-called "Siebzehnter Literaturbrief" in the serial publication Briefe die neueste Literatur betreffend. Despite the fact that Gottsched retained his eminence in other fields of literary and philological endeavor, Lessing's and his friend Friedrich Nicolai's criticism was so biting and so effective that Gottsched's own star began to sink just as that of Lessing, Nicolai, and Mendelsohn rose. Because of Gottsched's rejection of Milton and Shakespeare, who, he felt, signified a return to the Baroque, a rejection which led to the controversy between "Leipzig," that is, Gottsched and his followers, and "the Swiss," that is, J. J. Bodmer, J. J. Breitinger and their followers, Gottsched's reputation partially eroded. Only since the middle of this century has there been renewed recognition of Gottsched's contributions and his highly significant position in the history of German literature. Here is the first monograph to appear on Gottsched in almost a hundred years.