Johann Christoph Gottsched

He was born at Juditten (renamed Mendeleyevo in 1947) near Königsberg (Kaliningrad), Brandenburg-Prussia, the son of a Lutheran clergyman, and was baptised in St. Mary's Church. He studied philosophy and history at the University of Königsberg, but immediately on taking the degree of Magister in 1723, he fled to Leipzig to avoid being drafted into the Prussian army. In Leipzig, he enjoyed the protection of Johann Burckhardt Mencke, who, under the name of "Philander von der Linde", was a well-known poet and president of the Deutschübende poetische Gesellschaft in Leipzig. Of this society, Gottsched was elected "Senior" in 1726, and in the next year reorganised it under the title of the Deutsche Gesellschaft.[1]

As editor of the weeklies Die vernünftigen Tadlerinnen (1725–26) and Der Biedermann (1727), Gottsched started on his career of untiring critical activity, continued later in other literary journals. Directing his criticism at first chiefly against the bombast and absurd affectations of the Second Silesian School, he proceeded to lay down strict laws for the composition of poetry.[2] He insisted on German literature being subordinated to the laws of French classicism. He enunciated rules by which the playwright must be bound (such as the Ständeklausel), and abolished bombast and buffoonery from the serious stage.[1] He insisted on the observance of the dramatic unities.

In his efforts toward the reformation of the German drama, Gottsched was aided by his wife, Luise, a prolific writer and translator, and had the cooperation of the theatrical manager Johann Neuber and his wife, Caroline. They succeeded in bringing about a considerable change in the condition of the German stage by substituting for the prevailing operatic performances translations of French dramas and original plays, and by banishing from it the coarse buffooneries of Hanswurst (Jack Pudding).[2]

In 1730, Gottsched was appointed an extraordinary professor of poetry, and, in 1734, ordinary professor of logic and metaphysics at the University of Leipzig.[1] He was also a corresponding member of the first learned society of the Habsburg monarchy, the Societas eruditorum incognitorum in Olmütz (Olomouc), and was published in the Society's journal, which was the first scientific journal in the Habsburg monarchy.

Eventually, Gottsched went too far in his criticism. He refused to recognise the work of Klopstock and Lessing.[3] In 1740, he came into conflict with the Swiss writers Johann Jakob Bodmer and Johann Jakob Breitinger. Under the influence of Addison and contemporary Italian critics, they demanded that the poetic imagination should not be hampered by artificial rules. As examples, they pointed to English poets, especially Milton. Gottsched, although not blind to the beauties of the English writers, clung 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 Zürich, he was ultimately defeated.[1]

In 1741, he fell out with Caroline Neuber regarding practical stage matters, and even placed himself in opposition to his wife.[2] His influence speedily declined, and before his death his name became proverbial for pedantic folly.[1] He died in Leipzig on 12 December 1766.[4]