Johann Christoph Gottsched

Johann Christoph Gottsched , born the February 2nd 1700 in Judithen Kirch close to Kœnigsberg and dead the December 12th 1766 with Leipzig, is a Critique, Grammairien and German Man of letters .

Wire of a minister protesting and intended for the ecclesiastical state, Gottsched gave up the Théologie for the Philosophie and the Littérature, and left the Prussia to escape the military service. He was tutor of the children of the scientist Mencke in Leipzig, then professor at the University.

Critical whose influence was considerable, Gottsched was made a name by the very sharp share which it took with the literary debates of its time. He endeavoured to purify at the same time the German language, condemning the employment of a crowd of foreign words, his literature and especially the theater by means of the imitation of the French classic authors of which he in favor was declared. Preaching the purity of the language especially, clearness, the elegance of the style, it proscribed theater the buffoons roles whose national Arlequin, famous Hans Wurst ( Jean-Sausage ), was the popular type. Gottsched supported these ideas, often without moderation, in various newspapers: the Spectator of Leipzig , the Patriot of Hamburg , and especially die vernünftigen Tandlerinnen ( reasonable Criticisms ), he was the principal writer, proclamations of the School saxonne, which recognized it for chief.

Gottsched had frightening adversaries, in the person of two distinguished writers, Bodmer and Breitinger, which founded or rather, defended the Swiss School, with works and the name Haller for supports. This one opposed to the French imitation the influence of the English Littérature. Bodmer had translated Milton, and Gottsched directed against the English epopee of the arguments borrowed from Voltaire. It thus acted less, in this beginning, to free the national literature to choose the influence for which it was advisable to subject it. The school of Gottsched was definitively overcome by the ascending one of Lessing and of Klopstock which, also hostile with any foreign imitation, however decided for the Swiss school, because the models which she sought in England were in conformity with the national genius.

The reputation of Gottsched suffered much from the defeat of the party of the French imitation; its prestige and its fall are marked perfectly by the word of Gellert: “II was a time when I would have given all to the world to be rented of Gottsched, and now I would give all to the world to be removed from its praises. ” This one less did not render from there services real to the literature of its country. German of Staël, which calls it “a scientist without taste and genius”, because of the opinion that it supported, was appropriate “that it spouts out a great light of the fight of the two schools”.

Gottsched also keeps, like Grammairien, a distinguished row, and the authority of which he enjoyed as critical is often justified. Its treaties on poetic Art ( Kritische Dichkunst , Leipzig, 1730), on the Eloquence ( Redekunst , Hanover, 1728), its Grammar especially ( Sprachkunst Leipzig, 1748), were useful books and the last knew six editions.

Its Beitrage zur kritischen Historie DER deutschen Sprache, Poetry und Beredsamkeit ( Tests of critical history of the language, poetry and the eloquence , ibid , 1732 - 1744, 8 vol.), its Neuer Buchersaal DER schönen Wissenschaften ( New Library of the letters and arts , ibid , 1745 - 1754, 10 vol.), etc, offered a true literary interest a long time.

With the theater, its Sterbender Cato ( dying Caton , Leipzig, 1732), knew ten successive editions. It also left an imitated Iphigénie Racine. It left moreover lyric poetries ( Gedichte , ibid , 1736; Neueste Gedichte , Königsberg 1750), a translation in modern German of the Reineke Renart of Henri d' Akmar (Leipzig and Amsterdam, 1752, fart. in-fol. with engravings); Speech and Letters on the literary history.

He was the husband of the woman of letters and translator Luise Gottsched.

Works

Theoretical works

Versuch einer critischen Dichtkunst VOR die Deutschen , Leipzig 1730 (Digitalisat der Auflage Leipzig 1751)
Erste Gründe DER gesamten Weltweisheit , Leipzig, 1733
Ausführliche Redekunst , Leipzig, 1736
Grundlegung einer deutschen Sprachkunst , Leipzig, 1748

Literary works

Sterbender Cato (1732)

Reviews

Die Tadlerinnen. 1725-1726 , Olms, Hildesheim, 1993.
Der Biedermann. 1727-1729 , Metzler, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-476-00317-5.
Beiträge zur critischen Historie DER deutschen Sprache, Poetry und Beredsamkeit , Olms, Hildesheim, 1970.
Neuer Büchersaal DER schönen Wissenschaften und freyen Künste. 1745-1750 , Smoked (MF-Ausgabe), München, 1994.
Das Neueste aus DER anmuthigen Gelehrsamkeit. 1751-1762 , Smoked (MF-Ausgabe), München, 1994.

Others

Gedächtnissrede auf den unsterblich verdienten Dom Herrn in Frauenberg, Nicolaus Copernicus , Leipzig, 1743.
Herrn Peter Baylens, weyland Professors DER Philosophy und Historie zu Rotterdam, historical and critical Dictionary , nach DER neuesten Auflage von 1740 ins Deutsche übersetzt; auch put einer Vorrede und verschiedenen Anmerkungen sonderlich bey anstößigen Stellen versehen, von Johann Christoph Gottscheden… in vier Teilen, Leipzig, Breitkopf, 1741-1744.
Handlexikon oder kurzgefaßtes Wörterbuch DER schönen Wissenschaften und freyen Künste , Leipzig, Gleditsch, 1760.

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