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Gottsched and Bodmer each succeeded in establishing schools of poetry which exerted great influence on the literary taste of the country. He was the advocate and copyist of French models in art and poetry, and he used his widespread influence in favor of the correct and so-called classical style.
"A saying of Excellency Mitchell's to Gottsched for Gottsched, on that second Leipzig opportunity, went swashing about among the King's Suite as well is still remembered. They were talking of Shakspeare: 'Genial, if you will, said Gottsched, 'but the Laws of Aristotle; Five Acts, unities strict! 'Aristotle?
Perhaps your learned soul may be somewhat reconciled to such vanities when you see a drama of Gottsched, and a hero of the old and classic time." "Yes, but will not your Eckhof make a vile caricature of the noble Roman?" sighed Lupinus. "You are a pedant, and I trust the Muses will revenge themselves upon you this night," said Joseph, angrily.
In the time of Gottsched, the authors of Germany wrote a macaronic jargon, in which French and Latin made up a considerable proportion of every sentence: nay, it happened often that foreign words were inflected with German forms; and the whole result was such as to remind the reader of the medical examination in the Malade Imaginaire of Moliere, "Quid poetea est a faire?
"The German language is a succession of barbarous sounds; there is no music in it. Every tone is rough and harsh, and its many discords make it useless for poetry or eloquence. "Ah, your majesty," said Gottsched, impatiently, "that is also a sound in the French tongue. You should know this, for no one understands better, more energetically than yourself, how to circumvent the 'boules!"
Through his very eyes he imbibed a daily scorn of Gottsched and his monstrous compound of German coarseness with French sensual levity. He could not look at his native Alps, but he saw in them, and their austere grandeurs or their dread realities, a spiritual reproach to the hollowness and falsehood of that dull imposture which Gottsched offered by way of substitute for nature.
The king listened to this assurance with rather a contemptuous smile. He directed Icilius, however, to present to him some of the Leipsic scholars and authors. "I will present to your majesty the most renowned scholar and philologist of Leipsic, Professor Gottsched, and the celebrated author, Gellert," said Icilius, with great animation. "Which of the two will your majesty receive first?"
Gottsched, without manifesting the least vexation, raised the wig from the servant's arm with his left hand, and, while he very dexterously swung it up on his head, gave the poor fellow such a box on the ear with his right paw, that the latter, as often happens in a comedy, went spinning out at the door; whereupon the respectable old grandfather invited us quite gravely to be seated, and kept up a pretty long discourse with good grace.
Will it be believed that Gottsched recommends his Art of Poetry to beginners, in preference to Breitinger's, because it "will enable them to produce every species of poem in a correct style, while out of that no one can learn to make an ode or a cantata"? "Whoever," he says, "buys Breitinger's book in order to learn how to make poems, will too late regret his money."
You will not do me the injury of making me serve a master who has not been to see the king, while Herr Gottsched has been?" "But, Conrad," said Gellert, complainingly, "what good will it have done me to have declined the position of regular professor, that I might be in no danger of becoming rector, and being obliged to see kings and princes?"
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