United States or Heard Island and McDonald Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Everybody remembers how Goethe, in the seventh book of his autobiography, tells the story of his visit to Gottsched. He enters by mistake an inner room at the moment when a frightened servant brings the discrowned potentate a periwig large enough to reach to the elbows. That awful emblem of pretentious sham seems to be the best type of the literature then predominant.
Wonderful to see how, in such an environment, in the depths of mere toil and tribulation, with a whole breaking world lying on his shoulders, as it were, he always shows such appetite for a snatch of talk with anybody presumably of sense, and knowledge on something! Gottsched was able to satisfy the King on one point; namely, That the celebrated passage of St.
Thus, under the third division, comprising the eighteenth century until Herder and Goethe, we find the following articles following each other: "State of Literature in the Eighteenth Century"; "Johann Christian Gottsched," by F.C. Schlosser; "Gottsched's Attempts at Dramatic Reform," by R. Prutz; "Hagedorn and Haller," by J.W. Schaefer; "Bodmer and Breitinger," by A. Koberstein; "The Leipsic Association of Poets and the Bremen Contributions," by Chr.
We have a standard for this wretchedness, in the fact that Gottsched actually once passed for the restorer of our literature; Gottsched, whose writings resemble the watery beverage, which was then usually recommended to convalescent patients, from an idea that they could bear nothing stronger, which, however, did but still more enfeeble their stomachs.
Gottsched, who greatly contributed toward the reformation of German literature, still retained the stilted Alexandrine and the pseudo-Gallic imitation of the ancient dramatists to which Lessing put an end. Lessing wrote his "Dramaturgy" at Hamburg, recommended Shakespeare and other English authors as models, but more particularly nature.
Poets and critics now rose in every quarter and pitilessly assailed Gottsched, the champion of Gallomania. They were themselves divided into two opposite parties, into Anglomanists and Graecomanists, according to their predilection for modern English literature or for that of ancient Greece and Rome.
Amongst these were the scholars, who pronounced the dramas of Gottsched far superior to those of Corneille and Racine; there were the German patriots, who would not grant a smile to the best representation of "Le Malade Imaginaire," but declared "The Hypochondriac," by Guistorp, the wittiest drama in the world.
He opened the letter, and while reading, his countenance cleared, and he burst out into a loud, joyous laugh. "Well, you must read this poem, and tell me if it is pure German and true poetry." The king, assuming the attitude of a great tragedian, stepped forward with a nasal voice, and exactly in the pompous manner of Gottsched, he read the poem aloud.
A paper war was carried on in their respective journals, which at length ended favorably to the Swiss or Bodmer's school, which, although the smaller party, obtained a splendid victory over its antagonist. Many of the followers of Gottsched, disgusted with his pedantry, finally separated themselves from him and formed a new poetical union, called the Second Saxonic School.
Frederick laughed; and this gay rejoinder of the learned professor reconciled him somewhat to his puffed-up and haughty self-conceit. "It is true," said he, "this time you are right; but you must admit that, in general, the French language is softer and more melodious!" "I cannot admit it," said Gottsched, fiercely. "I assert that German is more musical.
Word Of The Day