Johann Christoph Gottsched

Johann Christoph Gottsched
Johann Christoph Gottsched
Born	(1700-02-02)2 February 1700 Juditten, Brandenburg-Prussia
Died	12 December 1766(1766-12-12) (aged 66) Leipzig, Electorate of Saxony
Alma mater	University of Königsberg

Johann Christoph Gottsched (2 February 1700 – 12 December 1766) was a German philosopher, author, and critic. For about thirty years, he exercised an almost undisputed literary dictatorship in Germany. But by his later years, his name had become a by-word for foolish pedantry.

He was born at Juditten (Mendeleyevo) 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 in order to avoid being drafted into the Prussian army. In Leipzig he enjoyed the protection of J. B. 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 reorganized it under the title of the Deutsche Gesellschaft.

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. 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. He insisted on the observance of the dramatic unities. Such reforms afforded a healthy corrective to the extravagance and want of taste which were rampant in the German literature of the time.

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 indeed 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 forever the coarse buffooneries of Hanswurst (Jack Pudding).