Gottsched’s Literary Reforms: The Beginning of Modern German Literature

Summary

The Modern Period in German Literature began in the first third of the eighteenth century when literary imagination became fundamentally rational. Challenges to rationalism have never abated, but in order to remain valid in the new philosophy of the 1720s and 1730s, religious and classical authorities could no longer be taken on faith, they had to be proven to be correct. German rhetoric was rigorously subjected to the rules of logic. Literary genres, poetic imagery, and figurative speech had to adhere to principles of morality and verisimilitude. A new breed of literary critics would soon analyze literary texts as aesthetic objects. By the late-eighteenth century, literature had become self-reflexive.

The inexorable victory of reason was rendered possible by literacy in the vernacular. German linguistic reformers sought to persuade large segments of academia and the aristocracy to use the vernacular (instead of Latin and French) and forcefully developed rules to unify German spelling, grammar, and syntax across regional dialects. Print media became the tool to popularize the new philosophy of reason, and the audience for literary and journalistic texts expanded from the local to the national, from specialists and the elite to generalists and a wider urban audience. Oral culture — including sermons, tales, extemporaneous dramatic productions — lost currency as more readers turned to books. Similarly, visual culture grew relatively less important as affordable texts — without expensive illustrations — were mass produced. As book culture evolved, text increasingly dominated imaginations.

Obviously, such massive changes evolved only gradually over many decades, but in the first half of the eighteenth century no one worked harder for literary reforms in Germany than Johann Christoph Gottsched (1700– 1766). He had predecessors, aides and critics, but he was the single most effective mobilizing force for a modern German literature. This “German Fontenelle” was neither an original thinker nor an especially creative poet. He was rather a synthesizer, promoter, and popularizer, arguably the greatest in German cultural history. In these roles his energy, comprehensive vision, and organizational skills have rarely been matched. Gottsched resembled Fontenelle in the breadth of his interests: philosophy, science, linguistics, poetics, rhetoric, history of literature, journalism, translation, pedagogy, and more. He published several journals — both for professional and more general readers — to advance the cause of modern German culture. In addition to his own tireless activity, Gottsched possessed the ability to motivate others.