page_title: Johann Christoph Gottsched
section_title: Works
hierarchical_section_title: Johann Christoph Gottsched / Works
caption_attribution_description: Title page
context_page_description: Johann Christoph Gottsched 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.
context_section_description: Gottsched's chief work was his Versuch einer kritischen Dichtkunst für die Deutschen (1730), the first systematic treatise in German on the art of poetry from the standpoint of Boileau. His Ausführliche Redekunst (1728) and his Grundlegung einer deutschen Sprachkunst (1748) were of importance for the development of German style and the purification of the language. He wrote several plays, of which Der sterbende Cato (1732), an adaptation of Joseph Addison's tragedy and a French play on the same theme, was long popular on the stage. His Deutsche Schaubühne (6 volumes, 1740–1745) contained mainly translations from the French, but also some works written by himself, his wife, and others. With this, he provided the German stage with a classical repertory. His bibliography of the German drama, Nötiger Vorrat zur Geschichte der deutschen dramatischen Dichtkunst (1757–1765), intended to contain an account of all previous German plays, though not complete is still valuable. He was also the editor of several journals devoted to literary criticism.
  Gottsched wrote the texts of two secular cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach: Laß, Fürstin, laß noch einen Strahl (BWV 198) and Willkommen! Ihr herrschenden Götter der Erden (BWV Anh. 13, music lost).
caption: Gedichte
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