Chapter II: The Rally of Germany—lessing

Starting-point of this volume 11

Neo-Classic complacency and exclusiveness
illustrated from Callières 12

Béat de Muralt 13

His attention to English 13

And to French 14

German Criticism proper 15

A glance backward 15

Theobald Hoeck 16

Weckherlin and others 17

Weise, Wernicke, Werenfels, &c. 17

Some mutineers: Gryphius and Neumeister 18

Gottsched once more 19

Bodmer and Breitinger 20

The _Diskurse der Maler_ 21

Gradual divergence from their stand-point; König
on “Taste” 22

Main works of the Swiss School 23

Breitinger’s _Kritische Dichtkunst_, &c. 24

Bodmer’s _Von dem Wunderbaren_, &c. 24

Special criticisms of both 26

Bodmer’s verse criticism 26

Their later work in mediæval poetry, and their
general position 27

The “Swiss-Saxon” quarrel 27
The elder Schlegels: Johann Adolf 29
Johann Elias 30
Moses Mendelssohn 32
Lessing 33
Some cautions respecting him 33
His moral obsession; on _Soliman the Second_ 34
The strictures on Ariosto’s portrait of Alcina 36
_Hamlet_ and _Semiramis_ 37
The _Comte d’Essex_, _Rodogune_, _Mérope_ 37
Lessing’s Gallophobia 38
And typomania 38
His study of antiquity more than compensating 39
And especially of Aristotle 40
With whom he combines Diderot 41
His deficiencies in regard to mediæval literature 41
The close of the _Dramaturgie_ and its moral 42
Miscellaneous specimens of his criticism 44
His attitude to Æschylus and Aristophanes 46
Frederic the Great 48
_De la Littérature Allemande_ 49