Gottsched, Johann Christoph. Versuch einer kritischen Dichtkunst : durchgehends mit den Exempeln unsrer besten Dichter erläutert : anstatt einer Einleitung ist Horazens Dichtkunst übersetzt, und mit den Anmerkungen erläutert. Leipzig: Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf, 1742. Third Edition, Enlarged. [11691]
Full vellum, front board & front end papers & title page detached, backstrip separated at the front side, binding is soiled with some tears. 19 x 12.5 cm (7 5/8 x 5 inches). Institutional bookplate, several notes/signatures. xxxviii, 778, [14]; collated and complete; text is in good condition. Good. Hardcover.
“An Attempt at a Critical Poetics: Illustrated Throughout with Examples from Our Best Poets: Instead of an introduction, Horace's Poetics is translated and explained with annotations.”
Johann Christoph Gottsched (1700-1766), b. in Prussia near present-day Kalingrad, Russia; d. Leipzig, Saxony. Gottsched “was a literary theorist, critic, and dramatist who introduced French 18th-century classical standards of taste into the literature and theatre of Germany…In 1730 he brought out his most important theoretical work, Versuch einer kritischen Dichtkunkst vor die Deutschen (‘Essay on a German Critical Poetic Theory’), the first German treatise on the art of poetry to apply the standards of reason and good taste advocated by Nicolas Boileau, the foremost exponent of classicism in France.” - Encyclopedia Britannica online.
