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