Vertheidigung der schweizerischen Muse, Hrn. D. Albrecht Hallers.

Zurich: Heidegger und Comp., 1744. First Edition. . Hardcover. See Description. 8vo. pp. 109, [i.e. 149], [1]. Pages are generally clean with occasional mild scattered marginal foxing. Small stain on title page. Bound in period papered boards or faux-vellum (rubbed). A piece of paper covering is missing from bottom rear board. An old receipt for purchase of the book, dated 1925 is loosely inserted. Johann Jacob Breitinger (1701-1776) Influential Swiss-German literary critic whose writings, along with those of Johann Jacob Bodmer, helped to inspire a transition from Baroque to Modern German Literature. In 1740 Breitinger published his "critische Dichtkunst" (2 vols), a direct challenge to the classical viewpoint of leading Leipzig critic Johann Christoph Gottsched. Breitinger argued (contrary to Gottsched) that the poet’s passion should not be hindered by artificial rules (i.e. rhym). The feud which ensued with Breitinger and Bodmer on the one side and Gottsched on the other helped to make way for writers such as Schlegel and Lessing. Breitinger followed up his 1740 work with further writings. In 1744 he anonymously published his "Verteidigung der schweizerischen Muse," a defense of Albrecht von Haller’s nature poetry. [Goedeke IV p. 12; Holzmann / Bohatta 9797].