Johann Jakob Bodmer was a Swiss-German

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 author, academic, critic and poet.

Life

Born at Greifensee

Greifensee

Greifensee is a small lake in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland.- Geography :Lake Greifen is located to the northeast of the city of Zurich, separated by the Pfannenstiel from Lake Zürich...

, near Zürich

Zürich

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

, and first studying theology

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

 and then trying a commercial career, he finally found his vocation in letters. In 1725 he was appointed professor of Helvetian history

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

 in Zürich, a chair which he held for half a century, and in 1735 became a member of the Cantonal Council

Cantonal Council of Zürich

The Cantonal Council of Zurich is the legislature of the canton of Zurich, in Switzerland. Zurich has a unicameral legislature. The Cantonal Council has 180 seats, with members elected every four years.- 2011 Election :...

. He died at Zürich in 1783.

Works

His major writings are the treatises Von dem Wunderbaren in der Poesie (1740

1740 in poetry

-Great Britain:* Sarah Dixon, Several Occasions, Canterbury: J. Abree* John Dyer, The Ruins of Rome* Richard Glover, An Apology for the Life of Mr...

; this and following years link to corresponding "[year] in poetry" articles) and Kritische Betrachtungen über die poetischen Gemählde der Dichter (1741

1741 in poetry

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* About this time Thomas Seaton established the Seatonian Prize at Cambridge University for religious poetry-Great Britain:...

), in which he pleaded for the freedom of the imagination from the restriction imposed upon it by French pseudo-classicism

Classicism

Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint...

. Bodmer's epics Die Sundflutz and Noah (both 1751

1751 in poetry

— Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard, published this yearNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:...

) are imitations of Klopstock's Messias, and his plays are entirely deficient in dramatic qualities. He also issued editions of the Minnesingers and part of the Nibelungenlied

Nibelungenlied

The Nibelungenlied, translated as The Song of the Nibelungs, is an epic poem in Middle High German. The story tells of dragon-slayer Siegfried at the court of the Burgundians, how he was murdered, and of his wife Kriemhild's revenge....

.

He published (1721–1723), in conjunction with Johann Jakob Breitinger

Johann Jakob Breitinger

Johann Jakob Breitinger was a Swiss philologist and author.- Life :Breitinger studied theology and philology and first earned recognition from 1730 through a new edition of the Septuaginta. From 1731 he worked as Professor of Hebrew and later of Greek in the gymnasium in Zürich...

 and others, Die Discourse der Mahlern, a weekly journal after the model of The Spectator

The Spectator (1711)

The Spectator was a daily publication of 1711–12, founded by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele in England after they met at Charterhouse School. Eustace Budgell, a cousin of Addison's, also contributed to the publication. Each 'paper', or 'number', was approximately 2,500 words long, and the...

. Through his prose translation of Milton

John Milton

John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...

's Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...

(1732), also, he tried to make English literature accessible in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. He aroused the hostile criticism of Johann Christoph Gottsched

Johann Christoph Gottsched

Johann Christoph Gottsched was a German author and critic.-Biography:He was born at Juditten near Königsberg, Brandenburg-Prussia, the son of a Lutheran clergyman...

and his school.