Bodmer, Johann Jakob

Bodmer, Johann Jakob (yō'hän yä'kôp bōd'mur) [key], 1698–1783, Swiss critic, poet, and editor. He translated Milton's Paradise Lost and Middle High German poetry. Inspired by the Spectator, Bodmer published, with J. J. Breitinger, the critical journal Discourse der Mahlern (1721–23), which greatly influenced 18th-century German poetry. Bodmer, who championed Klopstock, Wieland, and Herder, is famous for his argument with Gottsched, whose rationalism he countered with an essay (1740) on fancy in poetry.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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