ABSTRACT
Gottsched’s hope of seeing literature accepted as a respected field of academic endeavor was fulfilled. His critical work had encouraged literary production, and the ensuing literary feud had been creative in stimulating diversity in literature. Rationalistic philosophy as well as Pietistic experience had made their influence felt in the choice of content and form. This development had its culmination during the height of the Enlightenment, beginning in the late 1740s and continuing until the 1760s, when the three most important authors of the entire period wrote and worked more or less simultaneously, although with far different concerns: the lyric poet Klopstock, representing the Pietistic tradition; Wieland, the novelist and author of verse epics, under whose hands the early Rococo devices evolved into their highest sophistication; and the dramatist and critic Lessing, whose work set new standards and inspired the generation of Sturm und Drang poets.
