36 Milton D. Baumgartner 



In the translation of the Essay Lessing omits some of the less 

 essential parts, but translates the portion containing the argu- 

 ments as to whether the French, or the English drama is superior. 

 His translation interprets the English spirit, and like Dryden, he 

 writes an excellent prose, such as none of his predecessors wrote ; 

 while Gottsched wrote a less lucid style, and interpreted Dryden 

 solely through French-colored glasses. 



The significance of Lessing's translation has not been pointed 

 out by any of his critics. Besides the overthrow of Gottsched's 

 claim, that Dryden preferred the French drama to the English, it 

 directly influenced Lessing in the convictions expressed in the 

 seventeenth Literatiirhrief, and introduced into Germany one 

 of the best extant English criticisms of the English theater. The 

 immediate occasion for the Literatiirhrief was a review by 

 Nicolai in which he asserts : " Niemand wird laugnen, dasz die 

 deutsche Schaubiihne einen groszen Theil ihrer ersten Verbesser- 

 ungen dem Herrn Prof. Gottsched zu danken habe .... "^^ Less- 

 ing took advantage of the opportunity offered by this review, to 

 make a vehement attack upon Gottsched and Voltaire, allegiance 

 to whom he now completely renounces. 



Evidences of close relationship between Dryden's Essay and 

 the seventeenth Literaturhrief are : date ; identical arguments 

 in favor of English dramatic supremacy ; enumeration of the 

 same English dramatists; proclamation of Shakspere's genius; 

 emphasis of Corneille's weakness ; and the compliance of the 

 scene from Lessing's Faust quoted in the Literatiirhrief with 

 the theories set up by Dryden in the Essay. The connection be- 

 tween the date of the two is striking, as the number of the Thea- 

 tralischen BihUothek containing the translation of the Essay was 

 published either at the close of 1758 or early in 1759, while the 

 Literaturhrief is dated February 16, 1759. The close succes- 

 sion of the two is significant. Lessing wrote the Literatur- 

 hrief when his translation of the Essay was either in the press, 



ferred to is "Mr. (Theophelus) Cibber, The Lives of the Poets of Great 

 Britain and Ireland, London, 1753. Dryden's life is in Vol. 3, p. 85 ff. 



^^ BihUothek der schonen Wissenschaften und der freyen KUnste, III, 

 p. 85, 1758. 



324 



