30 PASTOOEAL LITERATURE FROM OPITZ TO GESSXER. 



Ill the revolt against bombast aud affectation, Brockes and 

 Haller led the way in turning- to the contemplation of nature 

 which had for so long a time been neglected. 

 Literature Many authors followed in their footsteps. This 



Descriptive of literature, descriptive of nature, also set its stamp 

 Nature; Brockes, upon the idyls of Gessner. 



Haller and Brockes^ produced nine volumes of purely de- 



Kleist. scriptive poetry, the title of which describes its 



character: Irdiscbes Yerguiigen in Gott- (1721- 

 174:8). He delineates aU kinds of scenes on land and sea, plants, 

 animals, the seasons, the various parts of the day. the heavens, 

 the mental capacities of man, and a thousand other objects. 

 These poems are usually too minute and detailed, and hence 

 afford no good general survey of the object or scene described. 

 As an artist of no mean merit, he sought to bruig his poetry as 

 much as possible under the rules of the arts of music and paiiit- 

 ing. Though this imphed a gross misunderstanding of the rules 

 of hterary composition, yet by this very mi-stake he made a great 

 advance in form and in subject-matter over his predecessors. His 

 descriptions display fine perception; his great fault is that he 

 always depicts lifeless nature. There is no action, as he was un- 

 able to people his world with appropriate inhabitants. He made 

 his poems didactic, his views of the creation being teleological: 

 God in nature, and purpose in ever_\i:hing created was ever his 

 theme. 



bessem nennen, als Neukircben, der uns etliehe schone Proben (von Eklogen) 

 gegeben hat, und also unser deutscher Tbeokrit zu heissen verdienet." Yet in 

 this edition Gottsched shoTrs the good sense of omitting Xeukirch's idyls, and 

 even ventures to criticise them. 



1 Barthold Heinrich Brockes 1680 — ITiT. His Irdiscbes Vergniigen in Gott 

 was greatly admired by his contemporaries, the first volume going through seven 

 editions. 



2 S. Gessner (in Brief liber die Landscbaftsmalerei, Frey's ed. in Beu 

 Nat. Lit. p. 288 ff.) speaks of Broekes's minute descriptions of nature and adds: 

 "Oft zu weitschweifig, oft zu erkiinstelt, sind seine Gediehte ein Magazin von 

 Gemalden u. BUdern. die gerade aus der Xatur senommen sind." 



