38 GESSXEE AXD THE CTIvMIXATIOX OF TFE PASTORAL IDYL. 



Xone of these idrllic v\-Titers preceding Gessner had struck the 

 note that suited the visionary, sentimental mood of tlieir time.' 

 Their work is of importance mainly as calling the attention of 

 their contemporaries to this hterary form. Tlie sentimentality of 

 the time was now to find its best expression in the idyls of Gess- 

 ner. 



CHAPTEE lY. 



Gessxeh a>t) the CrxinxATiox of the Pastoral Idyl. 



Gessner gathered together all the threads of pastoral poetry 

 running through the literature of the period at the end of which 

 he stood, and wove these into his idyls. Hence in his works we 

 find aU the elements of weakness as well as of excellence, charac- 

 teristic of the rococo eighteenth centuiy. 



Solomon Gessner was bom ia 1730 at Ziirich, where he spent 

 most of his life, thus coming directly imder the influence of the 

 Swiss school and of Klopstock. Early in his youth he was at- 

 tracted to the descriptive poetrr of Brockes, for which he enter- 

 tained a predilection aU through life. "When nineteen years old he 

 went to Berlin to leam his father's trade, that of book-dealer, but 

 soon turned to the study of drawing and painting. At Berlin he 

 made the acquaintance of Eamler, to whom he showed his first 

 poetical efforts, and who exerted a lasting influence upon his ht- 

 erary development. From 1751 on he resided at Zurich. Unable 



1 Of other writers of idvls I may also mention K. A. Scnmidt,- See Koberstein 

 V. .56. Hirtenlieder vnd GecficiteTvas published at Halle. 17.53. by an anonymous 

 writer. See >'etoliczka p. 6-3.- Concerning F. W. Zacharias Pbaeton 1754. 

 Gervmus says it could not be called anything but an idyl, if it did not smack of 

 being a parody on Ovid's Phaeton. See Gerrinns IV. 22, 



