Johann Jakob Bodmer, Swiss author, academic, critic and poet, 1698-1783

First studying theology, Bodmer finally found his vocation in letters. In 1725 he was appointed professor of Helvetian history at the Carolinum academy in Zürich. His major writings are the treatises "Von dem Wunderbaren in der Poesie" (1740), and "Kritische Betrachtungen über die poetischen Gemählde der Dichter" (1741). He published, in conjunction with Breitinger and others, "Die Discourse der Mahlern", a weekly journal after the model of "The Spectator". Through his prose translation of Milton, he tried to make English literature accessible in Germany. Bodmer formed a German literary school in opposition to Gottsched, with whom he carried on a prolonged controversy.