The unprecedented influence that Zurich-learned circles had on German literary theory in the first half of the eighteenth century can be directly traced to Johann Jakob Breitinger and his lifelong working companion, Johann Jakob Bodmer. Breitinger developed ideas and concepts suggested by Bodmer and others into theoretical constructs and attempted to systematize an approach to literary theory that departed from the authoritarian Gottschedian school. Johann Christoph Gottsched represented reaction against the Baroque adornment and ponderous rhetoric of Daniel Casper von Lohenstein and others. He attempted to codify a mechanical approach to the writing of verse; Breitinger argued against Gottsched that poetic fantasy required the freedom to imitate nature selectively and to use probable yet nonexistent worlds as points of departure.

Breitinger's birthdate is disputed. Sources mention 1 March, 5 March, and 15 March 1701 as likely dates. His baptism took place on 17 March in St. Peter's Church in Zurich. His parents were...