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Abstract
The 'Letters on German Poets' written jointly by Ludwig August Unzer and Jakob Mauvillon published under the title Ueber den Werth einiger Deutschen Dichter und über andere Gegenstände den Geschmack und die schöne Litteratur betreffend (2 Vol., 1771/1772) caused a sensation immediately after its appearance. While in the first part Gellert's entire poetic œuvre is critically dissected and dismantled, in the second part the authors rank the German poets by subjecting their poems to a comprehensive classification according to the aspects of an aesthetic of genius. The radicalism of this aesthetic approach is reflected in the largely devastating criticism that the letters received in leading review journals. However, some judgments, such as the one published in the Frankfurter gelehrten Anzeigen, reveal that these 'Letters on German Poets' written according to the Socratic method can be considered in retrospect as a 'ferment' of a provocative criticism in the spirit of genius aesthetics and as a harbinger of the Sturm und Drang movement.