As editor of the weeklies Die vernünftigen Tadlerinnen (1725–26) and Der Biedermann (1727), Gottsched started on his career of untiring critical activity, continued later in other literary journals. Directing his criticism at first chiefly against the bombast and absurd affectations of the Second Silesian School, he proceeded to lay down strict laws for the composition of poetry. He insisted on German literature being subordinated to the laws of French classicism. He enunciated rules by which the playwright must be bound (such as the Ständeklausel), and abolished bombast and buffoonery from the serious stage. He insisted on the observance of the dramatic unities.
