Johann Jakob Breitinger

Johann Jakob Breitinger (1 March 1701 in Zürich – 14 December 1776) was a Swiss philologist and author.

Breitinger studied theology and philology and first earned recognition from 1730 through a new edition of the Septuaginta.

The main part of the historical collection Thesaurus Historicae Helveticae (1735) may be attributed to Breitinger.

Breitinger's principal work Critische Dichtkunst (1740) was a rejection of the traditional poetic principle of imitation of nature for the benefit of the creative imagination; it had a big influence on German literary theory and the burgeoning genius cult.

In this context was also the literary-historically significant dispute of Bodmer and Breitinger with Johann Christoph Gottsched.