HERDER, JOHANN GOTTFRIED VON

German critic and philosopher of history; b. Mohrungen, East Prussia, Aug. 25, 1744; d. Weimar, Dec. 18, 1803. He was the third child of Gottfried Herder. After attending Latin school, he began (1762) the study of theology at the University of Königsberg. He went to Riga (1764) as a teacher and there accepted an assignment as preacher in 1767. His first literary and linguistic essays were Über die neuere deutsche Literatur (1766) and Kritische Wälder (1769). On May 23, 1769, he left Riga by sea to travel in France. His Journal meiner Reise, begun after his arrival but published posthumously, reflects the liberating experience of the journey. His time in Nantes and Paris served for the study of the French language and literature. After returning to Germany, he traveled, as companion to Prince Peter von Holstein-Gottorp, to Hanover, Kassel, and Darmstadt. There he met Caroline Flachsland, whom he married in 1773. In Strassburg, Herder resigned as tutor to the prince but remained in that city until the end of 1771 because of a critical eye operation. There he met goethe (1770), and from this association came the manifesto of the Sturm und Drang movement, Von deutscher Art und Kunst (1773), with its contribution to Shakespeare studies. The work also included Goethe's essay on the cathedral of Strassburg. In his own prize essay for the Royal Academy, Über den

Ursprung der Sprache (1772), Herder developed an organic-genetic interpretation of language. In Bückeburg, where he became court chaplain in 1771, Herder experienced a crisis in his life and a religious turning point. In Älteste Urkunde des Menschengeschlechtes (1774) he recognized the Bible as the self-revelation of God. His Auch eine Philosophie der Geschichte zur Bildung der Menschheit (1774) attempts to study history as God's action in nature and upon nations and the realization of God's action as successively different among different peoples. The first volume of Herder's collection of folksongs, fairy tales, and myths appeared in 1779. At Wieland's suggestion and Goethe's urging, Herder went to Weimar in 1776, where he published (1778) his study of aesthetics, Plastik; it differentiates sculpture from painting and inquires into its representational potentialities. Herder attempted a sociology of poetry in Über die Wirkung der Dichtkunst auf die Sitten der Völker in alten und neuen Zeiten, which sees poetry as shaping the tribal community. In 1783, while renewing his friendship with Goethe, Herder wrote Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (part 1, 1784; part 2, 1785), a compendium of all his ideas and the most comprehensive treatment of the knowledge of his time. The meaning of world history, he held, consists in the development of humanity, which is both the essence of all human natural tendencies and, at the same time, an ethical ideal. In 1792 Herder reflected on the French Revolution in Briefe, die Fortschritte der Humanität betreffend, which opposed to the concept of revolution one of evolution, which would lead to a state government by the people. In Zerstreute Blätter (1785) he turned his attention again to poetry. In 1788 Herder traveled to Italy, which, however, he did not regard with classical eyes as Goethe had done. Personal reasons led to a separation from Goethe in 1793, and Herder was left isolated in Weimar. In 1796 Jean Paul (Richter) became a late disciple of Herder, who had made enemies among the other romanticists by his critique of Kant in Metakritik zur Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1799) and Kalligone (1800). The Christliche Schriften (1794–98) contains five collections of theological inquiries with a critique on the handing down of the Gospels. Herder's influence was enormous, especially on the development of Romanticism.

Bibliography: Sämtliche Werke, ed. b. suphan, 33 v. (Berlin 1877–1913). r. haym, Herder nach seinem Leben und seinen Werken, 2 v. (Berlin 1880–85). r. unger, Hamann und die Aufklärung, 2 v. (Jena 1911; 2d ed. Halle 1925). f. meinecke, Die Entstehung des Historismus, ed. c. hinrichs (Munich 1959). f. mceachran, Life and Philosophy of Johann Gottfried Herder (Oxford 1939).

[i. g. merkel]