Herder, Johann Gottfried

Princeton. 2004. Princeton University Press. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 0691115958. Translated from the German & Edited by Gregory Moore. 468 pages. hardcover. . keywords: Literature Germany Translated Philosophy Literary Criticism. FROM THE PUBLISHER - A seminal figure in the philosophy of history, culture, and language, Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) also produced some of the most important and original works in the history of aesthetic theory. A student of Kant, he spent much of his life striving to reconcile the opposing poles of Enlightenment thought represented by his early mentors. His ideas influenced Hegel, Schleiermacher, Nietzsche, Dilthey, J. S. Mill, and Goethe. This book presents most of Herder's important writings on aesthetics, including the main sections of one of his major untranslated works, Kritische Wälder (Critical Forests). These notes, essays, and treatises, the majority of which appear here in English for the first time, show this idiosyncratic thinker both deeply rooted in the controversies of his day and pointing the way to future developments in aesthetics. Chosen to reflect the extent and diversity of Herder's concerns, the texts cover such topics as the psychology and physiology of aesthetic perception, the classification of the arts, taste, Shakespeare, the classical tradition, and the relationship between art and morality. Few thinkers have reflected so sensitively and productively on the cultural, historical, anthropological, ethical, and theological dimensions of art and the creative process. With this book, the importance of aesthetics to the evolution and texture of Herder's own thought, as well as his profound contribution to that discipline, comes fully into view. Johann Gottfried von Herder (August 25, 1744 in Mohrungen, East Prussia - December 18, 1803 in Weimar) was a German philosopher, poet, and literary critic. He is associated with the periods of Enlightenment, Storm and Stress, and Weimar Classicism. While Prussia was climbing to power in the later half of the 18th century, new thoughts were sweeping in from her eastern domains. Born in Mohrungen (Polish: Morag) in East Prussia, Herder grew up in a poor household, educating himself from his father's Bible and songbook. In 1762, an introspective youth of seventeen, he enrolled at the local University of Königsberg, where he became a student of Johann Georg Hamann, a patriotic Francophobe and intensely subjective thinker who championed the emotions against reason. His choice of Hamann over such luminaries as Immanuel Kant was significant, as this odd figure, a needy hypochondriac, delved back into the German mysticism of Jacob Bohme and others, pronouncing obscure and oracular dicta that brought him fame as the ‘Magus of the North'. Hamann's disjointed effusions generally carried subtitles such as Hierophantic Letters or A Rhapsody in Cabbalistic Prose. Hamann's influence led Herder to confess to his wife later in life that ‘I have too little reason and too much idiosyncrasy', yet Herder can justly claim to have founded a new school of German political thought. Although himself an unsociable person, Herder influenced his contemporaries greatly. One friend wrote to him in 1785, hailing his works as ‘inspired by God.' A varied field of theorists were later to find inspiration in Herder's tantalisingly incomplete ideas. In 1764, now a clergyman, Herder went to Riga to teach. It was during this period that he produced his first major works, which were literary criticism. In 1769 Herder traveled to the French port of Nantes and continued on to Paris. This resulted in both an account of his travels as well as a shift of his own self-conception as an author. By 1770 he went to Strassburg (Strasbourg), where he met the young Goethe. This event proved to be a key juncture in the history of German literature, as Goethe was inspired by Herder's literary criticism to develop his own style. This can be seen as the beginning of the ‘Sturm und Drang' movement. In 1771 Herder took a position as head pastor and court preacher at Bückeburg under Count Wilhelm von Schaumburg-Lippe. By the mid-1770s, Goethe was a well-known author, and used his influence at the court of Weimar to secure Herder a position as General Superintendent. Herder moved there in 1776, where his outlook shifted again towards classicism. Towards the end of his career, Herder endorsed the French Revolution, which earned him the enmity of many of his colleagues. At the same time, he and Goethe experienced a personal split. Herder died in 1803 in Weimar. GREGORY MOORE is lecturer in German at the University of St. Andrews. He is the author of NIETZSCHE, BIOLOGY AND METAPHOR. inventory #36025 ISBN: 0691115958.