Johann Gottfried Herder

Johann Gottfried von Herder (August 25, 1744 – December 18, 1803), German poet, critic, theologian, and philosopher, is best known for his influence on authors such as Goethe and the role he played in the development of the larger cultural movement known as romanticism.

Biography

While Prussia was climbing to fame in the latter half of the 18th century, new thoughts were sweeping in from her eastern domains. Born in Mohrungen (Polish: Morag) in the Kingdom of Prussia, Herder grew up in a poor household learning from his father's Bible and songbook. In 1762 an East Prussian youth of seventeen, poor, introspective and given to solitary communion with nature came to the local University of Königsberg, where he was influenced by Johann Georg Hamann, a patriotic Francophobe and intensely subjective thinker who readily championed the emotions against reason. With the choice of masters also including Immanuel Kant, his choice of Hamann was significant as this thinker, a needy hypochondriac, delved back into the German mysticism of Jacob Bohme and others, pronounced obscure and oracular dicta that brought him his fame as the "Magus of the North". Hamann's disjointed effusions generally carried subtitles such as Hierophantic Letters or A Rhapsody in Cabbalistic Prose.

Related Topics:
Prussia - Mohrungen - Kingdom of Prussia - Bible - 1762 - East Prussian - Königsberg - Johann Georg Hamann - Francophobe - Immanuel Kant - Hypochondriac - Mysticism - Jacob Bohme - Magus

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Herder's Hamann influence led him later in life to confess to his wife "I have too little reason and too much idiosyncrasy", yet Herder can justly claim position at the head of the new school of German political thought. Although himself an unamiable person, Herder influenced his contemporaries greatly. One friend wrote to him in 1785, hailing his works as "inspired of God. I also heard this opinion voiced unanimously on my long journey from Pyrmont to Hanover, Bremen, Oldenburg, Hamburg and back by way of Luneburg, Celle and Brunswick." A most varied field of theorists were later to feel within themselves Herder's tantalisingly incomplete ideas.

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Now a preacher, in 1764 Herder went to Riga to teach. It was during this period that he produced his first major works, which were literary criticism.

Related Topics:
Riga - Literary criticism

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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.

Related Topics:
1769 - Nantes

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By 1770 he traveled to Strasbourg, where he met a 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.

Related Topics:
1770 - Strasbourg - Goethe - German literature - Literary criticism - Sturm und Drang - 1771 - Bückeburg - Count Wilhelm von Schaumburg-Lippe

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By the mid-1770s Goethe was a well-known author, and used his influence at the court of Weimar to secure Herder as position as General Superintendent. Herder moved there in 1776, where his outlook shifted again towards classicism.

Related Topics:
Weimar - 1776 - Classicism

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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.

Related Topics:
French Revolution - Weimar

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