Johann Gottfried Herder Libri

Compiles Johann Gottfried Herder's writings on music and nationalism, from his early volumes of Volkslieder through sacred song to the essays on aesthetics late in his life. The author uses the mode of translation to explore Herder's own interpretive practice as a translator of languages and cultures.

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) was a pivotal figure in the philosophy of history, culture, and language, and he made significant contributions to aesthetic theory. A student of Kant, he sought to reconcile the contrasting ideas of Enlightenment thought. His work influenced notable figures such as Hegel, Nietzsche, and Goethe. This collection features Herder's key writings on aesthetics, including major sections from his untranslated work, Kritische Wälder (Critical Forests). Many of these texts are presented in English for the first time, illustrating Herder's engagement with the controversies of his time while also foreshadowing future developments in aesthetics. The selected writings encompass a wide range of topics, including the psychology and physiology of aesthetic perception, arts classification, taste, Shakespeare, the classical tradition, and the interplay between art and morality. Herder's reflections on the cultural, historical, ethical, and theological aspects of art and creativity reveal his deep sensitivity and productivity. This collection highlights the significance of aesthetics in Herder's thought and his substantial contributions to the field.

Historians of ideas, and students of nationalism in particular, have traced the origins of much of our current vocabulary and ways of thinking about the nation back to Johann Gottfried Herder. This volume provides a clear, readable, and reliable translation of Auch eine Philosophie der Geschichte zur Bildung der Menschheit, supplemented by some of Herder's other important writings on politics and history. The editors' insightful Introduction traces the role of Herder's thought in the evolution of nationalism and highlights its influence on fields such as history, anthropology, and politics. The volume is designed to give English-speaking readers more ready access to the thinker whom Isaiah Berlin called the father of the related notions of nationalism, historicism, and Volksgeist.

Without Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803), we simply would not understand Shakespeare in the way we do. In fact, much literature and art besides Shakespeare would neither look the same nor be the same without the influence of Herder's "Shakespeare" (1773). One of the most important and original works in the history of literary criticism, this passionate essay pioneered a new, historicist approach to cultural artifacts by arguing that they should be judged not by their conformity to a set of conventions imported from another time and place, but by the effectiveness of their response to their own historical and cultural context. Rejecting the authority of a dominant and stifling French neoclassicism that judged eighteenth-century plays by the criteria of Aristotle, Herder's "Shakespeare" signaled a break with the Enlightenment, the approach of Romanticism, and the arrival of a distinctly modern form of aesthetic appreciation. With a vivid new translation and a fascinating introduction by Gregory Moore, this edition of Herder's classic will speak to today's readers with undiminished power and persuasiveness.