Herder, Johann Gottfried 1744-1803
German critic and poet

Born in Mohrungen, East Prussia, he studied at K�nigsberg, and there made the acquaintance of Kant and Johann Hamann. In 1764 he became a schoolteacher and assistant pastor in a church in Riga. He met Goethe in Strasbourg (1769), was appointed court preacher at B�ckeburg (1770), and first preacher in Weimar (1776). His belief that the truest poetry is the poetry of the people found expression in his collection of folksongs, Stimmen der V�lker in Liedern (1778-79, 'Voices of the Peoples in Songs'), Vom Geist der Ebra�schen Poesie (1782-83, Eng trans The Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, 1833), a treatise on the influence of poetry on manners (1778), in his version of the Cid (1805), and other works. The supreme importance of the historical method is fully recognized in these, and especially in Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit (1784-91, Eng trans Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man, 1800), which is remarkable for its anticipation of evolutionary theories. He is best remembered for the influence he exerted on Goethe and the developing German Romanticism.

Bibliography: H Reisiger, Johann Gottfried Herder (1942)