A Companion to the Works of Johann Gottfried Herder

New, specially commissioned essays providing an in-depth scholarly introduction to the great thinker of the European Enlightenment.

New, specially commissioned essays providing an in-depth scholarly introduction to the great thinker of the European Enlightenment.

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) is one of the great names of the classical age of German literature. One of the last universalists, he wrote on aesthetics, literary history and theory, historiography, anthropology, psychology,education, and theology; translated and adapted poetry from ancient Greek, English, Italian, even from Persian and Arabic; collected folk songs from around the world; and pioneered a better understanding of non-European cultures.A student of Kant's, he became Goethe's mentor in Strasbourg, and was a mastermind of the Sturm und Drang and a luminary of classical Weimar. But the wide range of Herder's interests and writings, along with his unorthodox ways of seeing things, seems to have prevented him being fully appreciated for any of them. His image has also been clouded by association with political ideologies, the proponents of which ignored the message ofHumanität in histexts. So although Herder is acknowledged by scholars to be one of the great thinkers of European Enlightenment, there is no up-to-date, comprehensive introduction to his works in English, a lacuna this book fills with seventeennew, specially commissioned essays.

Contributors: Hans Adler, Wulf Koepke, Steven Martinson, Marion Heinz and Heinrich Clairmont, John Zammito, Jürgen Trabant, Stefan Greif, Ulrich Gaier, Karl Menges, Christoph Bultmann, Martin Keßler, Arnd Bohm, Gerhard Sauder, Robert E. Norton, Harro Müller-Michaels, Günter Arnold, Kurt Kloocke, and Ernest A. Menze.

Hans Adler is Halls-Bascom Professor of Modern Literature Studies at the Universityof Wisconsin-Madison. Wulf Koepke is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of German, Texas A&M University and recipient of the Medal of the International J. G. Herder Society.

Introduction - and Wulf Koepke
Herder's Life and Works - Steven D. Martinson
Herder's Epistemology - Heinrich Clairmont and Marion Heinz
Herder and Historical Metanarrative: What's Philosophical about History? - John H. Zammito
Herder's Concept ofHumanität -
Herder and Language - Juergen Trabant
Herder's Aesthetics and :Poetics - Stefan Greif
Myth, Mythology, New Mythology - Ulrich Gaier
Particular Universals: Herder on National Literature, Popular Literature, and World Literature - Karl Menges
The Germans and Their Future Literature - Wulf Koepke
Herder's Biblical Studies and Theology I - Christoph Bultmann
Herder's Biblical Studies and Theology II - Martin Kessler
Herder and Politics - Arnd Bohm
Herder's Poetic Works and Translations - Gerhard Sauder
Herder's Style -
Herder as Critical Contemporary - Robert E. Norton
Herder in Office - Harro Mueller-Michaels
The Reception and Influence of Herder's Works - Guenter Arnold and Kurt Kloocke and Ernest A. Menze