Johann Gottfried Herder
Also known as: Johann Gottfried von Herder
Biography
Johann Gottfried Herder, philosopher, theologian and poet, is the third name of Weimar Classicism beside Goethe and Wieland — the man who turned the young Goethe towards Shakespeare and folk song in Strasbourg in 1770, and whom Goethe then brought to Weimar in 1776 as the head of the duchy's church. For twenty-seven years he was chief court preacher, general superintendent and pastor of the town church, and in the time left over he wrote the Volkslieder, the Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit and the Briefe zur Beförderung der Humanität. He died in Weimar on 18 December 1803 and lies in the church that has carried his name ever since: the Herderkirche, on the Herderplatz, under his statue.
Mohrungen, Königsberg, Riga, 1744–1769
He was born on 25 August 1744 in Mohrungen, a small town in East Prussia. In Königsberg the young Magister Kant was his teacher, and Johann Georg Hamann, the Magus of the North, his mentor; on 22 November 1764 the twenty-year-old left for Riga as a teacher and preacher. On the evening of 5 June 1769 he took ship from there — the sea voyage on which, by his own later account, the plan for a philosophy of history was born.
Strasbourg and Bückeburg, 1770–1776
In Strasbourg in 1770 he submitted his treatise on the origin of language to the Berlin academy and met the young Goethe, on whom he gained a lasting influence — urging him above all to the study of Shakespeare and the collecting of folk songs. In May 1771 he arrived in Bückeburg as chief preacher and consistorial councillor of the county of Schaumburg-Lippe, where his first years went into reorganising a neglected church administration.
The call to Weimar, 1776
After the death of Countess Maria of Schaumburg-Lippe, his friend, he wanted to leave Bückeburg at any price, and the way out was the Weimar call, which Goethe pushed through with the duke. In the spring of 1776 he came to Weimar as general superintendent, and the parish's own record of him is a list of offices: chief court preacher, senior consistorial councillor, general superintendent and pastor at the Stadtkirche, from 1776 to 1803 — the church administration of a duchy, in one man's hands for twenty-seven years.
The books, 1778–1800
The folk-song collection came first, gathered through the 1770s and printed as Volkslieder in 1778/79. From 1784 to 1791 he wrote the book that gathered everything he had drafted before it and the plans of the sea voyage: the Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, four volumes working through the history, natural science, philology and religious scholarship available to him — a fifth was planned and left unwritten out of political caution. Two shorter works, on the study of theology and on the poetry of the Hebrew Bible, appeared in 1780/81 and 1782/83; the Briefe zur Beförderung der Humanität followed from 1793 to 1797, and in the Metakritik of 1799 and the Kalligone of 1800 he set himself against Kant's philosophy — refutations, the Neue Deutsche Biographie judges, that do not do Kant justice.
Goethe, Kant and the last years, 1790s–1803
The friendship with Goethe that had begun in Strasbourg cooled in the 1790s and ended in a final break; the quarrel with Kant took the same decade. In 1801 the Elector of Bavaria raised him to the nobility — a title the Duke of Weimar did not recognise and Herder himself never used. In the autumn of 1803 his illness returned, and he died in Weimar on 18 December.
Licht, Liebe, Leben — the church and the square, 1803 and after
He is buried in the western nave of the church he served, under a cast-iron relief carrying the three words of his motto: Licht Liebe Leben. The church has been the Herderkirche in everyday speech ever since, the square in front of it the Herderplatz, and on his hundred-and-sixth birthday, in 1850, his bronze statue by Ludwig Schaller was unveiled there, in front of the church door.
Questions visitors ask
- Why is Weimar's town church called the Herderkirche?
- Because Herder was its pastor — and chief court preacher and general superintendent of the duchy — from 1776 until his death in 1803, and is buried inside it. Its proper name is the Stadtkirche St. Peter und Paul; the square in front of it is the Herderplatz, with his statue of 1850.
- Where is Herder buried?
- In the western nave of the Herderkirche, under a cast-iron relief with the three words of his motto, Licht Liebe Leben.
- How did Herder come to Weimar?
- Through Goethe, whom he had met in Strasbourg in 1770 and influenced towards Shakespeare and folk song. When Herder wanted to leave Bückeburg in 1776, Goethe pushed the Weimar appointment through with Duke Carl August, and Herder came in the spring of that year as general superintendent.
- What did Herder write in Weimar?
- The Volkslieder (1778/79), the Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (1784–1791), the works on theology and on Hebrew poetry (1780–1783), the Briefe zur Beförderung der Humanität (1793–1797), and his two books against Kant, the Metakritik (1799) and the Kalligone (1800).
- What was Herder's relationship with Goethe?
- It began as the older man's influence on the younger in Strasbourg in 1770 and continued with Goethe bringing him to Weimar in 1776; in the 1790s it cooled and ended in a final break.
- Is there a Herder monument in Weimar?
- Yes — the bronze statue by Ludwig Schaller on the Herderplatz, in front of the church, unveiled on his hundred-and-sixth birthday in 1850.
Famous Quotes
“We live in a world we ourselves create.”
“Whate'er of us lives in the hearts of others is our truest and profoundest self.”
Notable Works & Achievements
Ideas for the Philosophy of History of Humanity
Treatise on the Origin of Language
Folk Songs (Volkslieder)
Reflections on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind
Connected Places in Weimar
Herderplatz, 99423 Weimar
Chief court preacher and pastor here from 1776 to 1803; his grave is in the western nave, under a cast-iron relief.
Schillerstraße 9, 99423 Weimar
One of the shop's regular customers in the classical decades.
Historical Context
He held Weimar's senior church offices from 1776 to 1803, across the period's middle decades.
For roughly sixty years a duchy of a few thousand people held the centre of German literature, because its ruler kept inviting writers to live there and then gave them jobs. That is the whole mechanism, and it ran from Goethe's arrival in 1775 to his death in 1832.
Read more about this period →Quick Facts
1744
1803
German
On stage
On stage
Schauspiel
His writing is among what is read — the man who was Weimar's Generalsuperintendent for nearly thirty years, heard again a few streets from his church.
Historical figures
Historical figures
1783–1853 • hereditary prince • grand duke
Herder baptised him in 1783 and was among those responsible for his education.
1757–1830 • duchess • grand duchess
Her closest friend of the 1780s, with whom she read Shakespeare and studied Latin; he baptised her son Carl Friedrich in 1783.
In Weimar's history
In Weimar's history
On 7 November 1775 a carriage from Frankfurt brought the twenty-six-year-old author of Werther into a town of six thousand people. He had come for a short visit; he stayed for the rest of his life.
He followed Goethe to Weimar a year later, in 1776, and called the town a thing halfway between a village and a court town.
Stages and venues
Square and church both carry his name.