Johann Gottfried Herder

HERDER, Johann Gottfried. b. Mohrungen, East Prussia (now Morąg, Poland), 25 August 1744; d. Weimar, 12 December 1803. He was educated at school there and at the University of Königsberg (1762-64), after which he taught in the Cathedral school at Riga (1764-69). In 1769 he travelled to France, staying in Paris and Nantes and studying French literature and culture: he was much influenced by the writing of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. After a further period of travelling, during which he met Matthias Claudius* and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (with whom he later published Von deutscher Art und Kunst, 1773), he was appointed by Count Wilhelm von Schaumburg-Lippe to be Court Preacher, Superintendent...