Selected Writings on Aesthetics

468 Pages·2006·1.32 MB·English

by  Johann Gottfried Herder

Selected Writings on Aesthetics
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Selected Writings on Aesthetics
Johann Gottfried Herder
Translated and edited by Gregory Moore
princeton university press
princeton and oxford
Copyright © 2006 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton,
New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 3 Market Place,
Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1SY
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Herder, Johann Gottfried, 1744–1803.
[Selections. English. 2006]
Selected writings on aesthetics / Johann Gottfried Herder ;
translated and edited by Gregory Moore.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-691-11595-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-691-11595-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Aesthetics. I. Moore, Gregory, 1972– . II. Title.
BH39.H456213 2006
111(cid:2).85—dc22 2005029475
All Rights Reserved
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Sabon
Printed on acid-free paper. (cid:3)
pup.princeton.edu
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Note on the Texts ix
Introduction 1
Is the Beauty of the Body a Herald of the Beauty of the Soul? 31
A Monument to Baumgarten 41
Critical Forests, or Reflections on the Art and Science of the Beautiful:
First Grove, Dedicated to Mr. Lessing’s Laocoön 51
Critical Forests: Fourth Grove, On Riedel’s Theory of the
Beaux Arts 177
Shakespeare 291
The Causes of Sunken Taste among the Different Peoples
in Whom It Once Blossomed 308
On the Influence of the Belles Lettres on the Higher Sciences 335
Does Painting or Music Have a Greater Effect?
A Divine Colloquy 347
On Image, Poetry, and Fable 357
Editor’s Notes 383
Bibliography 445
Index 449
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Acknowledgments
I thank Barry Nisbet for suggesting me for this project and for his willing
and valuable advice throughout; Ian Malcolm at Princeton University
Press for his help and patience; Martyn Powell, who commented on an
early draft of the introduction; and Dalia Geffen for preparing and im-
proving the manuscript. Most of all I am grateful to Bettina Bildhauer, not
only for her encouragement and assistance in rendering some of Herder’s
occasional stylistic obscurities but for much else besides: I’m sorry.
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Note on the Texts
Because Herder wrotewidely on aesthetics—and on art and literature
more generally—no single volume can pretend to be a comprehensive col-
lection of his work in this area. At most this collection aims to introduce
the English-speaking reader to what are, by common scholarly consensus,
some of Herder’s most important relevant writings, as well as several
lesser known but no less interesting texts, and to cover as wide a range of
themes as possible. Perhaps the most significant omissions here are the
Fragmente and Plastik (both are already available in translation) and
Kalligone (Herder’s interesting, misguided, and unfortunately very long
polemic directed against Kant’s Critique of Judgment).
The texts are based on two German editions: Sämtliche Werke, edited
by Bernhard Suphan (Berlin: Weidmann, 1877–1913), and Werke, edited
by Günter Arnold et al. (Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag,
1985–2000). In compiling my explanatory notes, I drew from the com-
mentaries included in these editions, as well as in two other editions of
Herder’s writings: Werke, edited by Wolfgang Pross, vol. 2 (Munich: Han-
ser, 1987), and Kritische Wälder, edited by Regine Otto, 2 vols. (Berlin
and Weimar: Aufbau-Verlag, 1990).
With the exception of the essay “Shakespeare,” all texts included in this
volume are translated into English for the first time. Several other trans-
lations of Herder’s writings contain works that bear directly or indirectly
on the theme of aesthetics: Selected Early Works, 1764–1767, translated
by Ernest A. Menze, with Michael Palma (University Park: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 1992), includes Fragmente über die neuere deutsche
Literaturand several shorter writings; the long essay Plastikhas been trans-
lated by Jason Geiger as Sculpture (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press, 2002); Michael N. Forster’s collection Philosophical Writings(Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) includes a fragment on taste
and Essay on the Origin of Language; F. M. Barnard’s J. G. Herder on
Social and Political Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1969) contains partial translations of Journal of My Journey in the Year
1769; there is also the rather antiquated translation by James Marsh of
The Spirit of Hebrew Poetry(Burlington, VT: Edward Smith, 1833).
H. B. Nisbet’s German Aesthetic and Literary Criticism: Winckelmann,
Lessing, Hamann, Herder, Schiller, Goethe(Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1985) includes not only Herder’s Correspondence on Os-
sian but also translations of important texts by various contemporaries