HERDER, JOHANN GOTTFRIED VON

born Aug. 25, 1744, Mohrungen, East Prussia [now Morag, Pol.] died Dec. 18, 1803, Weimar, Saxe-Weimar German critic, theologian, and philosopher, who was the leading figure of the Sturm und Drang literary movement and an innovator in the philosophy of history and culture. His influence, augmented by his contacts with the young J.W. von Goethe, made him a harbinger of the Romantic movement. He was ennobled (with the addition of von) in 1802. Additional reading Biographical information is provided by A. Gillies, Herder (1945); Robert T. Clark, Herder: His Life and Thought (1955, reissued 1969), which has a detailed bibliography; and Wulf Koepke, Johann Gottfried Herder (1987). Special aspects are discussed in F.M. Barnard, Herder's Social and Political Thought: From Enlightenment to Nationalism (1965); Joe K. Fugate, The Psychological Basis of Herder's Aesthetics (1966); H.B. Nisbet, Herder and the Philosophy and History of Science (1970); and Isaiah Berlin, Vico and Herder: Two Studies in the History of Ideas (1976).