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Schöne Prose: Language Critique and Biography in the Early Herder

Martin, Carly Renee
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3517-4671
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1598034552703152

Abstract Details

2020, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Germanic Languages and Literatures.
This dissertation identifies an intersection between language critique and biography in the early thought of Johann Gottfried Herder. Through an analysis of three works written between 1765 and 1770, I show that Herder uses the form of biography to arrive at a concept of living language and to critique modern languages against it. First, Über die neuere deutsche Literatur (1767-68) presents a biography of language, an allegory that depicts German and other national tongues as forms of aging prose and, furthermore, sketches Herder’s concept of well-formed prose as an animate, middle state of adulthood. In turn, Herder’s biographical tribute to the author Thomas Abbt, Über Thomas Abbts Schriften (1768), depicts well-formed prose on the level of the bourgeois individual, exposing the contradictions inherent in the concept of a harmonious middle. In the Journal meiner Reise im Jahr 1769 (1846), Herder reflects critically on the life of his own individual language and arrives at a new paradigm, a language of eternal youth. As I ultimately show, the coincidence of language and biography in Herder’s thought enables him to conceive of – and perhaps realize – a German prose that is thoroughly alive.
A. May Mergenthaler (Advisor)
Matthew Birkhold (Committee Member)
Bernd Fischer (Committee Member)
Robert Holub (Committee Member)
157 p.
Germanic Literature; Linguistics; Philosophy
Johann Gottfried Herder; language; biography; philosophy of language; language critique; ideal language; literary criticism; 18th-century Germany

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Martin, C. R. (2020). Schöne Prose: Language Critique and Biography in the Early Herder [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1598034552703152

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Martin, Carly. Schöne Prose: Language Critique and Biography in the Early Herder. 2020. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1598034552703152.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Martin, Carly. "Schöne Prose: Language Critique and Biography in the Early Herder." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1598034552703152

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1598034552703152
223
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.