Johann Gottfried Herder was one of the central figures in eighteenth-century European intellectual history. As a philosopher and historian, a literary critic and theoretician, a poet, translator, and educator, he was one of the last great universalists and one of the pioneers of the Sturm und Drangmovement as well as the mentor of the young Goethe in Strassburg. His literary fame rests on his early publications, which until now have only been available in German.

Included in this volume are: "On Diligence in the Study of Several Learned Languages"; "Fragments of a Treatise on the Ode"; "Do We Still Have the Public and Fatherland of Yore?"; "On the Transformation of Taste Essay"; "On a History of Lyrical Poetry"; and On Recent German Literature.