Hamann’s influence

Frederick Beiser ( The Fate of Reason ) laments the obscurity of Hamann in Anglo-American philosophy. His influence on German intellectual history was notable: “Hamann was the father of the Sturm und Drang , the intellectual movement that grew up in Germany during the 1770s in reaction against the Aufklarung . His influence on the Sturm und Drang is beyond dispute, and indeed readily traceable. Hamann was the teacher of Herder; and Herder, in turn, introduced Hamann’s ideas to the young Goethe, who also fell under their spell. In the twelfth book of Dichtung und Wahrheit Goethe later recalled the impact Hamann’s ideas had upon him and the whole Romantic generation.” Among the ideas passed from Hamann to German romanticism were “the metaphysical significant of art, the importance of the artist’s personal vision, the irreducibility of cultural differences, the value of folk poetry, the social and historical dimension of rationality, and the significance of language for all thought.”