The Imprint of Herder's Linguistic Theory on His Early Prose Style

Extract

Herder's whole attitude to language develops quite coherently out of one single remark. This is the description, early in the Fragmente, of primitive language as “sinnlich.” As a qualification this would hardly have ranked high amongst aesthetic criteria at the time. Indeed it is doubtful whether, when here first enunciated by Herder, it was meant to imply praise or even approval. Having just said: “Bei den Gegenständen fürs Auge muste die Geberdung noch sehr zu Hülfe kommen, um sich verständlich zu machen,” Herder goes on to say of this early stage of language “und ihr ganzes Wörterbuch war noch sinnlich.” The wording of this statement is significant. “Die Geberdung muste noch sehr zu Hülfe kommen … ihr ganzes Wörterbuch war noch sinnlich”—in these two noch's there is the suggestion of imperfection. This is not surprising. Adelung suggests that sinnlich, meaning “based on unclear perceptions” is opposed to vernünftig meaning “based on clear perception.” Sinnlich, for him, implied therefore a certain degree of imperfection. It has been suggested that Herder was merely echoing G. F. Meier's rendering of Baumgarten's term sensi-livus meaning “pertaining to the faculties of sensation.” Poetry, according to Baumgarten, was “oratio perfecta sensitiva.” And this is how Herder's apparently neutral description turns almost imperceptibly into a value-judgment; for it soon becomes apparent that he considers poetry not only as the earliest, but as the highest form of literature.