Herder's conception of "das Volk"

by Georgiana Rose Simpson

Herder himself has made a collection of specimens of this peculiar type of song. According to his own statements these poems bear the distinguishing marks of that sort of people which he has in mind as being distinctively Volk. In his essay, Ähnlichkeit der mittlern englischen und deutschen Dichtkunst, he says:

Alle unpolizirte Völker singen und handeln; was sie handeln singen sie und singen Abhandlung. Ihre Gesänge sind das Archiv des Volks der Schatz ihrer Wissenschaft und Religion ihrer Theogonie und Kosmogenien der Thaten ihrer Väter und der Begebenheiten ihrer Geschichte, Abdruck ihres Herzens, Bild ihres häuslichen Lebens in Freude und Leid, beim Brautbett und Grabe.

Herder’s collections are from national bodies of people. We ought to find among these groups of songs common factors which would not be found as such in that body of poetry which Herder excludes as not being Volk songs.

Further, we should be able to reduce these common factors to lowest terms which would embody some interpretation of Herder’s conception of Volk: “Das sind einmal alte Nationalstücke die das Volk singt, und sang, woraus man also die Denkart des Volks, ihre Sprache der Empfindung kennen lernet.”

VOLK SONGS COLLECTED BY HERDER

DANISH—FOUR PIECES

Content—themes: love, marriage, fairy tales.

Form—rhythm and rhyme marked; often irregular.

Method of appeal—concrete.