Book Description

Excerpt from Herder's Introductory Dialogue on the Spirit of Hebrew Poetry The following dialogue is the introductory one in Her der's work Vom Geist der Ebraischen Poesie. It is more than probable, that the whole work already existed in an English dress, and from its deserved celebrity the credit of our biblical literature certainly required it. N o translation however is believed to be known at least to any extent in this country, and though it is not so much need; ed or its doctrines so new and interesting now, as they were forty years ago, the translator hopes they may still be valuable to those, _who are aspiring to a thorough ace quaintance with the spirit of Hebrew poetry. Should others agree with him in this point, a continuation may be ex pected as rapidly as may suit the plan ofthe work, in which it is designed to appear. As the publication in a period ical journal however will necessarily be at intervals, and occupy a considerable time, it is the more necessary to say. A few words beforehand of the plan of the whole work. In a lengthened introduction occupying in fact nearly one half of that part of the work, the plan of which was execu ted by its author, he investigates the three principal sour ces, from which the poetry of the Hebrews originally de rived its character first, the poetical character of the lan guage, next, the primitive ideas, derived from the most an cient times, which formed, as it were, the poetical cosmolo gy of the people, and thirdly, the history of their anoes tors till the time of Moses with a View to trace the causes, which here operated in forming the character ofthe people, and of their writings. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.