Reading “Sibylline Leaves”: J. G. Hamann in the History of Ideas

Abstract

Though long overshadowed by the more familiar lights of the German Enlightenment, arguably no figure of the lateeighteenth century exercised a more profound influence upon the intellectual giants of the early nineteenth centurythan the Koenigsberg author and critic, Johann Georg Hamann (1730–88), otherwise known as the ‘Magus of theNorth.’ In an effort to establish Hamann's place in the history of ideas--beyond popular misconceptions that Hamannwas an ‘irrationalist’--this article traces the history of Hamann's reception, showing how his notoriously difficultwritings (his ‘sibylline leaves’) were interpreted by such celebrated figures as Goethe, Schelling, Hegel, andKierkegaard.