Johann Gottfried Herder's contribution to the revival of folklore in Germany has been duly acknowledged in a body of scholarly literature. His intention to preserve and define the characteristics of a distinct cultural heritage was wide-ranging and influential, and, despite various attempts at misrepresentation, was eventually recognised as an effort impossible to limit to one national interest alone. Herder's trademark stance was to assert not only the notion but also the authority of folk identity, a concept he believed had both cultural and intellectual merit, and which he therefore championed as a cause worthy of proper intellectual investigation. His interest in folk matters exceeded the orderly parameters endorsed by convention by giving consideration to the vitality of the folk and by paying attention to the force of its presence – traits Herder believed could not be qualified or communicated in restrictive literary terms. In his interpretation of folk culture, Herder relentlessly insisted upon authenticity, demanding that folk topics be presented with a dignity and consistency that corresponded to the nature of the subject matter itself. He was especially weary of the mannered way in which folk material was customarily dealt with in conventional literature and doubtful of the latter's capacity to do such material justice. Though Herder's dissatisfaction with the literature of his time was a theme that would permeate much of his critical writing, it is a particularly prominent feature of his early readings of Ossian.