How did Johann Gottfried von Herder use the Old Testament Edda and Homer as examples of poetic power?

Johann Gottfried von Herder viewed poetic ability not as a specialized skill for the educated, but as the true "mother tongue of mankind" that reaches its greatest purity and power during the "uncivilized" or early periods of a nation’s history.1

He used the Old Testament, the Edda, and Homer as primary evidence to prove that genuine poetic utterance possesses a unique creative function. In his view, these works demonstrated how language can reveal previously hidden aspects of human life, effectively shaping a nation's worldview. By analyzing these texts, Herder argued that a poet acts as a creator who leads a nation to see its own world, thereby defining the collective identity or Volksseele of a people. This perspective fueled his efforts to retrieve ancient German folk songs and study Norse mythology, as he believed such works captured the authentic, emotional, and historical essence of human nature more powerfully than the refined literature of his own time.123