Joseph Görres | |
|---|---|
 Portrait of Görres, byJoseph Anton Settegast | |
| Born | Johann Joseph von Görres (1776-01-25)25 January 1776 |
| Died | 29 January 1848(1848-01-29) (aged 72) |
| Occupation | Publicist, writer, journalist, politician |
| Nationality | German |
| Spouse | Catherine de Lasaulx |
| Children | Guido Görres, Maria Görres |
Johann Joseph Görres, since 1839von Görres (25 January 1776 – 29 January 1848), was a German writer, philosopher, theologian, historian and journalist.
Görres was born inKoblenz. His father was moderately well off, and sent his son to aLatin college under the direction of the Jesuits. The young Görres' sympathies were initially with theFrench Revolution, and the French exiles in the Rhineland confirmed his beliefs, which would then evolve over time. He began a republican journal calledDas rote Blatt, and afterwardsRübezahl, in which he strongly condemned the administration of the Rhenish provinces byFrance.[1][2]
After theTreaty of Campo Formio (1797) there was hope that the Rhenish provinces would be constituted into an independent republic. He was one of several delegates sent by the Rhine and Moselle provinces to Paris in the fall of the year 1799, to protest against the conduct of the French general Leval in the Rhine country. The embassy reached Paris on 20 November 1799; two days before thisNapoleon had assumed power. After much delay he received the embassy; but the only answer they obtained was "that they might rely on perfect justice, and that the French government would never lose sight of their wants". His stay in Paris cured him of his enthusiasm for the French Revolution, Görres on his return published a tract calledResultate meiner Sendung nach Paris, in which he gave his impressions.[1][2]
During the thirteen years of Napoleon's dominion Görres lived a quiet life, devoting himself chiefly to art or science. In 1801 he married Catherine de Lasaulx, and for some years taught at a secondary school in Koblenz; in 1806 he moved toHeidelberg, where he lectured at theuniversity.[1] British lawyer and diaristHenry Crabb Robinson met Görres during this time. A quote from his diary:
Görres has the wildest physiognomy – looks like an overgrown old student. A faun-like nose and lips, fierce eyes, and locks as wild as Caliban’s. Strong sense, with a sort of sulky indifference toward others, are the characteristics of his manner.[3]
Clemens Brentano compared his appearance to that
[...] of an old lion shaking and pulling his mane caught in the bars of his cage.[4]
As a leading member of the Heidelberg Romantic group, he edited together with Brentano andLudwig Achim von Arnim theZeitung für Einsiedler (subsequently renamedTrost-Einsamkeit), and in 1807 he publishedDie deutschen Volksbücher (literally,The Books of the German People).[1][2]
He returned to Koblenz in 1808, and again found occupation as a teacher in a secondary school, supported by civic funds. He now studiedPersian, and in two years published aMythengeschichte der asiatischen Welt (History of the Myths of the Asiatic World), which was followed ten years later byDas Heldenbuch von Iran (The Book of Heroes of Iran), a translation of part of theShahnama, the epic ofFirdousi.[1]
In 1813 he again took up the cause of national independence, and in the following year foundedDer rheinische Merkur. The outspokenness of its hostility to Napoleon made it influential, and Napoleon himself called it "a fifth power".[5] It campaigned for a united Germany, with a representative government, but under an emperor, Görres having abandoned his earlier advocacy ofrepublicanism. When Napoleon was atElba, Görres wrote an ironic imaginary proclamation issued by him to the people. He criticised the second peace of Paris (1815), declaring thatAlsace andLorraine should have been demanded back from France.[1]
Stein used theMerkur at the time of the meeting of the congress of Vienna to give expression to his hopes. ButHardenberg, in May 1815, warned Görres to remember that he was not to arouse hostility against France, but only against Napoleon. There was also in theMerkur a demand for a constitution forPrussia,[6] expression of the desire that an Austrian prince should assume the imperial title, and also a tendency toliberalism—all distasteful to Hardenberg, and to his masterFriedrich Wilhelm III. Görres disregarded warnings sent to him by the censorship, so that theMerkur was suppressed early in 1816, at the instance of the Prussian government; and soon after Görres was dismissed from his teaching post.[1]
He went back to Heidelberg, but in 1817 returned to Coblenz and founded a relief-society for the alleviation of distress in the Rhenish province. At the same time he continued his work as a political pamphleteer, as shown chiefly in his "Adresse der Stadt und Landschaft Koblenz und ihre Uebergabe beim Fürsten Hardenberg" (1818) and his brochure "Teutschland und die Revolution" (1819). In this work he reviewed the circumstances which had led to the murder ofAugust von Kotzebue, and, while expressing horror at the deed itself, he urged that it was impossible and undesirable to repress the free utterance of public opinion. The success of the work was marked, despite a ponderous style. It was suppressed by the Prussian government, which confiscated his papers and ordered his arrest.[1] He escaped, however, to Frankfort, whence he made his way toStrasbourg.[7]
Two more political tracts wereEuropa und die Revolution ("Europe and the Revolution", 1821) andIn Sachen der Rheinprovinzen und in eigener Angelegenheit ("In the matter of theRhine Province and in a matter of my own", 1822).[1] In the former book – read with avidity throughout Germany.[8] – Görres describes the moral, intellectual and political corruption of France in the course of the eighteenth century as the major cause which led to the revolution:
"The public morals, corrupted as they were from the high to the lower classes of society, abjured the aid of the clergy: in the dissolution of all the principles of justice and morality, nought remained unconsumed, save the consuming power itself — wit, which now not as a creative, but as a destroying spirit, brooded over the abyss. The literati, who had formerly gone to court, now, after having there finished their schooling, turned to the people and preached to them another doctrine — of the God who resided in matter, of the Heaven to be found in the senses, of morality that consisted in cunning, and of the felicity that voluptuous indulgence afforded; and that all beside was the vain deception and jugglery of priests, whether at court or in the Church. That warm genial view of the Middle Age, which, in the same way as antiquity gave life to mountains, springs, and trees, looked on the state in all its members and parts as a thing endued with vitality, and procured for them, as so many essential personalities, love and attachment; that warm ennobling view had long since passed away. In room of this, the doctrine of political materialism had descended from the high to the lower regions of society, and for warm life had substituted cold abstractions, cyphers, and rigid geometrical forms, which cut sharply into private life; and for such dead abstractions it was impossible to feel affection. The portion of the nobility that sank into degeneracy at court, incurred the contempt of the people. The better part, who residing on their estates, still cultivated many ancient virtues, were, as holding extensive landed possessions in the face of grinding poverty, objects of hatred; and their consideration was undermined by the arrogance and ever increasing wealth of the monied class. Thus all bonds were relaxed, in proportion as the inward expansion of all relations increased. Authority sometimes, with a good-natured imprudence, assisted in the destruction; sometimes terrified, struggled against it in impotent opposition, by means of her police and bastilles, and then again sent her armies over the Atlantic, in order to visit in America the school of freedom. Thus all was prepared for the stroke; and when the same want of money, which through the indulgencies had led to the Reformation, necessitated the convocation of the three estates, theRevolution broke out."
— Joseph Görres, "Europe and the Revolution", 1821[9]
In his pamphletDie heilige Allianz und die Völker auf dem Congresse von Verona ("TheHoly Alliance and the peoples represented at the congress of Verona", 1822) Görres asserted that the princes had met together to crush the liberties of the people, and that the people must look elsewhere for help. The "elsewhere" was to Rome; and from this time Görres became anUltramontane writer. In 1826, he was summoned toMunich byKing Ludwig of Bavaria as professor of history in the university,[10] and there his writing enjoyed popularity.[1] There he was visited by Brentano,Lacordaire, Lamennais, and Montalembert.
Since his sojourn in Strasbourg, Görres had studied the mystic testimonies of various epochs. He went into the mystical writers of the Middle Ages such asMaría de Ágreda as well as observing, partly in person, the ecstatic young women of his time (Maria von Mörl, and others), and strove to comprehend more thoroughly the nature of Christian mysticism. HisChristliche Mystik ("On christian mysticism", 4 vols., 1836–1842; 2nd ed., 5 vols., 1879) gave a series of biographies of the saints, together with an exposition of Roman Catholic mysticism. But his most celebrated ultramontane work was a polemical one. Its occasion was the deposition and imprisonment by thePrussian government of the archbishopClement Wenceslaus reportedly due to his refusal to sanction in certain instances the marriages of Protestants and Roman Catholics.[1]
In hisAthanasius (1837), Görres upheld the power of the church.[11]Athanasius went through several editions, and initiated a long and bitter controversy. In theHistorisch-politische Blätter ("Historical-political pages"), a Munich journal, Görres and his sonGuido (1805–1852) continued to uphold the claims of the church.[1] On New Year's Day of 1839, Görres received the "Civil Order of Merit" from the king for his services.[12]
He died 29 January 1848, the year of the fall ofMetternich, and was buried in theAlter Südfriedhof in Munich.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Kirsch, Johann Peter (1913). "Johann Joseph Görres". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.).Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Görres, Johann Joseph von".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 260–261.History of theCatholic Church | |||||||||
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