Joseph von Görres

Görres, Johann Joseph von (Koblenz, 1776-1848, Munich), a man of dynamic and choleric temperament who strongly supported the French Revolution while a student, and was an ardent republican, eager for the secession of the Rhineland. In 1799 he headed a delegation sent to Paris, but in 1800 he changed his views completely, becoming a fervent supporter of German nationalism. In 1806 he began to lecture on philosophy at Heidelberg University, and became a close friend of the young Romantics L. J. von Arnim and C. Brentano. With the latter he was joint author of the story Des Uhrmachers BOGS wunderbare Geschichte (1807). His essay Die teutschen Volksbücher. Nähere Würdigung der schönen Historien, Wetter- und Arzneibüchlein, welche teils innerer Wert, teils Zufall, Jahrhunderte hindurch bis auf unsere Zeit erhalten hat (1807) is, together with Des Knaben Wunderhorn, one of the landmarks in the development of the German Romantic movement. His plan to complement this essay by reprinting a number of Volksbücher remained unfulfilled. From 1814 to 1816 Görres edited the newspaper Der Rheinische Merkur, first supporting the struggle against Napoleonic domination, and later urging the moral regeneration and political reform of Germany by a return to a quasi-medieval society. In his later years he was a devout Roman Catholic. Görres wrote a Mythengeschichte der asiatischen Welt (1810), collected folk poetry and Meisterlieder (Altteutsche Volks- und Meisterlieder, 1817; see Meistergesang), and published religious writings. His ennoblement dates from 1839. Gesammelte Schriften (9 vols., incl. 3 vols. correspondence), ed. M. Görres and F. Binder, appeared 1854-74 and the critical edition, ed. A. Dyroff et al., 1926 ff.