Genius of Christianity

Published in France in 1802, the Génie of Christianity is a work Apologétique writes between 1795 and 1799 by François-Rene de Chateaubriand, then in exile in England. In this work, Chateaubriand undertakes to defend the wisdom and the beauty of the Christian religion , affected by the Philosophie of the Lights, then by the revolutionary storm .

Work

Converted with the faith of his childhood during the writing of the Genius of Christianity , written following the death of his mother, (“I became Christian. I did not yield, I acknowledge it, with great supernatural lights; my conviction left my heart: I cried and I believed. ”), Chateaubriand seeks in this work “to prove that Christianity comes from God, because it is excellent”. In this objective, it is interested in particular in the artistic contributions of the Christian religion, comparing them with those of ancient civilizations and pagan.

The principal idea of the book is indeed that “only Christianity explains progress in the letters and arts”.

Chateaubriant reproaches the writers of the 18th century (philosophers of the Lights) for having ignored God, except for Rousseau, which would have a “shade of religion”. Thus, for Chateaubriant, Voltaire tragic actor is lower than Racine because Voltaire is not Christian.

Influences

The Génie of Christianity had a considerable influence in the history of the literary ideas and nuns in France at the 19th century. Writing in a traditional style, but of a preromantic sensitivity , it glorifie of new sources of inspiration, like the Gothic art or the great medieval epopees. Meditating on the beauty of the ruins, he announces the romantic taste for the ruins (the ruins make obsessing the question of dead). The quality of writing of the Génie makes it possible to forget the doubtful character of its pseudo-philosophical scholarship.

Especially, this work modelled the revival of the Catholicisme French of the 19th century. It inspired by many authors, on of which Dom Guéranger and Félicité Robert de Lamennais.

In its first edition, the Génie of Christianity included/understood the accounts Atala and Rene .

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