Moralizing metaphors: Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff on parliamentary oratory

SUMMARY

It is commonly assumed that real political eloquence can only exist under a free and popular government. But in monarchies, public oratory has had little effect on decision-making processes and therefore seems to have degenerated into an ideological affirmation of princely rule and is judged a negligible phenomenon. But recent research has shown that political power is much more than the taking of collectively binding decisions. It also has a symbolic dimension that is related to the performative representation of the commonwealth's socio-political order. To assess political eloquence in monarchies, the article focuses on the parliamentary oratory of Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff, the only German-speaking practitioner of political oratory in the seventeenth century to have published some of his orations in book form. Analysing the speeches shows Seckendorff as an erudite and experienced political thinker. A deep understanding of both the reality and theory of the Ständestaat found expression in the most prominent feature of his oratorical practice: his ingenuity to find or create new metaphors depicting the relationship between ruler and subjects. Seckendorff crafted political metaphors to expose the moral foundations of a good commonwealth and to exert moral pressure on his audience. His oratory was about ‘moral education’. Seckendorff himself, however, overlooked the fact that the very ceremoniousness of his speeches carried a performative force that shaped and reshaped the socio-political order of the commonwealth.