Novalis

Did You Know?

• Novalis's brother Karl wrote that during his final illness, Novalis read works by Nicolaus Zinzendorf, Johann Kaspar Lavater, and the Bible.
• The UK charity Novalis Trust provides care and education for individuals with additional needs.
• Novalis's personal worldview is known as magical idealism, a synthesis of German idealism and creative imagination.

Biography

Novalis was born at the family estate Schloss Oberwiederstedt in the Electorate of Saxony, the second of eleven children. His father, a salt-mine manager, maintained a strict Pietist household. Until age nine, Novalis was taught by private tutors trained in pietist theology, then attended a Herrnhut school. At twelve, he lived with his uncle, who introduced him to Enlightenment ideas and contemporary literature. He later studied rhetoric and ancient literature at the Martin Luther Gymnasium in Eisleben.

Religious views

Novalis's religious perspective remains debated. His posthumously published essay Europa (later titled Die Christenheit oder Europa) called for European unity under a mythical medieval Catholic golden age. Some view his work as traditionally Christian; others, such as Karl Hillebrand and Hermann Theodor Hettner, considered him essentially Catholic. In the 20th century, this view sometimes led to negative assessments, with Hymns to the Night seen as using religion to evade modernity.

Writings

Novalis is best known as a German Romantic poet. His major lyrical works are Hymns to the Night, begun after Sophie von Kühn's death, and Spiritual Songs, written in 1799 and published posthumously. He also wrote two unfinished novel fragments: Heinrich von Ofterdingen, which introduced the blue flower and was conceived as a response to Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, and The Novices at Sais, which contains the fairy tale 'Hyacinth and Rose Petal'. Both novels aim to describe universal world harmony through poetry and reflect his studies in natural history.

Influence

Novalis's statement in Pollen that religion works like an opiate prefigured Karl Marx's metaphor. György Lukács derived his concept of transcendental homelessness from Novalis, quoting him in Theory of the Novel. Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde libretto alludes to Novalis's night-day dichotomy. Walter Pater included a Novalis quote in his Renaissance studies. Rudolf Steiner discussed Novalis's influence on anthroposophy. Franz Roh's term magischer Realismus may have been inspired by Novalis's magischer Realist. André Breton cited Novalis extensively. Martin Heidegger used a Novalis fragment in The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics.