Novalis

Lore & Background

Novalis, the pen name of Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg, was a German aristocrat, poet, novelist, philosopher, and mystic, regarded as a key figure in Jena Romanticism. He was born into a minor, non-wealthy branch of the ancient Hardenberg nobility at his family’s estate in Electoral Saxony. His early life was shaped by a strict Pietist faith, as his father belonged to the Moravian Church’s Herrnhuter branch, and Novalis received private tutoring in this theology before attending a Herrnhut school. At age twelve, he came under the care of his uncle, a Teutonic Order commander, who introduced him to Enlightenment ideas and contemporary literature, including works by Goethe, Lessing, and Shakespeare. He later studied law at the universities of Jena, Leipzig, and Wittenberg, befriending Friedrich Schiller and Friedrich Schlegel. After graduating, he worked as a legal assistant in Tennstedt, where he met and secretly became engaged to Sophie von Kühn. Her death shortly after her fifteenth birthday profoundly impacted his life and writing. He then studied a wide range of disciplines—including electricity, medicine, chemistry, physics, mathematics, mineralogy, and natural philosophy—at the Freiberg University of Mining and Technology, conversing with formative figures of Early German Romanticism such as Goethe, Schelling, Jean Paul, and August Schlegel. Following his studies, he served as a director of salt mines in Saxony and Thuringia, during which he composed major works like *Hymns to the Night*. He died at age 28 from a severe lung condition, possibly tuberculosis or cystic fibrosis. His literary reputation was established posthumously by friends who published his poems, including *Hymns to the Night* and *Spiritual Hymns*, and his unfinished novels *Heinrich von Ofterdingen* and *The Novices at Sais*. The broader appreciation of his philosophical and scientific depth came in the twentieth century with the publication of his notebooks, which revealed his integration of poetry, philosophy, and science through the literary fragment form, published in Schlegel’s journal *Athenaeum*.

Reader's Guide

Only a small sample of his philosophical and scientific writings appeared then. The depth of his knowledge in philosophy and natural science became more broadly appreciated with the extensive publication of his notebooks in the twentieth century. Novalis sought to integrate his knowledge with art, notably through the fragment form, which he used alongside Friedrich Schlegel in the journal Athenaeum. The fragment allowed him to synthesize poetry, philosophy, and science. His notebooks and fragments have subsequently established his intellectual role in the formation of Early German Romanticism.

Did You Know?

• Novalis was the second of eleven children in a strict Pietist household.
• He studied law at the University of Jena, the University of Leipzig, and the University of Wittenberg.
• His fiancée Sophie von Kühn died just after her 15th birthday.