NOVALIS

This article appears in Volume V19, Page 829 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: NEW-NUM

NOVALIS , the pseudonym of FRIEDRICH

LEOPOLD

LEOPOLD (M.H. Ger. Liupolt; O.H. Ger. Liupald, from hut, Mod. Ger. Leute, " people," and paid, " bold," i.e. " bold for the people ")

, FREIHERR VON HARDENBERG (1772-1801), German poet and novelist. The name was taken, according to family records, from an ancestral estate. He was born on the 2nd of May 1772 on his father's estate at Oberwiederstedt in Prussian Saxony. His parents were members of the Moravian (Herrnhuter) sect, and the strict religious training of his youth is largely reflected in his literary works. From the gymnasium of Eisleben he passed, in 1790, as a student of philosophy, to the university of Jena, where he was befriended by Schiller. He next studied law at

Leipzig

LEIPZIG

, when he formed a friendship with Friedrich Schlegel, and finally at Wittenberg, where, in 1794, he took his degree. His father's

cousin

, the Prussian minister Hardenberg, now offered him a government post at Berlin; but the father feared the influence upon his son of the loose-living statesman, and sent him to learn the

practical

PRACTICAL

duties of his profession under the Kreisamtmann (

district

DISTRICT

administrator) of Tennstedt near Langensalza. In the following year he was appointed auditor to the government saltworks in Weissenfels, of which his father was director. His grief at the death in 1797 of Sophie von Kuhn, to whom he had become betrothed in Tennstedt, found expression in the beautiful Hymre,l an die Nacht (first published in the Athendum, 1800). A few months later he entered the Mining Academy of Freiberg in Saxony to study geology under Professor Abraham Gottlob Werner (1750-1817), whom in the fragment Die Lehrlinge zu Sais he immortalized as the " Meister." Here he again became engaged to be married, and the next two years were fruitful in poetical productions. In the autumn of 1799 he read at Jena to the admiring circle of

young

romantic poets his Geistliche Lieder. Several of these, such as "Wenn alle untreu werden,"
Wenn ich ihn nur habe," " tinter tausend frohen Stunden," still retain, as church hymns,

great

GREAT

popularity. In 1800 he wasappointed Amtshauptmann (local

magistrate

MAGISTRATE (Lat. magistratus, from magister, master, properly a public office, hence the person holding such an office)

) in Thuringia, and was preparing to marry and settle, when pulmonary consumption rapidly set in, of which he died at Weissenfels on the 25th of March 18o1.
His works were issued in two volumes by his friends Ludwig Tieck and Friedrich Schlegel (2 vols. 1802; a third volume was added in 1846). They are for the most part fragments, of which Heinrich von Ofterdingen, an unfinished romance, is the

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

. It was undertaken at the instance of Tieck, and reflects the ideas and tendencies of the older Romantic School, of which Hardenberg was a leading member. Heinrich von Ofterdingen's search for the mysterious " blue flower " is an allegory of the poet's life set in a romantic medieval world. Novalis, however, did not succeed in blending his mystic and philosophical conceptions into a harmonious whole. The " fragments " contain idealistic though paradoxical views on philosophy, art, natural science, mathematics, &c.
There are editions of his collected works by C. Meisner and B. Wile (1898), by E. Heilborn (3 vols., 1901), and by J.

Minor

(3 vols., 1907). Heinrich von Ofterdingen was published separately by J. Schmidt in 1876. Novalis's Correspondence was edited by J. M. Raich in 1880. See R. Haym, Die romantische Schule (Berlin, 1870) ; A. Schubart, Novalis' Leben, Dichten and Denken (1887) ; C. Busse, Novalis' Lyrik (1898) ; J. Bing, Friedrich von Hardenberg (Hamburg, 1899), E. Heilborn, Friedrich von Hardenberg (Berlin, 1901). Carlyle's fine essay on Novalis (1829) is well known.

End of Article: NOVALIS

If you wish, you can link directly to this article.

<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/NEW_NUM/NOVALIS.html">
NOVALIS
</a>

(Previous)
NOVALICHES, MANUEL PAVIA Y LACY, 1ST MARQUIS DE...

(Next)
NOVARA

JCSM was founded in 1997 and exists to help the community and bring people into a life-changing and productive relationship with Jesus Christ. JCSM offers over 200,000 free web pages, including its weekly inspirational emails that were sent continuously for over a decade.

Jesus Christ Saves Ministries
P.O. Box 9297
San Diego, CA 92169
1-888-887-0417 or Email