Novalis
Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg, pen name Novalis, was a German aristocrat and polymath, who was a poet, novelist, philosopher and mystic. He is regarded as an influential figure of Jena Romanticism.
Novalis was born into a minor aristocratic family in Electoral Saxony. He was the second of eleven children; his early household observed a strict Pietist faith. He studied law at the University of Jena, the University of Leipzig, and the University of Wittenberg. While at Jena, he published his first poem and befriended the playwright and fellow poet Friedrich Schiller. In Leipzig, he then met Friedrich Schlegel, becoming lifelong friends. Novalis completed his law degree in 1794 at the age of 22. He then worked as a legal assistant in Tennstedt immediately after graduating. There, he met Sophie von Kühn. The following year Novalis and Sophie became secretly engaged. Sophie became severely ill soon after the engagement and died just after her 15th birthday. Sophie's early death had a life-long impact on Novalis and his writing.
Novalis enrolled at the Freiberg University of Mining and Technology in 1797, where he studied a wide number of disciplines including electricity, medicine, chemistry, physics, mathematics, mineralogy and natural philosophy. He conversed with many of the formative figures of the Early Germanic Romantic period, including Goethe, Friedrich Schelling, Jean Paul and August Schlegel. After finishing his studies, Novalis served as a director of salt mines in Saxony and later in Thuringia. During this time, Novalis wrote major poetic and literary works, including Hymns to the Night. In 1800, he began showing signs of illness, which is thought to have been either tuberculosis or cystic fibrosis, and died on 25 March 1801 at the age of 28.
Novalis's early reputation as a romantic poet was primarily based on his literary works, which were published by his friends Friedrich Schlegel and Ludwig Tieck shortly after his death, in 1802. These works include the collection of poems, Hymns to the Night and Spiritual Hymns, and his unfinished novels, Heinrich von Ofterdingen and The Novices at Sais. Schlegel and Tieck published only a small sample of his philosophical and scientific writings.
The depth of Novalis's knowledge in fields like philosophy and natural science came to be more broadly appreciated with the more extensive publication of his notebooks in the twentieth century. Novalis was not only well read in his chosen disciplines; he also sought to integrate his knowledge with his art. This goal can be seen in his use of the fragment, a form that he wrote in alongside Friedrich Schlegel, and published in Schlegel's journal Athenaeum. The fragment allowed him to synthesize poetry, philosophy, and science into a single art form that could be used to address a wide variety of topics. Just as Novalis's literary works have established his reputation as a poet, the notebooks and fragments have subsequently established his intellectual role in the formation of Early German Romanticism.
Biography
Birth and early background
Novalis, baptized Georg Philipp Friedrich, was the Freiherr von Hardenberg, born in 1772 at his family estate in the Electorate of Saxony, the Schloss Oberwiederstedt, in the village of Wiederstedt, which is now located in the present-day town of Arnstein. Hardenberg descended from ancient, Lower Saxon nobility. Novalis's father was Heinrich Ulrich Erasmus Freiherr von Hardenberg, the estate owner and a salt-mine manager. His mother was Auguste Bernhardine , who was Heinrich's second wife. Novalis was the second of eleven children. Although Novalis had an aristocratic pedigree, his family was not wealthy.Novalis's early education was strongly influenced by Pietism. His father was a member of the Herrnhuter Unity of Brethren branch of the Moravian Church and maintained a strict pietist household. Until the age of nine, Novalis was taught by private tutors who were trained in pietist theology; subsequently, he attended a Herrnhut school in Neudietendorf for three years.
When he was twelve, Novalis was put under the charge of his uncle Gottlob Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von Hardenberg, Land commander of the Teutonic Order, who lived at his rural estate in Lucklum. Novalis's uncle introduced him to the late Rococo world, where Novalis was exposed to enlightenment ideas as well as the contemporary literature of his time, including the works of the French Encyclopedists, Goethe, Lessing and Shakespeare. At seventeen, Novalis attended the Martin Luther Gymnasium in Eisleben, near Weissenfels where his family had moved in 1785. At the gymnasium, he learned rhetoric and ancient literature.
Jena, Leipzig, Wittenberg: legal studies
Between 1790 and 1794, Novalis went to university to study law. He first attended the University of Jena. While there, he studied Immanuel Kant's philosophy under Karl Reinhold, and it was there that he first became acquainted with Fichte's philosophy. He also developed a close relationship with playwright and philosopher Schiller. Novalis attended Schiller's lectures on history and tended to Schiller when he was suffering from a particularly severe flare-up of his chronic tuberculosis. In 1791, he published his first work, a poem dedicated to Schiller, "Klagen eines Jünglings", in the magazine Der Neue Teutsche Merkur, an act that was partly responsible for Novalis's father withdrawing him from Jena and looking into another university where Novalis would attend more carefully to his studies. In the following year, Novalis's younger brother, Erasmus, enrolled at the University of Leipzig, and Novalis went with him to continue his legal studies. In 1792, he met the literary critic Friedrich Schlegel, the younger brother of August. Friedrich became one of Novalis's closest lifetime friends. A year later, Novalis matriculated to the University of Wittenberg where he completed his law degree.Tennstedt: Relationship with Sophie von Kühn
After graduating from Wittenberg, Novalis moved to Tennstedt to work as an actuary for a district administrator, Cölestin August Just, who became both his friend and biographer. While working for Just in 1795, Novalis met the 12-year-old Sophie von Kühn, who at that time was considered old enough to receive suitors. He became infatuated with her on their first meeting, and the effect of this infatuation appeared to transform his personality. In 1795, two days before Sophie turned thirteen they got secretly engaged. Later that year Sophie's parents gave their consent for the two to become engaged: Novalis's brother Erasmus supported the couple, but the rest of Novalis's family resisted agreeing to the engagement due to Sophie's unclear aristocratic pedigree.Novalis remained intellectually active during his employment at Tennstedt. It is possible that Novalis met Fichte, as well as the poet Friedrich Hölderlin, in person while visiting Jena in 1795. Between 1795 and 1796, he created six sets of manuscripts, posthumously collected under the title Fichte Studies, that primarily address Fichte's work but cover a range of philosophical topics. Novalis continued his philosophical studies in 1797, writing notebooks responding to the works of Kant, Frans Hemsterhuis, and Adolph Eschenmayer.
Novalis's ongoing reflections upon Fichte's ideas, particularly those in the Wissenschaftslehre formed part of the foundation for his later philosophical and literary works: Novalis focused on Fichte's argument that the concept of identity assumes a tension between self and object. Novalis's critique of Fichte arose from Novalis's literary commitments: Novalis suggests that the tension between self and object that Fichte asserts is actually a tension between language and imagination. Later, Novalis would take his critique further, suggesting that identity is not the separation of subject and object, but a dynamic process of equal partners in mutual communication. Novalis's viewpoint is summarized in his aphorism "Statt Nicht-Ich -- Du!".
In the final months of 1795, Sophie began to suffer declining health due to a liver tumor that was thought to be caused by tuberculosis. As a result, she underwent liver surgery in Jena, which was performed without anesthesia. In January 1797, Novalis was appointed auditor to the salt works at Weissenfels. To earn a stable income for his intended marriage, he accepted the position and moved to Weissenfels to assume his duties. Sophie, on the other hand, stayed with her family. Sophie once more became gravely ill, during which time Novalis's parents finally relented and agreed to the couple's engagement. However, two days after her fifteenth birthday, Sophie died, while Novalis was still in Weissenfels. Four months later, Novalis's brother Erasmus, who had been diagnosed with tuberculosis, also died. The death of Sophie, as well as his younger brother, affected Novalis deeply. Their deaths catalyzed his more intensive commitment to poetic expression. Sophie's death also became the central inspiration for one of the few works Novalis published in his lifetime, Hymnen an die Nacht.
Freiberg: The Mining Academy
At the end of 1797, Novalis entered the Mining Academy of Freiberg in Saxony to become qualified as a member of the staff for the salt works at Weissenfels. His principal mentor at the academy was the geologist, Abraham Werner. While at the academy, Novalis immersed himself in a wide range of studies, including electricity, galvanism, alchemy, medicine, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and natural philosophy. He was also able to expand his intellectual social circle. On his way to Freiberg, he met Friedrich Schelling, and they later went on an art tour of Dresden together. He visited Goethe and Friedrich Schlegel's older brother, August, in Weimar and met the writer Jean Paul in Leipzig.In December 1798, Novalis became engaged for the second time. His fiancée was Julie von Charpentier, a daughter of Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Toussaint von Charpentier, the chair of mining studies at the University of Leipzig. Unlike his relationship with Sophie, Novalis's affection for Julie developed more gradually. He initially saw his affection for Julie as a more "earthly" passion compared to his "heavenly" passion for Sophie, though he gradually softened this distinction with time. Eventually his feelings for Julie became the subject of some of his poetry, including the Spiritual Songs written in the last years of his life. Novalis and Julie remained engaged until Novalis's death in 1801, and she tended him during his final illness.
In Freiberg, he remained active with his literary work. It was at this time that he began a collection of notes for a project to unite the separate sciences into a universal whole. In this collection, Das allgemeine Brouillon , Novalis began integrating his knowledge of natural science into his literary work. This integration can be seen in an unfinished novel he composed during this time, Die Lehrlinge zu Sais, which incorporated natural history from his studies as well as ideas from his Fichte studies into a meditation on poetry and love as keys to understanding nature. More specifically, he began thinking about how to incorporate his recently acquired knowledge of mining to his philosophical and poetic worldview. In this respect, he shared a commonality with other German authors of the Romantic age by connecting his studies in the mining industry, which was undergoing then the first steps to industrialization, with his literary work. This connection between his scientific interest in mining, philosophy and literature came to fruition later when he began composing his second unfinished novel, Heinrich von Ofterdingen.
Novalis also began to be noticed as a published author at this time. In 1798, Novalis's fragments appeared in the Schlegel brother's magazine, Athenaeum. These works included Blüthenstaub, Glauben und Liebe oder der König und die Königin, and Blumen. The publication of Pollen saw the first appearance of his pen name, "Novalis". His choice of pen name was taken from his 13th-century ancestors who named themselves de Novali, after their settlement Grossenrode, which is called magna Novalis in Latin. Novalis can also be interpreted as "one who cultivates new land", which connotes the metaphoric role that Novalis saw for himself. This metaphoric sense of his pen name can be seen in the epigraph of Pollen, the first work he published as Novalis: "Friends, the soil is poor, we must scatter seed abundantly for even a moderate harvest".