61 Facts About Novalis

Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg, pen name Novalis, was a German aristocrat and polymath, who was a poet, novelist, philosopher and mystic.

Novalis is regarded as an idiosyncratic and influential figure of Jena Romanticism.

Novalis was born into a minor aristocratic family in Electoral Saxony.

Novalis was the second of eleven children; his early household observed a strict Pietist faith.

Novalis studied law at the University of Jena, the University of Leipzig, and the University of Wittenberg.

Novalis completed his law degree in 1794 at the age of 22.

Novalis then worked as a legal assistant in Tennstedt immediately after graduating.

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.

Novalis was not only well read in his chosen disciplines; he sought to integrate his knowledge with his art.

Novalis, who was baptized as Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg, was born in 1772 at his family estate in the Electorate of Saxony, the Schloss Oberwiederstedt, in the village of Wiederstedt, which is located in the present-day town of Arnstein.

Novalis' father was Heinrich Ulrich Erasmus Freiherr von Hardenberg, the estate owner and a salt-mine manager.

Novalis's father was a member of the Herrnhuter Unity of Brethren branch of the Moravian Church and maintained a strict pietist household.

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.

Between 1790 and 1794, Novalis went to university to study law.

Novalis 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 Junglings", in the magazine 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.

Novalis became infatuated with her on their first meeting, and the effect of this infatuation appeared to transform his personality.

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.

However, two days after her fifteenth birthday, Sophie died, while Novalis was still in Weissenfels.

Sophie's death became the central inspiration for one of the few works Novalis published in his lifetime,.

Novalis's fiancee was Julie von Charpentier, a daughter of Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Toussaint von Charpentier, the chair of mining studies at the University of Leipzig.

Novalis 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.

Novalis began to be noticed as a published author at this time.

In 1798, Novalis's fragments appeared in the Schlegel brother's magazine, Athenaeum.

In early 1799, Novalis had completed his studies at Leipzig and returned to the management of salt mines in Weissenfels.

Under the influence of Tieck, Novalis studied the works of the seventeenth-century mystic, Jakob Bohme, with whom he felt a strong affinity.

Novalis became deeply engaged with the Platonic aesthetics of Hemsterhuis, as well as the writings of the theologian and philosopher Friedrich Schleiermacher.

Schleiermacher's work inspired Novalis to write his essay, Christenheit oder Europa, a call to return Europe to a cultural and social unity whose interpretation continues to be a source of controversy.

Novalis died there on 25 March 1801 at the age of twenty-eight.

When he died, Novalis had only published Pollen, Faith and Love, Blumen, and Hymns to the Night.

Novalis was known as the poet of the blue flower, a symbol of romantic yearning from Novalis's unfinished Novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen that became an key emblem for German Romanticism.

Novalis was deeply read in science, law, philosophy, politics and political economy and left an abundance of notes on these topics.

Novalis's works explore how personal freedom and creativity emerge in the affective understanding of the world and others.

Novalis suggests that this can only be accomplished if people are not estranged from the earth.

In Pollen, Novalis writes "We are on a mission: Our calling is the cultivation of the earth", arguing that human beings come to know themselves through experiencing and enlivening nature.

In Novalis's view, love is a sense of relationship and sympathy between all beings in the world, which is considered both the basis of magic and its goal.

From another perspective Novalis's use of magic and love in his writing is a performative act that enacts a key aspect of his philosophical and literary goals.

Novalis derived his theory of health from the Scottish physician John Brown's system of medicine, which sees illness as a mismatch between sensory stimulation and internal state.

Novalis extends this idea by suggesting that illness arises from a disharmony between the self and the world of nature.

Novalis's early rearing in a Pietist household affected him through this life.

One view of Novalis's work is that it maintains a traditional Christian outlook.

Novalis sought a single principle through which the division between ego and nature becomes mere appearance.

Accordingly, Novalis aimed to synthesize naturalism and theism into a "religion of the visible cosmos".

Novalis believed that individuals could obtain mystic insight, but religion can remain rational: God could be a Neoplatonic object of intellectual intuition and rational perception, the logos that structures the universe.

Novalis called the poems Christian Songs, and they were intended to be entitled Specimens From a New Devotional Hymn Book.

Novalis wrote a number of other occasional poems, which can be found in his collected works.

Novalis wrote two unfinished novel fragments, Heinrich von Ofterdingen and Die Lehrlinge zu Sais, both of which were published posthumously by Tieck and Schlegel in 1802.

Heinrich von Ofterdingen is the work in which Novalis introduced the image of the blue flower.

Heinrich von Ofterdingen was conceived as a response to Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, a work that Novalis had read with enthusiasm but judged as being highly unpoetical.

Novalis disliked Goethe making the economical victorious over the poetic in the narrative, so Novalis focused on making Heinrich von Ofterdingen triumphantly poetic.

Together with Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis developed the fragment as a literary artform in German.

The work is notable in that Novalis extensively used the literary fragment to make his points.

Novalis got the inspiration for this text from a book written by Schleiermacher, Uber die Religion.

The work was a response to the French Revolution and its implications for the French enlightenment, which Novalis saw as catastrophic.

See R Haym Die romantische Schule ; A Schubart, Novalis' Leben, Dichten und Denken ; C Busse, Novalis' Lyrik ; J Bing, Friedrich von Hardenberg, E Heilborn, Friedrich von Hardenberg.

The artist and activist Joseph Beuys's aphorism "Everyone is an artist" was inspired by Novalis, who wrote "Every person should be an artist" in Faith and Love or the King and the Queen.

The krautrock band Novalis took their name from Novalis and used his poems for lyrics on their albums.

The film, which visually incorporates the text of Novalis's poem, was issued on Blu-ray and DVD in an anthology of Brakhage's films by Criterion Collection.