Biography Essay

Poet, aphorist, novelist, mystic, literary and political theoretician, student of philosophy and the natural sciences, Friedrich von Hardenberg—best known by his pen name, Novalis—was one of the most striking figures of German Romanticism. Hardenberg's theoretical writings helped establish the program of Early or Jena Romanticism, and his literary compositions rank among the most radical examples of Romantic experimentation in form. His best-known works remain the fragment collection "Bluthenstaub" (1798; selections translated as "Pollen," 1982), the rhapsodic essay "Die Christenheit oder Europa" (1799; translated as "Christianity or Europe," 1960), the poetic cycle "Hymnen an die Nacht" (1800; translated as "Hymns to the Night," 1960), and the unfinished novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen (1802; translated as Henry von Ofterdingen, 1964). The last two writings especially have secured Hardenberg's place in the history of letters, although his voluminous notebooks, which comprise the greatest part of his literary remains, have attracted much recent critical attention...