Novalis (author)

Hello everyone, this is Shoji Shimura from Atelier Shimura. This week's reading will be "The Blue Flower" by Novalis, a writer who is a symbol of German Romanticism.

In Japan, the work is known by the title "Blue Flower," which comes from the symbolic flower that appears in the work. The phrase "blue flower" itself is widely known as a symbol of unfulfilled dreams and aspirations, but the message that this work is truly trying to convey and the ideas behind it are extremely profound.

The Blue Flower by Novalis
Publisher: Iwanami Shoten, published in 1989

Before getting into the story of the work, we will first explain the character of the author, Novalis, and the ideological background of the era in which he lived.

 

"Early German Romanticism" as a reaction against the Enlightenment

Novalis (1772-1801) was an early German Romantic poet and thinker who died at the young age of 28. His real name was Friedrich von Hardenberg, but he left his name in history under his pen name, "Novalis" (a family name meaning "new clearing" in Latin).

He lived in the late 18th century, a time when the Enlightenment was mainstream in society. The Enlightenment was a movement of thought that sought to understand the world rationally through the light of human reason, without being bound by tradition or superstition. With the development of science, the so-called "mechanistic view of nature," which perceived the world as governed by mathematical laws and mechanical mechanisms, became dominant.

While scientific knowledge has the power to accurately analyze things, it also obscures the vitality inherent in nature and the mystical nature behind phenomena. This is exactly what sociologist Max Weber, much later on, called the "disenchantment of the world."

In opposition to this trend of overriding rationalism, the literary giant Goethe advocated the return of "living nature (organisms)" rather than "dead nature (machines)," and Novalis and other Romantics were strongly influenced by him. In opposition to rational compromises, they sought to express emotion, individuality, nature, and "a longing for the infinite" through literature and thought.

Even today, while we live our social lives with a rational consciousness, somewhere in our hearts we yearn for a romantic sensibility. This balance between "reason" and "sensibility" is extremely important, especially in the creation of art.

Three elements that shaped Novalis's thought

Novalis's short but intense life and thought were influenced decisively by three main factors:

1. The French Revolution (a political event that destroyed the old social order)
2. Fichte's Theory of Knowledge (German idealist philosophy that explains the power of the ego)
3. Goethe (the literary novel "Wilhelm Meister" and his view of nature)

Through these, he attempted to understand the world through a poetic and creative cognition that goes beyond ordinary perception through the five senses, a concept he called "magical idealism" or "transcendental poetry."

A strict family environment and the cultivation of inner self

Born into an aristocratic family in 1772, Novalis's father was deeply devoted to Pietism, a strict Protestant sect that placed greater emphasis on the inner faith and purity of the soul than on the formality of dogma. Under this influence, from an early age Novalis developed a spirituality that valued the "inner workings of the soul" over the "visible external world."

Academic encounters and networks

He entered the University of Jena at the age of 18, where he was deeply impressed by the lectures of the poet Schiller and studied under Reinhold, a scholar of Kantian philosophy, exposing him to the cutting edge of intellectual thought at the time. Later, at the University of Leipzig, he met Friedrich Schlegel, who would become his lifelong friend. The network of people centered around them would eventually develop into the "Early Romantic Movement."

Schlegel cited the aforementioned "French Revolution," "Fichte's Science of Knowledge," and Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship" as the three major trends that characterized his era. He believed that the revolution had destroyed traditional society, Fichte's philosophy had established an independent "ego (individual)," and Goethe's novels had shown how this new "individual" should live.

The fateful "Sophie experience" and the transformation of one's view of life and death

The most decisive event in Novalis' life was his meeting with a 12-year-old girl, Sophie von Kühn.

After graduating from university, he began his career as an administrative official, where he met Sophie, who he saw as "the embodiment of eternal innocence" and fell deeply in love with (she is said to be the inspiration for Mathilde, the heroine of "The Blue Flower"). However, in 1797, Sophie died of tuberculosis at the age of just 15.

Feeling a deep sense of loss, Novalis visited her grave and had a mystical vision in which he was reunited with the deceased Sophie. This experience was sublimated almost verbatim into the third canto of his most famous poem, "Night Hymn."

"The mound turned to dust, and through the dust I could see the face of my beloved, divinely transformed. Eternity dwelt in his eyes... (omitted)... From that moment on, I felt an eternal and unchanging faith in the night sky and in my beloved, who was the light of that sky." (From "Night Hymn")

This experience convinced him of the existence of a "supersensible world" that transcends the material world and of the bond of love that transcends death. He realized that beyond the limitations of the ordinary perception circuits of the five senses, another path of perception, known as "intellectual intuition," had opened up.

Fichte's Philosophy and "Magical Idealism"

In parallel with his Sophie experience, Novalis immersed himself in the philosopher Fichte's major work, The Foundations of All Sciences of Knowledge (1794), and left behind a vast collection of notes known as "Fichte Studies."

Fichte's philosophy is an extremely active one, positing that the absolute "ego" establishes the "non-self (external world)" and that the world is generated through this action. Novalis was fascinated by this "ability of the mind to create the world." He called this "productive imagination," and coined the term "magical idealism" to describe the position that uses this power to consciously transform reality and express and create a supersensible world.

Furthermore, influenced by the Dutch philosopher Heemsterhuis, he believed that "love" is the power that awakens the "moral organ (the organ of extrasensory perception)" that lies dormant in humans. The form of expression of the truth grasped by this organ is "poetry." For him, "poetry" was not simply a literary genre, but "the cognitive activity itself that grasps and expresses truths that transcend the five senses."

Natural science research and the "organic view of nature"

What is unique about Novalis is that he was both a poet and a professionally trained scientist.

After Sophie's death, he enrolled in the world's first technical university, the Freiberg School of Mining, where he studied cutting-edge sciences such as geology, mathematics, and chemistry. His teacher, the famous geologist A. G. Werner, served as the model for the "old master" who appears in Chapter 5 of The Blue Flower.

However, he was not satisfied with the Newtonian "mechanistic view of nature" that was mainstream at the time. Instead, he supported the Goethe-esque "organic view of nature." This is a view that sees nature not simply as an object of analysis (a thing), but as a "vital unity" that resonates with humans spiritually. He sought to combine scientific knowledge with poetic intuition.

"The world must be romanticized"

In 1798, Novalis made his literary debut with the publication of his fragments, Pollen, in the magazine Ateneum, an organ of the early Romantic movement run by the Schlegel brothers and a source of their ideas.

He preferred the short "fragment" format rather than systematic treatises. He considered fragments to be "fragments of self-dialogue," like "seeds of plants" that are planted in the reader's mind and germinate and grow there. This reflects his stance of "symphilosophy," thinking together with the reader.

And at the heart of his thought is the famous concept of "romanticization."

“The world must be romanticized, so that its fundamental meaning may be found again. Romanticization is nothing other than the exponentiation of quality, so that the lower self is assimilated with the better self.”

"Exponentiation" here is a mathematical metaphor. It refers to the mental process of finding mystical meaning (infinity) in the mundane (finite) and enhancing its value, just as numbers are squared and cubed. In other words, "romanticization" is the act of using imagination to re-enchant a world that has lost its meaning due to modernization, linking the finite with the infinite, the everyday with the mysterious.

In his political fragments, Faith and Love, he argued to the newly crowned King Frederick William III of Prussia that the state should be a "poetic state" and that the king himself should be an artist. In the turbulent period following the French Revolution, he believed that politics too should be idealized through poetry.

Later years and the fruition of "Blue Flowers"

In November 1799, fellow Romantics (including the Schlegel brothers, Tieck, and Schelling) gathered in Jena for four days to discuss religion, nature, and literature. Here, Novalis read from "Christendom, or Europe," which outlined his own views on history and religion. In response to a modern Europe consumed by war and the desire for possessions, he preached the importance of spiritual unity and regeneration through poetry.

He believed that the mission of a poet was to put into words "the voiceless voices that have been suppressed by history and the times" and "the things that remain unspoken and linger in the dark depths," and he finally began writing the full-length novel "The Blue Flower." However, as he continued writing, his health began to deteriorate.

Novalis passed away on March 25, 1801, at the young age of 28. It is said that his close friend Friedrich Schlegel was playing his favorite pieces on the piano at his bedside.

While the Enlightenment only recognized the "visible," Romanticism aimed to "sense the invisible within the visible." Novalis went a step further, striving to "express the invisible through the visible (poetic language)."

Conclusion

In an age that placed too much emphasis on reason, Novalis sensed "invisible meaning" and "infinity" in visible reality and attempted to express them.

His unfinished novel, The Blue Flower, is a practical application of this idea of "romanticizing the world," and is a story of the soul's journey depicted through the protagonist Heinrich's journey of inquiry.

Next time, I would like to delve deeper into the specific story of "The Blue Flower," taking into account this ideological background.

This is a reading guide by Shoji Shimura (CEO of Atelier Shimura).
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