The Philosopher
Novalis
The face
The background
- Nationality:
- German
- Schools:
- Jena Romanticism, German idealism, Magical Idealism
- Branchs:
- Philosophy, Literature, Poetry, mysticism, Mineralogy, Natural Philosophy
- Period:
- 1791–1801
The synopsis
Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg (1772–1801), most famously known by his pen name Novalis, was a German aristocrat, poet, novelist, philosopher, and mystic. He is regarded as a key figure in the Jena Romanticism movement. Born into a minor aristocratic family in Electoral Saxony, Novalis received a Pietist education and studied law at the Universities of Jena, Leipzig, and Wittenberg. His early life was profoundly impacted by the death of his fiancée, Sophie von Kühn, an event that heavily influenced his writing, particularly "Hymns to the Night." He later studied at the Freiberg University of Mining and Technology, immersing himself in various scientific disciplines. Novalis sought to synthesize philosophy, science, and art, often using the literary fragment form. His key works, published posthumously, include the novels "Heinrich von Ofterdingen" and "The Novices at Sais," along with numerous poems and philosophical fragments. His worldview, termed "magical idealism," sought to unify reality through imagination, love, and a deep connection with nature. Despite dying at the young age of 28 from tuberculosis, Novalis's legacy as a pioneering Romantic thinker and poet continues to be significant.
The works
Klagen eines Jünglings
Hymns to the Night
Pollen
Faith and Love or the King and the Queen
Spiritual Songs
Heinrich von Ofterdingen
The Novices at Sais
Europa (Christianity or Europe)
Fichte Studies
Das allgemeine Brouillon (Notes for a General Encyclopedia)
The quotes
Learning is pleasurable but doing is the height of enjoyment.
Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.
I often feel, and ever more deeply I realize, that fate and character are the same conception.
Philosophy is properly home-sickness; the wish to be everywhere at home.
Where children are, there is the golden age.
Character and fate are two words for the same thing.
Every beloved object is the center point of a paradise.
Christianity is the root of all democracy, the highest fact in the rights of men.
A character is a completely fashioned will.
Only an artist can interpret the meaning of life.
To become properly acquainted with a truth, we must first have disbelieved it, and disputed against it.
Knowledge is only one half. Faith is the other.
Nature is a petrified magic city.
Nothing is more indispensable to true religiosity than a mediator that links us with divinity.
Where no gods are, spectres rule.
A hero is one who knows how to hang on one minute longer.
We never completely comprehend ourselves, but we can do far more than comprehend.
We are more closely connected to the invisible than to the visible.
Only as far as a man is happily married to himself is he fit for married life and family life in general.
We are near waking when we dream we are dreaming.