Novalis was the pseudonym of Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg, an author and philosopher of early German Romanticism.
His poetry and writings were an influence on Hermann Hesse. Novalis was also a huge influence on George MacDonald, and so indirectly on C.S. Lewis, the Inklings, and the whole modern fantasy genre.
A series of short observations? Advice? Reflections? I’m not sure what to call them but when I say short I mean a handful of sentences at the very longest, many are just a single sentence. Are they philosophy? Are they notes to self? I am not sure of the audience as despite their brevity there are dozens of them. To my 2024 brain some seemed like a series of statements to generate some interesting dinner party discussion,
Genius is the ability to talk about imaginary objects as if they were real, and to act upon them as if they are. Discuss
And (perhaps uncharitably) others like they should be set against a glittery background as one of those awful ‘uplifting’ gifs that people post and which was the cause of my terminating my Facebook account,
Every beloved object is the centre of a paradise.
Admittedly a bit more cultivated than, “you should be treated like the queen you are” but the same sentiment is there.
Mocking aside, I didn’t hate this, I just didn’t know how to read them or what to do with them. His language is gorgeous – probably even more so in the original German – and reading them was quite hypnotic, perhaps even meditative, the words washing over me leaving behind the small grains of what I needed to hear and take away from it.
Not a book for everyone but if you have had enough of the toxicity of social media echo chambers yet realise that your concentration span has been ravaged by them you could do worse than have give your brain a deep clean with these offerings from Novalis, most of which would fit easily into the twitter letter count.
This book was very...interesting. It is written in small "fragments" which are usually only a few sentences long. Novalis would have loved social media; this book almost reads like a twitter feed from the 18th-century.
Some of these philosophical fragments were nonsense (particularly the ones in relation to religion; they read as both transcendental and universalist) but many of them were intriguing or just plain good.
A few of Novalis' poems were also included in this book. I didn't see anything remarkable about them.
Fragments that caught my eye:
127: When one reads correctly, there unfolds then in our interior a real, visible world according to the words.
129: The lives of cultured people should alternate between music and non-music, as between sleep and waking.
133: The lyric poem is for heroes; it makes heroes. The epic poem is for humanity. The hero is lyric, the human is epic, the genius is dramatic. Man is epic, woman is lyric, marriage is dramatic.
142: ...The artist belongs to the work and not the work to the artist.
143: In the essential sense, philosophizing is--a caress-a testimony to the inner love of reflection, the absolute delight of wisdom.
157: The greatest good endures in the imagination.
197: The smaller and slower one begins--the more perfect the result--and this is true everywhere. The more one can do with a few--the more one can do with many. When one understands how to love one--then one understands even better how to love all.
199: Every thinking man will of course find Truth--he may then proceed where and go just as he will.
216: To learn something is a very beautiful pleasure--and to know something real is the source of that delightfulness.
288: As only the eye sees eyes, so understanding is only known through understanding--the soul through the soul--intelligence through intelligence--spirit through spirit--and so forth--imagination only through imagination--the senses only through the senses--and God can only be known to God.
233: Many a deed haunts you forever.
312: Just as Copernicus did, so all good researchers--physicians and observers and thinkers do--must do: turn the data and the method about, in order to see whether it wouldn't fit better that way.
331: Philosophy can bake no bread--but it can secure us with God, freedom, and immortality--which is only practical. Philosophy or economy?
Novalis' anspruchsvilme Gedankengänge sind manchmal schwer nachzuvollziehen. Vieles musste ich zwei oder dreimal Lesen. Aber wenn man sich näher mit den Aphorismen von Novalis oder auch Schlegel befasst, merkt man, dass es sich bei den Romantikern nicht nur um einen Haufen Schreibender, sondern um eine politische Gruppe handelt, die die Literatur geschickt zur Verbreitung ihres Programmes nutzt.
“Soñamos viajes a través del Universo: pero ¿no está el Universo dentro de nosotros? No conocemos las profundidades de nuestro espíritu. Hacia dentro va el camino misterioso. En ninguna parte sino dentro de nosotros, está la eternidad con sus mundos, el pasado y el porvenir.”
- El pensador sabe hacer, de cada cosa, el todo. El filósofo se vuelve poeta. El poeta representa sólo el grado más sublime del pensador o de aquel que en vez de pensar, siente. -