NOVALIS, ( Lat., fallow land). A name assumed by Friedrich von liardenberg ( 1772-1 801 ) , a German romantic author, once of cosmopolitan renown. 11 e was born in Prussian Saxony. His parents were Moravians, and he was much influenced by that mystic re ligion. He studied at .lena, Leipzig, and Witten berg, and in 1794 went to Tennstadt to further his legal training. There he fell in love with a delicate thirteen-year-old girl, who died as his betrothed in 1797. Novalis was then auditor at the Weissenfels salt works. lle thought he was a blighted being, but presently he went to Frei burg to continue technical .studies and became again betrothed. Ile returned to Weissenfels in 1799, but was obliged by disease of the lungs to postpone his marriage and died in 1801. His writings were soon collected by the Sehlegels and issued in two volumes, often reedited, with a third volume in 1846. They are mainly frag mentary. Noteworthy among them is an unfin ished romance, Heinrich eon Ofterdingcn, the mawkish Knight of the Blue Flower Poesy, whose 'apotheosis' Novalis tells us he intended the novel to be. Carlyle recommended its
and reperusal.' Individual passages in it are charming, and good lyrics are interspersed in the narrative. Earlier in time than Ofterdingcn is a romance, Die Lehrlinge Sais, wherein the 'Disciples' discover that "the secret of Nature is nothing else than the fulfilled longing of a lov ing heart." Famous also in their way are the Hymncrz (I ib Nacht, sentimentally morbid musings on his quickly consoled bereavement, mingled with impressions of Voung,'s Night Thoughts and Fiehte's lectures at Jena. Some of the fragments are political and reveal an exaltation of patriotic idealism. Other frag ments deal with natural science in the same dreamy spirit. His religious lyrics have an emotional tenderness and a m4ndons charm. The rest of his work is all but forgotten. Consult: liaym, Friedrich con Hardenberg (2d ed., Gotha, 1883) ; id., Die romantische Schuh- (Berlin, 1870).