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| British Romantic Poetry (2021) |
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from M.H. Abrams's Natural Supernaturalism pp.249-252. Novalis' Heinrich von Ofterdingen (written 1799-1800) is a symbolic narrative of the growth of a poet's mind, represented in the vehicle of a sustained journey through the realms of experience. The stimulus to undertaking the journey is Heinrich's "inexpressible longing" for a blue flower which he sees in a dream, of which the corolla is the face of a girl. From the beginning he has the presentiment that the immanent design of his quest is a circular one: Henry left his father and his native city with sorrow in his heart. Now for the first time it became clear to him what separation means.... His familiar world was torn from him and he was washed up as it were on a foreign shore....The magic flower was before him, and he gazed over into Thuringia, which he was just leaving, with the strange premonition that after long wanderings he would return to his native land [Vaterland] from distant regions toward which they were now traveling and hence with the feeling that it was really his native land he was approaching. The underlying motif, it is repeatedly implied, is the fall of man from the "primeval golden age and its sovereigns—love and poetry," to be followed by "the rejuvenation of nature, and the return of an everlasting golden age." "If your eyes are steadfastly turned to heaven," Heinrich is exhorted, "you will never miss your way home." At the center of this romance, too, is a Märchen, told by the master poet Klingsohr—this time a very elaborate one which assimilates the imagery of Revelation, Canticles, contemporary metallurgy and galvanism, and the Hermetic quest for the Philosopher's Stone, into the story of the prince who wakens the sleeping princess; the result transforms the familiar fairy tale into a cosmic myth. In the notes he wrote for an intended poetics, Novalis indicated the centrality of this form to his visionary concept of the nature and function of poetry. "The Märchen is as it were the canon of poetry—everything poetic must be märchenhaft." And the writer of the Märchen is the bard who present, past, and future sees, and who sees the future as a return to a bettered past: In the future world everything is as it was in the former world—yet everything is quite different. The future world is chaos which has been rationalized [das vernünftige Chaos].... The genuine Märchen must be at the same time prophetic representation—ideal representation—absolutely necessary representation. The genuine composer of the Märchen is a seer into the future.... With the passage of time, history must become a Märchen —it becomes again what it was in the beginning. Klingsohr's tale opens immediately after the fall. "The long night had just begun," and nature has become a frozen wintry world in which all trees, flowers, and fruits are the mimic work of pure artifice. Eros is seduced by Ginnistan (that is, Fantasy) who, in the incestuous fashion common to myth, alchemy, and modern psychoanalysis, assumes the form of Eros' own mother. In their absence the Scribe (characterized by Novalis in a letter as "petrifying and petrified reason") takes over the household and by his divisive influence brings matters to their nadir of evil in fragmentation, strife, and death. But Fable (the Spirit of Poetry) undertakes a redemptive journey through the three realms of being, the nether world, the middle world (which is earth, the human sphere of home and the family), and the upper world. In her descent to the underworld, Fable solves the riddle of the sphinx —"What is the eternal mystery?" "Love." At once the denouement begins, in a grand conflation of pagan, occult, scientific, and eschatological imagery. The giant Atlas is revivified by a jolt of galvanic current, and is able once more to take up the burden of the earth. "The old times are returning," and soon the Garden of the Hesperides "will bloom again and the golden fruit send forth ts fragrance." After a sequence of quasi-alchemical operations, the fallen world is redeemed: "The new world is born of pain, and in tears the ashes are dissolved into a drink of eternal life." In this all- inclusive reunification the Scribe, principle of division, his occupation gone, simply disappears. "A mighty springtime had spread over the earth," and there is a universal regeneration in which all things are "lifted and moved" and take on a human form; even in the "whirlwinds of dust ... familiar figures seemed to form." "In this peaceable kingdom" the animals "approached the wakened people with friendly nods" and "the plants served them with fruits and fragrances." With the assistance of electrical forces, Eros wakens the sleeping princess Freya (Peace); "she opened her large dark eyes and recognized her beloved," and "a long kiss sealed the eternal union"; while Sophie (Wisdom) bids he happy couple to "toss the bracelet of your union into the air, so that the people and the world may remain united with you." There ensues an allegorical procession of "the stars and the spirits of nature," after which "the old moon came in with his fantastic retinue," leading the bridal procession to celebrate the union of Ginnistan with the father. Even this sparse précis may have brought out the similarities of this little myth to symbolic inventions of Blake, Shelley, and Keats; it is as though a script writer had fused elements from Jerusalem, Prometheus Unbound, and Endymion into the scenario for a Walt Disney fantasia. The Märchen ends, mutatis mutandis(making necessary alterations while not affecting the main point at issue), as does Prometheus Unbound, with the marital embrace of the king and queen (Arcturus and Sophie), which becomes universally epidemic: In the meantime the throne had imperceptibly changed into a magnificent bridal bed, over whose canopy the Phoenix hovered with little Fable.... The king embraced his blushing beloved, and the people followed the example of the king and caressed one another. One heard nothing but words of endearment and a whisper of kisses. Novalis lived to finish only the beginning of the second part of Heinrich von Ofterdingen, in which Heinrich, his beloved Mathilda having died, takes up his wanderings again, now in the specific character of "a pilgrim." But the contour of his way remains that of a long detour back to its beginning. When Heinrich inquires, "Wo gehn wir denn hin?" he is answered, "Immer nach Hause." Novalis' notes for the continuation indicate that when nature shall once again be humanized and resume her communication with man, his pilgrim will be at home in the presently alien world: The book closes just the reverse of the Märchen—with one simple family. All becomes quieter, simpler, and more human toward the end. It is at the end the primal world, the golden age. Men, beasts, plants, stones and stars, flames, tones, colors must at the end act and speak together as a single family or society, as a single race. |
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from M.H. Abrams's Natural Supernaturalism pp.249-252. Novalis' Heinrich von Ofterdingen (written 1799-1800) is a symbolic narrative of the growth of a poet's mind, represented in the vehicle of a sustained journey through the realms of experience. The stimulus to undertaking the journey is Heinrich's "inexpressible longing" for a blue flower which he sees in a dream, of which the corolla is the face of a girl. From the beginning he has the presentiment that the immanent design of his quest is a circular one: Henry left his father and his native city with sorrow in his heart. Now for the first time it became clear to him what separation means.... His familiar world was torn from him and he was washed up as it were on a foreign shore....The magic flower was before him, and he gazed over into Thuringia, which he was just leaving, with the strange premonition that after long wanderings he would return to his native land [Vaterland] from distant regions toward which they were now traveling and hence with the feeling that it was really his native land he was approaching. The underlying motif, it is repeatedly implied, is the fall of man from the "primeval golden age and its sovereigns—love and poetry," to be followed by "the rejuvenation of nature, and the return of an everlasting golden age." "If your eyes are steadfastly turned to heaven," Heinrich is exhorted, "you will never miss your way home." At the center of this romance, too, is a Märchen, told by the master poet Klingsohr—this time a very elaborate one which assimilates the imagery of Revelation, Canticles, contemporary metallurgy and galvanism, and the Hermetic quest for the Philosopher's Stone, into the story of the prince who wakens the sleeping princess; the result transforms the familiar fairy tale into a cosmic myth. In the notes he wrote for an intended poetics, Novalis indicated the centrality of this form to his visionary concept of the nature and function of poetry. "The Märchen is as it were the canon of poetry—everything poetic must be märchenhaft." And the writer of the Märchen is the bard who present, past, and future sees, and who sees the future as a return to a bettered past: In the future world everything is as it was in the former world—yet everything is quite different. The future world is chaos which has been rationalized [das vernünftige Chaos].... The genuine Märchen must be at the same time prophetic representation—ideal representation—absolutely necessary representation. The genuine composer of the Märchen is a seer into the future.... With the passage of time, history must become a Märchen —it becomes again what it was in the beginning. Klingsohr's tale opens immediately after the fall. "The long night had just begun," and nature has become a frozen wintry world in which all trees, flowers, and fruits are the mimic work of pure artifice. Eros is seduced by Ginnistan (that is, Fantasy) who, in the incestuous fashion common to myth, alchemy, and modern psychoanalysis, assumes the form of Eros' own mother. In their absence the Scribe (characterized by Novalis in a letter as "petrifying and petrified reason") takes over the household and by his divisive influence brings matters to their nadir of evil in fragmentation, strife, and death. But Fable (the Spirit of Poetry) undertakes a redemptive journey through the three realms of being, the nether world, the middle world (which is earth, the human sphere of home and the family), and the upper world. In her descent to the underworld, Fable solves the riddle of the sphinx —"What is the eternal mystery?" "Love." At once the denouement begins, in a grand conflation of pagan, occult, scientific, and eschatological imagery. The giant Atlas is revivified by a jolt of galvanic current, and is able once more to take up the burden of the earth. "The old times are returning," and soon the Garden of the Hesperides "will bloom again and the golden fruit send forth ts fragrance." After a sequence of quasi-alchemical operations, the fallen world is redeemed: "The new world is born of pain, and in tears the ashes are dissolved into a drink of eternal life." In this all- inclusive reunification the Scribe, principle of division, his occupation gone, simply disappears. "A mighty springtime had spread over the earth," and there is a universal regeneration in which all things are "lifted and moved" and take on a human form; even in the "whirlwinds of dust ... familiar figures seemed to form." "In this peaceable kingdom" the animals "approached the wakened people with friendly nods" and "the plants served them with fruits and fragrances." With the assistance of electrical forces, Eros wakens the sleeping princess Freya (Peace); "she opened her large dark eyes and recognized her beloved," and "a long kiss sealed the eternal union"; while Sophie (Wisdom) bids he happy couple to "toss the bracelet of your union into the air, so that the people and the world may remain united with you." There ensues an allegorical procession of "the stars and the spirits of nature," after which "the old moon came in with his fantastic retinue," leading the bridal procession to celebrate the union of Ginnistan with the father. Even this sparse précis may have brought out the similarities of this little myth to symbolic inventions of Blake, Shelley, and Keats; it is as though a script writer had fused elements from Jerusalem, Prometheus Unbound, and Endymion into the scenario for a Walt Disney fantasia. The Märchen ends, mutatis mutandis(making necessary alterations while not affecting the main point at issue), as does Prometheus Unbound, with the marital embrace of the king and queen (Arcturus and Sophie), which becomes universally epidemic: In the meantime the throne had imperceptibly changed into a magnificent bridal bed, over whose canopy the Phoenix hovered with little Fable.... The king embraced his blushing beloved, and the people followed the example of the king and caressed one another. One heard nothing but words of endearment and a whisper of kisses. Novalis lived to finish only the beginning of the second part of Heinrich von Ofterdingen, in which Heinrich, his beloved Mathilda having died, takes up his wanderings again, now in the specific character of "a pilgrim." But the contour of his way remains that of a long detour back to its beginning. When Heinrich inquires, "Wo gehn wir denn hin?" he is answered, "Immer nach Hause." Novalis' notes for the continuation indicate that when nature shall once again be humanized and resume her communication with man, his pilgrim will be at home in the presently alien world: The book closes just the reverse of the Märchen—with one simple family. All becomes quieter, simpler, and more human toward the end. It is at the end the primal world, the golden age. Men, beasts, plants, stones and stars, flames, tones, colors must at the end act and speak together as a single family or society, as a single race.
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