​NOVALIS, the pseudonym ofFriedrich Leopold, Freiherr von Hardenberg (1772–1801), German poet and novelist. The name was taken, according to family records, from an ancestral estate. He was born on the 2nd of May 1772 on his father’s estate at Oberwiederstedt in Prussian Saxony. His parents weremembers of the Moravian (Herrnhuter) sect, and the strict religious training of his youth is largely reflected in his literary works. From the gymnasium of Eisleben he passed, in 1790, as a student of philosophy, to the university of Jena, where he was befriendedby Schiller. He next studied law at Leipzig, when he formed a friendship with Friedrich Schlegel, and finally at Wittenberg,where, in 1794, he took his degree. His father’s cousin, thePrussian minister Hardenberg, now offered him a governmentpost at Berlin; but the father feared the influence upon his sonof the loose-living statesman, and sent him to learn the practicalduties of his profession under theKreisamtmann (districtadministrator) of Tennstedt near Langensalza. In the followingyear he was appointed auditor to the government saltworksin Weissenfels, of which his father was director. His grief atthe death in 1797 of Sophie von Kühn, to whom he had becomebetrothed in Tennstedt, found expression in the beautifulHymnen an die Nacht (first published in theAthenäum, 1800).A few months later he entered the Mining Academy of Freibergin Saxony to study geology under Professor Abraham GottlobWerner (1750–1817), whom in the fragmentDie Lehrlinge zu Sais he immortalized as the “Meister.” Here he again becameengaged to be married, and the next two years were fruitful inpoetical productions. In the autumn of 1799 he read at Jenato the admiring circle of young romantic poets hisGeistliche Lieder. Several of these, such as “Wenn alle untreu werden,”“Wenn ich ihn nur habe,” “Unter tausend frohen Stunden,”still retain, as church hymns, great popularity. In 1800 he wasappointedAmtshauptmann (local magistrate) in Thuringia, andwas preparing to marry and settle, when pulmonary consumptionrapidly set in, of which he died at Weissenfels on the 25th ofMarch 1801.

His works were issued in two volumes by his friends LudwigTieck and Friedrich Schlegel (2 vols. 1802; a third volume wasadded in 1846). They are for the most part fragments, of whichHeinrich von Ofterdingen, an unfinished romance, is the chief.It was undertaken at the instance of Tieck, and reflects theideas and tendencies of the older Romantic School, of whichHardenberg was a leading member. Heinrich von Ofterdingen’ssearch for the mysterious “blue flower” is an allegory of thepoet’s life set in a romantic medieval world. Novalis, however,did not succeed in blending his mystic and philosophical conceptionsinto a harmonious whole. The “fragments” containidealistic though paradoxical views on philosophy, art, naturalscience, mathematics, &c.