The philosophical impact of early German romanticism in general andGeorg Philipp Friedrich von Hardenberg (Novalis) in particular hastypically been traced back to a series of fragments and reflections onpoetry, art, and beauty. Moreover, his name has been associated withan aestheticization of philosophy, an illegitimate valorizing of themedieval, and a politically reactionary program. This view of vonHardenberg, however, is to a large extent rooted in the image createdposthumously by his increasingly conservative friends within theromantic circle. Furthermore, von Hardenberg’s philosophicalreputation has been shaped by his critics, the most prominent of whomwas Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.

In spite of his death at 28, von Hardenberg (1772–1801) leftbehind a complex philosophical legacy that encompasses discussions ofsubjectivity and self-consciousness, issues in epistemology, moraltheory, political philosophy, problems of interpretation, philosophyof history, philosophy of religion, the proto-existentialistexperience of the finality of human life, as well as a significantcontribution to aesthetics and philosophy of art. While von Hardenbergis best known for his literary production—including the prosepoemHymns to the Night (1800) and the unfinished novelsThe Apprentice from Said andHeinrich vonOfterdingen (both published in 1802)—this overview focuseson the argumentative presuppositions for and systematic implicationsof von Hardenberg’s philosophical work (without therebysuggesting that his philosophy should be perceived as entirelyseparate from his poetic production).

• 1. Life and Work
• 2. The Fragment as Philosophical Form
• 3. Philosophy, Encyclopedia, and the Turn to Empirical Science
• 4. Critique, Reflexivity, Subjectivity
• 5. Philosophy of Bildung and History
• 6. Art, Aesthetics, and Poetics
• 7. Political Thought
• 8. Novalis’s Philosophical Legacy
• Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Life and Work

Friedrich von Hardenberg was born into a family descending from thelower-Saxon nobility and spent most of his childhood on the familyestate of the Oberwiederstedt manor. His father, Heinrich UlrichErasmus von Hardenberg, was the manager of a salt mine and was knownas a pietist and member of the Herrenhuter (Moravian) Church. Hissecond wife, Auguste Bernhardine von Hardenberg (neé von Bölzig),gave birth to eleven children, the second of whom was Friedrich. Afterhis initial studies with a private tutor, von Hardenberg went on tothe Lutheran grammar school in Eisleben, where he, in line with thegeneral educational guidelines at the time, concentrated in rhetoricand ancient literature. From the age of twelve, he moved to the homeof his uncle, Gottlob Friedrich Wilhelm von Hardenberg, who is said tohave taken an interest in French enlightenment philosophy. VonHardenberg later studied law in Jena, Leipzig, and Wittenberg. Hepassed his final exams in 1794 and moved on to work in the Prussiancivil service in Tennstedt, where he also met the young Sophie vonKühn. The two got secretly engaged in 1795. Two years later, Sophietragically died at the age of fifteen, an event that would move awhole generation of poets and artists in Germany, including Goethe.Just prior to Sophie’s death, Novalis, following in hisfather’s footsteps, commenced his studies of mining in Freiberg,Saxony, and eventually took up an administrative position at the saltmines in Weißenfels. Throughout this period, he would retain hisinterest in philosophy, but also explore subjects such as medicine,geology, and biology. He advanced to director of the salt mines andbecame engaged for a second time.

From his period as a student in Jena onwards, von Hardenberg was wellconnected with the dominant intellectual circles of the time. He wasacquainted with Goethe, Fichte, Hölderlin, Herder, and Jean Paul(Richter), and made close friends with Ludwig Tieck, the Schlegelbrothers, Schelling, and Schiller (whose lectures he attended in1790). Friedrich von Hardenberg died of tuberculosis in March1801.

Von Hardenberg did not publish much during his lifetime. His firstpublication, emerging in 1791 in Christoph Martin Wieland’sNeuem Teutschen Merkur, was the poem “Klagen einesJünglings”. In 1798, he publishedPollen(Blüthenstaub), a collection of 114 aesthetic-philosophicalfragments and reflections, in the first issue of theAthenaeum. The text was edited by Friedrich Schlegel, andNovalis’sMiscellaneous Observations is as close as weget to a final version from his hand. Only one other collection offragments was published during his lifetime, the controversialFaith and Love, also from 1798. In 1799, Novalis finished hispolitical-religious tract,Christianity or Europe, whichremained unpublished until after the author’s death. A yearlater emerged the famous lyrical cycleHymns to the Night.The rest of his writing consists mainly of posthumously publishednotes and sketches, includingNotes for a RomanticEncyclopaedia (Das Allgemeine Brouillon, 1798/99),studies of Fichte (1795/96), Kant (1797), and Franz Hemsterhuis(1797). The pen name Novalis—referring back to an old familyname while, all the same, conveying the meaning of “the one whoclears new ground”—was initially introduced in1798.

After Novalis’s death, his work was first edited by Tieck andFriedrich Schlegel and, subsequently, published in a number ofdifferent editions. Since 2006, his complete work has been availablein a six volume historical-critical edition (of which the first volumewas launched in 1960), edited by Paul Kluckhohn, Richard Samuel,Hans-Joachim Mähl, and Gerhard Schulz, which provides a more adequatepicture of Novalis’s philosophical reflections than the previouseditions, helpfully distinguishes between complete and incompletetexts, and offers a valuable apparatus of historical-philologicalfootnotes and commentaries.

In spite of its momentous impact in the history of Western art andthinking, early romantic philosophy lasted for only a short period oftime, and is commonly dated to the few years between 1797 and 1801,or, in some cases, the period between 1794 and 1808. With its initialcenter of gravity in Jena, the famous university town and intellectualpowerhouse of the time, the romantic circle soon moved its foothold toBerlin, whose vivid salon scene offered welcoming new quarters.Throughout this period, the early romantic movement evolved around thework of Ludwig Tieck, the Schlegel-brothers Friedrich and AugustWilhelm, as well as the philosopher and classicist FriedrichSchleiermacher and the jurist and writer Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder.Among the inner circle were also Caroline Schelling (married to AugustWilhelm Schlegel, later to Schelling), Dorothea Schlegel (married tothe banker Simon Veit, later to Friedrich Schlegel), and Sophie Tieck,the poet’s younger sister. Under the editorial leadership of theSchlegels, these self-designated romantic writers published theshort-lived, yet influential journalAthenaeum, whose famousmanifesto states that romanticism is neither merely an aesthetic, nora purely academic pursuit—as von Hardenberg optimistically putsit: the entire world should be romanticized (LFI #66).

The notion of theAthenaeum writers establishing a unifiedphilosophical group is due, in part, to their call for a sharedphilosophizing (Symphilosophie)—their envisioningphilosophy as a progressive, collective enterprise, rather than a setof solitary contributions of the system-building variety—and theaccompanying critique of the idea of intellectual authorship thatwould encourage the adoption of pen-names and countless anonymouspublications, which also, conveniently, minimized the impact ofcensorship on individual academic careers and allowed themovement’s female companions to publish and distribute theirwork. Furthermore, from Hegel onwards, the critics of romanticphilosophy have typically favored sweeping claims and totalizingrejections rather than careful analysis of particular contributionsand arguments. (I return to this point in Section Eight.) However, thegroup in question had rather porous and flexible boundaries. TheAthenaeum philosophers were all part of the largerintellectual life in Germany. And the romantics not only responded tothe most well-known philosophical schools of the time, such as thoseof Kant or Fichte, but were also influenced by a whole host of writersand intellectuals whose work, at least within the Anglophone world,have long been forgotten outside the circles of historically mindedGerman scholars and experts on late eighteenth-century Europeanthought. Rather than falling in rank under one unifying program, thecontributors to theAthenaeum stand forth as diverse withregard to philosophical orientations and insights as well as thehistorical-philosophical resources on which they draw.

2. The Fragment as Philosophical Form

The very term romanticism is often traced back to the medieval novelof chivalry in which the hero’s lonely fight against evil, sin,and moral weakness is fuelled by the twin motivation of faith andlove, hence reflecting a universe in which the individual is unifiedwith and understands himself through thede facto traditionto which he pledges allegiance. However, the turn to the Middle Agesis not primarily expressive of a sentimental cultivation of the past,but had long been part of the German Enlightenment and its critique ofpolitical absolutism. Like the enlightenment philosophers, the Jenaromantics were always clear that the organic unity of pre-modernsocieties was lost once and for all. When Novalis, inChristianityor Europe and other texts, wishes to revive the spirit of theMiddle Ages, he is frequently referring to the cosmopolitan thrust ofthe Hanseatic League rather than a homogenous, tradition-based, andauthoritarian medieval culture. As such, Novalis’s philosophy isresponsive to the conditions of modernity. In his work, modernphilosophy is seen as fundamentally self-reflexive in nature, asbelonging to the age of self-critical reason; that is, it is linked upwith the quest not only for first-order knowledge of nature and humanbeing, but also for second-order knowledge of what human knowledgeinvolves in the first place.

As a philosophical form, the fragment reflects the conditions ofmodernity. In Friedrich Schlegel’s view, the hyper-reflexiveexpressive registers of irony and humor are particularly suited tovoice the modern mindset, and are, as such, intrinsically linked tothe fragment (such a view is also present in Novalis’s writings,though underemphasized in comparison with Friedrich Schlegel).Novalis’s turn to the fragment has a different philosophicalmotivation. The fragment questions the idea that philosophicalsystem-building, be it of a deductive or a teleological kind, is fitto capture the nature of reality. LikeBlüthenstaub—though the title was added when FriedrichSchlegel was editing Novalis’s text for publication—thefragment emerges as an intellectual seed or pollen that is meant tofoster critical and independent reflection rather than presenting asystem of self-contained theorizing.

Although the fragment, as a philosophical form, is often associatedwith the early Jena romantics, it was not invented by this group.Rather, the fragment has a long history, stretching back to theancient Greeks, but also to modern writers such as Chamfort, LaRochefoucauld, and Lichtenberg. (Chamfort’s work was translatedinto German in the 1790s and eagerly read and discussed at the time.)Within circles closer to the romantics, Herder, from the late 1760son, had been exploring the philosophical potential of the fragment.Herder’s turn to the fragment was motivated by a wide-spanningskepticism with regard to the idea of a totalizing or teleologicalsystem of reason. The young Herder leads this skepticism back to thephilosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment. Novalis makes frequentreferences to Herder’s work and person.

With its broken form and literary style, Novalis’s return to thefragment has been taken to challenge the distinction between art andcritical thinking that was entirely central to Kant and Fichte.However, while the fragment draws on the expressive registers ofliterature, it does not represent a deconstruction of the differencebetween philosophy and poetry, science and art. It is, rather, anattempt, fromwithin the realm of critical reason, to explorea reality whose complex nature cannot be captured by the work of anarrowly oriented rationality (Verstandesdenken, in theeighteenth-century glossary). Like Schelling and Hegel, Novalischallenges the dry and narrow understanding of reason that, in theirview, had come to dominate the post-Enlightenment world of politics,science, and letters. Like them, he does this not by appealing to thepurely irrational, but by developing a notion of reason that includesa dimension of historicity and takes into account the experience ofart, literature, and religious and affective sentiments of variouskinds. Unlike Schelling and Hegel, however, Novalis believes that sucha notion of reason can only be obtained by leaving behind the idea ofa final and all-encompassing philosophical system. But as Herder hadbeen demonstrating already in the early 1770s, to question the idea ofan all-encompassing system is not the same as to endorse intellectualchaos or unsystematic thought procedures. When reading the earlyromantic philosophy of Novalis, one should keep in mind the warning ofhis friend Friedrich Schlegel: Just as a fully systematic philosophymight be an illusion, a completely unsystematic philosophy wouldinstantly kill off every intellectual ambition. Thus the challenge ofromantic philosophy consists in the attempt to think systematicallybut without allowing thought to stagnate in a final set of truths ordogma. Philosophy ought to be open-ended; it should develop in closeinteraction with the natural sciences as well as the humanities. Inshort, philosophy should take the shape of a sustained intellectualexperiment; it should be forever on its way and thoroughly inductivelyminded. This philosophical credo runs through the entire work ofNovalis, fromMiscellaneous Observations toNotes for aRomantic Encyclopaedia (Das Allgemeine Brouillon) andChristianity or Europe.

Even though the fragment is expressive of thedeeper—anti-teleological, if one likes—motivations ofNovalis’s thinking, it is easy to make too much of the form inwhich substantial parts of his work is handed down to us. As is madeclear by the publication of the critical edition, many ofNovalis’s texts are available as fragments simply because he didnot have the time to polish his thoughts or because they were neverintended for publication. Furthermore, a text such asPollen,which was indeed intended for publication, was edited by FriedrichSchlegel, who broke up some of the longer passages into shorterfragments.

3. Philosophy, Encyclopedia, and the Turn to Empirical Science

Das Allgemeine Brouillon brings to light the close connectionin Novalis’s work between philosophy and empirical science. YettheBrouillon is not meant to give a final account ofphilosophical knowledge, but aspires to recapitulate the state ofknowledge as it currently is, hence providing an impetus to revisionand improvement. In order to enhance its stakes and procedures,however, reason needs a point of orientation, an idea of whatuniversal knowledge would amount to, even though such knowledge bydefinition is out of reach. In Novalis’s work, the very idea ofa philosophical encyclopedia provides such a point of orientation.

The affiliation with empirical science is another point at whichNovalis’s understanding of the fragment differs from that ofFriedrich Schlegel. Whereas Schlegel establishes a close link betweenphilosophy and poetry—at times he even dismantles thedistinction between them—Novalis is convinced that if humanreason seeks everywhere for the unconditioned (dasUnbedingte) but finds nothing but things (Dinge) (MO#1), then we better study these things closely and try to make senseof them. That is, in his view, reason is inevitably driven towards theidea of an infinite, pre-reflexive, and pre-subjective ground or firstprinciple, an unconditioned, which it itself can never grasp; what itcan grasp, though, are the manifestations of such a ground in theworld to which it has access through experience and science. ThusNovalis claims that “Idealism is nothing but genuineempiricism” (AB #402). Novalis also defines philosophyas a science of science (AB #886); it explores the conditions for thestudy of nature, human nature included.

So conceived, philosophy is not cut off from practical purposes. Underthe heading “Encyclopedistics,” Novalis explains that“Half theories leadaway frompraxis—whole theories leadback to it”(AB #537). Or, as he, in the spirit of Kant’s teleology ofnature, stages his metaphysical program: “Philosophy cannot bakebread—however, it can provide us with God, freedom andimmortality—now which is more practical—philosophy oreconomics?” (AB #401). And in a slightly earlier work, Novalis,referring to the Kantian definition of metaphysics, claims that“We onlyknow it,insofar werealizeit” (KS, 331, cf. also HKA 2, 378).

In Novalis’s view, true philosophical insight, addressing issuesof legitimacy as well as the question of meaning (or, in Kantianlanguage, the regulative ideas of reason), provides a deepenedself-understanding that guides our practice and orientation in theworld. The fragment strengthens this dimension of philosophy in thatit fosters critical distance and independent thinking. Such anintellectual stance, in turn, is a condition of possibility forgenuine intersubjectivity, ultimately also for the republican idealsthat Novalis is promoting. Before we get that far, however, we need tolook, in more detail, at Novalis’s engagement with the ideals ofthe Enlightenment and the philosophy of German Idealism.

4. Critique, Reflexivity, Subjectivity

Novalis’s philosophical readership, his critics and supportersalike, have paid a great deal of attention to his interpretation ofFichte. For Novalis’s generation, Fichte was seen as the trueheir of Kant’s critical thinking. In theAthenaeumFragments, Schlegel applauds Fichte’s move beyond theKantian architecture of reason, and in hisLectures on the Historyof Philosophy Hegel, likewise, suggests that it was Fichte whoprovided the speculative unity that Kant’s system was lacking.By emphasizing the I’s absolute and immediate positing ofitself, Fichte, it was claimed, suspended the self-imposed limitationsof Kantian idealism. He thus succeeded in overcoming the dichotomiesthat had plagued Kant’s contemporary readers, including thedichotomies of reason and sensibility, spontaneity and receptivity,freedom and necessity. With Fichte, philosophy was grounded in oneultimate and unifying principle: that of the I’s positing ofitself as absolute and free (that is, in the jargon of the period, ofthe I positing itself as absolutely self-positing).

As Friedrich Schlegel lays out his philosophical-poetic principles inthe famousAthenaeum Fragment 216, Fichte’s theory ofthe I’s absolute self-positing established asine quanon of the romantic program. If the French Revolution, in itsearlier phases, had opened up a new space of political action,realizing,in concreto, the principle of the rationalself-determination of a people, and if Goethe’sWilhelmMeister, crossing genre boundaries by drawing on philosophy,poetry, and drama alike, had set a new standard for the modern novelas a complete and all-encompassing work of art—a literaryGesamtkunstwerk—it was Fichte who had led philosophyback to the unbound spontaneity of subjectivity, thus realizing theimplicit promise of Kant’s transcendental turn.

In his aesthetics, Kant had discussed how natural beauty, intriggering a free play between imagination and understanding, givesthe disinterested spectator a hint that nature might be designed so asto facilitate the work of our cognitive faculties, hence also allowingfor the possibility of a system of inductive knowledge and the idea ofa will behind what, from the perspective of the understanding, appearsas the realm of blind causality. In the aesthetic experience,transcendental imagination is furnished with the regulative functionof providing human beings with a sense of orientation in theworld—a sense of belonging or purpose. Kant also had proposedthat man-made beauty, i.e., art, puts forth a sensuous presentation ofthe ideas of reason. And, finally, he had established a closeconnection between the work of art and the spontaneous production ofcreative genius.

In Kant’s system, however, the bridge between freedom andnecessity is restricted to the realm of the aesthetic judgment. Thepure aesthetic judgment can be ascribed a merely subjectiveuniversality. Fichte, however, brought out the full philosophicalpotential of the Kantian idea of freedom. In Fichte’s theory,the creative spontaneity of imagination is so to speakuniversalized—it is turned into the distinctive feature of theabsolute, positing I, which is free even to posit its ontologicalcounterpart in the limiting non-I. Hence the cautious “asif”-status of the purposiveness of nature in the aestheticexperience is sublated. At a transcendental level, even causallydetermined nature is explained in light of the self-positing ego. Thegap between subjectivity and nature, freedom and necessity,spontaneity and receptivity is ultimately bridged. This, thoughtNovalis and many with him, was the achievement of Fichte’sphilosophy.

Yet, for all his progress beyond the Kantian framework, Fichte hadfailed to address the more deep-seated problem of meaning that waspart of the Kantian agenda: the possibility of there being a will orrationality behind the universe as such, a will or rationality that isprior to and constitutive of subjectivity, hence granting it a senseof meaning and purpose. Whereas Kant had framed this as a question ofteleology and natural beauty, Novalis and his fellow romantics linkedit to the experience of art and poetry in particular. I return toNovalis’s philosophy of art in the next section. What isimportant at this point, however, is to realize how Novalis developshis standpoint in critical response to the philosophical challengesposed by Kant and Fichte.

Allegedly, Hölderlin and Novalis met with Fichte in the home ofFriedrich Immanuel Niethammer in Jena in 1795. The meeting withFichte, it is said (though the historical documentation is scant),strengthened Novalis’s interest in his philosophy and led to thework that would culminate in theFichte Studies. Nonetheless,the collection was not given its title by Novalis himself but added bythe editor, Hans-Joachim Mähl. TheFichte Studies does notdeal exclusively with Fichte’s philosophy, but addresses a broadrange of philosophical problems, one of which is Novalis’sworries with regard to subjective idealism. Other topics include thehistory of philosophy, the relationship between art and philosophy,and the relationship between art and science. Nonetheless, thiscollection of notes and observations shelters the most coherentaccount of Novalis’s interpretation of Fichte.

Although Novalis admires Fichte, he is more cautious in his attitudethan many of his contemporaries. In theFichte Studies hepolemically asks whether Fichte has not “too arbitrarily packedeverything into the I” (FS #5). And inNotes for a RomanticEncyclopaedia (Das Allgemeine Brouillon), written a fewyears later, his critique is poignantly articulated in the analogybetween the Fichtean ego and the desolate main character of DanielDefoe’s famous novel: “Fichte’s ego—is aRobinson Crusoe—a scientificfiction” (AB#717).

According to Novalis—whose thinking at this point converges withHölderlin’s response to subjectiveidealism—Fichte’s theory is ultimately rooted in theimmediacy of the I’s self-positing, and it presupposes that thecapacity for self-reflection can be traced back to anon-representational self-relation or intellectual intuition thatevades the very structure of reflectivity and hence also thesubject-object relationship between the reflecting and the reflectedego. Novalis maintains that in order to take a reflective stancetowards itself, the self needs to represent itself in some form oranother. The I’s most original self-relation cannot simply takethe form of an originalTathandlung in which the reflectingself (the subject pole of the self-reflection) claims immediateidentity with itself as reflected (i.e., as the object pole of theself-reflection). In Novalis’s view, self-reflection requiressome kind of external representation. Such a representation cannot,however, be deduced from the immediate identity (FS #11). The identityof the reflecting and the reflected I is grounded in a feeling (FS#11). Thought, however, fails to grasp this feeling.

Novalis follows Kant in claiming that thought and feeling make up twoirreducible sources of experience. Given this dual source ofexperience, philosophy cannot, as Fichte would have it, be rooted inone single principle. To be sure, the idea of such a principle isattractive to the extent that it would aid in undermining the Kantiandualism of concept and intuition, and ultimately also guarantee theself-determination of rational subjectivity. Yet such a principlecannot be given. Instead of adhering to the completely autonomoussubjectivity of Fichtean philosophy, Novalis argues that the subjectis inwardly split, not just between thought and feeling, butultimately also between the hubris of believing that thought can infact grasp the basic self-feeling, and the realization that thisfeeling cannot be conceptually processed as such. The latter point notonly involves a modification of the scope of reflexive subjectivity,but also of philosophy itself. As Novalis emphatically puts it,“[t]he borders of feelingare the borders ofphilosophy” (FS #15, emphasis added).

If Novalis develops his own philosophical voice through the encounterwith Fichte, he also takes a significant step beyond theepistemological framework ofThe Science of Knowledge. Somescholars, such as Manfred Frank and Jane Kneller, see theFichteStudies, with its insistence on the two sources of experience, asgesturing back to a more Kantian position—a Kantian moderationof Fichte’s idealism. Such an interpretation is not onlyjustified by reference to Novalis’s critique of Fichte, but alsogiven historical support in light of Novalis’s relatively closecontact with Kantian philosophers such as Karl Leonhard Reinhold andCarl Christian Erhard Schmid. Furthermore, on having completed hisstudies of Fichte, Novalis quickly returns to Kant. In the so-calledKant Studies, whose scope spans Kant’s practical aswell as theoretical philosophy, he speaks of Kant’sphilosophizing as scholastic, yet celebrates it as “one of themost remarkable phenomena of the human spirit” (KS, 337). Incritically endorsing Kant’s idea of transcendental idealism asthe science of philosophy, Novalis, too, wishes to see philosophy as ameta-discipline, a rational account of the boundaries ofrationality.

Novalis’s work is neither strictly speaking Kantian nor strictlyspeaking Fichtean in spirit. On assessing Novalis’s reflectionson transcendental idealism, it is important to keep in mind that whenhe, in 1797, returns to Kant’s thinking, he views it through thelens of Fichte’s philosophy. Furthermore, Fichte’sthinking, for Novalis, did not just consist in the various theses ofThe Science of Knowledge (Wissenschaftslehre), butalso in a certain way of doing philosophy. “Fichtean philosophyis a call to self-activity,” insists Novalis (FS #567). That is,it is a mode of philosophizing rather than a given claim about theabsolute freedom of the transcendental ego. In this respect,Fichte’s most important work is not theWissenschaftslehre, but his lecture on the scholar’svocation,Über die Bestimmung des Gelehrten, which hesupposedly read in Jena in 1794 and which would then be eagerlystudied in Jena and Weimar. Even though Novalis had good familyconnections to Fichte, we do not know for sure whether he had accessto the unpublished version of this text. However, Novalis’semphasis on intellectual responsibility, self-thinking, and autonomyspeaks clearly of a responsiveness to this dimension of Fichte’swork. Novalis’s reflections on these issues culminate in hisnotion ofBildung. This is also the point at which Novalisceases to present himself as a critical commentator of subjectiveidealism and produces an independent philosophical contribution oflasting force and value.

5. Philosophy of Bildung and History

According to Novalis, the “academy ought to be a thoroughlyphilosophical institution—only one faculty—the wholeestablishment organized—to arouse and exercise the capacity tothink [Denkkraft] in a purposive way” (MO #4, trans. modified).By emphasizing the need for independent thinking, Fichte endorsedKant’s critical turn and his transformation of philosophy,pitched as a set of doctrines and principles, into philosophizing,pictured as a critical activity. Furthermore, Fichte had realized thatphilosophizing is a call of the self to the self (FS #567). Yet theself to which the philosophizing turns is not understood as an emptyor merely formal capacity for self-positing. True idealism, Novalisclaims, is not opposed to realism, but only to formalism. A properaccount of the self, in its relation to itself, should consider theself’s development in and through history as well as itsexternalizing of itself in the encounter with other minds andnature.

The idea ofBildung, education in and through culture,remains one of the most significant contributions of lateeighteenth-century philosophy. Even though it is most often associatedwith Hegel’sPhenomenology of Spirit (as well as hisslightly later speech “On Classical Studies”), in whichthe philosophical mind retrieves its historical-systematic developmentas a succession of various philosophical paradigms and thought models,the notion was widely applied before 1807. We find it in the work ofHerder, the young Schleiermacher, and, expanding the focus to therealm of literature, the idea ofBildung is operative inGoethe’sWilhelm Meister. Goethe’s work, as thesequel commences in the mid 1790s, follows Wilhelm through hisyouthful adventures and beyond, seeing how the protagonist graduallyreaches an understanding of his formative experiences and thus gainsan ever-increasing sense of freedom and self-determination.

For Novalis, too, philosophy involves a process of maturity andself-understanding (though he would eventually grow more critical ofGoethe’s work). This is another dimension of his call for apractical turn in philosophy. In Novalis’s words: “Whoeverknows what philosophizing is, also knows what life is” (AB#702). Philosophy does not manifest itself in a set of theoreticaldogmas, but in a capacity to judge. As such, philosophy cannot belearned or passively appropriated, but only triggered by such Socraticprovocations as the fragment, irony, the joke, and the essay. HenceNovalis’s call for a romanticizing of the world does not involveperceiving it through a new or different lens, but the ability toraise oneself to a state of critical self-understanding. This aim,Novalis emphasizes, cannot be reached through the means of isolatedsoliloquy, but requires an engagement with the larger community aswell as with history, tradition, natural science, and art. Itinvolves, in short, the realization that the self necessarily belongsto a more comprehensive, historically developed, and cross-culturallyfertilized totality of meaning. In affinity withSchleiermacher’sSpeeches (which Novalis studied in theearly fall of 1799), Novalis makes it clear that individuality properis only developed in interaction with other individuals. If“[e]ach human being is a society in miniature” (MO #42),it still applies that “[e]very individual is the center of asystem of emanation” (MO #109).

The self understands itself as part of a given community, but also asthe product of a historical development that spans the arts and thesciences alike. Only in this way can the I, in Novalis’sparadoxical formulation, be the I of its I (MO #28). In order to seeoneself as situated within a given historical and intersubjectivecontext, history cannot be fully objectivized: “[w]e are relatedto all parts of the universe—as we are to the future and totimes past” (MO #91). The understanding of history is thus amatter of self-understanding. However, in the enlightenmentcelebration of novelty and progress, history is reduced to a catalogueof mistakes that are left behind in favor of a more maturecomprehension of reality past and present. In Novalis’s view,philosophical romanticism must take on the responsibility ofoverthrowing—at a meta-philosophical as well ashistorical-empirical level—such an ahistorical concept ofhistory. Thus the emphasis onBildung involves a reassessmentnot only of the self (it involves recognizing that the self isfundamentally situated in tradition), but also of the tradition. Thisimplies, first, the view that tradition extends into the present and,second, the claim that in order to gain understanding of history,hence also of the interpreter’s own time, historical expressionsshould not be judged by the criteria of the present but be seen withintheir own context, be it cultural, political, religious, or all of theabove.

For Novalis, the classical world is so to speak the other ofmodernity; it is different, yet a fundamental part of it. Furthermore,any modern culture—and here we see, again, the traces ofNovalis’s turn towards the more cosmopolitan spirit of theHanseatic League—understands itself in critical interaction withother cultures, including those of the non-Western world and thetemporally distant parts of the interpreter’s own culture. Inhis 1798 reflections on Goethe, Novalis writes that spirit by naturestrives to absorb and understand its other. This process of expandingone’s horizon by considering the other’s point of view is,at one and the same time, the nature and the ultimate goal ofBildung. InKant Studies such an enterprise ispresented, along the lines of Kantian anthropology, as the theory ofthe causes and remedies of prejudices (KS 330).

The emphasis on understanding others does not involve a relativizationof history and intercultural understanding. Like Schleiermacher andSchlegel, Novalis takes a strong interest in philology and demandsthat every author and reader must be philologically minded(Teplitz Fragments #42). Philology, for the romanticphilosopher, is, among other things, about the reader taking intoaccount the original context in which the text was produced. Hence,according to Novalis, “[p]hilologizing is thetruescholarly occupation. It corresponds toexperimenting” (AB #724). Philologizing—and noteagain, as in the case of philosophizing, the active formphilologisiren and the reference to experimenting—isabout breaking through illegitimate prejudices, trying to understand asymbolic expression on its own terms rather than reducing it to afamiliar position, which would minimize its capacity to challenge thereader’s system of beliefs and values. Conceived in this way,philology challenges every scholastic passing down of authoritativeinterpretations. It curbs the threat of the dead letter andcounteracts the tendency of modern society to steward the tradition insuch a formalistic way that it overlooks the meaning of thehieroglyph, as Novalis at one point puts it. In the spirit of theEnlightenment, he wishes to challenge and critically reflect onprejudices handed down from tradition. But unlike the enlightenmentphilosophers—at least in their most undialectical championing ofprogress—Novalis believes that the past can itself offerresources for a critical-reflexive discussion of and stance towardsthe present. In this sense, Novalis can claim that “The theoryof the future belongs to history” (AB #425). Even if the pastcannot be immediately retrieved and even if it is neither desirablenor rational to long for a revival of times long gone, the past,providing an alternative to the intellectual framework of the present,can aid the philosopher, the artist, the scientist, or the politicianin developing a critical attitude to the beliefs and assumptions he orshe had previously left unanalyzed. The past should in other words bereconstructed on its own terms, but precisely such a reconstruction,Novalis argues, will ensure its relevance for the present.

While it is entirely crucial to the romantic concept ofBildung, the idea of philology is related to the return tothe classical form of the fragment. At stake in both cases is theawareness that there are, in philosophy, two ways to look at things,from above and downward or from below and upward, roughlycorresponding to what Kant in the same period had addressed asreflective and determinative judgment or Herder, drawing on theresources of Scottish enlightenment philosophy, had seen as thedifference between inductive-empirical and deductively-mindedphilosophy.

Ultimately, Novalis identifies the never-ending process ofBildung with philosophy itself. Doing philosophy, Novalisexplains, is a conversation with oneself (LFI #21), but one that takesplace through the encounter with the other. Thus, the decision to“do philosophy is a challenge to the real self to reflect, toawaken and to be spirit” (LFI #21). Philosophy is about theself’s capacity to take responsibility for itself. For, at theend of the day, “[l]ife must not be a novel that is given to us,but one that is made by us” (LFI #99).

6. Art, Aesthetics, and Poetics

Bildung and philosophy, as education to self-responsibility,are closely related to the realm of art. There are at least twodimensions of this relationship. First, Novalis is well aware thatBildung, the call to self-understanding and autonomy throughan engagement with tradition and other cultures, cannot proceed by wayof an appeal to formal methodology. No rule can ever guarantee thesuccessful outcome of the individual’s education in culture.Rather, it is a matter of moving from the particular to the universal,but without a universal at hand by which this move can be justified.What is required is a context-sensitive judgment. The process ofBildung is itself an art (Kunst) in the sense thatit takes tact or reflective judgment (such a use of the term“art,” as opposed to merely mechanical processes, wasfairly common at the time and can also be found in the work of Herder,Kant, and Schleiermacher). Along these lines, Novalis speaks of thewill to Fichtecize artistically (LFI #11), and also criticizes Fichteand Kant for being unpoetic (AB #924). The second sense in which art,philosophy, andBildung are related has to do with art beingone of the media, maybe even the privileged medium, through whichBildung is achieved. In this context, it is important to keepin mind that as far as the philosophy of art goes, Novalis’speriod is one of transition. Around this time, aesthetics, as aKantian investigation into the validity-claim of the pure judgment oftaste, is established as an autonomous philosophical discipline withtheCritique of Judgment. Yet it is nonetheless the case thathistorical and intercultural engagement was, until and throughout thisperiod, largely a matter of studying religious and cultural artefactsfrom temporally or geographically distant eras. These objects were notnecessarily approached aesthetically—that is, subjected to pureaesthetic judgment in Kant’s meaning of the term—but also,as in the works of Herder and Hegel, viewed as part of the largerfabric of the moral sciences. Novalis often leans in this direction,and at one point even follows Herder in addressing aesthetics as apsychological discipline (AB #423).

Novalis’s philosophy of art does not only lead to a recognitionof the value of intertemporal and intercultural understanding. Infact, in a work such as Walter Benjamin’s study of the romanticnotion of criticism, one encounters the idea that romantic aestheticsrepresents a proto-modernist theory of art.

In line with his general philosophy of history, Novalis contrastsmodern art to the art of ancient cultures. As opposed to ancient art,which was afforded a direct moral and religious relevance, modern artreflects its status as art. Or, stronger still, modern art sees itselfas art only—yet, precisely as art (only) can it give voice andexpression to experiences that cannot be grasped by apost-Enlightened, philosophical reason. As part of the Schillerian eraof sentimentality, modern philosophy mourns the absence of apre-subjective, pre-reflexive anchoring of reason. Herein consists theso-called homesickness of philosophy (AB #857). Modern philosophylongs for a principle that can shore up thought and subjectivity byreference to a dimension of being that is ontologically prior to it.Given its discursive nature, philosophy is constitutively cut-off fromsuch an absolute grounding. Art, however, can testify to thisdimension of being; it can express what modern philosophy wants, yetis painfully aware that it cannot get. In this sense, “the poetis the transcendental physician,” as Novalis provocatively putsit (LFI #36). Given its linguistic nature, poetry in particular shouldstrive to realize its own inherent potential rather than imitatingphilosophy and other discursive forms of expression.

Novalis’s understanding of art in general and literature inparticular is perhaps best articulated—or, rather,exemplified—in a novel such asHeinrich vonOfterdingen. Though unfinished, the novel, which includes amplemeta-reflections on aesthetic matters, illustrates the dream-likeatmosphere that has made Novalis’s work the prime example ofmagical idealism, the romantic prism through which nature itselfoccurs as a work of art, as being expressive of a deeper meaning andperfection that defuses the possible tension between necessity andfreedom, sensuousness and understanding, and gives human beings asense of belonging and being at home in the world.

7. Political Thought

If there is a relative distinction between poetry and philosophy inNovalis’s work—the two need one another, yet answer todifferent human needs and capacities—the situation is morecomplicated with regard to art and politics. From Heinrich Heineonwards, the aestheticization of politics has been one of thestrongest cards played out by the critics of romantic philosophy. Andeven among the most sympathetic readers of Novalis’s work, theliberally minded will have a hard time swallowing his attempt tocreate a higher union between politics, art, and religion, and histendency to valorize religion over philosophy and art. The sameapplies for the way in which he, for example in a lyrical work such as“Hymns to the Night,” written in response to the death ofhis young fiancée, infuses the erotic yearning for the beloved with alonging for religious redemption. That said, Novalis’s politicalthinking neither can nor should be reduced to these potentiallyreactionary sentiments. Novalis’s idea of a synthesis of art andpolitics is far more complex than is typically acknowledged by itscritics.

While Novalis was always sympathetic to the ideals of the Frenchrevolution, he grew increasingly skeptical in his assessment of theiractual realization in late eighteenth-century France. In his view, theproponents ofliberté,egalité, andfraternité had failed to live up to their celebrated ideals.For all its good intentions, the revolution had resulted ininequality, injustice, and terror. It is characteristic ofNovalis’s political philosophy that he not only offers aprincipled discussion of this predicament, but also a historicalcritique. Novalis sees the revolution in continuity with theEnlightenment, and worries that these movements cultivate a notion ofreason that fails to take historical reality into account. Theproponents of the revolution had forgotten to ask if the people wereready to take on the admirable ideals of liberty, equality, andsolidarity. Novalis wishes not only to endorse the ideals of therevolution, but also to offer reflections on how the people can bebrought to a stage where they can responsibly take on the principlesof the revolution and make its ideals their own. This is the ultimatetask and purpose ofBildung.

The first political pamphlet of the romantic movement wasSchleiermacher’sOn Religion: Speeches to its CulturedDespisers, and Novalis is thoroughly influenced by this work. InOn Religion, Schleiermacher advocates an egalitarian,organic, and ecumenical religion, and professes that only such areligious-political system can provide a framework within which theindividual can fully grow into and take responsibility for itself. Atthe same time, such a religion is only possible—it can only berealizedin concreto—when the individuals of a givensociety have generally reached at least a minimal stage ofself-understanding and respect for others. Hence there is a closeconnection between the existence of a broad-spanning group of educatedand mature individuals and the possibility of introducing a sensiblereligious and ultimately also political order. The problem, accordingto Schleiermacher, is that modern religion has been dominated byphilistines who have placed themselves in between the people and thetrue democratic truths of the New Testament. What is needed is arethinking of religious life—and, as part of this, a rethinkingof the relationship to tradition. This is whyOn Religionanticipates Schleiermacher’s later writings in hermeneutics. Andthis point, as it is appropriated by Novalis, also establishes aconnection between his hermeneutic historicism and his politicalphilosophy.

Novalis’s political reflections inform theMiscellaneousObservations, get more poignantly voiced inFaith andLove and the “Political Aphorisms” (written in 1798),and find their quasi-religious culmination inChristianity orEurope, the 1799-text that even hisAthenaeum friendsdeemed problematic in its call for a new Catholic unity in Europe. Inspite of Schlegel’s willingness to publish the text, the furoreit caused amongst Novalis’s peers, including Goethe, Schelling,and Schiller, held him back, andChristianity or Europeremained unpublished till 1826.

There is an overall unity in Novalis’s political writings, asthey span almost the entire ten years of his productive period: theidea that democracy can only be effectively realized among a peoplethat is historically ready for it, that such readiness takes acapacity for critique and independent thinking, and thatBildung is the way in which independent thinking is bestachieved. In combining critical skills, analytic abilities, and themotivational force provided by art and cultured discourse, Novalis ishopeful that romantic philosophy will find a way to retain the idealsof the revolution without, at the same time, repeating itsmistakes.

Romanticism, in his view, aims at preserving the enlightenmentcommitment to self-determination and freedom without turning it into amerely abstract and alienating discourse. Individuality andself-determination can only be achieved in organic communion withother self-determining individuals. It needs to be realized as part ofan ongoing discussion of the ultimate meaning, goals, andself-understanding of a given, historical society. A healthyintersubjectivity makes up a presupposition for a mature andwell-developed personality. Conversely, the organically developedcommunity consists of unique, yet mutually recognizing individuals andtheir bonds of interaction. Diversity is a condition for the soughtunity. As such, the ideal society is likened to a work of art. Nomechanical rules or abstract theories can guarantee the successfulrealization of the community as a unity in manifold. This is thelesson Novalis takes from Schleiermacher, and which serves as thedetermining ground for his political theory. This is also the thoughtthat undergirds his lasting commitment to republicanism.

In the period betweenFaith and Love andChristianity orEurope, written only two years before Novalis’s death,there is a significant change in Novalis’s views on how a goodsociety is best achieved. In 1798 Novalis was inspired by the idea ofa democracy from above and connected the idea of education to themotivational force of monarchy. By positing their own lives andactions as examples, the king and the queen, representing at one andthe same time the community of living individuals and the larger wholeof the tradition, should inspire the people to strive forself-understanding and freedom through education. That is, by settingan example of autonomous thinking while, all the same, representing acontinuity with the past, the royal couple would turn the monarchyinto a symbol of the democratic state itself. Around 1799, however,Novalis’s view changes. He now imagines that this motivationalforce can only be led back to the unifying power of the church, or,more precisely, that of the papal state. At this point, the democraticethos of his thinking is considerably weakened.

Novalis’s turn to the church is indisputably problematic whenjudged from a 21st century perspective. Yet it is important to seethat within his own time, most of his political writing, up untilaround 1798, is representative of the progressive reformist movementin Germany. Furthermore, Novalis’s democratic, pluralistic, andegalitarian ideals should not be dismissed because of his later, moreconservative sentiments, nor should the connection he sees betweenthese ideals and a commitment toBildung. It is this notionofBildung, the idea that democracy requires a triad ofindividual education, societal plurality, and, not least, a capacityfor impartial judging, that will remain Novalis’s most valuablecontribution to political thought.

8. Novalis’s Philosophical Legacy

Soon after Novalis’s death, his friends amongst the romantics,led by Tieck and Friedrich Schlegel, started spinning the myth abouttheüber-sensitive visionary poet and aesthete, thebeautiful soul, forever longing for the unattainable blue flower, thesymbol of eternal love and divine grace that would so enthrall thecharacter of Heinrich von Ofterdingen. The legend of Novalis as thearch-romantic author rapidly gained credence, and his literary stylebecame influential for writers from Georg Büchner, via thesymbolists, to Hermann Hesse and the avant-garde movement in Franceand Germany. In the philosophical domain, the reception of Novalis hasbeen more reluctant. Some of this reluctance must be explained by thefact that until the publication of the critical edition, it wasdifficult to distinguish between the posthumously created image ofNovalis, on the one hand, and his real philosophical contribution, onthe other. This difficulty also colors the harsh judgments of Hegel,Novalis’s most rampant critic among his contemporaryGermans.

Hegel is critical of what he takes to be an undue turn to isolatedsubjectivity, and in particular its affective and emotional aspects,in romantic philosophy. He traces this turn to subjectivity back tothe romantic reading of Fichte. The romantics, in his interpretation,misunderstood Fichte’s work. They hypostatized his notion ofspontaneous self-positing, baking it into a largely aestheticvocabulary of the creative power of imagination. While he placesNovalis within this framework, Hegel overlooks how he (Novalis) notonly draws on but also criticizes Fichte’s philosophy. InHegel’s understanding, romanticism in general andNovalis’s philosophy in particular leads to a pathologicalcultivation of inwardness, a naïve and otherworldly position that isnot only philosophically at fault but also constitutes a genuinepolitical risk in that it represents an alluring conversion fromcritical thinking to otherworldly reveries. However, as Otto Pöggelerdemonstrates in his 1956 study, as soon as one distinguishesphilosophical romanticism proper from its mythological image, itbecomes clear that Hegel stands far closer to the romantics than hewas ever willing to admit. In Novalis’s case, the philosophy ofBildung, a notion that features prominently in Hegel’sown work, would be an important point of connection. Others would behis philosophy of interpretation and his conception of therelationship between pre-modern and modern thought.

Hegel’s negative assessment proved influential to later timesand readings of Novalis’s work. Even though Novalis’sexperimenting with the philosophical form of the fragment paved theway for such stylistically bold and innovative thinkers as Kierkegaardand Nietzsche, these figures would, with few exceptions, stagethemselves as critics rather than followers of romantic philosophy. Ina wider intellectual context, we find Novalis’s writing attackedin Heinrich Heine’s work on recent German literature (1836[1995]), Rudolf Haym’sDie romantische Schule (1870),Arnold Ruge and the young Hegelian philosophy of history (which viewedromanticism through the lens of the later Friedrich Schlegel’sengagement with Metternich and the restoration), and KarlMannheim’s sociological explanation of the rise of Germanconservatism (1925 [1986]). Whereas the young Georg Lukácsapplauds Novalis’s aesthetics and philosophy of nature, the lateLukács worries about the irrationalism of post-EnlightenmentGerman thought. From the other side of the political spectrum, thereis Carl Schmitt’s 1919 critique of the romantic movement aseffecting a dangerous occasionalism in modern political life.

Among the nineteenth century historians it was Wilhelm Dilthey who, inhis grand effort to rehabilitate late eighteenth-century Germanphilosophy, was able to see through the myth of Novalis and call for areassessment of his philosophical work. As is the case withDilthey’s return to the young Hegel, his reading of Novalisemphasizes the humanistic drive of his thinking as well as hisphilosophy of art and nature, which gets reinterpreted, inDilthey’s lexicon, as a budding philosophy of life. Dilthey,however, situates Novalis with Goethe and Hölderlin, and ends up,quite against his own intention, highlighting the aesthetic ratherthan critical-intellectual force of his philosophy.

The philosophical-literary reception of Novalis’s work firsttook off with Walter Benjamin’s 1919 study of the romanticnotion of literary criticism. In situating the young romantics withinthe paradigm of Fichte’s philosophy of reflection, Benjaminplaces himself well within the traditional reception of their work.Nonetheless, Benjamin’s interest in philosophy of history, hisrecognition of philosophers such as Herder, Hamann, and Humboldt, andhis general openness towards the late eighteenth-century mindset,makes it possible for him to transcend the framework of traditional(Hegelian) prejudices and tease out of the romantic idea of criticisma pregnant conception of art and subjectivity. Furthermore, because heviews modernity as a period of aesthetic reflectivity andself-criticism, Benjamin is among the first to see in romanticphilosophy a prefiguration of aesthetic modernism and the Europeanavant-garde. This idea would later fuel the growing interest in Germanromantic philosophy amongst French intellectuals, includingphilosopher-poets like Maurice Blanchot, George Bataille, and, in the1970s and 1980s, the chief proponents of literary deconstruction,Jacques Derrida and, in an Anglophone context, Paul de Man.

The broader literary reception of Novalis’s fragments andpoetical work across comparative literature departments in Europe andNorth America contributed to the recent rediscovery of his philosophy:a rediscovery, one might hope, that will lead to a greater awarenessof the breadth of his philosophical contribution and a recognition ofthe fact that his thinking, though celebrated for its religious-poeticsensitivity and aesthetic ambience, encompasses much more than that.Although it is unlikely that Novalis’s work will ever make it tothe front rows of academic philosophy, his contribution deserves to berevisited, reread, and reconsidered by scholars of post-Kantianthought. Only in this way is it possible fully to reassess thesystematic impact of his theory ofBildung, socialphilosophy, philosophy of history, and theory of language as well ashis contribution to aesthetics and philosophy of art.

Bibliography

Novalis in German

• [HKA]Novalis Schriften. Die Werke Friedrich vonHardenbergs (Historische-kritische Ausgabe), secondedition, 6 volumes (vol. 6 in 3 parts), Paul Kluckhohn, RichardSamuel, Gerhard Schulz, and Hans-Joachim Mähl (eds.), Stuttgart:Kohlhammer Verlag, 1960–2006.

Novalis in English

• [AB]Notes for a Romantic Encyclopaedia: Das AllgemeineBrouillon, David W. Wood (ed. and trans.), Albany, NY: SUNYPress, 2007.
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Studies of Novalis’s Theoretical Work in German

• Dilthey, Wilhelm, 1865 [1906], “Novalis”,Preußische Jahrbücher, 15: 596–650. Better known fromDas Erlebnis und die Dichtung: Lessing, Goethe, Novalis,Hölderlin, Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1906.
• Fridell, Egon, 1904,Novalis als Philosoph, München:Bruckmann.
• Haering, Theodor, 1954,Novalis als Philosoph, Stuttgart:W. Kohlhammer Verlag.
• Schulz, Gerhard (ed.), 1970,Novalis. Beiträge zu Werk undPersönlichkeit Friedrich von Hardenbergs, Darmstadt:Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
• Senckel, Barbara, 1983,Individualität und Totalität.Aspekte zu einer Anthropologie des Novalis, Tübingen: MaxNiemeyer Verlag.
• Uerlings, Herbert, 1991,Friedrich von Hardenberg, genanntNovalis. Werk und Forschung, Stuttgart: Metzler.
• ––– (ed.), 1997,Novalis und dieWissenschaften, Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.
• ––– (ed.), 2000,“Blüthenstaub”, Rezeption und Wirkung des Werkes vonNovalis, Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.

Studies of Novalis’s Theoretical Work in English

• Kleingeld, Pauline, 2008, “Romantic Cosmopolitanism:Novalis’s ‘Christianity or Europe’”,Journal of the History of Philosophy, 46(2): 269–284.doi: 10.1353/hph.0.0005
• Lukács, Georg, 1908 [1974], “Novalis”,Nyugat, 1: 313ff. Collected in hisA lélek és aformák, Budapest: Franklin Társulat Nyomda, 1910. Translatedfrom the Hungarian to German as “Zur romantischenLebensphilosophie: Novalis”, inDie Seele und die Formen:Essays, Berlin: Egon Fleischel, 1911 (special edition, Neuwied:Luchterhand, 1971). Translated from the 1971 German edition to Englishas “On the Romantic Philosophy of Life: Novalis”, inSoul and Form, Anna Bostock (trans.), London: Merlin Press,1974.
• Molnár, Géza von, 1970,Novalis’ “FichteStudies”: The Foundation of his Aesthetics, The Hague:Mouton.
• O’Brien, William Arctander, 1995,Novalis: Signs ofRevolution, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
• Pfefferkorn, Kristin, 1988,Novalis: A Romantic’s Theoryof Language and Poetry, New Haven, CT: Yale UniversityPress.

Studies of Romantic Philosophy in German

• Bohrer, Karl Heinz, 1989,Die Kritik der Romantik,Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.
• Behler, Ernst, 1992,Frühromantik, Berlin: Walter deGruyter.
• Fiesel, Eva, 1927,Die Sprachphilosophie der deutschenRomantik, Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr.
• Frank, Manfred, 1989,Einführung in die frühromantischeÄsthetik. Vorlesungen, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.
• –––, 1997,“UnendlicheAnnäherung”. Die Anfänge der philosophischenFrühromantik, Frankfurt am Main: Surhkamp Verlag.
• Haym, Rudolf, 1870,Die romantische Schule, Berlin: R.Gaertner.
• Henrich, Dieter, 1992,Der Grund im Bewußtsein:Untersuchungen zu Hölderlins Denken (1794–1795),Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.
• Huch, Ricarda, 1899/1902 [2017],Die Romantik. Blütezeit,Ausbreitung und Verfall, Theodore Borken (ed.), Berlin: DieAndere Bibliothek; the 2017 edition is the most recent reprinting ofBlütezeit der Die Romantik, 1899, Leipzig: Haessel, andAusbreitung und Verfall der Romantik, 1902, Leipzig: Haessel.
• Kluckhohn, Paul, 1961,Das Ideengut der deutschenRomantik, Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.
• Kurzke, Hermann, 1983,Romantik und Konservatismus. Das“politische” Werk Friedrich von Hardenbergs (Novalis) imHorizont seiner Wirkungsgeschichte, München: Wilhelm FinkVerlag.
• Pöggeler, Otto, 1956,Hegels Kritik der Romantik,Dissertation, Bonn: Friedrich Wilhelms-Universität.

Studies of Romantic Philosophy in English

• Ameriks, Karl (ed.), 2000,The Cambridge Companion to GermanIdealism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.doi:10.1017/CCOL0521651786
• Beiser, Frederick C., 1992,Enlightenment, Revolution, andRomanticism: The Genesis of Modern German Political Thought,Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• –––, 2002,German Idealism: The Struggleagainst Subjectivism, 1781–1801, Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press.
• –––, 2003,The Romantic Imperative: TheConcept of Early German Romanticism, Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press.
• Benjamin, Walter, 1919 [1996],Begriff der Kunstkritik in derdeutschen Romantik, Bern: A. Francke; translated asTheConcept of Criticism in German Romanticism, David Lachterman,Howard Eiland, and Ian Balfour (trans) in hisSelected Writings,volume 1, 1913–1926, Marcus Bullock and Michael W. Jennings(eds.), Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press, 1996: 116–200.
• Berlin, Isaiah, 1999,The Roots of Romanticism,Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; first publication of his1965 A.W. Mellon lectures in the fine arts.
• Bowie, Andrew, 1997,From Romanticism to Critical Theory: ThePhilosophy of German Literary Theory, London: Routledge.
• Eldridge, Richard, 2001,The Persistence of Romanticism:Essays in Philosophy and Literature, Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.
• Frank, Manfred, 2004,The Philosophical Foundations of EarlyGerman Romanticism, Elizabeth Millán-Zaibert (trans.), Albany,NY: SUNY Press. Translation of Frank 1997.
• Heine, Heinrich, 1836 [1995],Die romantische Schule,Hoffman & Campe; translated by Helen Mustard inThe RomanticSchool and Other Essays, Jost Hermand and Robert C. Holub (eds.),New York: Continuum, 1995.
• Kompridis, Nikolas (ed.), 2006,PhilosophicalRomanticism, London: Routledge.
• Larmore, Charles E., 1996,The Romantic Legacy, New York:Columbia University Press.
• Mannheim, Karl, 1925 [1986],Altkonservatismus: in Beitrag zurSoziologie des Wissens, Habilitationsschrift, UniversitätHeidelberg, 1925; an abridged form was published in 1927; translatedasConservatism: A Contribution to the Sociology ofKnowledge, David Kettler and Volker Meja (trans.), London:Routledge, 1986.
• Nassar, Dalia, 2014a,The Relevance of Romanticism: Essays onGerman Romantic Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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• Schmitt, Carl, 1919 [1986],Politische Romantik, Berlin:Duncker & Humblot; translated asPoliticalRomanticism, Guy Oakes (trans.), Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press,1986.
• Ziolkowski, Theodore, 2004,Clio the RomanticMuse:Historicizing the Faculties in Germany, Ithaca,NY: Cornell University Press.

Other Bibliographic Items

• Ayrault, Roger, 1961–1976,La genèse du romantismeallemand, 4 volumes, Paris: Aubier.

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