Customer Reviews

Henry Von Ofterdingen: A Novel

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This is one of my favorite Romantic novels. It is filled with amazing imagery, fairy tales and myths mutated into new forms, and a powerful dialectic. Sadly, the novel was never finished by Novalis, but it is definitely worth the read anyway. Much of this book is based on Novalis' (Friedrich von Hardenberg) own life. If you would like to read another great novel that deals with Novalis' life, look at Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower.

Concerning the actual product, this copy is a good buy. I found the paperback's cover to be quite durable, which means that it may hold itself together over the years to come. Furthermore, not only is it one of the rare English translations that may be found on Amazon, but it is a truly fine translation as a whole. The writings of Novalis, along with other key German romantics, are very lucid and the translator has kept this style quite well. Concerning the story itself, it is complex; and despite the book's short length, the reader may find some difficulty if he or she tries rush through it. However, if the reader should give this text some time, he or she may discover why Novalis was such a key figure within the German romantic movement and how this text, in particular, may reveal a new and radical perception of thought.

Novalis's posthumously published novel is remarkable not only as an early work of German Romanticism, but as one of the first experimental novels. Novalis boldly fuses conventional narrative, the literary fairy tale, and verse into a remarkable blend that is suffused throughout with the spirit of poetry, a spirit that it is the novel's mission to exalt. It is deeply saddening that the author did not live to finish this work.

*Henry von Ofterdingen* is a *Bildungsroman*; that is, a novel detailing the education and development of a particular individual. In this case, that person is a medieval poet. The reader follows Henry on an overland journey that slowly awakens in him his profound poetic gifts. Rather than merely describing Henry's development, Novalis brilliantly allows to reader to share with him and vicariously experience the events and people that slowly stir Henry's poetic nature. Henry's meetings with individuals of different social strata, such as merchants and miners, poets and nobility, all gradually teach him the lesson of the ubiquity of poetry, for those who are sensitive enough to perceive it.

As to style, Novalis tells his tale in poetic prose that lifts the novel itself into the realms of poetry, and which makes it a perfect embodiment of what it describes. Of course, those who expect a modern novel, or those to whom Romanticism brings blushes of embarrassment or annoyance, should avoid this book, as should those with short attention spans and an aversion to philosophy, or to leisurely, poetic prose.

Above all, *Henry von Ofterdingen* unfolds like the dream of the Blue Flower that inspires its hero. The novel is oneiric as few others are, in my experience. Just as one seldom appreciates a dream when one submits it to harsh rational interrogation, readers will not appreciate this work unless they submit to it as one yields to a dream. Little wonder the Surrealists and fellow travelers, such as Julien Gracq, deeply appreciated this work. Most highly recommended.

Brief aside: Frustrated college students who are forced to read books for their classes really should have the maturity to refrain from taking out their anger in the Amazon reviews section. Complain to your professors, instead, kids.

This is probably one of the greatest works of literature in the past 250 years. Novalis is sometimes portrayed as little more than a prodigy, a clever young upstart who died before his time, but even at this early juncture he was working on a plane of thought far above nearly anyone else. His ideas here, lovingly and ardently developed from Fichte, prefigure everyone from Freud to Derrida but the way he goes about this project is such a breath of fresh air. It's a book of philosophy masked in literature.
The story concerns the life of Heinrich von Ofterdingen, a pseudo-historical troubadour, there is a kernel of truth here, and the basic story is based on legend, but Novalis spins and expands the story to epic proportions. The first part, which is presumably completed, deals with the early development of Heinrich. He moves from town to town hearing fairy tales and songs from everyone he meets. Make no mistake the tales are highly literary and deal with the nature of poetry and its relation to philosophy. The book is heavily inspired by Goethe's Wilhelm Meister (which Novalis could recite from memory), and Goethe's figure looms over everything. In the fairy tale of chapter three, the story serves as part allegory for Novalis' reading and adaptation of Meister. The miner story of chapter five has been described as a precursor to psychoanalysis. Chapter four shows the almost Christ-like love and understanding that's at the heart of the book. And Klingsor's fairy tale that ends book one contains the whole crux of Novalis' philosophy summed up in miniature.
The second book is nowhere near complete, here Heinrich was to travel the world and experience intimately everything discussed in the first book. He was to go to Italy and fight in wars, see ancient ruins in Greece, visit the Holy Land, and experience many strange miracles. The first book, which is relatively mundane would be contrasted by the extreme mysticism of the second part, where children were raised in caves by ghosts and Heinrich was transformed into rocks and stars. The whole thing being handled in his gentle, poetic manner that so characterizes the first part. This is one of the most rewarding and beautiful books you will likely ever read, and it's one of history's greatest tragedies that he died without completing this book, it's so far advanced of anything, even modern novels.

This Bildungsroman is giddy, impetuous, a bit precious. There's the requisite Faustian mannerism--the girl dies, the boy grows from the experience.

Nevertheless, I'm a sucker for this stuff. The impulse behind any bildungsroman is potent to me from the very beginning. What is more important than our happiness and our healthy development as human beings? That there exists about 100 years' worth of material along these lines that is very little known in the anglophone world was a wonderful discovery for me.

Here are some notes I made in the margins:

Pg. 93 "It is different with those serene, little-known people whose world is their soul, whose activity is contemplation whose life is a gradual development of their inner powers. No restlessness exerts an outward drive. A modest possession contents them. The vast drama around them does not tempt them to play a role in it themselves, but it does seem to them important and marvelous enough to devote their leisure to its contemplation. A desire for the spirit of this drama keeps them from the drama itself, and it is this spirit that has destined them to the mysterious life of the soul in the world of man. The men of affairs, on the other hand, represent the external members and senses and the active forces in this world."

There's a song by Benjamin Britten, with a very ancient Chinese text that admonishes, "Don't help on the big chariot!".

Pg. 130-->
"Here one saw a shipwreck in the background and in the foreground happy peasants enjoying a picnic lunch; there the fearfully beautiful eruption of a volcano, the devastations of an earthquake, and in the foreground a loving couple under shade trees, indulging in the sweetest caresses......."

Good and evil, inextricably interwoven in the wholeness of nature. Adalbert Stifter weaves this oneness of good and evil into all of his stories. This idea is also the emotional climax of Thomas Mann's *The Holy Sinner*.

This line is famous:

"...I realize that fate and soul are two names for one concept."

In the margin I wrote: So, the soul is contingent, unlike spirit. (This elaboration of Novalis' comment I found somewhere else, but I no longer remember where. It's not just me.) This is an elusive concept. I think it works like this: It's a corrolary to Goethe's famous statement that what is within is also without. Fate is the internal/external intersection of spirit and matter.??? ..something like that...

Novalis lived love & death. His fiance died, then he died, he wrote hymns to night.

I had some specific goals in mind reading this novel fragment. It turned out to be more difficult to read than I had thought it would be. I was only familiar with Novalis' poetry, which was influential at a certain point in my life.

What makes it difficult to read? Probably the biggest reason is that it is a fragment. While the first part (Expectations) has a lot of promise, I have the feeling that it really needed the second part (The Fulfillment) to balance itself out as a book. Other reasons have most likely to do with the general nature of German Romanticism and the Bildungsroman. I always find the style a little bit sticky-- a problem often down to the translation.

Speaking of which, I have to say that I wasn't wonderfully impressed with this translation-- it felt awkward and obtuse to read. On the other hand, it has a good reputation and people whose German skills are far better than mine find it acceptable.

I got what I was looking to get out of it (the dream in literature), but I'm not sure how I would have felt about it if I wasn't reading for something specific. "Know what you are about to read" would be my advice for the potential reader.

Lovely poverty. Innocent simplicity.
Novalis' novel fragment about the search for the blue flower is a role model for an anti-intellectual and anti-pragmatic attitude.
Hero Heinrich starts the story as a 20 year old simpleton with no character, experience, ambition nor awareness of the world. (Parzival territory!)
He has erotic dreams that he cannot properly understand. The ideal is an appealing blue flower that has appeared in romantic visions of glorious fluidity. Heinrich is the Ur-Hippy. The blue flower is the standard bearer of romantic reaction.
Essentially, the narration is a combination of travel, or movement, combined with education of the hero through adventures and tales told by people met on the way. In other words, a normal pattern for the time.
A Bildungsroman and a road 'movie'.

Written around the year 1800 (Novalis, actually Hardenberg, died young, aged nearly 29, of tb, in 1801), this text has been glorified and ignored. It should be read and recognized for what it is: reactionary, juvenile, contradictory and incomplete.

The story is set in the 13th century in Thüringen (Eisenach, Wartburg) and Augsburg. The possibly historical Ofterdingen was one of the competitors at the famous Wartburg contest.
At the time, a new crusade is in preparation by Kaiser Friedrich II. Killing Arabs and kidnapping their wives and children was one of the ideals of the men in the story. The story also has its poetic anachronisms, like the ticking wall clock on page 1, or the waltzing people at grandfather's party. (incidentally, Mathilde also waltzed.)

The book amounts to a propaganda pamphlet against the enlightenment. Practical men of science or commerce are 'philistines' (Novalis must have known about that, with his own legal and scientific training, working for the mining industry). True insight comes from introspection.
There is a counterweight in the person of a man, who is said to be modelled on Goethe, who tells Heinrich that a poet must base his art on knowledge, that he must balance inspiration and experience.

Political message is the slogan that things must get worse before they can get better. Its 'philosophy' of history is the naive triad of glorified past and glorious future, sandwiching a miserable present. War is creative destruction.
Its understanding of nature is some nonsense about harmony and sympathy. This spirit of romantic dumbness has inspired generations of writers (eg Hesse).

I am posting my review on the page of an English translation that I have not read. I do that because of a previous controversy about the book in this space. I don't know if the translation is as bad as claimed by GB, but I assure you that the original is not exactly glorious in its prose either. That is a futile point though. There are over 200 years between the text and us.

I find Novalis inferior to contemporary prose masters like Goethe or Kleist. His standard style element consisted of redundant and melodious adverbs and adjectives. The melody of his sentences is a uniform enthusiasm that tends to make you drowsy. His doting makes it hard to stay awake, it has a hypnotic effect, though the book is not boring. His words are full of generalities, words like unendlich (never-ending), gewaltig (huge), unbeschreiblich (indescribable), entsetzlich (terrible), undenkbar (unthinkable), uralt (very very old).. There is a disturbing lack of precision and of variation.

Novalis' incomplete novel, Heinrich von Ofterdingen, is characteristic of this great poet/thinker's fascination with nature, poesy, and myth. Although the Marchen of this text are rather hackneyed, there are nevertheless remarkable reflections on the nature of poetic creation in this peculiar text. There are plenty who cite this as Novalis' finest literary achievement, but I will easily take his Hymns to the Night as well as the Novices of Sais both in terms of the creative synthesis of ideas and beauty of their form. However, it is in Heinrich, that we get a glimpse at some of Novalis' more cryptic fascinations with Christian and Middle Age myth.

Transaction was quick and product was as described. Would recommend on basis of this transaction.

I had been looking for this book for awhile and I finally found it here. It is full of amazing imagery. This copy is in English in case the discription is unclear.