Novalis (1772-1801) - PSEUDONYM FOR FRIEDRICH LEOPOLD, BARON VON HARDENBERG
German poet who influenced later Romantic thought, sometimes called 'the prophet of Romanticism'. Novalis took his pseudonym from "de Novali", a name his family had formerly used. The central image of Novalis' visions, a blue flower, became later a symbol of longing among Romantics. The 'blue flower' in unattainable and is to remain unattainable. Romantics expressed a longing for home and a longing for what is far off; Schiller called the romantics 'exiles pining for a homeland'.
"The imagination places the world of the future either far above us, or far below, or in a relation of metempsychosis to ourselves. We dream of traveling through the universe - but is not the universe within ourselves? The depths of our spirit are unknown to us - the mysterious way leads inwards. Eternity with its worlds - the past and future - is in ourselves or nowhere. The external world is the world of shadows - it throws its shadow into the realm of light. At present this realm certainly seems to us so dark inside, lonely. shapeless. But how entirely different it will seem to us - when this gloom is past, and the body of shadows has moved away. We will experience greater enjoyment than ever, for our spirit has been deprived." (from 'Miscellaneous Observations', 1798)
