The Way of Novalis

Book excerpt: Recent translations of Novalis’s work into English should occasion fresh endeavours in the field of Novalis studies, aimed at English readers who are without German. In this book John O’Meara presents his own understanding of what Novalis offers to these readers, who have been given firmer access to his life and to his philosophical works than ever before. O’Meara traces Novalis’s philosophical development meticulously, finishing up with an in-depth analysis of his Hymns to the Night, the Spiritual Songs, and his main and unfinished novel, Henry von Ofterdingen. Emphasis is on the process by which Novalis’s literary works manifest as direct expressions of his philosophical explorations, which bear fruit, eventually, in visions of sweeping majesty and annunciatory grandeur.