Notes for a Romantic Encyclopaedia: Das Allgemeine Brouillon

322 Pages·2007·3.3 MB·English

by  Novalis

Novalis
Notes for a Romantic
Encyclopaedia
Das Allgemeine Brouillon
Translated, Edited, and with an Introduction by
David W. Wood
Notes for a
Romantic Encyclopaedia
SUNY series, Intersections: Philosophy and Critical Theory
Rodolphe Gasché, editor
Notes for a
Romantic Encyclopaedia
Das Allgemeine Brouillon
Novalis
Translated, Edited,
and with an Introduction by
David W. Wood
State University of New York Press
Published by
State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2007 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Novalis, 1772–1801.
[Allgemeine Brouillon. English]
Notes for a Romantic Encyclopaedia : Das Allgemeine Brouillon / Novalis ;
translated, edited, and with an introduction by David W. Wood.
p. cm. — (SUNY series, intersections: philosophy and critical theory)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Translation of: Das Allgemeine Brouillon : Materialien zur Enzyklopäedistik
1798/99.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7914-6973-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Knowledge, Theory of—
Early works to 1800. 2. Science—Early works to 1800. 3. Romanticism—Germany.
I. Wood, David W., 1968– II. Title. III. Series: Intersections (Albany, N.Y.)
BD153.N68 2007
033'.1—dc22 2006014434
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
(cid:2)
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction ix
Text by Novalis:
Notes for a Romantic Encyclopaedia 1
Appendix:
Extracts from the Freiberg Natural Scientific Studies (1798/99) 191
Notes to Introduction 223
Notes to Text by Novalis 231
Notes to Appendix 265
Select Bibliography 269
Index 275
v

Acknowledgments
(cid:2)
Like the original manuscript of Novalis’s Encyclopaedia, which for many years
traveled the world in the hands of private collectors (and was therefore “lost to
scholarship”), this translation has likewise gone on its own scattered wanderings
in the last seven years. From the sun-scorched Australian outback to the small
German university town of Erlangen, from the vibrant metropolis of modern
Dublin to the eternal cultural capital that is Paris, both this English text and I
have consequently benefited from the kindness of countless people.
I would especially like to thank the following friends and colleagues for
their unstinting support and assistance. Their numerous scholarly suggestions
and penetrating comments have infinitely improved my translation:
Emeritus Professor Gerhard Schulz (University of Melbourne), who
greatly encouraged me from the very beginning of the enterprise and painstak-
ingly read through the entire translation and introduction.
Professor Dennis Mahoney (University of Vermont), Professor Karl
Ameriks (University of Notre Dame), Professor John Neubauer (University of
Amsterdam), Dr. Brian O’Connor (University College Dublin), Dr. Olivier
Schefer (University of Paris), Dr. Celeste Lovette (University of Savannah), and
Niall Keane (University of Leuven), all generously read portions of the transla-
tion and introduction.
Hans-Joachim Morcinietz and the Morcinietz family, for their genuine
warmth and hospitality during my stays in Oberwiederstedt, Germany.
Dr. Gabriele Rommel and family, and all the staff at the Novalis Museum
and Research Centre at the Schloss Oberwiederstedt, for their wonderful friend-
liness and helpfulness concerning all things Novalis.
Professor Dr. Renate Moering and Hans Grüters of the Freie Deutsche
Hochstift in Frankfurt, for kindly granting me access to the original handwritten
Brouillonmanuscript.
vii
viii Acknowledgments
I am also extremely grateful to my family in Australia, for their faith and
support. And to my ever-precious friend Laure, for her constant inspiration.
Finally, this translation owes very much to the late Professor Dr. Hans-
Joachim Mähl, the Brouillonscholar par excellence, for his unparalleled insights,
reine Menschlichkeit, and stimulus to complete the work.
Note on Text and Editorial Symbols
< > Entries enclosed by angular brackets were those crossed
out by Novalis in his later revision.
[ ] Lacunae in text or editorial additions.
— The ubiquitous use of dashes instead of commas or paren-
theses is a particular feature of Novalis’s notebook style.
It must be borne in mind that the present text is an unfinished notebook and
was not intended for publication in its present form. Consequently, there still re-
main certain obscure or illegible passages and unknown references. Difficulties
of this nature are indicated in the detailed endnotes. The numbering of the en-
tries stems from the German editors. Novalis himself did not number the en-
tries: to signal the transition to another entry he simply used a longer horizontal
dash or stroke in the center of the page. Square brackets are used around entry
numbers when this transition is unclear.
Introduction
(cid:2)
David W. Wood
The Unknown Novalis
Friedrich von Hardenberg, or Novalis as he later chose to call himself in print,
still remains a rather obscure figure in the English-speaking world. If known at
all, it is mostly as the German Romantic poet of the blue flower, whose fiancée,
Sophie, died young—and like Petrarch for Laura and Dante for Beatrice before
him, penned sublime lyrical words to immortalize his beloved.1Or perhaps one
has read a philosophical fragment or two. Indeed, from Edgar Allan Poe to Karl
Popper, John Stuart Mill to Martin Heidegger, it is still the height of philosoph-
ical fashion to adorn one’s book with a Novalis fragment as a motto.2But who
exactly was this enigmatic young philosopher-poet?
Born May 2, 1772, in Oberwiederstedt, Germany, toward the twilight of
the Enlightenment, his schooling coincided with the tumultuous Storm and
Stress period of German literature. Here he steeped himself in the works of
Friedrich von Schiller, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, and Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe, and finally forged his intellectual maturity in the furnace of the Kantian
or Critical philosophy. Above all, Novalis belonged to that extraordinarily tal-
ented younger generation of writers and thinkers who have become known in
history as the “Romantic Circle.” This enormously influential group also in-
cluded the brothers August Wilhelm and Friedrich Schlegel, Dorothea Veit,
Ludwig Tieck, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Caroline Schlegel, and the young
Friedrich von Schelling. Gathered at the end of the eighteenth century, their in-
novative literary talents generated an avalanche of essays, fragments, dialogues,
speeches, and notebooks, whose revolutionary shock waves still continue to
reverberate today throughout the literary, cultural, and artistic worlds.
ix