1 is well worthy of the attention we have given it. That "Heinrich von Ofterdingen," in spite of its mystic coloring and its visionary extravagances, is largely autobiographical, is easily seen; the character of the hero, being so nearly identical with that of the author himself, the death of his first beloved, the vision at the road-side, the vague, restless longing for the blue flower, the second betrothal, etc., belong as much to the history of the modern poet Novalis as to that of the medieval hero of the romance. The poets of the eighteenth century, having seldom any practical aim to distract them from the contemplation of their own inner life, have more frequently than the poets of other ages apotheosized themselves in the persons of their heroes. The contempt of life and the disgust with the world (Weltschmerz, as the Germans call it) which directly result from morbid self-analyses are not yet developed in Novalis. On the contrary, he studies nature with real affection, and takes a sincere interest in his fellow-men. But as a Romantic poet he is an absolute sovereign who brooks no law above him, and the laws of reality have no validity to him except as symbols of a higher order of creation which the poet, in moments of inspiration, may behold. This exaltation of the poet above the rest of his kind, this assumption of the office of a prophet, priest, and inspired seer, and the kindred claims to exemption from the rules of morals which govern ordinary men, are dominant features of the Romantic School. The religious mysticism and the consequent predilection for the Catholic Church which so strikingly characterized the later phases of Romantic development received its first impulse from Tieck's friend, Wackenroder, but was hardly recognized as a distinct feature of the school until the days of Novalis. With Wackenroder the interest had been chiefly an artistic one; with Novalis it sprang from a real, deeply felt want of the heart. His fervid spirit demanded a warmer, intenser, and more picturesque faith than the rationalistic Lutheranism of his times afforded. The reading of Schleiermacher's famous "Orations on Religion" awakened in him a desire to serve the same good cause; he accordingly wrote an essay on "Europe and Christianity," which he read in manuscript to an enthusiastic circle of friends in Jena. Tieck and Friedrich Schlegel were delighted, but Dorothea had her misgivings as to its merits. "Christianity is à l'ordre du jour here," she writes. "The gentlemen are a little cracked; Tieck carries religion to the same length as Schiller does fate." In fact this attempt of Novalis to glorify the "only saving Church" is one of the most paradoxical documents which the Romantic literature has to show. It was accepted by Schlegel for The Athenæum, but Goethe, from a sincere friendship for the author, prevented its publication. It was not until several years after Novalis's death that it was given to the public. The essay represents the Reformation as an unqualified evil, because it destroyed the unity of the Church; it also justifies the Madonna worship by the conscious craving in every human heart for a female ideal of Divinity, a theme which receives frequent attention in the “Spiritual Songs" and the "Fragments." The homage, however, which he pays "the divine Virgin and Mother" seems to be the adoration of a lover rather than that of a religious votary. "Ich sehe dich in tausend Bildern Maria, lieblich ausgedrückt, Doch keins von allen kann dich schildern Wie meine Seele dich erblickt. Ich weisz nur dasz der Welt Getümmel Among the works of Novalis there still remains a fragment of a romance, entitled "The Disciples at Sais." It was written before "Heinrich von Ofterdingen," with which it has much in common, being a most curious medley of theosophic, metaphysical, and scientfic reveries. Novalis never lost his faith in life; even when the physicians had given him up, and death stared him in the face, he continued to busy himself with ambitious literary projects. He ate nothing but vegetables, which, according to Tieck, agreed well with him. His early love of metaphysics had now altogether deserted him. Philosophy," he writes, now rests on my book-shelves. I am glad that I am done with this arctic region of pure reason." 66 66 He died March 25, 1801, in the twenty-ninth year of his age. If we judge his writings by their bulk and their paradoxical character, the fame which he enjoys even at this day might seem inexplicable; but looking more closely at these disjecta membra poet we find that they possess a potent charm and even a kind of unity of their own. They reveal a quaint, lovable, and eminently poetic personality, and watching their chronological succession we may read an interesting record of psychological evolution. His early death shed a romantic halo over the incidents of his life, which were in themselves sufficiently pathetic; his works became a sacred legacy to his friends, and their author the patron saint of German Romanticism. XIII. LITERARY ASPECTS OF THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL LUDWIG TIECK was born in Berlin in the year 1773, and his boyhood and youth consequently fell at a time when the Aufklärung was in its fullest bloom. His father was strongly influenced by the barren philosophy of the worthy Nicolai, and the school in which young Tieck received his early education was a very hot-bed of utilitarian enlightenment. But almost simultaneously the first productions of the Storm and Stress period began to attract attention. The translations of Shakespeare, Goethe's "Götz," and Schiller's "Robbers "had called into being a dramatic literature, the chief characteristic of which was strength, that is, primitively direct expressions of passion, unrefined by taste, culture, or even common decency. It was the old protest against the artificial order of society to which Rousseau had given so powerful an utterance in "Le Contrat Social" and "La Nouvelle Héloïse,' and before him, in a somewhat gentler form, Bernardin de St. Pierre, in his "Paul and Virginia." But to the Teutons this protest was yet comparative |