Novel
Henry von Ofterdingen
Heinrich von Ofterdingen
Novalis · 1802
Opening lines
Die Eltern lagen schon und schliefen, die Wanduhr schlug ihren einförmigen Takt, vor den klappernden Fenstern sauste der Wind; abwechselnd wurde die Stube hell von dem Schimmer des Mondes.
The parents were already in bed and asleep, the wall clock beat its monotonous time, the wind whistled past the rattling windows; now and then the room grew bright with the glimmer of the moon.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from zeno.org
Synopsis
Heinrich, twenty, son of a bourgeois family of Eisenach, falls asleep thinking of a traveller's tales and sees in a dream a blue flower that takes on a woman's face. His mother takes him to Augsburg to his grandfather's; on the way, with merchants, he listens to a warrior back from the crusades, an Arab captive, a miner from Bohemia and a hermit who shows him a book in which he thinks he recognises his own life. In Augsburg, he meets the poet Klingsohr and his daughter Mathilde.
Context
Written during the year 1800, the novel remained unfinished: its author's obligations and illness prevented him from completing it. His friends published it in 1802, after his death. Only the first part is complete; notes and an account by Tieck allow the planned continuation to be guessed. The title refers to a legendary singer of the thirteenth century, linked to the poetic contest at the Wartburg. Novalis was the first to use the symbol of the blue flower, from the first page of the novel.
Who it is for
A short, unfinished novel, interspersed with tales, dreams and songs, which reads like an initiation.
Prizes and reception
The book from which the blue flower comes, which became the emblem of German Romanticism and of the longing for the infinite.