Heinrich von Ofterdingen - UCLA Germanic Languages

Timothy Edwards
November 18, 2008
Novalis’s Heinrich von Ofterdingen
& the Poetics of Gelassenheit
In Heinrich von Ofterdingen Novalis captures the critical moment in the human
experience when one awakens to his primordial longing for wholeness. Historically, grand
philosophical schemes of order and totality germinate in this longing. The quest for
completeness has been at the forefront of metaphysics since Parmenides. In his first
Critique Kant set out to demonstrate the futility in any system that claimed access to
unconditioned truth, forging the conditions of possibility for new ways of making sense of
the world. In this spirit Heinrich von Ofterdingen breaks with Enlightenment science and
its allegiance to order, offering instead a description of poetic development and its
openness to phenomena beyond the reach of scientific and philosophical methods. This
paper examines the dynamic of Heinrich’s development as heroic resistance to the
tenacious trend of striving toward ordered universality.
My purpose in this paper, therefore, shall be threefold. First, I discuss Heinrich’s
experience of pain as he separates from his family for the first time in order to consider
the resultant proclivities. Second, I briefly mention Kant’s account of transcendental
illusion as a counter to the all-too-human striving toward totality and completeness that
underlies the belief in systems of order, the most tenacious of the proclivities. I argue
that Heinrich’s journey develops in accord with Kant’s message and culminates in
metaphysical agreement with Heraclitus. Finally, I discuss why Klingsohr’s presence in
Heinrich’s life is vital to Heinrich’s poetic maturity and its supple embrace of all that is,
including chaos and war.
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November 18, 2008
Novalis’s acute awareness of the crisis inherent in filial separation is evident in his
description of Heinrich’s inner tension as he leaves his family for the first time. In a
profound experience of existential ephemerality, Heinrich finds that the longing
engendered in his dream of the blue flower now has taken on a painful dimension in real
life.
In wehmütiger Stimmung verließ Heinrich seinen Vater und seine Geburtsstadt. Es ward
ihm jetzt erst deutlich, was Trennung sei; die Vorstellungen von der Reise waren nicht
von dem sonderbaren Gefühle begleitet gewesen, was er jetzt empfand, als zuerst seine
bisherige Welt von ihm gerissen und er wie auf ein fremdes Ufer gespült ward. Unendlich
ist die jugendliche Trauer bei dieser ersten Erfahrung der Vergänglichkeit der irdischen
Dinge, die dem unerfahrnen Gemüt so notwendig, und unentbehrlich, so fest
verwachsen mit dem eigentümlichsten Dasein und so unveränderlich, wie dieses,
vorkommen müssen. Eine erste Ankündigung des Todes, bleibt die erste Trennung
unvergeßlich, und wird, nachdem sie lange wie ein nächtliches Gesicht den Menschen
beängstigt hat, endlich bei abnehmender Freude an den Erscheinungen des Tages, und
zunehmender Sehnsucht nach einer bleibenden sichern Welt, zu einem freundlichen
Wegweiser und einer tröstenden Bekanntschaft. (20-21)
Novalis’s contrasting remark about the interminability of the youthful sadness bound up
with this experience of separation helps us to better understand what drives poets and
philosophers, among others “in search of.” A greater good, an eternal realm, heaven, a
land of milk and honey, a world of immutable Forms—these are the aspirations of those
who find themselves imbued with special reasoning ability. The grand narrative scheme
has emerged in various forms in the history of ideas, and disorder rarely has a place in
it. Kant’s groundbreaking account of the limits of reason, as he famously said, made
room for faith, but it also unseated the hegemony hitherto enjoyed by a dense history of
western thinkers—and contributed to the opening of a vast literature celebrating
possibility.
Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason dealt a formidable blow to the belief in reason as
that faculty capable of laying hold of unconditioned truth. What Kant called
“transcendental illusion”--the specific dialectical error bound up with the faculty of
reason as an unavoidable upshot of its syllogizing--has three “species” which occur as
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concept-less inferences that I make and to which I assign objective reality. These are
absolute unity, absolute totality, and that by which I infer the absolute synthetic unity of
all conditions for the possibility of things in general, “of whose unconditioned necessity I
can make for myself no concept at all.”1 “Progress toward the unconditioned” in each of
the three species of transcendental illusion is bound up with the function of reason as a
regulative faculty2, so we can’t extricate this problematic progress toward the
unconditioned from reason’s function to regulate the understanding. Progress toward the
unconditioned is an ineluctable procession in light of which all humans think, in Kant’s
account. Kant argued that reason’s tendency to reach out beyond experience ultimately
leads to “the temptation either to surrender […] to a skeptical hopelessness or else
assume an attitude of dogmatic stubbornness,”3 and adds resolutely: “Either alternative
is the death of a healthy philosophy.”4 As it is a philosophical work, however, Kant’s
Critique contains little to suggest how one is live after the discovery that the Sehnsucht
which had driven his intellectual exploits is inherently problematic, symptomatic of a kind
of illness. For that we must turn to literature.
Novalis illuminates one of the seminal conditions of possibility of the speculative
meanderings that lead to the traps Kant set out to dismantle: the pathos of separation.
For it then, when one is faced with loss of the familiar, with the possibility of doom and
solitary death, that he summons the tools of the intellect and reaches for what he thinks
his mind has entitled him to attain: order, reason, justice, and so on. True to the spirit of
Romanticism, however, Novalis moves safely beyond the confines of philosophical
reflection and its allegiance to logic and language, toward what we might call
archaeology of the human psyche as presented in an account of poetic maturation. Now
by identifying the experience of loss in familial separation as an “erste Ankündigung des
Todes,” Novalis boldly asserts the gravity of “die jugendliche Trauer” that accompanies
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it. As I have intimated above, belief in the philosophical myths of Platonism offers a
reprieve from separation sadness, because by believing in unconditioned truth and the
ability to lay hold of it with the human mind, one’s intellectual pursuits are grounded in a
kind of faith that wholeness is at hand through rational means. Novalis thus brilliantly
crafts Heinrich’s development to include a fraternization with rationalism’s trust in
language, together with a developing account of Heinrich’s willingness to stay in the flow
of experience as if to keep him from getting stuck in philosophical reflection. As Novalis
presents him, Heinrich’s disposition is supple enough for him to remain buoyant in a sea
of disorder and uncertainty, ultimately to find that love and poetic apocalypse
accompany these in ushering in a new Golden Age.
In his article, “The Romantic Archaeology of the Psyche,” Kenneth Calhoon
discusses the junctures at which narrative falters, where language fails to mirror the
interior landscape of the human mind, using Novalis’s Heinrich von Ofterdingen as his
central example. When Calhoon directs our attention to Heinrich’s engagement with the
Provençal manuscript he finds in Hohenzollern’s underground library, we are able to see
clearly the problem of the verbal narrative:
Heinrich’s longing to know the language of the manuscript is premised on the belief that
a narrative would lend the imagery coherence and intelligibility, a premise Heinrich
voices at the outset of the novel when, estranged by his own excited emotional state, he
asserts that a greater command of words would give him a better grasp of things: “Daß
ich auch nicht einmal von meinem wunderlichen Zustande reden kann!…wüßte ich mehr
[Worte], so könnte ich viel besser alles begreifen.”5
In this quotation from the novel, Heinrich asserts the belief that language—specifically,
knowing words—is co-extensive with thought. For clearly Heinrich believes that he can
much better comprehend everything if he just had the words. Of course there are cases
in which a good vocabulary is regarded (e.g., by a learned community) as
commensurate with knowledge, but there are clearly certain subjects elude linguistic
comprehension and must be apprehended experientially. Can we say, for example, that
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one who can talk about love extensively comprehends love better than one whose
vocabulary about the subject is more limited? Novalis, I believe, is well aware of the
limits of language. By admitting into his tale instances of profound insight dawning in
spite of apparent ineffability, he breaks from the confines of philosophy to offer a
dynamic portrait of human experience. To see this clearly, consider the following
passage. When Heinrich examines the Provençal manuscript, he wonders whether he
might be dreaming as the recognition of something familiar dawns in the most obscure
of moments:
Er hätte sehnlichst gewünscht, die Sprache zu kennen, denn das Buch gefiel ihm
vorzüglich, ohne daß er eine Silbe davon verstand. Es hatte keinen Titel, doch fand er
noch beim Suchen einige Bilder. Sie dünkten ihm ganz wunderbar bekannt, und wie er
recht zusah, entdeckte er seine eigene Gestalt ziemlich kenntlich unter den Figuren. Er
erschrak und glaubte zu träumen, aber beim wiederholten Ansehn konnte er nicht mehr
an der vollkommenen Ähnlichkeit zweifeln… Die letzten Bilder waren dunkel und
unverständlich; doch überraschten ihn einige Gestalten seines Traumes mit dem
innigsten Entzücken (20-21).
Now while Calhoon is right when he says of this passage that “the problem of translating
dream-imagery into verbal narrative becomes explicit” and that as “a kind of dreambook, the manuscript represents the dream as a text of words that defy
comprehension,”6 I believe he misunderstands Novalis’s intention in his discussion of
Heinrich’s second dream in Chapter 7 of the novel and thereby obfuscates the issue of
ineffability.
In the second dream, which foretells the death by drowning of Mathilde, Heinrich
and Mathilde reunite in a kind of aquatic underworld “reminiscent of the waterscape in
which he first saw the blue flower.”7 During their lingering kiss, Mathilde utters a word to
Heinrich that he cannot recall upon awakening. In his interpretation of the sentence “er
hätte sien Leben darum geben mögen, das Wort noch zu wissen” (107), Calhoon says:
“The claim that Heinrich would have sacrificed his very life to exhume that word makes
death the condition of full understanding,”8 one is led to believe that it Novalis’s intention
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to embed Heinrich’s understanding of the world and his epistemology in Platonic terms:
as for Plato unmitigated philosophic unity with the Forms was to be achieved in death, so
Heinrich could again know the word imparted to him by Mathilde only by dying. This, I
believe, is going beyond Novalis’s purpose in capturing the Heinrich’s pathos in a
moment of desperation. While Heinrich’s expression is more-deeply felt than that of one
who says “I would die for another piece of that cake,” it can hardly be inferred that
Heinrich, in the waking state he is in as he makes the statement, truly believes that he
needs to die in order to come to terms with his inability to recall Mathilde’s mysterious
word.
Novalis settles a number of important issues on nature and the limits of language
in the course of Heinrich’s exchanges with Klingsohr. We have seen that Heinrich’s wish
to be able to say more is predicated on a belief in language as co-extensive of
knowledge about the world (“wüßte ich mehr [Worte], so könnte ich viel besser alles
begreifen”). We have also seen that there are cases to clearly demonstrate that
knowledge and language are not always co-extensive; one may know much about a
subject without being able to give an account of it.9 Heinrich experiences precisely such
a phenomenon when he encounters the Provençal manuscript in Hohenzollern’s
underground library. “[Einige Bilder] dünkten ihm ganz wunderbar bekannt, und wie er
recht zusah endeckte er siene eigine Gestalt ziemlich kenntlich unter den Figuren” (2021). Even with a prolific vocabulary, such aspect dawning experiences cannot be fully
expressed. Now by the time he begins his friendship with Klingsohr, Heinrich has gone
even further away from his original faith in language. In the following inquiry directed to
Klingsohr, Heinrich clearly considers a respect and reverence for what is unsayable
illustrative of poetic maturity:
“Aber sagt mir, lieber Meister, ob ich recht habe: mich dünkt, daß gerade wenn man am
innigsten mit der Natur vertraut ist am wenigsten von ihr sagen könnte und möchte.”
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In his response to Heinrich, Klingsohr brings the poet’s subjects back to earth, to a
ground that counterbalances proclivities toward transcendence, to the brown, the rough
ground needed to complement the ethereal blue:
“Wie man das nimmt,” versetzte Klingsohr; “ein anderes ist es mit der Natur für unsern
Genuß und unser Gemüt, ein anderes mit der Natur für unsern Verstand, für das
leitende Vermögen unserer Weltkräfte. Man muß sich wohl hüten, nicht eins über das
andere zu vergessen. Es gibt viele, die nur die eine Seite kennen und die andere gering
schätzen. Aber beide kann man vereinigen, und man wird sich wohl dabei befinden.
Schade, daß so wenige darauf denken, sich in ihrem Innern frei und geschickt bewegen
zu können, und durch eine gehörige Trennung sich den zweckmäßigsten und
natürlichsten Gebrauch ihrer Gemütskräfte zu sichern. Gewöhnlich hindert eine die
andere, und so entsteht allmählich eine unbehülfliche Trägheit, daß wenn nun solche
Menschen einmal mit gesamten Kräften aufstehen wollen, eine gewaltige Verwirrung und
Streit beginnt, und alles übereinander ungeschickt herstolpert. Ich kann Euch nicht
genug anrühmen, Euren Verstand, Euren natürlichen Trieb zu wissen, wie alles sich
begibt und untereinander nach Gesetzen der Folge zusammenhängt, mit Fleiß und Mühe
zu unterstützen. Nichts ist dem Dichter unentbehrlicher, als Einsicht in die Natur jedes
Geschäfts, Bekanntschaft mit den Mitteln jeden Zweck zu erreichen, und Gegenwart des
Geistes, nach Zeit und Umständen, die schicklichsten zu wählen. Begeisterung ohne
Verstand ist unnütz und gefährlich, und der Dichter wird wenig Wunder tun können,
wenn er selbst über Wunder erstaunt.” (109)
But the Klingsohr-Heinrich relationship and the conversations that allow us to participate
in it also reveal Novalis’ metaphysical beliefs about chaos and the importance of
disorder. As we shall see, even war is treated as essentially beneficial in Novalis’s
system.
Joyce Walker’s work on Novalis attempts to connect the Novalis’s embrace of
chaos with the history of science in a provocative article entitled “Romantic Chaos: The
Dynamic Paradigm in Novalis's Heinrich von Ofterdingen and Contemporary Science.” I
would like to conclude this paper with some remarks on one of her claims in that article.
Walker asserts: “History in Heinrich von Ofterdingen is bracketed by a Golden Age,
regarded with nostalgia and anticipation, of which chaos is the harbinger.”10 The textual
support for Walker’s claim comes in the following statement made by Klingsohr (also
cited by Walker elsewhere in her essay): “Ich möchte fast sagen, das Chaos muß in
jeder Dichtung durch den regelmäßigen Flor der Ordnung schimmern" (116). This, of
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course, forms a part of Klingsohr’s attempt to countenance Heinrich’s earlier declaration,
“Der Krieg überhaupt…scheint mir eine poetische Wirkung” (114). What is at issue here,
of course, is the Presocratic dichotomy between the metaphysics of Parmenides and
Heraclitus, the latter of whom contended that all is in flux, that we can never step in the
same river twice, that harmony is found in chaos. Now such propositions are deeply at
odds with any Western philosophy that bears resemblance to Plato’s correspondence
theories of truth and language. Theories of flux are diametrically opposed to rationalism
Heinrich, in his poetic journey, has the intellectual suppleness to overcome his initial
allegiance to language, and to ready himself for an ineffable experience with the
Provençal manuscript in Hohenzollern’s underground and ultimately for the depth of his
discussion with Klingsohr on nature and the unsayable, and the implications.
In Heinrich von Ofterdingen Novalis presents us with a poet as one who is
ultimately best able to embrace the world and all that is, remaining reverentially open
and yet true to the values imparted to him. As Klingsohr mentors him: “Ein reines
offenes Gemüt, Gewandheit im Nachdenken und Betrachten, und Geschicktlichkeit alle
seine Fähigkeiten in eine gegenseit belebende Tätigkeit zu versetzen und darin zu
erhalten, das sind die Erfordernisse unserer Kunst” (111). Thus, we are offered the story
not only of a poet who heeds his calling and finds his truth, but also of an awakening to
reverence and wonder that all of us can enjoy in our practices of poetic Gelassenheit.
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NOTES
1
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, translated and edited by Paul Guyer and Allen W.
Wood. (Cambridge: University Press, 1998), A340/B398.
2
Kant, A413/B440.
3
Ibid. B434.
4
Ibid.
5
Kenneth Calhoon, “The Romantic Archaeology of the Psyche,” in
Reading After Foucault:
Institutions, Disciplines, and Technologies of the Self in Germany 1750-1830, ed. Robert
Leventhal. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994), p. 223 (bracketed insertion his).
6
Calhoon, p. 223.
7
Ibid.
8
Ibid.
9
For a example on an epistemological level: “when one knows how to tie his shoes without
having the language to give an account of it, or better and more relevant to modern life, when
one driving a car cannot say exactly how he avoided an accident while driving through a busy 4way intersection in which the traffic signals are out and no police are present to direct traffic—or
even if they are. In other words, though Socrates will want to say that knowledge consists in the
ability to give an account of what one knows, attention to everyday life reveals that one can
surely know (possess the ability) to do certain things without knowing (how to give an account of)
that which one knows (possesses the ability) to do. The question arises in what ways can we
meaningfully distinguish “dispositions to behave,” from what Socrates is after, namely, “noetic
grasp.” Sports examples illustrate the nuances of the question. Asking a tennis player to put into
words precisely how he beat his opponent would be ridiculous, especially so if someone like
Socrates were to tell him to “put his whole heart into it”. Readily, there are ample cases to
demonstrate that one is not able to state precisely or ‘give an account’ of how one does what one
does.” Timothy Edwards, “Knowledge, Perception, and Private Events in Plato’s Theaetetus”,
unpublished manuscript.
10
Joyce Walker, “Romantic Chaos: The Dynamic Paradigm in Novalis's Heinrich von Ofterdingen
and Contemporary Science.” The German Quarterly, Vol. 66, No. 1, From Mid-18th-Century to
Romanticism (Winter, 1993), pp. 43-59.
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