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 No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, address State University of New York Press, 194 Washington Avenue, Suite 305, Albany, NY 12210-2384 Production by Judith Block Marketing by Michael Campochiaro 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 10987654321 Contents 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 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 Brouillon manuscript. 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 Brouillon scholar 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 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.1 Or 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.2 But 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 x Introduction Yet with regard to Early German Romanticism in our time, perhaps the most significant revolution is occurring in Anglophone and German philosophical circles. Long considered as solely a literary movement, current research is shedding unexpected light on Early Romanticism’s serious philosophical credentials.3 Un- known and unappreciated texts are finally gaining the attention they deserve. This is especially true of the theoretical writings of Novalis, due in no small part to the thoroughly revised critical edition of his collected works in German, and recent translations of these writings into both English and French.4 Now with the appear- ance of each new volume, a genuinely philosophical Novalis has started to emerge. Perhaps the most striking instance of this former neglect is the present work: Novalis’s Romantic Encyclopaedia. Incredibly, his extraordinary project to reunite all the separate sciences into a universal science lay obscure for nearly a century and a half. The text has finally been restored in accordance with his orig- inal plan, and though uncompleted, it clearly demonstrates that he was not sim- ply a haphazard thinker, or a mere writer of fragments. Novalis was also a natural scientist, thoroughly schooled in the sciences of mineralogy and geology. This too is a lesser-known aspect of his life. Not only was he an outstanding lyrical poet, and fully conversant with the latest philo- sophical developments of the time, but he worked in an altogether practical ca- pacity, as a mining engineer, valued and respected by his employers and scientific peers alike. He strove to harmonize his interests in the fields of poetry and phi- losophy with the concrete demands of working life. And this factor is also telling for his personality. He was being deadly serious when he remarked to close friends in December 1798: “Writing is a secondary consideration—Please judge me according to the main thing—practical life. I treat my writing activity as an educational tool.”5 Thus the time has come to finally overhaul our outmoded perception of him as an impractical and irrational Romantic poet.6 With his universality, it is tempting to compare Novalis to other thinkers. Shortly after Novalis’s death, Thomas Carlyle was already calling him a “Ger- manic Pascal,” since he saw in his fragments a religious, mathematical, and artis- tic profundity similar to that found in the Pensées.7 Again, with their scientific diversity, for many his jottings