Opening the text

Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 2. The Romantic School in GermanyBrandes, Georg

History

Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 2. The Romantic School in Germany

Name: Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 2. The Romantic School in Germany
Author: Brandes, Georg

Brandes, Georg

Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Naturalism in literature; Romanticism

Against the good powers in this allegory a conspiracy is formed by the
Writer. The Writer is the spirit of prose, of narrow enlightenment; he
is depicted as constantly writing. When Sophia dips what he has written
into a bowl which stands upon the altar, a little of it sometimes
remains legible, but often it is all washed out. If drops from the
bowl happen to fall upon him, they fall from him again in the shape
of numbers and geometric figures, which he eagerly collects, strings
upon a thread, and wears round his neck as an ornament. The Writer is
Novalis's Nureddin. The result of his plot is the imprisonment of the
Father and Mother and the destruction of the altar.

But Fable has escaped. She descends into the realm of Evil, and
exterminates Evil by delivering up the Passions to the power of the
death-bringing Fates. Time and Mortality are now no more. "The last
thread of the flax is spun; the lifeless is reanimated; life reigns."
In a universal conflagration, the mother, the Heart, is burned to
death, the sun disappears, and the ice is melted round the palace of
Arcturus. Through a new, happy earth, stretching far and wide under a
new heaven, Eros and Fable pass into the palace. Fable has fulfilled
her mission; she has brought Eros to his beloved, the daughter of the
king. The kingdom of poetry and love is established.

    "Gegründet ist das Reich der Ewigkeit;
    In Lieb und Frieden endigt sich der Streit;
    Vorüber ging der lange Traum der Schmerzen;
    Sophie ist ewig Priesterin der Herzen."[2]

Sophia occupies the same place in this allegory that Beatrice does in
Dante's great poem.

The glorification of the old Meistersinger is, of course, intended as
a glorification of poetry in general, but his story, as told in the
novel, is really the story of Hardenberg's own life and endeavour.
Heinrich von Ofterdingen's home and quiet childhood remind us of
Hardenberg's. A dream, which seems doubly rich in omen because his
father as a youth had dreamed one like it, gives him a fore-feeling
of the mysterious happiness of the poet's life, and shows him, in the
form of a wonderful blue flower, the object of the poet's longing and
endeavour.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 2. The Romantic School in GermanyBrandes, Georg

History

Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 2. The Romantic School in Germany

Brandes, Georg

Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Naturalism in literature; Romanticism

Against the good powers in this allegory a conspiracy is formed by the
Writer. The Writer is the spirit of prose, of narrow enlightenment; he
is depicted as constantly writing. When Sophia dips what he has written
into a bowl which stands upon the altar, a little of it sometimes
remains legible, but often it is all washed out. If drops from the
bowl happen to fall upon him, they fall from him again in the shape
of numbers and geometric figures, which he eagerly collects, strings
upon a thread, and wears round his neck as an ornament. The Writer is
Novalis's Nureddin. The result of his plot is the imprisonment of the
Father and Mother and the destruction of the altar.

But Fable has escaped. She descends into the realm of Evil, and
exterminates Evil by delivering up the Passions to the power of the
death-bringing Fates. Time and Mortality are now no more. "The last
thread of the flax is spun; the lifeless is reanimated; life reigns."
In a universal conflagration, the mother, the Heart, is burned to
death, the sun disappears, and the ice is melted round the palace of
Arcturus. Through a new, happy earth, stretching far and wide under a
new heaven, Eros and Fable pass into the palace. Fable has fulfilled
her mission; she has brought Eros to his beloved, the daughter of the
king. The kingdom of poetry and love is established.

    "Gegründet ist das Reich der Ewigkeit;
    In Lieb und Frieden endigt sich der Streit;
    Vorüber ging der lange Traum der Schmerzen;
    Sophie ist ewig Priesterin der Herzen."[2]

Sophia occupies the same place in this allegory that Beatrice does in
Dante's great poem.

The glorification of the old Meistersinger is, of course, intended as
a glorification of poetry in general, but his story, as told in the
novel, is really the story of Hardenberg's own life and endeavour.
Heinrich von Ofterdingen's home and quiet childhood remind us of
Hardenberg's. A dream, which seems doubly rich in omen because his
father as a youth had dreamed one like it, gives him a fore-feeling
of the mysterious happiness of the poet's life, and shows him, in the
form of a wonderful blue flower, the object of the poet's longing and
endeavour.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 2. The Romantic School in Germany

Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 2. The Romantic School in Germany

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