Timothy Edwards November 18, 2008

Novaliss 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 Heinrichs 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 Heinrichs experience of pain as he separates from his family for the first time in order to consider the resultant proclivities. Second, I briefly mention Kants 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 Heinrichs journey develops in accord with Kants message and culminates in metaphysical agreement with Heraclitus. Finally, I discuss why Klingsohrs presence in Heinrichs life is vital to Heinrichs poetic maturity and its supple embrace of all that is, including chaos and war.

Timothy Edwards November 18, 2008

Novaliss acute awareness of the crisis inherent in filial separation is evident in his description of Heinrichs 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 wehmtiger Stimmung verlie 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 Gefhle begleitet gewesen, was er jetzt empfand, als zuerst seine bisherige Welt von ihm gerissen und er wie auf ein fremdes Ufer gesplt ward. Unendlich ist die jugendliche Trauer bei dieser ersten Erfahrung der Vergnglichkeit der irdischen Dinge, die dem unerfahrnen Gemt so notwendig, und unentbehrlich, so fest verwachsen mit dem eigentmlichsten Dasein und so unvernderlich, wie dieses, vorkommen mssen. Eine erste Ankndigung des Todes, bleibt die erste Trennung unvergelich, und wird, nachdem sie lange wie ein nchtliches Gesicht den Menschen bengstigt hat, endlich bei abnehmender Freude an den Erscheinungen des Tages, und zunehmender Sehnsucht nach einer bleibenden sichern Welt, zu einem freundlichen Wegweiser und einer trstenden Bekanntschaft. (20-21)

Novaliss 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 Formsthese 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. Kants 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 thinkersand contributed to the opening of a vast literature celebrating possibility. Kants 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 cant extricate this problematic progress toward the unconditioned from reasons function to regulate the understanding. Progress toward the unconditioned is an ineluctable procession in light of which all humans think, in Kants account. Kant argued that reasons 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, Kants 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 Ankndigung 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, ones intellectual pursuits are grounded in a kind of faith that wholeness is at hand through rational means. Novalis thus brilliantly crafts Heinrichs development to include a fraternization with rationalisms trust in language, together with a developing account of Heinrichs willingness to stay in the flow of experience as if to keep him from getting stuck in philosophical reflection. As Novalis presents him, Heinrichs 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 Novaliss Heinrich von Ofterdingen as his central example. When Calhoon directs our attention to Heinrichs engagement with the Provenal manuscript he finds in Hohenzollerns underground library, we are able to see clearly the problem of the verbal narrative:
Heinrichs 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: Da ich auch nicht einmal von meinem wunderlichen Zustande reden kann!wte ich mehr [Worte], so knnte ich viel besser alles begreifen.5

In this quotation from the novel, Heinrich asserts the belief that languagespecifically, knowing wordsis 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 4

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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 Provenal manuscript, he wonders whether he might be dreaming as the recognition of something familiar dawns in the most obscure of moments:
Er htte sehnlichst gewnscht, die Sprache zu kennen, denn das Buch gefiel ihm vorzglich, ohne da er eine Silbe davon verstand. Es hatte keinen Titel, doch fand er noch beim Suchen einige Bilder. Sie dnkten ihm ganz wunderbar bekannt, und wie er recht zusah, entdeckte er seine eigene Gestalt ziemlich kenntlich unter den Figuren. Er erschrak und glaubte zu trumen, aber beim wiederholten Ansehn konnte er nicht mehr an der vollkommenen hnlichkeit zweifeln Die letzten Bilder waren dunkel und unverstndlich; doch berraschten ihn einige Gestalten seines Traumes mit dem innigsten Entzcken (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 Novaliss intention in his discussion of Heinrichs 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 htte sien Leben darum geben mgen, 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 Novaliss intention 5

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to embed Heinrichs 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 Novaliss purpose in capturing the Heinrichs pathos in a moment of desperation. While Heinrichs 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 Mathildes mysterious word. Novalis settles a number of important issues on nature and the limits of language in the course of Heinrichs exchanges with Klingsohr. We have seen that Heinrichs wish to be able to say more is predicated on a belief in language as co-extensive of knowledge about the world (wte ich mehr [Worte], so knnte 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 Provenal manuscript in Hohenzollerns underground library. [Einige Bilder] dnkten 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 dnkt, da gerade wenn man am innigsten mit der Natur vertraut ist am wenigsten von ihr sagen knnte und mchte.

Timothy Edwards November 18, 2008

In his response to Heinrich, Klingsohr brings the poets 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 fr unsern Genu und unser Gemt, ein anderes mit der Natur fr unsern Verstand, fr das leitende Vermgen unserer Weltkrfte. Man mu sich wohl hten, nicht eins ber das andere zu vergessen. Es gibt viele, die nur die eine Seite kennen und die andere gering schtzen. Aber beide kann man vereinigen, und man wird sich wohl dabei befinden. Schade, da so wenige darauf denken, sich in ihrem Innern frei und geschickt bewegen zu knnen, und durch eine gehrige Trennung sich den zweckmigsten und natrlichsten Gebrauch ihrer Gemtskrfte zu sichern. Gewhnlich hindert eine die andere, und so entsteht allmhlich eine unbehlfliche Trgheit, da wenn nun solche Menschen einmal mit gesamten Krften aufstehen wollen, eine gewaltige Verwirrung und Streit beginnt, und alles bereinander ungeschickt herstolpert. Ich kann Euch nicht genug anrhmen, Euren Verstand, Euren natrlichen Trieb zu wissen, wie alles sich begibt und untereinander nach Gesetzen der Folge zusammenhngt, mit Flei und Mhe zu untersttzen. Nichts ist dem Dichter unentbehrlicher, als Einsicht in die Natur jedes Geschfts, Bekanntschaft mit den Mitteln jeden Zweck zu erreichen, und Gegenwart des Geistes, nach Zeit und Umstnden, die schicklichsten zu whlen. Begeisterung ohne Verstand ist unntz und gefhrlich, und der Dichter wird wenig Wunder tun knnen, wenn er selbst ber 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 Novaliss system. Joyce Walkers work on Novalis attempts to connect the Novaliss 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 Walkers claim comes in the following statement made by Klingsohr (also cited by Walker elsewhere in her essay): Ich mchte fast sagen, das Chaos mu in jeder Dichtung durch den regelmigen Flor der Ordnung schimmern" (116). This, of 7

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course, forms a part of Klingsohrs attempt to countenance Heinrichs earlier declaration, Der Krieg berhauptscheint 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 Platos 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 Provenal manuscript in Hohenzollerns 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 Gemt, Gewandheit im Nachdenken und Betrachten, und Geschicktlichkeit alle seine Fhigkeiten in eine gegenseit belebende Ttigkeit 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.

Timothy Edwards November 18, 2008

NOTES

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. Ibid. B434. Ibid.

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. Ibid. Ibid.

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 trafficor 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 Platos 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.