The Birth of Novalis

Novalis, one of the early poets of German romanticism, provided the movement with its best known symbol, the "blue flower," from his fragmentary novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen (1802). The blue flower became the symbol for the deep-rooted romantic yearning, the search that would never end. Novalis himself was a Saxon nobleman and a government official who was fated to die young from tuberculosis. His most famous work, Hymns to the Night, was written in memory of his fiance, Sophie von Kuhn, who died in 1797 at the age of 15. His Hymns eloquently express his grief and are a unique mixture of religious, mystical feeling and personal sadness. The Hymns were composed in 1800 and the death he celebrated struck him a year later.

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