Hymnen an Die Nacht, Part 2

And yet, this isn’t the whole story.  Novalis doesn’t discard the mission he has laid out for himself and his fellow Romantics: to educate the earth, by means of inspiration (“the indwelling of the spirit”).  The wisdom he attains in the wake of Sophie’s death doesn’t lead to the abandonment, but the deepening, of his poetry and philosophy, of his scientific learning and social thought, and ultimately, of eros as well, which reappears in the person of Julie von Charpentier, Novalis’ new fiancée, for whom he has more mature, complex, and multifarious feelings than the simple idealized love that he felt for Sophie.  Novalis, in the midst of life, believes that there are still “twelve hours of daylight,” even though, in the end, he will only outlive Sophie by a few years.  His recognition of the primacy of the spiritual doesn’t lead to the desertion, but instead, to the consecration, of his temporal pursuits and mission, consecration to a yet higher—and ultimately an eternal and a heavenly—purpose and fulfillment.

Hymnen an Die Nacht

Some tentative, unsystematic thoughts on Novalis’ Hymnen an Die Nacht.  A meditation, if you like, on this great poetical work.  The work of the day, the poet and philosopher’s self-chosen “day job,” the grand task set out in Heinrich von Ofterdingen, especially in Klingsor’s fairy tale, of transforming the material world into poetry, Novalis’ “Magical Idealism,” is shattered by the cruel and senseless death of his teenage love, Sophie von Kühn.  But this tragedy, which would have been mirrored in the second part of Heinrich had Novalis himself lived to write it, is in fact the great revelation of the spiritual world, which lies beyond the joys of nature, especially the joy of eros that the living Sophie represented.  Novalis takes us on the journey from waking life in the world of day, to the inner world, and beyond that, to the world of sleep and dreams, and finally, to the awakening of the soul (here I am borrowing from the vocabulary of the Mandukya Upanishad). Death, and the despair that Novalis feels in its presence, the dark night of the soul, which leaves the poet unable to go forward or return to the past, is the door to the world of the spirit and eternity.  The hour of darkness, the hour “when darkness reigns,” the hour of the cross, is also the hour when “the son of man is glorified,” and the way is opened for the poet and for all of us to the enter Father’s house, the kingdom of eternal love.  This is the great poetic and universal message of the Hymnen, which, for me and for so many others, continues to be an inexhaustible source of hope of light

Lanza del Vasto

Joseph Jean Lanza del Vasto

Servant of Peace

(September 29, 1901 – January 5, 1981)

Don’t muddle everything by untimely agitation and cogitation.

Above all, don’t spend your time regretting the past.  That is really a waste of time.

Don’t undertake anything by your own will alone; ask yourself if the thing is willed, if it has come in its own time.  Question the circumstances and read the signs.

In the hour of happiness, rejoice: in the hour of disaster, reflect.         

If you think other people are to blame for your failures, you will learn nothing from your tribulations, but whoever can say “I was wrong” can right his course.

It is wrong to rush things and wrong to shilly-shally, wrong to force things and wrong to avoid them.  The wise man restrains himself for ten years, then acts like lightning or lets his fruit fall gently when it is ripe.

--Lanza del Vasto, Make Straight the Way of the Lord, tr. Jean Sidgwick