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.
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