• 222. Caroline to Friedrich von Hardenberg in Freiberg: Jena, 20 February 1799 [*]
[Jena] 20 February 1799
|503| So, is it really true, my good friend? [1] You have made us so happy and glad! Your friends had no other choice but to think of you alone, not of your future; [2] moreover, you yourself had also often forbidden us to worry.
I also took it thus — one can become so docile and malleable and obedient toward those who are dear to us. Never did I ask you how the knot would be loosened, or whether it could abide thus. I hardly even asked myself. I was calm in my faith — for ultimately I have more faith than all the rest of you — not that it would happen precisely thus, but that the tension would of necessity have to break in one person’s breast or the other and the heavenly [3] be wedded with the earthly. What you prefer to call “separation” between the two is actually a fusion. Why should it not be thus? Is the earthly not also truly heavenly? But call it what you will, enough: you are happy. Your letter is in fact full of bliss and flew to me as if on wings.
I am quite pleased — as you will be as well — |504| to reflect on how all this had to happen just this way. It was only amid this almost barren solitude, only through the bonds of sweet habit that you could gradually be won. How wisely and nicely did you once explain to us how there was no danger to all of this; perhaps not danger, but certainly consequences. Is that which is charming to be in vain? How doubly sorry I am not to have seen Julie. It was not my fault, probably not yours either. —
You must understand, dearest Hardenberg, it could indeed sadden me were you not to remain ours, were your wife not to become our friend in and for herself, on her own inclination. But come visit us, we will chat more about this. It is increasingly likely that you will still find us here around Easter and that we will not be leaving until around Whitsun. [4]
You doubtless ordered Charlotte, under penalty of death, not to say anything to us, for I can now see that she learned about it at Christmas but was absolutely, utterly silent. She just wrote and told me she was hoping to see Charpentier and you together at her place. Lucky that she does not particularly like to write; she would, however, surely have told me. Friedrich also betrayed his own suspicion — I confirmed it for him.
It is quite possible that before this year is out we will all be assembled under one roof. [5] Friedrich will remain in Berlin for the summer, for which I am glad. He would like to come here in the winter. You live in Weissenfels. [6] You, too, could probably live here for a while sometime. —
Everything has doubtless been considered with your father, and there are no difficulties standing in your way, correct? [7] He will simply be happy to know that you are happy. How infinitely pleased Thielemann must be! Let us leave your other brother-in-law to Fichte.
There is no doubt about it, if Fichte could fully convince himself of Reinhard’s participation, he would make him into a second Göze. [8] He does not want to believe it yet, or rather, |505| is looking for facts to solidify his faith. He wrote Reinhard himself with the most recent post, sending him his publication and urging him to lament publicly this sanctimonious clerical arrogance. He intends to wait and see how he responds.
Only please do write and tell me whether you know it for sure. I doubt it not for a moment, but he scarcely can have acted openly enough for one to adduce facts about him. That is, by the way, extremely important to Fichte. I related to him most of your letter — indeed, because he loves you so much, I also related the things concerning your personal life, about which he was sincerely happy. You probably know now that things were done properly and uprightly in Prussia. [9]
The third issue of Athenäum will appear soon, very soon. [10] But here is something else: What will you have to say about this Lucinde? We thought of the fragment in the Lyceum that begins thus: Sapphic poems must grow or be discovered etc. Find it and read it. [11] —
At present, I still consider this novel to be no more a novel than are Jean Paul’s pieces — with which I do not, by the way, compare it. It is considerably more fantastic than we originally imagined. Please tell me how it strikes you. Of course, the impression cannot be entirely pure when one is so close to an author. I for my part always see his reserved personality together with this unrestrained element, and then see how the hard outer shell breaks open — it can truly unsettle me at times, and were I his lover, I would not have allowed it to be published. None of this, by the way, is meant as condemnation. There are things that can be neither condemned nor reproached nor wished away nor changed, and what Friedrich does generally belongs to them.
Wilhelm finished the elegy. Göthe, who is here, has one copy, Friedrich the other. Hence you will have to wait. [12] |506| The actual body of the poem might be called didactic, and in Wilhelm’s opinion should also be such. The portrayal of individual details is excellent — though the whole is perhaps too comprehensive to be assimilated in the soul as a unified piece; at the very least, it demands a calm, collected disposition on the part of the reader. You should read it here. It will be appearing in the fourth issue. [13]
When you do arrive, come to us immediately unless you have reason not to do so. It will be absolutely no hindrance to your seeing Schiller as well. [14] The complete Wallenstein will be performed in mid-April. Do you not want to see it? [15]
Göthe is wholly occupied with optics for the Propyläen and is nowhere to be seen in public. [16] Stay well, good friend; I must yet write to Charlotte. Our regards to Julie! Please also relate Lucinde to Charlotte.
Notes
[*] Also in Novalis Briefwechsel mit Friedrich und August Wilhelm, Charlotte und Caroline Schlegel, ed. J. M. Raich (Mainz 1880), 115–20; Novalis Schriften 4:521–23. Back.
[1] Hardenberg had become engaged in December 1798 to Julie von Charpentier, here in a drawing by Dora Stock (engagement illustration: “Braut/Épouse,” Göttinger Taschenkalender für das Jahr 1798, Inhaltsverzeichnis deutscher Almanache, Theodor Springmann Stiftung):
Unfortunately, Hardenberg’s letter to Caroline in which he announced his engagement seems to have been lost. Back.
[2] Caroline’s surprise, delight, and apprehension as attested in this opening paragraph reflect her and others’ concerns regarding the emotionally and intellectually complex period Hardenberg went through following the death from consumption (tuberculosis) of his first fiancé, Sophie von Kühn, on 19 March 1797 (his brother Erasmus died the same year). Hardenberg’s “Hymnen an die Nacht,” Athenaeum (1800), 188–204, in which night and death coincide as the locus of a spiritual reunion with Sophie, reflect his reckoning with death in this context.
Concerning Sophie von Kühn’s death and Hardenberg’s reaction, see Wilhelm Schlegel’s letter to Goethe on 24 September 1797 (letter 185c), note 4; Friedrich Schlegel’s letters to Hardenberg on 5 May 1797 (letter 181f), with notes 1 and 3, and on 23 July 1796 (letter 167a), note 1. Back.
[3] An allusion to Sophie von Kühn. Back.
[4] I.e., for Berlin, though the journey did not materialize. Back.
[5] I.e., Friedrich and Dorothea Veit with Caroline and Wilhelm in Jena, which would happen when Friedrich arrived early September and Dorothea in early October 1799. Hardenberg himself would then be in Jena 11–15 November 1799. Back.
[6] Here Weissenfels ca. 1831 (Neue Bildergalerie f.d. Jugend [Gotha 1831], vol. 4, plate 75, no. 393):
Weissenfels is located approx. 45 km northeast of Jena, also — like Jena — on the Saale River (Map of the Empire of Germany including all the states comprehended under that name with the Kingdom of Prussia, &c. [London 1782]; Rudolf Koch and Fritz Kredel, Deutschland und angrenzende Gebiete [Leipzig 1937]):
Here Weissenfels ca. 1680 and its market square in 1830, and in a 1907 photograph with the Saale River (Friedrich Gerhardt, Geschichte der Stadt Weißenfels a. S. [Weißenfels 1907], plates following pp. 112, 304, and frontispiece):
[7] Hardenberg’s father was opposed to the alliance, not least because of the rather modest financial circumstances of the Charpentier family (Gerhard Schulz, Novalis in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten, Reinbek 1969), 106 (Calender für das Jahr 1796 [Offenbach]; Inhaltsverzeichnis deutscher Almanache, Theodor Springmann Stiftung):
[8] That is, if it could be demonstrated that the Dresden court preacher Franz Volkmar Reinhard, Hardenberg’s “other brother-in-law,” had participated in the Saxon agitation against Fichte that resulted in the charge of atheism, Fichte was prepared to expose him as a malicious orthodox agitator the same way Lessing had earlier exposed the Hamburg pastor Johann Melchior Goeze in his dispute with the latter concerning the Reimarus-fragments and the suggestion that the disciples’ resurrection narratives were in fact a result of deception; Lessing published his own position in Anti-Goeze (Braunschweig 1778) (see Melchior Goeze’s biographical entry).
Although Fichte might have anticipated opposition in one form or another from the clergy (he had already been viewed askance by administrators and even heads of state because of his alleged views on the French Revolution), it was ironic that one of its initiators might be related to one of Fichte’s most serious and perceptive pupils, namely, Hardenberg himself. Here an illustration of various types of clothing worn by the Protestant clergy in Berlin in the late eighteenth century (Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki, Kleidertracht der Berliner Prediger [1775]; Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum; Museums./Signatur DChodowiecki AB 3.106):
To wit, Reinhard does in fact seem to have co-composed the missive of 20 October 1798 the High Consistory sent on to the electoral prince of Saxony concerning these charges against Fichte (E. Sulze, “Neue Mittheilungen über den Atheismusprozess,”Kant-Studien [1906], 233–39, here 239, cites the document itself, which concludes with Reinhard’s signature as one of five).
For an overview of Fichte’s ongoing atheism dispute, see supplementary appendix 215a.1. For an introduction to and translation of Hardenberg’s Fichte studies, see Novalis: Fichte Studies, ed. Jane Kneller, Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy (Cambridge 2003). For an examination of the studies themselves, see Géza von Molnár, Novalis’ “Fichte-Studien”: The Foundation of His Aesthetics (The Hague 1970); and more broadly ibid., Romantic Vision, Ethical Context: Novalis and Artistic Autonomy, Theory and History of Literature 39 (Minneapolis 1987). Back.
[9] Prussia had declined to sign (in support) Electoral Saxony’s condemnation of Fichte; as a result, Fichte was able to move to Berlin in July as documented later in these letters (Rudolf Koch and Fritz Kredel, Deutschland und angrenzende Gebiete [Leipzig 1937]):
[10] The first Athenaeum issue of 1799 appeared in early March. Back.
[11] See Friedrich’s Lyceum fragment 119 (Jugendschriften 2:200; trans. Friedrich Schlegel’s Lucinde and the Fragments, trans. Peter Firchow [Minneapolis 1971], 157–58, trans. altered; Caroline, citing from memory, substitutes “or” for “and” in the initial sentence):
Sapphic [after Sappho] poems must grow and be discovered. They can be neither produced at will, nor published without desecration. Whoever does so lacks pride and modesty. Pride: because he tears his inmost essence out of the holy stillness of his heart and throws it into the crowd, to be stared at, crudely or coldly — and that for a lousy da capo or a gold coin. And it will always be immodest to put oneself up for exhibition, like an old painting. And if lyrical poems are not completely unique, free, and true, then, as lyrical poems, they’re worthless. Petrarch does not belong here: for the cool lover utters nothing except elegant platitudes; and actually he is romantic [novelistic], not lyrical. But even if another creature existed who was so coherently beautiful and classical that she could show herself naked, like Phryne before all the Greeks, still there no longer exists an Olympian audience to appreciate such a performance. And it was Phryne. Only the cynics make love in the marketplace. It is possible to be a cynic and a great poet: the dog and the laurel have equal titles as ornaments on Horace’s statue. But Horace is not Sapphic by far. Sapphic is never cynical.
Phryne: A famous and allegedly stunningly beautiful hetaera (courtesan) of fourth-century Greece who according to some sources posed as the model for the statue Aphrodite/Venus of Knidos by Praxiteles (following illustrations: [1] Statue of Cnidian “Venus” of Praxiteles in the Vatican Museum at Rome; [2] drawing of same statue reflecting the different understanding; [3] “Venus” of Praxiteles on a Cnidian Coin; 1 and 3 from Paul Carus, The Venus of Milo: An Archaeological Study of the Goddess of Womanhood [Chicago 1916], 161, 162; 2 from Carl Ottfried Müller and Carl Osterley, Denkmäler der alten Kunst, 2nd ed., ed. Friedrich Wieseler [Göttingen 1854], vol. 1, plate xxxv, no. 146c):
Phryne was allegedly also the model for the painting Venus Anadyomene by Apelles):
During a festival of Poseidon at Eleusis, she laid aside her garments, let down her hair, and stepped nude into the sea in the sight of the people. When accused of profaning the Eleusinian mysteries, she was defended by the orator Hypereides, one of her lovers, who allegedly tore open her robe and displayed her breasts, so moving her judges that they acquitted her. According to others, she herself removed her clothing.
Because of the uncertainty that still obtains concerning the statue (or copies), depictions in paintings are invariably interpretations such as the following (Phryne [excerpt], after the painting by Henry I. Siemiradsky, reproduced in Mitchell Carroll, Greek Women, Woman in all ages and in all countries 1 [London 1907], plate following p. 232):
Hardenberg addresses this notion in his response to Caroline on 27 February 1799 (letter 223). Back.
[12] Concerning Wilhelm’s elegy, see Caroline to Friedrich von Hardenberg on 4 February 1799 (letter 219), note 15 with cross references. Back.
[13] Wilhelm’s elegy opens the second issue of Athenaeum in 1799, 181–92, which appeared in August. Back.
[14] The Schlegels were currently on less than cordial terms with Schiller; see supplementary appendix 181g.1 and supplementary appendix 194c.1. Back.
[15] Die Piccolomini would be performed on 17 April 1799 in the Weimar theater, Wallensteins Tod (with the title Wallenstein) on 20 and 22 April (Das Repertoire des Weimarischen Theaters, 32). Back.
[16] Concerning Goethe’s work in this context and at this time (February 1799), see Frederick Burwick, The Damnation of Newton: Goethe’s Color Theory and Romantic Perception (Berlin 1986), 13–14:
The second period [of Goethe’s analysis of color] (1795–1810) is marked by Goethe’s concerted effort to prepare a comprehensive Farbenlehre [theory of colors].
Returning to the problem that had provoked his earlier experiments with the prism, he began once more to study the optical effects attained by the artist’s use of color: his introduction to the Propyläen (1798) and his review of “Diderots Versuch über die Malerei” (1791) were both directed toward that task later augmented by Heinrich Meyer’s contributions, “Hypothetische Geschichte des Colorits” and “Geschichte des Colorits seit Wiederherstellung der Kunst,” to the “Historischer Theil” of the Farbenlehre.
Goethe had confidence in the artist’s gifted ability to observe and recreate the subtlest nuances in the perception of color. Unfortunately, the artist had neither a practical handbook nor even a theory which would explain the illusions of light and shadow in painting.
In the meantime, Goethe had also learned to his frustration that his Beiträge had failed to convert a single physicist from the Newtonian doctrine. Worse, it had stirred ridicule of his want of mathematics in attempting to account for phenomena of reflection and refraction.
Such opposition prompted Goethe’s polemical stance against Newtonian authority. He drafted a “Schema zur Geschichte der Farbenlehre” [Schema on the history of the theory of colors] (10 Feb. 1799) in which he intended to reveal how the classical idea of color perception had been subverted by mathematical optics. As he now conceived it, a comprehensive theory must account for both the subjective and objective phenomena in a manner which would resolve the disparities between the physiological and physical disciplines. Back.
Translation © 2013 Doug Stott