Katie Solli
Hassold/ Fin de Siecle
April 19, 2002
Essence of the Feminine Soul in Novalis’s Hymns to the Night
Novelist and Poet, Friedrich von Hardenberg, better known as Novalis, is recognized as one of the forefathers of the German Romantic movement. Romanticism occurring near the end of the 18th century was a rebellion from the previous “Enlightenment” era, in that it conveyed a more “fantastic” and “spiritual” assessment of the human soul in its literature and art. Novalis writes in his novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen, “The world becomes a dream, the dream becomes world”(Braun 21). The movement awakened a great feeling of emotion in its writers and artists. Ideas such as the infinite, love, and mystery abounded into flowing texts of expressive discourse. Friedrich Schlegel, a popular German philosopher of the time offered his definition of the subject, “Romantic is whatever shows us a sentiment subject in fantastic form… And what, then, is a sentimental subject? Everything that speaks to our sentiment – not our sensual, but our spiritual sentiment” (Schrade 7).
The Romantics transferred conventional logical reality into an isolated, dark, and vague field embedded in passion. The passionate heart was favored over the Enlightenment’s cold rational mind. The heart would become the center of the movement, not the mind, as in the classical era. Through the heart, they articulated in a more secretive, incalculable and spontaneous fashion. The power of the subconscious and the unconscious: dreams, longing, presentiment, the supernatural, the magnetism of the soul, and the secret of myths, are some characteristics that are associated within the profile of Romanticism.
A division between “classical” and “romantic” was made. The “classic” meaning the “old and traditional” school of thought carried on from the Age of Enlightenment, and the “romantic” school – the new idea that would almost rebel against the general notion of definitions. The literary and art world moved out of an “Age of Reason” and into an “Age of Feeling.” Johanne Wolfgang Goethe said,
I have thought of a new definition that describes the
relationship quite well. I call
the classical healthy, and the romantic
sick. Most recent works are
romantic not
because they are new, but because they are
weak and sickly; and the old is
classical, not because it is old, but
because it is strong, positive and healthy
(Schrader 7).
The issue of individuality was another distinguishable factor in the differentiation between classic and romantic thought. The Classic school followed a very unified and harmonious ideal, whereas the Romantics favored a more isolated individualism. Classical artists and writers depicted a clear, logical, balanced reality. These perspectives could be easily unified in one grand chapter. The Romantics however, rebelled against this alliance of classical conformity. They favored a more individual, non-defining, and spiritual style. J.G Herder commented, “Have you noticed how inexpressible is the individuality of one man, how difficult it is to know distinctly what distinguishes him, how he feels and lives, how differently his eyes see, his soul measures, his heart experiences everything?” (Frank 37
Nature and Religion are two important themes encountered in Romantic writing and art. In most cases the two ideas are juxtaposed to create a space and philosophy for the individual to be isolated and free to express his devotional ideals. In Goethe’s Sorrows of the Young Werther, the perfect romantic Hero, Werther, appreciates Nature’s isolation, and within it escapes into the depths of his own soul:
The solitude in these blissful surroundings is balm to
my soul… Every tree, every
hedge-row is a bouquet.
It makes me wish I were a ladybug and could fly in and
out of the sea of wondrous scents and find
all my nourishment here… I can sense
the presence of the Almighty (Werther 24).
Novalis also makes use of the idea of God and Nature, in Hymns to the Night. The Night is a spiritual haven that the individual can escape to, after a harsh “day” of plain intrusive light: “Light is housed in eternal unrest” (Novalis 19). Night is a serene arena in which to commune more piously with God, as well as a space in which to commune with “Mother Nature.” “Nature’s bond with the heroic-poet figure replaces the unity of the family [or society] in order to magnify the experience of the individual, and to project the poet into the cosmic world beyond the physical” (Fay 92). Nature is a place where one can go to be isolated and rest. Rest also carries connotations of death, as my discussion about Hymns to the Night will elaborate on. In death one meets in God’s infinite kingdom, and experiences unconditional love from the “great original Source of Life.”
These ideas of “Mother Nature” and the “Source of Life,” contribute to a number of images Novalis conjures up in his poem describing his experience with the Night in terms of feminine elements. Night, for the dichter (poet), become a metaphor for the feminine soul. Within his vividly described expanse of darkness one discovers traces of female descriptions. Novalis thus escapes from the logical world of Enlightenment and delves into a more mysterious, emotional, loving, and nurturing reality: woman, the lover and the mother. The feminine soul therefore becomes an important issue in Novalis’s work. Novalis was also considered to be one of the first male “hysterics.” His tendency “to seek erotic fulfillment in love of the chaste and spiritual rather than sensual kind” (Braun 20), characterizes him as such. The category of the male hysteric brings into light an important theory of tampering with gender roles. The romantic male identifies with and explores his “sensual” side within the mysterious parameters of femininity. Throughout the course of this paper I will expound on the theory of the feminine soul, and how it relates to the German Romantic Movement and to Novalis’s Hymns to the Night.
Romanticism, often classified as the “Age of Sensibility,” caused a revaluation of feminine traits and ideals. With ideas of “reason” and “logic” (very typically masculine identities) under attack, feminine aspects of personality such as sympathy and emotion became popular male values in the literary circle. Men reclaimed “feminine” qualities and incorporated these qualities into their own literary figures. Werther, pines after the unattainable Lotte inexhaustibly using all of the creative energies of his heart. “It is as if every nerve in my body were possessed by my soul” (Werther 52). The male hero becomes a feeble subordinate under control of a higher power -- love and emotion (both tied into the realm of woman.) “I am a man degraded, robbed of his honor, title, and sword… Weak, yes, weak God knows I am” (Werther 52). Werther eventually succumbs to his sensibility and kills himself in loving lust for his “beloved.” However, I would like to add that Werther does not fade away without throwing a bit of guilt into Lotte’s path. “Here Lotte… see? It does not make me shudder to grasp the cold and terrible cup from which I drink the transport of death. You hand it to me…” (Werther 129). This sense of guilt keeps a male dominance over the female. The male usurps what he feels is necessary from the female sentimentality, however, still assumes his role of dominator in literature and society.
Alan Richardson discusses Blake’s theory of the “female form” as “composed of “blood, milk, and tears” (Mellor 14). The “mother’s body, milk, and tears gain a great deal of significance for the writers in this period.” The male feeds upon his relationship to Mother and Lover in a way that would transform his soul into a softer, more spiritual entity. Wordsworth expressed:
He whose soul has risen
Up to the height of feeling intellect
Shall want no humbler tenderness, his heart
Be tender as a nursing mother’s heart;
Of female softness should his life be full,
Of little loves and delicate desires,
Mild interests and gentlest sympathies. (Mellor 16)
This poetic evidence of Wordsworth exemplifies the charm derived by men from the female form and function.
Nurture, love, and empathy (“blood, milk and tears”) are the elements of woman that build the male conception of female identity. These are the ideals that men appreciate and honor in a female, and trap her into. Woman is the mother, the provider of love, compassion, sympathy, gentility, and everything domestic and “nice.” Focusing on all of these aspects of women only makes them more ever-present as being the perfect model for females to uphold. Women, Christina von Braun states, “were wrapped in an aura of sanctity. Even more than sanctity… she assumes a normative quality for any woman desirous of being an ‘authentic’ woman” (Braun 16).
This new movement does not honor women, just because the men are rushing about proclaiming undying love, or appreciating milk from the breast as if they were sucking up a profound “knowledge.” The “knowledge” that they are suckling from the “bosom” is the knowledge of femininity that was already imposed upon women by men. Men already have control of the world practicing the reasonable and more “real” form of “knowledge” – science, history, art. It is no great honor to women that they now seek the more impractical and emotional form of knowledge from their “beautiful” and “pure” bodies. Mary Jacobs puts forth a theory of “female honor” in which she argues “that if femininity was privileged by male writers during the Romantic period it was by the same token debased: if women were valued for natural, intuitive feeling, so were children and idiots” (Jacobs in Mellor 21).
Women were still helpless in defining their own lives. They were slaves to domesticity. The women’s place was naturally in the household, and if any education was expected of her, it would be refined skills such music, drawing, needlework, or the minimal amount of education needed to teach to her children. Any public activity was considered un-feminine. Women writers, however, in the 18th century were able to develop slowly in the circles of intellectualism. Select females were able to publish, however she would usually have to have a connection to power such as being a member of the aristocracy, or a wife or daughter to a man in the literary field. German women, for instance, used more personal forms of literature such as autobiographies, letters, novels, and fairy tales. Through these texts women were given more room for experimentation.
Women’s writing in Germany during the 18th century followed many of the same traditional storylines, yet used subversive elements in their stories to break the form of previous narratives. “Most women’s narratives at the time end in the same ending: rebelliousness ends in acquiescence, morality and propriety are reestablished; the patriarchal systems unchallenged” (Zantop 38). One must, however, keep in mind that the women wanted their readers to read between the lines. Generally in their stories the new order that was “restored” differed from the previous order of the protagonist at the beginning of the story. This shows that women are interested in change, however, must go about doing so in a less apparent manner for all practical purposes. To a Trellised Tree (1800), a poem by German Poet Sopie Mereau, demonstrates this subversion well.
Wretched trellised tree! For, tethered tightly
To your chilly wall, you languish there,
Scarcely conscious of the zephyr’s resting lightly
In the foliage of untrammeled trees,
But bypassing yours with careless ease.
Oh! The sight of you is hard to bear!
And imagination, image-bright,
By its airy magic brings the plight
Of a human shape before my gaze,
Who, forever severed from the liberal ways
Of nature, is coerced by alien norms,
Just as you are, into rigid forms.
(Blackwell&Zantop 379).
The female writer seems to be “coerced by alien norms,” or the traditional structure of male writing and ideals. But she finds a way to break away from being formed into a rigid “normality” by acknowledging her existence and knowledge of her position.
The art of Cassat and Morisot also have a relation to this subversive style of women expression. In a number of their works, they depict women in very calm and non-threatening positions, however, in a very confined space such as the garden, house, behind a window, or behind an obvious barricade such as a bridge.
With a brief history of Romanticism and its claiming of feminine ideals, I will now discuss more in depth about the idea of the “the feminine soul.” A lot of what makes up the idea of the “feminine soul” is its attachment to religion. “Women had a soul and that it was different from man’s by virtue of its superior religious nature, was one of the most certain Western beliefs at the dawn of the new age” (Massey 2). The women’s role was of a helpless, emotional, hysterical angel. But what a beautiful angel she was that could inspire men in such a mystical fashion and could be his fodder for poetic exploration! The feminine soul was an escape from the everyday facts of life for the man. The male was involved in “draining” political and economic affairs outside of the home, but would always return to the spirituality of femininity at the conclusion of his day. Men felt the need to escape from the logic ensued by the “enlightened” life. So in order to keep a certain element of the “old” he incorporated it into the female. The female was expected to be the embodiment of religion, morals, and purity. None of these elements were apparent in the booming world of the scientifically driven 18th century. Practical men would feel balanced if they had the element of holiness, irrationality, and tradition in their lives. “Man made her into his idea of himself. In her he sought his own nature” (Massey 2).
New attentions bestowed upon women honored the social construction of the “female ideal” and not actual womanhood. Respect was paid more to the ideals of submissiveness, chastity, modesty, silence and patience in women, rather than to her “power over man,” as male writers would enforce in their works. The romantics used women as tools in attempt to incorporate a more loving, and spiritual side within themselves that they could not attain outside of domesticity.
In placing women on a type of “holy pedestal” it seems as though women would gain more admiration in the role that they would play upon the new male’s call to sensitivity. “Women were given this false glorification in order to flatter their place in society. By being given a specific role that likens their spirit to an angel, they were less likely to rebel against their disposed subordinate treatment by men” (Massey 39). The authentic women functioned as the “angel” in poetry and art but were in society—reality, still merely beautiful, mystical creatures that didn’t have a mind for real knowledge, or practical matters. “A female is not called upon to act, to be seen or to give orders, rather her invaluable contribution to history is to attract and inspire the male ‘from the penumbra’ of what is his enlightened secular world” (Massey 3). Foucault would go further to say that “a true politician binds [his slaves] even more strongly with his own ideas” (Massey 40). Women were trapped in the web of holiness, purity, nurture, and beauty. The poetic ideal of women became an ideal for life and what it ought to be. The truth remained: women could give themselves only to another person; men on the other hand, can give themselves to ideas.
Novalis used the same construction of the “feminine soul” in his work. He exemplifies women in their “romantic roles” and even takes it a step further in describing through vivid metaphors his own idea of woman. Novalis sought to create a new religion: woman as a lover and woman as a mother. The feminine soul is a “sanctuary within the sanctuary.” She is the “womb” symbolizing shelter, warmth, and nurture, as well as the “bosom,” which implies not only nurture, but sexuality as well.
The relationship that a mother and her son establish is an interesting phenomenon. It is an automatic loving connection that men can experience in reality, and do not need to search within themselves for to derive meaning. However, at a certain point in maturity, the relationship of love that is between a mother and a son can become confusing. Man must commit himself to self-reflection and eventually go into analyzing the soul of his mother. The soul of the mother is thus important because it becomes a part of the man. The connection that is established since infancy gives a certain assurance of safety throughout conflicts and truth of isolation that the male might experience in life. The mother’s soul is therefore a very important aspect to examine in elaboration on male’s attachment to it. It ushers in the warmth and safety of the womb for the man. This thought could be explained by the dominance of women in the household and her eternal responsibility to playing the idealistic pure and nurturing mother. The idea that sons contrive through their relationships with their mothers is wholesomeness. The idea of “wholesome” became a prison for women. The characteristic of holiness, and chastity that men expected in their mothers was carried throughout their lives, and expected from their wives and sisters as well. In 18th century Germany, laws were passed in order to ensure that mothers even breast-fed their young. Not only was it unlawful to wander outside of the parameters of domesticity, it was also illegal to hire a wet nurse.
Men are clearly obsessed with the idea of the mother’s soul. But, Novalis goes as far as to create the Mother as a “God figure.” However perverse this idea almost sounds, because the focus that Christianity has always has on “God the Father,” the signs in which one can depict femininity in God are very apparent. The Virgin Mary is the ideal mother. Not only is she terrifically nurturing, she has sacrificed, and even remained pure. An important point on the “Mother God” topic is God’s role of the creator of life. It is actually the mother’s womb that is the origin of life, and the first space for the child in this world. It can certainly be imagined how women would step into the role of Creator. Novalis makes much use of the “womb” in his Hymns to the Night.
The traditional concept of masculinity is thrown into turmoil with the romantic vogue of feminine ideals influencing males. The artists and writers of the Romantic period break away from nearly everything that embodied manhood, and sought serenity in the ideal female essence. “With their migraines, their sickliness, their cult of fragility and spirituality, they too look as though they want to get rid of the traditional male image of the conqueror, the hero, and strong man” (Braun 17). The “sickliness” that Goethe previously spoke of as being a characteristic in Romanticism, demonstrates a rotation towards a weaker, more “feminine” mode of conduct.
Christina von Braun introduces a theory of “male hysteria,” that efficiently collects many of the male reactions to femininity and defines them into a general term. The origin of the word hysteria, stems from the Greek word for womb. With obvious female connotations, the term was originally associated with sickly symptoms of women. Later decadent period writers, such as Flaubert and Mallarme, also revel in this dizzying frenzy of weakness. Mallarme writes, “It is strange and odd how I have loved everything that can be summarized by the word ‘fall’” (Braun 19). Once again, Goethe’s over-dramatic and “suffering” Werther can be demonstrated as the epitome of male hysteriscm:
Is mine not the voice of a man cowering within himself, a man who has lost himself, hurtling inexorably downhill, who must cry out from the innermost depths of his vainly struggling forces, ‘My God, my God, why has Thou forsaken me?’ And why should I be ashamed to thus cry out—why should I dread this moment since it was not even spared Him who can roll back the heavens like a cloth? (Werther 96).
Werther has fallen under the spell of hysteria due to the predicament he has woven for himself. It seems as though this state brings characters such as he to ecstasy. The reference to validating his own dilemma to that of Jesus is also an interesting twist. It depicts arrogance and justified domination over his situation.
As previously discussed, one must pay attention in analyzing the male hysteric’s perspective of the women. Just because he draws from the feminine ideal as becoming his new model of being, does not mean that he holds the female in any higher respect. Braun states that the male hysteric “is not interested in a re-evaluation of women, but in a higher evaluation of male femininity” (Braun 19). The novel, The Sorrows of the Young Werther” is not concerned with Lotte, or her happiness with another man, it concerns Werther’s passion and masochism, but most of all the ever present, still dominant male ego. Lotte is blamed for her happiness, but most of all for “handing him his lethal weapon.” An interesting side note is that contemporary men reading this novel followed the model that Goethe constructed very closely. Werther’s costume became high fashion in Germany for men, and it was documented that a number of men actually committed suicide with this book in hand.
Werther is an example of the typical romantic hysteric. Novalis considered himself a hysteric, and like other men in this enchantment, sought glorification in his self-imposed illness. He describes, “expression of increased sensitivity is probably the most interesting stimulus and material for our meditations and our actions” (Braun 20). Utilizing this “illness” Novalis maintains that human beings receive an “education of the emotions” and therefore, “come closer to God.”
Novalis, however, did not apply all of these ideas to his sense of reality. Like many other male hysterics, he worked by day and dreamt by night, so to speak. The vague hysteric realm and the local world of reality seemed to starkly contrast one another. But Novalis’s philosophy stayed clear, “Nature should be art and art should become second nature,” he wrote (Braun 21). This can be a sign of the dominant trait still protruding through the “weak” natured façade of Romantic men.
The male hysterics begin to become destructive when they begin usurping womanhood into their own construction of the “female man.” Braun argues that he “attempts to create the female essence out of himself, while transforming the actual woman into an idea” (Braun 22). Novalis, for instance, uses the “idea” of his former wife, Sopie von Kuhn, as inspiration of his own hysteria. Focusing on the design of genius in gender, James Hodkinson agrees with Braun in stating that, “Men could cultivate their feminine creativity, whilst women themselves were often if not always, thought to lack those masculine traits necessary for genius” (Hodkinson 105). An interesting point for contemplation: Novalis changed his name from Friedrich von Hardenberg, to reveal a new identity that literally means ‘someone who clears land and cultivates virgin soil.’
Cultivating virgin soil is indeed what Novalis was seeking when he at the age of twenty-two fell in love with the young beauty, Sophie von Kuhn, age twelve. Sophie was not a sophisticated girl, nor particularly intellectual (of course perhaps a few more years would have given her some development in that area). This naturally made her the ideal “authentic woman” for the age, and especially for a young poet. Novalis wouldn’t be bothered by her opinion, and she would serve as the perfect object of inspiration for his romantic endeavors. Novalis did not make any claims to deny his perfect formula for his love of Sophie. He explains that Sophie is an ideal of his own, and his love for her is not the typical love that one would feel for his wife. “I feel religion for Sophie, not love. Absolute love, independent of the heart, founded on faith, is religion” (Braun 22).
Sophie functioned as a muse for Novalis. In her short life with him (she would eventually die at the age of 15), it was documented that she felt confined and overwhelmed by Novalis’s grand notions toward her. To him, she was his all, his religion. She embodied his entire realm of inspiration for his work. “To write something and to marry is nearly one and the same goal of my desires,” he once said (Braun 23). The female is once again placed upon her silent pedestal of superior holiness for her man to glorify and worship.
Immediately after Sophie’s death, Novalis has the excuse to fall into a “deep sorrow.” Conveniently, we have a Diary that narrates his observations within his soul at this time. Keeping in mind what we know about the male hysteric, an explosion of emotions is not the most unwelcome sensation afforded to the man. Many biographers agree that the death of Sophie von Kuhn was the beginning of Novalis’s poetic life. Novalis even confirms this suspicion in a letter he wrote to his friend, Friedrich Schlegel within a month of her death:
“The autumn of my life has come and I feel so free, usually so strong—I will be able to get somewhere after all. I can give you my solemn oath—that it is already very clear to me what heavenly coincidence her death was—a key to everything—a wonderfully fitting step… A simple powerful strength has awakened within me. My love has become a flame that consumes all earthly things (Braun 23).
And the great German philosopher replies, “I could often find it enviable to have experienced such a loss” (Braun 23). The female figure indeed sacrificed herself for the male’s “poetic inspiration.” Sophie epitomizes the function of the female soul in German Romanticism. The woman is made into an idea that is at fully in the power of the man. This idea can be hyped by giving the female such a title as “patron saint.” In most cases this idea of female essence related directly to religion found within the pure “authentic woman.” As Sophie’s physical body faded out of the picture, the idea of her soul would be kept alive in Novalis’s imagination as a philosophical muse, and make more appearances than ever in his work.
With a brief picture painted of Novalis, I will now return to his work Hymns to the Night. In this epic poem, he examines Night not only as the dark unexamined voluptuous world following day, but also as the absence of Light. Hymns was written shortly after the death of Sophie, so it would be appropriate to bear in mind the intense “emotion” that Novalis is feeling for the so called loss of his beloved and manifestation of the feminine soul in his composition. The feminine soul transforms into the all encompassing and infinite idea of Night to Novalis. Night becomes a place where the poet’s soul can find rest either within the “depths of the womb,” or in the comfort of the “bosom.” Novalis eventually creates his own Light within the darkness. This Light would show up in womanly form, or bear some resemblance to the inspirational memory of Sophie. She would shine through the Night in spiritual form, reaching the inner soul of the romantic poet. I will show first how Sophie is used in Hymns, and then discuss further the ideas of the feminine soul in Night, including the attribution to the mother figure.
Novalis discovers Death’s precious pain in a short time after his “beloved” passed away. The death of Sophie fills his imagination with a hysteric ecstasy that one finds written passionately in the realm of Night.
“Once, when I poured out bitter tears, when dissolved in pain… I was standing alone at the barren mound… then came from the blue distances—from the heights of my own blessedness, a twilight shiver—and with one stroke my birth’s bonds ripped—Light’s chains. There fled my sadness with it—misery flowed into a new, unplumbed world—You, Night-inspiration… lifted me gently up… and released my newborn spirit (Novalis 17).
Night revives his sorrowful soul, and gives it a new sensation of excitement. In the Night, Novalis catches features of Sophie’s “gentle soul.” He returns to his religious love obsession with her, through the mystic imagination of Novalis, she is reincarnated into Night. “In her eyes rested forever… In her embrace I wept overjoyed tears at the new life.—It was the first and only dream—and only since then I’ve felt an unchangeable, eternal faith in the heaven of Night and its Light, the beloved” (17). The idea of Sophie, the spiritual, holy, and beautiful girl, becomes the light source in the darkness.
Tender, beloved—Night’s lovely sun,--now, I wake—for I’m yours and mine—you called the Night to life for me,--humanizing me—consume my body with spirit fire, so I can mix with you more intimately, airily, and then the wedding night will last forever. (13)
It is clear that Novalis’s relationship will continue now forever. He does not need Sophie’s physical body to continue, he instead only needs the spirit that he created himself of her while she was still alive. The female body does not matter. Novalis is so self consumed that he can re-create the wedding night’s activities in his own imagination, and it will be just as superior to the physical, because it is mostly the poetic idea of passion that excites the hysteric. Sophie therefore becomes insignificant and can therefore die. In the poet’s “reawakened” soul she is just as good to him dead as alive. Through the death of a woman, Novalis claims her ideal feminine soul and builds his own fantasy for himself to play in.
Novalis begins his poem with a tribute to daylight. He describes it as “all-joyful,” and filled with “colors, beams, and waves.” Daylight is the source for life. It is also a source for knowledge and logic. Not only does it feed life to the “sensuous sucking plant,” it also feeds the “splendid stranger with sense-filled eyes.” The light of day “opens up the wonder, and the splendor of the earth’s kingdoms” (11). This implies a sense of knowledge and wealth (“splendor”) is attained in the plain exposure of Light. One will notice of course, that these areas are typically within the men’s world.
But then, turns the dichter to the “holy, the unspeakable, the secretive Night.” The Night implies a place of rest, a distance in which to escape to from garish light. This is obviously the woman’s realm. “Down over there, far, lies the world—sunken in a deep vault…” Novalis is here just formulating his apparent misery of the death of a woman. The “far away” world to him represents the territory of those departed from life. But could these thoughts also not take on a more literal aspect of woman? The “sunken deep vault” gives an image of woman’s depth, mysteriousness, and even emptiness, while the implications of “far away” show her disconnection from the man’s world. The female world is thus depicted as being a domestic place in which men can escape from the “real” world of “male business,” and find peace in the arms of a non-threatening blanket of warmth. He needs, after all, time in which to “recharge his battery” throughout ruling the world. The abstractness of man is kept in this dark space neat and separated from reality of the logical world. The female soul feeds the men her “unpractical” ambrosia of love and spiritual essence by Night, in order for the male to be focused in his separate role during the day as the “enlightened male.”
Night immediately begins to resemble aspects of the “authentic woman.” Her caring, nurturing, and pure demeanor overtakes the world of the practical, and abrupt reality of common life. “Having no need for Light, they see through the depths of a loving soul” (13). This entails that women have no need for knowledge (“light”) of a man’s self-centered (“loving”) soul, in order to adore them. It is the duty and expectation for a woman to love, and so they are projected into undiscriminating loving servants. “To sooth him in his longing, and inspire him there’s the Night” (37). The woman is “the nurse of blessed love,” whose role is clear: to function as his inspiration, and to achieve nothing on her own.
Death is associated closely with sleep, offering rest from “earthly force.” “Unholy busyness devours the Night’s heavenward approach” (15). Novalis describes Night’s reign as being holy and spaceless… the forever sleep. He draws security from the idea of Death and Sleep being applied together. Images of “eternal rest” connect with images of love and comfort… “when sleeping will be forever just one unsuspendable dream” (19). The only thing that is forever to Novalis is the mysterious world of the dead. This idea is very romantic, in that it describes the necessity to follow the unknown, the infinite and barren space that fosters isolation and thus individuality. Novalis favors the Night because “she” is always loyal and dependable for Love. She is the only constant element in his life. The Day will only occur so long as one is living in the physical world, but Night will always occur, whether one is living in physical darkness or spiritual darkness.
But my secret heart stays true to the Night, and to creative Love, her daughter. Can you [bright Light] show me a heart that stays true forever? Has your sun got friendly eyes to recognize me? Do your stars take my desiring hand? And return my tender touch and loving word? Have you decorated them with colors and subtle shapes—or was it she, Love, who gave your jewels a higher, dearer meaning? What heaven, what pleasure does your life offer which outweighs death’s delights? (21)
Novalis therefore delights in the space of divine sanctity (Death) that he will come to know forever, and already is familiar with because of his connection to his earthly love for Sophie.
Night is presented as holy territory. In its dominion, it offers comfort for the human soul through images of the blessed Mother figure.
Doesn’t all that inspires us bear the color of the Night? It bears you mother-like, and you owe all your magnificence to her. You’d evaporate inside yourself—you’d crumble away in endless space if she didn’t hold you, tie you, so that you became warm… (21)
Images of Night as “the dark womb” and other blatant images signify the importance that “mother-like” comfort found in the Night is important for Novalis. As the “giver of life” and bearer of the womb, the mother takes on the role of “creator.” Through the mother’s feminine soul he constructs his “re-birth” into the womb, the place of his origin. “Night became the mighty womb of revelations” (29).
Alongside images of the womb there are also many references to bosoms in Hymns to the Night. Novalis makes references to the bosoms of “loving maternal goddesses,” as well as to the unending fruits of the first Virgin and Mother. In chapter five of his poem, he tells the legend in his own worlds of the beginning of time. He gives a description of the ancient gods, and their contentment with life, and eternal light and happiness. He makes references to goddess’s healthy bosoms coinciding with “love’s sacred intoxication,” and “wine poured by a visible fullness of youth.” The bosoms of the ancient world seem to carry more sexual implications, and the bosoms of the newer (Christian) world carry implications of maternity. Can the two be combined without elaborating on a long Freudian analysis? Indeed, drawing from previous information given about the female soul, the ideal romantic woman was the chaste, pure, and wholesome mother-like figure. All of her sexuality depended on these aspects in order for her to have worth to the romantic male.
While on the topic of bosoms, it would be fitting to insert a brief thought on the idea of nursing. Almighty love was directed onto the Mother’s bosom. Wordsworth once wrote,
Blest the Babe,
Nursed in his Mother’s arms, who sinks to sleep
Rocked on his Mother’s breast; who with his soul
Drinks in the feelings of his Mother’s eye! (Mellor 17)
Nursing is important to the Romantics because it graphically represents the male child absorbing female sentimentalities from his mother. Through realms filled with images of bosoms and wombs, Novalis revels in the dark night, and is reborn. He cherishes the symbols of the female soul, and in her becomes lost in his own sensitivity to the infinite, and emotional field of Night.
To sum up, Novalis uses the Night as his sensual playground in which to determine the dark secrets and mysteries of the human soul. It becomes obvious, however, that the dark secrets of the human soul have the essence of femininity behind them. The Romantic male artist and writer seek the unconditional love that only woman can give. The romantic definition of love that a woman bestows upon man is a love colored with his ideals of the “true feminine soul.” The love that a man returns a woman is nothing more than exalted, adoration that almost succeeds to a supernatural realm. Women would eventually be given more opportunity to evict the confines of the feminine soul, but the traditional female values still show signs of possession over the male’s conception of gender. It is still practice in this still male-dominated society to seek the loving care and shelter from a woman. The woman’s spiritual love is still a sanctuary for many men to seek refuge in. Popular musician, songwriter, and often categorized as poet, Bob Dylan summarizes this design well:
Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood
When blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud
I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."