MYSTIC POET NOVALIS

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 260, 29 July 1932, Page 12

MYSTIC POET NOVALIS

Dr. Henning Speaks on Life ADDRESS AT GERMAN CLUB An interesting address in the Ger- , man language was delivered recently at the German Club by Dr. I. A. Henning on the poet Novalls. Although comparatively little known in countries outside Germany, Friedrich von Hardenberg, the German mystic and romantic poet, whose pseudonym ' was Novalls, was one of the. most important and characteristic figures of the German romantic school in the beginning of the' nineteenth century, Dr. Henning said. Born in 1772, Novalls came successively under the influence of Schiller,, Goethe, and Friedrich Schlegel, and died at the age of 29. Almost the whole of his literary work was produced during the last four years •f his life. This work consists mainly of a small volume of poems, two essays, an unfinished novel, and a considerable number of “fragmente” or aphorisms, which were intended for development in later works. Among the most important of his poems were “Gesang der Toten” and the “Hymnen an die Nacht,” in which the word “night" represents the subconscious mind. The unfinished novel, “Heinrich von Ofterdingen,” which was intended to be a counterpart to Goethe’s “Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre,” formed one of the most typical extant examples of the German romantic conception of the novel as an art-form. The “fragmente,” ' however, formed Novaiis’s greatest contribution to literature, and exemplified clearly the reaction of the early romantic period to the European thought-currents immediately following on the time of the French Revolution. These fragments at their best illustrated the application of the conception of romantic irony, which was the most valuable contribution that German romanticism had made to art, and which solidified a tendency that was sti . visible to-day in a wide range of modern literature. Dr. Henning said. Later in the evening a number of popular German folk songs were sung. It was announced that members would , have the pleasure of hearing the wellknown Wellington trio, Symons-Ell-wood-Shortt, and vocal items by Mrs. Ginn, during the course of the next club meeting, which would be held on August 10 in Nimmo’s Hall.