The Blaue Blume

NotesJutta Hecker, Das Symbol der Blauen Blume im Zusammenhang mit der Blumensymbolik der Romantik (Jena, 1931), p. 30.Ibid., pp. 29–34.William York Tindall, The Literary Symbol (New York, 1955), p. 16.Friedrich Hiebel, Novalis, Der Dichter der blauen Blume (Bern, 1951), p. 122.Novalis, Schriften, ed. Paul Kluckhohn (Leipzig, [1929]), I, 245. Further Novalis references will be indicated parenthetically in the text by volume and page of this edition.Hecker, pp. 22–23.For other interpretations of the symbolism of the blaue Blume, see Frederick Hiebel, “Zur Interpretation der ‘Blauen Blume’ des Novalis,” Monatshefte, XLIII, (November, 1951), 328–329; see also Edgar Ederheimer, Jakob Boehme und die Romantiker (Heidelberg, 1904), II, 6.See author’s article, “Herder and India: The Genesis of a Mythical Image,” PMLA, LXX (December, 1955), 1049–1058.Johann Gottfried Herder, Sämtliche Werke, ed. Bernhard Suphan (Leipzig, 1877–1913), XXIV, 360, 576, 578.Hecker, pp. 28–29.Hiebel, “Zur Interpretation,” says it is very significant that Novalis’ very first literary products were published under the title Blütenstaub and designated as “literarische Sämereien.” He quotes the aphorism: “Wie kann ein Mensch Sinn füretwas haben, wenn er nicht den Keim davon in sich hat. Was ich verstehen soll, muß sich in mir organisch entwickeln” (II, 17). Then Hiebel gives the fragment above, except that he omits the sentence beginning: “In Indian schlummern die Menschen noch immer...”; see p. 329 of the Hiebei article.Jean Paul, Sämtliche Werke, ed. Eduard Berend (Weimar, 1927 ff.), Vol. I, Part 3, p. 202.Ederheimer, p. 18.Georg Forster, Sakontala (Mainz, 1791), p. 219. Concerning this figure, Forster says: “das Bild ist wirklich schön in seiner Riesengröße,” p. 292.George Brandes, Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature (London, 1902), II, 217.E. Spenlé, Novalis (Paris, 1904), p. 314, n. 2.Hiebel, “Zur Interpretation,” p. 334. In the article cited, Hiebel calls attention to Arthur Avalon’s [John George Woodroffe] The Serpent Power, a translation of Shat-Chakra Nirūpana and Pādukā-Panchaka, two works on Laya Yoga containing the descriptions of symbolic, super-sensual lotuses. There was apparently no translation of these works until the appearance of Avalon’s book in 1924.Hecker, p. 29.In 1800 there existed the following translations from Sanskrit directly into European languages: Charles Wilkins: The Bhagvat-Geeta (1785); Charles Wilkins: The Heetopades of Veeshnoo-Sarma (1787); Méridas Poullé: Bagavadam ou Doctrine Divine (1788), from a Tamil version; Sir William Jones: Sakuntala (1789); Charles Wilkins: The Story of Dooshwanta and Sakoontala (1795); Sir William Jones: Gitagovinda (before 1799).Theodor Haering, Novalis als Philosoph (Stuttgart, 1954), pp . 630–632.Hans Peter Jaeger, Hölderlin-Novalis. Grenzen der Sprache (Zürich, 1949), p. 40.Goethe, Werke (Weimar, 1890), Vol. II, Part 1, p. 315, No. 781.Hecker, p. 23.Hiebel, Novalis, pp. 142–143.Forster, p. 310

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