Fragments from Longfellow’s Workshop: Novalis
1947; Routledge; Volume: 22; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/19306962.1947.11786297
ISSN1930-6962
Autores ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size NotesJames Taft Hatfield, New Light on Longfellow with Special Reference to His Relations to Germany, Boston and New York, 1933.I should like at this point to express my sincere gratitude to Miss Anne Longfellow Thorp and Professor Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana for their kindness in permitting me to quote from manuscripts in the Longfellow House. Professor Dana has also followed the development of this article with great interest and has given me many valuable suggestions.I have not found Novalis in the first edition of 1845 (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Poets and Poetry of Europe, With Introductions and Biographical Notices, Philadelphia, 1845), in the New York and London edition of 1855, or in the Boston edition of 1871. In his preface Longfellow says: that it was “Mr. C. C. Felton, who has furnished me with a large portion of the biographical sketches prefixed to the translations.” According to Samuel Longfellow, Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, With Extracts From His Journals and Correspondence, Boston and New York (1886, 1887, 1891), II, 3–4, Longfellow was hindered when he began to edit The Poets and Poetry of Europe in 1843 by overstrained eyes and was obliged to call in the assistance of “his friend Mr. Felton, who prepared the greater part of the short biographical notices, sharing the honorarium as well as the labor. Mr. Longfellow furnished the various historical and critical ‘introductions,’ using sometimes material which he had already printed, and wrote a number of the translations.” The biographical notice on Novalis was probably written not by Longfellow but by Felton; it is in Felton’s handwriting. At the same time, it is scarcely conceivable that Longfellow did not examine it, because it is included among material which he published in the anthology and because, to judge by evidence to which we shall have occasion to refer later, he definitely intended to include Novalis in the anthology. It is, therefore, fair to assume that Longfellow was ultimately responsible for the contents of this sketch.Cf. Ersch and Gruber, loc. cit., p. 385: “Als sechzehnjähriger Jüngling kam Novalis zu einem Oheim, dem Landkomtur von Hardenberg, nach Luclum bei Braunschweig.”.Cf. Bayard Quincy Morgan, A Critical Bibliography of German Literature in English Translation, 1481–1927, Second Edition (Stanford University, 1938), p. 366: “*6966. (Heinrich v. Ofterdingen.) H: of O—. Tr. anon. Cambridge, Mass: Owen 1842. xviii; 236 p.”.The full details for these works follow. They will henceforth be referred to as “Novalis Schriften” and ” Henry of Ofterdingen”: Novalis Schriften. Herausgegeben von Ludwig Tieck und Friedrich Schlegel. Fünfte Auflage. I, II, Berlin, 1837.Henry of Ofterdingen: A Romance, From the German of Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg), Cambridge: John Owen, 1842. Longfellow’s interest in Heinrich von Ofterdingen originated no doubt, as Hatfield informs us, from his reading of this work with Clara Crowninshield in January, 1836, during his trip to Europe (Hatfield op. cit., pp. 32, 36–38, 42, 46–47, 71, 152). Longfellow’s Journal for January 2, 1836, runs as follows: “Saturday, Jan. 2, [1836]. Commenced reading a Romance of Novalis with Clara. Heinrich von Ofterdingen is it called. Wild and singular. It pleases me—and strangely beautiful thoughts peep out, which are gar zu schön.”.Cf. Novalis Schriften, I, xiii; Henry of Ofterdingen, iii-iv; Ersch und Gruber op. cit., p. 386.Cf. Novalis Schriften, Dritter Teil (Berlin, 1846); in Just’s life of Novalis, pp. 10 f. and passim. Cf. also Ersch und Gruber op. cit pp. 386, 387; Novalis Schriften, I, xiii, xv; Henry of Ofterdingen, iii f., v.Ersch und Gruber, op. cit., pp. 386, 387, 388; Novalis Schriften, I, xiii, xix, xx, xxvi; Henry of Ofterdingen, iii, vii, viii. According to Koberstein, Grundrisz der Geschichte der Deutschen Nationalliteratur, Fünfte Auflage (Leipzig, 1873), IV, 641, Tieck’s biography in Novalis Schriften and therefore also in the other sources mentioned here, is in error in dating Novalis’ first meeting with A. W. Schlegel as late as 1799. He sets it as 1796. However, he too states that Novalis met Friedrich Schlegel at an earlier date than his brother; cf. op. cit., p. 640.I, xxix f. Cf, also Henry of Ofterdingen, p. xiv f.It could not have been Goedeke’s Grundrisz. The only edition which Longfellow could have used was the first edition of 1859. An inquiry to the Library of Congress elicited the reply from Mr. Donald C. Holmes of the Photoduplication Service that an examination of that edition showed no reference to Novalis.Novalis Schriften, pp. 58–60.Ibid., p. 72 f.Ibid., pp. 96 ff. The stanzas in question occur on pages 97–98.Ibid., pp. 137–138.The following (from Note III) in Henry of Ofterdingen certainly does no credit to the critical insight of the translator or editor: “With one or two exceptions, the present romance is an unfavorable specimen of his [Novalis’] poetic powers. The subjects of most of the songs require only that luminous simplicity alluded to, and are only fine examples of a lyrical style, with a few glimpses of his true genius….The romance is unfavorable, excepting one or two prose passages of great sublimity, much resembling the ‘Hymns to the Night,’ one or two of which are given below.” Op. cit., p. 232.The heading of the clipping bears the place-name, “Okolona, Mississ.” On the opposite side we find the title “The Pra. (i?) … ” and, in an article entitled “A New Project for ‘Extending the Area of Freedom’,” the date San Francisco, 29th May, 1853, quoted in a letter to Governor Foote from the Flag of the Union. From Gregory’s bibliography of American newspapers 1821–1936 we learn that from 1851 to circa 1875 a weekly entitled Prairie News appeared in Okolona, Mississippi (Winifred Gregory, American Newspapers 1821–1936. A Union List of Files Available in the United States and Canada, [New York, 1937], p. 348), undoubtedly the journal in question. From the evidence cited we must assume that the poem could not have been published much later than May 29, 1853. Unfortunately, no more precise information could be obtained. A letter to the Department of Archives and History, State of Mississippi, Jackson, brought the following reply from its director, William D. McCain: “I regret that we have not been able to add to our file of The Prairie News, .… We do not have any issues in 1853. The February 3, 1858, issue was numbered Volume VI, No. 21.” The Huntington Library, according to Gregory (op. cit., p. 348), lists only one issue: for July 7, 1855.“An—,” op. cit., II, 47, 48. According to Minor, the poem was apparently dedicated to Adolph Selmnitz (Novalis Schriften, herausgegeben von J . Minor [Jena, 1923], I, 219). It is difficult to identify this person. Other references to him in Minor are: one in “Klarisse,” op. cit., II, 72: “Die Anekdote mit Selmnitz-von Bratern (?),” and two in Novalis’ Journal, ibid., p. 81: “Wie ich nach Haus kam—erfuhr ich, daß Selmnitzens vor dem Dorfe wären—ich ging zu ihnen hinaus,” and p. 85: “Selmitzens kamen—ich schrieb oben einiges auf.” Both are from around May, 1797, during Novalis’ stay inTennstädt and Grüningen following Sophie von Kühn’s death (Minor, II, 74 f., and passim). We conclude that the Selmnitz’ were personal friends of Sophie and Novalis.Specimens of Foreign Standard Literature, edited by George Ripley, Vol. XIV, containing Songs and Ballads, Translated from Uhland, Körner, Bürger, and other German Lyric Poets, With Notes, By Charles T. Brooks (Boston, London, 1842), p. 303, “Union.”It should be noted that Longfellow’s library possesses a copy of this volume as well, signed, “Henry W. Longfellow 1844.”.Cf. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th edition, XIV, 555–556. Cf. also, A Dictionary of Hymnology Setting Forth The Origin and History of Christian Hymns, of all Ages and Nations. Edited by John Julian. Revised Edition, with New Supplement (London, 1915), PP·707–708.George MacDonald and his Wife, With an Introduction by G. K. Chesterton (London, 1924), p. 159.E. Spenlé, in his study, Novalis. Essai sur l’ldéalisme Romantique en Allemagne (Paris, 1904), p. 266 f., points out the strong influence of Moravian pietism on the “Geistliche Lieder.” The initial impulse for this influence in the poems was the death of his sweetheart, but they can be fully understood only if we keep in mind the nature of Novalis’ Moravian home environment. Cf. also Henri Lichtenberger, Novalis (Paris, 1912), p. 11. The following quotation from George MacDonald’s Rampolli: Growths from a Long-Planted Root, etc., New York, Bombay, 1897, i.e., over forty years after his earlier translation from the “Spiritual Songs,” is of further interest in this connection: “With regard to the ‘Hymns to the Night’ and the ‘Spiritual Songs’ of Friedrich von Hardenberg, commonly called Novalis, it is desirable to mention that they were written when the shadow of the death of his betrothed had begun to thin before the approaching dawn of his own new life. He died in 1801, at the age of twenty-nine. His parents belonged to the sect called Moravians, but he had become a Roman Catholic.” Rampolli, p. vi. The last statement is, of course, incorrect, despite his sympathy for the mystical elements in Catholicism and the medievalism of his much-discussed Die Christenheit oder Europa..Morgan, op. cit., p. 610: “MacDonald, G: Exotics. L: Strahan 1876. xv; 177 p … . . Novalis, ‘Spiritual Songs’ ” (pp. 3–37). Cf. also, Joseph Johnson, George MacDonald, A Biographical and Critical Appreciation (London, 1906), p. 287: “Exotics” (a translation of the Spiritual Songs of Novalis, etc.). In Rampolli, MacDonald includes his translation of the entire cycle of Novalis’ fifteen “Spiritual Songs” (op. cit., pp. 17–36) with a number of other renderings of German poems.
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