Artwork: “Blue Flower 1” by Marion Donehower (Visual Arts Section)

“Dude! Why Should I Care About Novalis?”

A (very) Brief Introduction 

To the Poet

Hailed Repeatedly by Rudolf Steiner

As the “Herald of Anthroposophy”

Novalis is the only true poet of the Romantic school. In him alone the whole soul of Romanticism turned to song, and only he expressed nothing but that soul. The others, if they were poets at all, were merely Romantic poets: Romanticism supplied them with new motifs, it altered the direction of their development or enriched it, but they were poets before they recognized Romantic feelings in themselves and remained poets after they had completely abandoned Romanticism. Novalis’ life and work — there is no help for it, it is a platitude but it is the only way of saying it — form an indivisible whole, and as such they are a symbol of the whole of Romanticism.

 

— Georg Lukács, Soul and Form

“The Last Address” / Rudolf Steiner’s Final Lecture & Admonishment to the Membership

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