Alchemy and the Poet: The Case of Novalis’s Heinrich von Ofterdingen

This study revisits Novalis’s Heinrich von Ofterdingen (1802), offering a groundbreaking alchemical interpretation of this quintessential Romantic novel. Through the lens of alchemy, the study reimagines the protagonist’s journey as an initiation into the mysteries of poetry, imbued with Orphic and mystical dimensions. It explores the novel’s structure and characters as reflections of alchemical transformation, revealing a poetic philosophy in which imagination transmutes reality.

Contextualizing Novalis’s thought within Romanticism and hermetic traditions, the book traces influences from Pietism, Gnosticism, and Jacob Böhme to alchemical symbolism. It demonstrates how Novalis weaves the symbolic language of alchemy into his vision of the poet as an agent of unity and renewal. The blue flower, central to the Romantic imagination, emerges as a potent alchemical symbol.

While alchemy is not the exclusive key to Heinrich von Ofterdingen, this study positions it as a rich interpretative framework, connecting Novalis’s work to contemporary discourses in literature, philosophy, and cultural studies. Ultimately, the book reaffirms alchemy’s enduring relevance in understanding transformation, both poetic and existential.