Jena Romanticism and Its Appropriation of Jakob Böhme: Theosophy, Hagiography, Literature 9780773567870

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JENA ROMANTICISM AND ITS APPROPRIATION OF JAKOB BÖHME

Interest in German Romanticism has been revitalized in recent years by new post-structural, interdisciplinary, and intertextual perspectives. However until now this renewed interest has not led to a re-examination of Jakob Böhmes's formative influence on Jena Romanticism. In Jena Romanticism and Its Appropriation of Jakob Böhme Paola Mayer radically revises previous views, arguing that the relationship between Böhme and the Jena Romantics should be understood as appropriation rather than influence. This reversal of perspective leads to the recognition that Romanticism's interaction with Böhme was not passive but polemical, selective, and predatory. Not only was there not an influence, there was not even a Böhme, since his name and aspects of the writings were adapted to promote ideas wholly unrelated to any historical person or body of thought that might have been Böhme. These appropriations fall into two main groups: those pertaining to the name Böhme or a life assigned to it, and those involving concepts or images from the mystic's oeuvre. The first group constituted an attempt to co-opt the aura of sanctity attached to portrayals of the poet-prophet in order to invest Romantic Poesie with the sacral standing of religion. The second group, exemplified by Friedrich Schlegel and Friedrich Schelling, involved the borrowing and radical redefinition of a few concepts and images from Böhme's work in the hope of bridging the gap between the abstract first principle of idealism and the personal God that became an emotional necessity for both thinkers. Jena Romanticism and Its Appropriation of Jakob Böhme treats the Romantic reception of Böhme as a striking example of how the past is appropriated and rewritten in the service of self-affirmation. Analysing the need and the techniques for this self-affirmation sheds light on the nature of the self to be affirmed and on the content and underlying motivation of the Romantic program. PAOLA MAYER is assistant professor of European studies at the University of Guelph.

MCGILL-QUEEN'S STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF IDEAS 1 Problems of Cartesianism Edited by Thomas M. Lennon, John M. Nicholas, and John W. Davis 2

The Development of the Idea of History in Antiquity Gerald A. Press 3 Claude Buffier and Thomas Reid Two Common-Sense Philosophers Louise Marcil-Lacoste

4 Schiller, Hegel, and Marx State, Society, and the Aesthetic Ideal of Ancient Greece Philip J. Kain 5 John Case and Aristotelianism in Renaissance England Charles B. Schmitt 6 Beyond Liberty and Property The Process of Self-Recognition in Eighteenth-Century Political Thought J.A.W. Gunn 7 John Toland: His Methods, Manners, and Mind Stephen H. Daniel 8 Coleridge and the Inspired Word Anthony John Harding 9 The Jena System, 1804-5: Logic and Metaphysics G.W.F. Hegel Translation edited by John W. Burbidge and George di Giovanni Introduction and notes by H.S. Harris

10 Consent, Coercion, and Limit The Medieval Origins of Parliamentary Democracy Arthur P. Monahan 11 Scottish Common Sense in Germany, 1768-1800 A Contribution to the History of Critical Philosophy Manfred Kuehn 12 Paine and Cobbett The Transatlantic Connection David A. Wilson 13 Descartes and the Enlightenment Peter A. Schouls 14 Greek Scepticism Anti-Realist Trends in Ancient Thought Leo Groarke 15 The Irony of Theology and the Nature of Religious Thought Donald Wiebe 16 Form and Transformation A Study in the Philosophy of Plotinus Frederic M. Schroeder 17 From Personal Duties towards Personal Rights Late Medieval and Early Modern Political Thought, 1300-1600 Arthur P. Monahan 18 The Main Philosophical Writings and the Novel Allwill Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi Translated and edited by George di Giovanni 19 Kierkegaard as Humanist Discovering My Self Arnold B. Come

20 Durkheim, Morals, and Modernity W. Watts Miller 21 The Career of Toleration John Locke, Jonas Proast, and After Richard Vernon 2 2 Dialectic of Love Platonism in Schiller's Aesthetics David Pugh 23 History and Memory in Ancient Greece Gordon Shrimpton 24 Kierkegaard as Theologian Recovering My Self Arnold B. Come 25 An Enlightenment Tory in Victorian Scotland The Career of Sir Archibald Alison Michael Michie 26 The Road to Egdon Heath The Aesthetics of the Great in Nature Richard Bevis 2 7 Jena Romanticism and Its Appropriation of Jakob Böhme Theosophy - Hagiography - Literature Paola Mayer

JENA ROMANTICISM AND ITS APPROPRIATION OF JAKOB BÖHME Theosophy - Hagiography - Literature Paola Mayer

McGill-Queen's University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca

© McGill-Queen's University Press 1999 ISBN 0-7735-1852-5 Legal deposit third quarter 1999 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. McGill-Queen's University Press acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP)for its activities. We also acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program.

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Mayer, Paola Jena romanticism and its appropriation of Jakob Böhme: theosophy, hagiography, literature (McGill-Queen's studies in the history of ideas; 27) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7735-1 852-5

1. Romanticism-Germany. 2. Böhme,Jakob, 1575-1624-Influence, 3. Philosophy, German—19th century, I. Title, II. Series. PT365.B64M39 1999 141'.6'094309034 c99-900848-x

This book was typeset by Typo Litho Composition Inc. in 10/12 Baskerville.

Contents

Acknowledgments ix Introduction 3

I JAKOB BÖHME: HIS THOUGHT AND EARLY RECEPTION 9 1 The Seduction of Influence: A Forschungsbericht 2 Böhme's Thought: A Précis 18 3 Böhme's Reception in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: A Typology 26

11

II JAKOB BÖHME AND THE JENA CIRCLE: THE STORY OF A RECEPTION 53

4 5 6 7

The Discovery: Ludwig Tieck 55 An Interrupted Reception: Novalis 76 Towards a Mystical Science: J.W. Ritter 96 The Limits of the Reception: F.E.D. Schleiermacher, A.W., Caroline and Dorothea Schlegel 101

III FROM UNIVERSALPOESIE TO CHRISTIAN IDEALISM: BÖHME'S THOUGHT AND PHILOSOPHICAL ROMANTICISM 111

8 Universalpoesie, Mythology, and Christian Idealism: Friedrich Schlegel 113 9 Idealism, Human Freedom, and the Problem of Evil: F.WJ. Schelling 179 10 Conclusion 222 Bibliography 227 Index 239

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Acknowledgments

The origins of the present study lie in my PhD dissertation, written at Princeton University under the supervision of Theodore Ziolkowski. To him I owe especial thanks for all his help and advice both during my time at Princeton and in subsequent years. Heartfelt gratitude is due to my friend and mentor, Hans Eichner, whose advice and support has accompanied me throughout my scholarly life, and who has generously read and commented on more than one version of this study. Of the many colleagues from whose insights and encouragement I have profited I would like to mention Steven Taubeneck, with whom I thrashed out many an idea in highly enjoyable discussions, the late Ernst Behler, who repeatedly placed his vast knowledge at my disposal, and Jim Carscallan, who graciously acted as well informed and sympathetic sounding board for my views on the reception of Neoplatonism and helped me with some thorny translation problems. My thanks also go to the readers of my dissertation, Walter Hinderer and Emory Snyder, who provided useful pointers on new areas to be explored. By far the greatest debt is a personal rather than professional one: to my husband, without whose support (both practical and emotional) this book could not have been completed. Some parts of the argument in chapters 4 and 5 have appeared previously in my article "Reinventing the Sacred: The Romantic Myth of Jakob Böhme" in German Quarterly 69 (1996): 247-59.1 should like to thank the editor of German Quarterly for permission to reuse this material. I am very grateful to the staff of McGill Queen's University Press, particularly to the editor whose suggestions resulted in a number of technical and stylistic improvements. Much of the work on this study was carried out in my two years as Killam Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia. The publication of this book is made possible by a grant

x

Acknowledgments

from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities (ASPP). I gratefully acknowledge the support of both organizations. NOTE ON TRANSLATION

In order to make this study more generally accessible, translations of all quotations are provided in footnotes (or in parentheses). I have used published translations where available. These are cited in the footnotes and in the bibliography. All other translations are my own. EDITORIAL NOTE

Square brackets indicate editorial additions by the editors of the critical editions I quote. Curly brackets indicate my own editorial additions. In all chapters except chapter 8 italics indicate my emphasis unless otherwise stated. In chapter 8 the reverse is true: italics are in the original unless otherwise stated.

JENA ROMANTICISM AND ITS APPROPRIATION OF JAKOB BÖHME

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Introduction

In 1805 the first two volumes of a selection of Kotzebue's prose works were published. An anonymous - and highly unfavourable - review (1806) singled out one text for particular criticism: the novel entitled Des Pfarrers Tochter (The Vicar's Daughter). Especially galling to the reviewer1 were the satirical barbs that were directed most insistently at the first generation of Romantics, the group of friends assembled at the Jena home of the Schlegel brothers. The novel ridicules the Romantics by identifying their views and interests with those of Hortensia Holla, the neither very beautiful nor very young daughter of a seemingly rich industrialist, who considers herself greatly gifted, both intellectually and artistically. Her attempts to ensnare the hero (Carl Fernau, a distant relative of hers) into marriage provide both the rather thin plot and the overwhelming opportunities for invective against the Romantics' programme. Kotzebue's attack on the Romantics depends on guilt by association. Hortensia is a devotee of Romanticism, and Hortensia is a ridiculous and unsympathetic character, from which it follows that Romanticism is ridiculous and in the worst of taste. Along the same lines, the opprobrium attaching to the Jena Romantics extends beyond them to any author or idea with which they were associated. In just such unfavourable light the seventeenth century mystic Jakob Bohme makes his appearance in Kotzebue's novel. When Fernau falls in love with the beautiful and innocent pastor's i Luigi Pareyson believes that the anonymous reviewer was Schelling: "Schellings Verfasserschaft ist von Erich Frank aus stilistischen Grunden iiberzeugend bewiesen worden." "Schelling's authorship has been proven convincingly by Erich Frank on stylistic grounds." This may or may not be true (stylistic analysis has not always been reliable in this respect); in any case, it is clear that the reviewer was in sympathy with the Romantics (Schellingiana Rariora, 254).

4

Introduction

daughter (the opposite of Hortensia in every way and the heroine of the story), Hortensia decides to keep the two apart. For this purpose, she replaces the divine service in church with a private one at home: "und das geschah hochst erbaulich in folgender Ordnung: zuerst declamirte Hortensia ein Sonnet von Tiec {sic} an die heilige Jungfrau; hierauf mu|3te Fernau ein Kapitel aus Jacob Bohm vorlesen; diesem folgte das fromme und herzriihrende Schauspiel: der Triumph des Kreuzes, durch dessen Ubersetzung aus dem Spanischen sich Herr Schlegel ein unsterbliches Verdienst um die deutschen Christen erworben hat; den ganzlichen Beschlup machten einige Gedichte von Novalis."2 In case his readers should have missed the point, Kotzebue, who was obviously not much given to subtlety, proceeds to make clear what they are to think of these texts: "Fernau, der, um mit Jean Paul zu reden, nur ein Stylistiker war, und das Ungluck hatte, alle diese Herrlichkeiten fur erbarmliche Abgeschmacktheiten zu halten, litt naturlich grope Pein. Endlich wurde das verdammte Reimgeklapper von den Bedienten im Nebenzimmer durch Tellergeklapper abgelo(3t, welches sich von jenem nur dadurch unterscheidet, dap es doch am Ende zu etwas Nahrhaftem fuhrt."3 A further reference to Bohme occurs on the occasion of a dinner party to which Hortensia has caused the pastor's daughter to be invited, for the purpose of eclipsing her by means of wit and learning. To this end she has chosen to espouse the viewpoint of Schiller's Cotter Griechenlands (The Gods of Greece): "In der Residenz pflegte sie zu frommeln mit der poetischen Poesie, hier aber schien das Frommeln ihr ein zu enger Tummelplatz ... Ferner offnete sich ihr, wenn sie dem herrlichenJacob Bohm fur ein Weilgen abtriinnig wurde, ein weites Feld, ihre Kenntnisse in der Mythologie zu zeigen."4 The modern reader should 2 Kotzebue, KleineRomane, i: 49. "and this happened very edifyingly in the following order: first Hortensia recited a sonnet to the Virgin Mary by Tieck; then Fernau had to read a chapter of Jakob Bohme; this was followed by the pious and moving play: The Triumph of the Cross. In translating this from the Spanish, Mr. Schlegel has earned eternal credit from German Christians; some poems by Novalis formed the conclusion." 3 Kotzebue, Kleine Romane, i: 49. "Femau who - to quote Jean Paul - was only a stylist, and who had the misfortune to consider all these splendours miserable insipidities, naturally suffered great pain. Finally the damned rattle of rhymes was replaced by the servants in the adjoining room by the rattie of plates which is distinguished from the former only in so far as it leads in the end to something nourishing." 4 Kotzebue, Kleine Romane, i: 54. "In the town she used to make a show of piety with poetical poetry, here however making a show of piety seemed to be too narrow a field ... In addition, a wide field opened up for her to show her knowledge of mythology, when she deserted the wonderful Jacob Bohme for a while."

Introduction

5

be in no more doubt as to the actual butt of these attacks than was the anonymous reviewer of 1806, who, speaking of an excerpt from an English biography of Camoens included in Kotzebue's edition, comments: "ein Gliick fur Camoens, dass ihn Hr. Schlegel nicht gleich dem Calderone iibersetzte, sonst stande er nicht hier, sondern in der Bibliothek der Kusine."5 Paradoxically, despite its tendentiousness, Kotzebue's satire delivers all the threads of the Jena circle's reception of Bohme into our hands, rather more accurately, indeed, than have influence studies written by twentieth-century scholars. The first episode quoted here, Hortensia's pseudodivine service, targets a salient (and universally recognized) aspect of the Jena Romantic programme: the fusion of religion and Poesie.6 Specifically, Kotzebue wishes to arouse indignation at what he may well have felt was the blasphemous nature of this fusion. By it, Poesie is equated with religion, poetic texts are raised to the rank (or in his satire take the place) of scriptural ones. By placing Bohme in this context alongside Tieck, Novalis, and Calderon, Kotzebue is making several significant claims, or better said, is attempting to ridicule several claims made by the Jena Romantics. To begin with, Bohme is named not as a mystic and prophet (whether true or false), as he had always been up to this time, but as a religious poet. The novelty of this classification may not be as striking in our post-Romantic age as it was at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and therefore needs to be stressed. Bohme appears in Kotzebue's satire in the guise of a religious poet because the Schlegel circle extolled him in this guise. Clearly, this notion appeared to Kotzebue so outrageous, so overwhelmingly absurd, that, like the phrase "poetische Poesie," it had only to be cited to convince every reader of good taste that the Romantics were beyond the pale. Kotzebue's reaction alerts us to another facet of the Romantic championship of Bohme, one not as readily evident from the satire,

5 Schellingiana Rariora, 260. "it was lucky for Camoens that Mr. Schlegel did not translate him as he translated Calderon. Otherwise his works would not be here but in the library of the cousin." 6 Throughout this book, I use the German term Poesie because no adequate English equivalent exists, particularly not for the wealth of connotations that the term acquired at the hands of the Jena Romantics. Perhaps the closest equivalent in English would be literature, and sometimes the Romantics do use it in this generic sense. At other times, however, Poesie applies not to all literature but to literature that is truly poetic, that meets the Romantics' own normative requirements.

6

Introduction

but implied by the company Bohme keeps in Hortensia's library. Bohme is a Romantic poet. Eventually, particularly in the eyes of critics, this means that he is classed with Tieck, Novalis, and the Schlegels, but originally, for the members of the Jena circle themselves, this meant that Bohme was coopted into the canon of paraclassicist poets (alongside Shakespeare, Cervantes, Calderon, Dante etc.), by which the Romantics sought to subvert the literary establishment's notions of good taste. Given the previous history of Bohme's reception, his inclusion in a literary canon could only be an act of provocation, a particularly blatant piece of coat trailing, and a palpably successful one, as witness Kotzebue's reaction. The Romantic reception of Bohme as reflected in Kotzebue's satire might be termed hagiographic, since it attempts to create for its object die aura and authority of sainthood. This is hagiography with a new twist, however, hagiography adapted to a new cause, since the religion to which Bohme the prophet and martyr is meant to witness is that of Romantic Poesie. As I shall show, two considerations played a part in the selection of Bohme for this role, both linked with his previous reception (s): certain Pietist circles had already presented Bohme as a prophet and martyr for the true religion, so that the Romantics only had to add the tide of poet in order to turn him into a particularly apt example of the fusion of religion and Poesie; secondly, at the hands of representatives of enlightened thinking and neoclassical literary standards Bohme enjoyed particularly negative notoriety, which in turn made him a particularly effective - and offensive - weapon for polemic. One type of reception that twentieth-century scholars have regarded as central does not appear at all in Kotzebue's satire: the philosophical reception. This, contrary to what might be expected, rather adds than detracts from the accuracy of the portrait. Kotzebue might easily have overlooked that Bohme's theosophy was crucial to shaping Romantic philosophy, but this was not the case. No such philosophical reception had taken place by 1805, and none ever took place within the context of a Romantic circle. To some extent, during the years of the group's life at Jena, a philosophical reception was in preparation. Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis were both reading Bohme in the hope of appropriating ideas with which to construct a Romantic version of idealism. Novalis, however, never advanced past this preliminary stage, so that only Friedrich Schlegel and Schelling achieved an active reception of Bohmist material in their philosophical writings. In both cases, this appropriation did not occur until long after the demise of Jena Ro-

Introduction

7

manticism (in 1805 for Schlegel, in 1809 for Schelling). Furthermore, in both cases the Bohme reception is bound up with a transitional and relatively short-lived phase of their philosophical development. The philosophical reception of Bohme in early Romanticism, in other words, is both different in import and more limited in extent than has generally been assumed.

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PART I

Jakob Bohme: His Thought and Early Reception

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1

The Seduction of Influence: A Forschungsbericht The view of the Romantic reception of Bohme presented in the introduction runs counter to the one prevalent in Romantic scholarship from the early nineteenth century to this day. It is my contention that the theory of Bohme's formative influence on Romantic thought is the outcome of a myth, the very hagiographic myth that, as I have already claimed and will demonstrate over the course of Part n, the Romantics themselves deliberately created as part of their campaign to enhance the status of Romantic Poesie. I shall first survey reactions to their strategy. I have already examined one such response in Kotzebue's satire, but Kotzebue was not the only contemporary to take the route pointed out by the Jena circle and see traces of Bohme everywhere in Romanticism. In his review of Schleiermacher's Uber die Religion: Reden an die Gebildeten unter ihren Verdchtern (On Religion: Speeches to its Cultural Despisers), the theologian F.H.C. Schwarz describes the work as very controversial and outlines some possible interpretations for it. Among these is the view that the Reden might well be regarded "als ein Produkt der tiefsten Philosophic oder der Mystik im Geiste Jakob Bohms."1 In the same year (1800), an anonymous reviewer of Schleiermacher's Vertraute Briefe uber Schlegels Lucinde (Intimate Letters on Schlegel's Lucinde) makes a similar association, though in a far different spirit. Ridiculing the Romantics' plea for freedom to express feelings, the unknown critic cries out: "O Jacob Bohme! Jacob Bohme! Und ihr

i Schleiermacher, Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Complete Critical Edition), 1.2: LXXI, note 230. "as a product of the most profound philosophy or of mysticism in the spirit of Jakob Bohme."

12

Jakob Bohme

frischen Bliithen der Sinnlichkeit."2 These two references are remarkable because Bohme is mentioned in neither of Schleiermacher's works, nor, as will be discussed later, is there any reason to think that Schleiermacher ever read the theosophist. Clearly, they are the product of a widespread belief that Romanticism was inextricably linked with Bohmism, a belief based on something other than evidence of intertextual connections. The connection once having caught the public fancy, it became a favoured butt of satirical attacks against Romanticism, as witness the most famous of their opponents, Heinrich Heine, who, as late as 1835 (in his Die romantische Schule) complained: "Unter den Verrucktheiten der romantischen Schule in Deutschland verdient das unaufhorliche Riihmen und Preisen des Jakob Bohme eine besondere Erwahnung."3 The thesis - advanced in the twentieth century by some scholars and more or less universally accepted - that Bohme's theosophy had a decisive, formative influence on Romantic thought derives from the attention this topic received in the previous century, though it is arguably further astray in that it seeks to establish causal connections between texts, while overlooking the polemical, hagiographic use of Bohme's name. Rather astonishing is the widespread currency that this thesis - based on speculation supported by often flimsy evidence - has been able to achieve. Histories of Romanticism, the earliest as well as the latest, characteristically refer to Bohme's influence as an established fact. Rudolf Haym's Die romantische Schule: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des deutschen Geistes (1870) mentions Bohme's influence on Novalis, Friedrich Schlegel (whose idealism he describes as "ein Gemisch aus Fichte und Bohme"4), and Tieck, for whom Bohme was a "Hauptheiliger."5 In her Die Romantik (1899-1901), Ricarda Huch refers to "Der unter den Romantikern beliebte, viel gelesene Jakob Bohme."6 She does not expand on this beyond remarking that Tieck admired the mystic because he achieved a harmonious reconciliation of spirit and nature. A hundred years after 2 Schleiermacher, Kritische Gesamtausgabe, 1.3: LXV. "Oh Jacob Bohme! Jacob Bohme! And you fresh blossoms of sensuality." 3 Heine, Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe (Complete Historical-Critical Edition), 8. i: 185. "Amongst the idiocies of the Romantic School in Germany the constant praising and extolling of Jakob Bohme deserves a special mention." 4 "a mixture of Fichte and Bohme." 5 Haym, Die romantische Schule, 348, 618, 679. "a major saint." 6 Huch, Die Romantik, i: 188. "Jakob Bohme, who was popular and much read among the Romantics."

The Seduction of Influence

13

Haym, Schulz termed Bohme the "Abgott so vieler junger deutscher Intellektueller um i8oo"7 and traces echoes of his thought in works by Tieck, Novalis, Arnim, and Eichendorff. Nor is it unusual to come across claims (made in passing and left quite unsupported) that Romanticism would have been unthinkable without Bohme: "{Bohmes Einflup auf die Romantik} ist so grop, da|3 man fast sagen konnte, ohne Bohme ware ein betrachtlicher Teil romantischen Denkens und Schaffens nicht moglich gewesen";8 "Es macht das Entscheidende der ganzen romantischen Bewegung aus, da(3 sie diesem (i.e., Bohme's} Denken begegnet ist. Bohme ist einfach der Denker der Romantik geworden."9 The reader who seeks a detailed exposition of this influence supposedly exerted by Bohme will be deterred by the absence of comprehensive studies on the subject. Schelling's reception of Bohme has indeed been the subject of much debate, but not within the context of Romanticism (or at least only of late Catholic Romanticism). On the literary side, only three dissertations exist, two of which deal solely with Novalis, the other with Novalis and Tieck. Philosophical and literary historical studies have, in other words, taken little or no notice of each other, to the great detriment of both. Furthermore, studies on the topic have so far proceeded on the assumption of influence, and therefore suffer from similar handicaps. The claim of influence implies that the reading of Bohme brought about a decisive change in the thought of the writer in question. To substantiate this, it becomes necessary to show, first, that a radical change took place, secondly, that it is causally connected with similarities to Bohme making their first appearance in the recipient's oeuvre, thirdly, that these similarities are indeed due to borrowing from Bohme rather than from other sources or even to coincidence. This standard of proof has never been and in my opinion cannot be successfully met. Furthermore, the effort expended on investigating claims of this type has barred the way for investigation of other issues, i.e., the motivation for and significance of the Romantic championship of Bohme.

7 G. Schulz, Die deutsche Literatur, 7. 2: 782. "the idol of so manyyoung German intellectuals around 1800." 8 Goldammer, Paracelsus, 68. "{Bohme's influence on Romanticism} is so great that one could almost say without Bohme a considerable part of Romantic thought and writing would not have been possible." 9 Fuhrmans, Schellings Philosophic, i20. "It is the decisive element of the whole Romantic movement that it encountered his {i.e. Bohme's} thought. Bohme simply became the thinker of Romanticism."

14

Jakob Bohme

A brief examination of the dissertations on Novalis and Bohme will illustrate the drawbacks of the influence thesis.10 The first of these was Edgar Ederheimer's Jakob Boehme und die Romantiker (1904); there followed Walter Feilchenfeld's, Der Einflufi Jacob Bohmes auf Novalis (1922), and Carl Paschek's, Der Einflufi Jacob Bohmes auf das Werk Friedrich von Hardenbergs (Novalis) (1966). In addition, Jacques Roos devotes a chapter to Novalis which is similar to the other studies in both approach and content.11 Each of these works touches upon at least one important element of Romanticism's relationship with Bohme: the portrayal of nature, the relationship of God and nature, Bohme's work as an example of true Poesie, Bohme as a Christian expression of the union of philosophy, physics, and Poesie. Yet in every case, the exclusive concentration on the question of influence prevented each scholar from capitalizing on these insights, so that each ultimately offers little more than a catalogue of similarities and an unconvincing case for a causal relationship. Ederheimer considers Bohme and the Romantics as "seelenverwandt,"12 particularly with respect to the pantheism that he attributes to them.13 Quite aside from the dubious validity of this reading, his arguments are based on shared ideas so general as to be common to most of Western Christian thought, or on inconclusive similarities in style and vocabulary. In the preface to his dissertation, Feilchenfeld condemns Ederheimer's lack of scholarly rigour, only to fall into all the same traps when presenting his own case. His argument for the existence of an indirect influence by Bohme on Novalis (later followed by a direct one) is circular, in that it seeks to explain similarities to Bohme in Novalis' early work by an influence mediated through Lavater's oeuvre, then argues for the existence of these similarities on the grounds that Lavater must have transmitted Bohmist ideas to his disciple, Novalis. In any case, as Paschek later pointed out (6^ff), this view is founded on a shaky premise, since it is not at all certain that Lavater even admired Bohme, 10 Scholarship on Bohme's influence on Schelling will be discussed in Part in, since it is more extensive and the issues more complex. 11 Jacques Roos, Aspects litteraires du mysticisme philosophique et I'influence de Boehme et de Swedenborg au debut du romantisme: William Blake, Novalis, Ballanche (Strasbourg: Editions P.-H. Heitz 1951). 12 "soul mates." 13 For example, Ederheimer, Boehme, claims that Bohme's God was "eine allgemeine Personifikation der Natur" (11), "a general personification of nature"; and the resulting system, "nichts weiter als eine echt sinnbildliche Naturbetrachtung" (95), "nothing but a truly symbolic representation of nature."

The Seduction of Influence 15

let alone adopted any of his ideas. Most problematic of all is Feilchenfeld's interpretation of Bohme's direct influence on Novalis - one with which Paschek is in substantial agreement. Bohme, they both argue, induced Novalis to turn away from philosophy and concentrate exclusively on poetry. That is to say, according to Feilchenfeld, Bohme caused Novalis to reject magic idealism in order to embrace antiintellectualism, love, and religion; according to Paschek, Novalis abandoned philosophical speculation and, using Bohme as a model for both form and content, concentrated on writing a truly poetic novel. In either case, the causal connection is not capable of proof since both can offer no substantiation beyond parallels in ideas and vocabulary which are not unique to Bohme and Novalis.14 Ultimately, the difficulties encountered by these and other studies (such as most of those devoted to Schelling's reception of Bohme) can be laid at the door of the influence thesis. Claims of an influence exerted by Bohme's works on the Romantics' works almost inevitably beg the question, since they cite coincidences in ideas or terminology as proof of influence, then use the influence to explain the coincidences in ideas or terminology. Only in two cases can argumentation of this type escape circularity: when the shared material is unique to the two writers in question (something that never happens with the Romantic appropriation of Bohme), or at least when the correspondence extends to both content and form and is demonstrably greater than to any alternative source, something that only happens with Schelling's Freiheitsschrift (Of Human Freedom] and, to a lesser extent, with Friedrich Schlegel's Cologne lectures; failing this, external supportive evidence that the earlier writer was in the later one's mind at the time of the supposed influence is needed. Influence studies have, not unreasonably, used the Romantics' enthusiastic statements about Bohme - and about Bohme's effect on themselves - to this latter purpose. They have done so, however, without first questioning whether these statements in fact substantiate the connection on which the influence thesis depends, that is, between Bohme's works and the Romantics' literary output. In so doing, scholars have taken certain of the Romantics' own statements on faith, without considering the context and goals in each instance. As a result, polemical claims intended to advance a programme have too often been taken for simple statements of fact. 14 Of these two dissertations, Paschek's is distinguished by greater caution and scholarly rigour, so that he was able to rectify several of his predecessors' wilder assumptions.

16

Jakob Bohme

A first task of a new study is thus a critical evaluation of the Romantics' own statements about Bohme, one which will pay especial attention to the context, the underlying motivation, and the strategies at work in each case. This investigation forms the main focus of Part II and results in the thesis that much of the reception involves not the actual works of the historical Bohme, but the persona of a legendary Bohme, constructed partly by radical Pietists in search of a martyr, partly by the Jena Romantics in search of a poet-prophet who could be used to secure sacral authority for Poesie. A second task is the reexamination of the evidence for borrowing, whether actual or merely intended, from Bohme's works themselves. This reexamination must entail a revisiting of earlier claims, with a view to either proving or dismissing them, but this is not the main focus of interest. The emphasis here will not be on establishing an authoritative list of borrowed material - an impossible and ultimately futile undertaking - but rather to uncover the reason for and significance of the reception, to determine what can be learned about the Romantics' programme (in its philosophical, religious and literary dimensions), strategies and goals from the use they made of Bohme. For this purpose, comments about Bohme and a small sampling of the more specific and substantial, and therefore demonstrable, intertextual connections in the works will be sufficient. Since, as has already been stated, an active, philosophical reception can only be documented for Schelling and Friedrich Schlegel, this will be the focus of Part III, devoted to these two thinkers. Two further remarks must be made regarding the scope and methodology of this study. Though I have so far spoken of "the Romantics," this book will limit itself to the first generation of German Romantics, more specifically, to the group who gravitated to the Jena home of the Schlegels (Tieck, Novalis, Schelling, Schleiermacher, Ritter, the Schlegel brothers, Caroline Schlegel, and Dorothea Veit). To consider later Romantics would broaden the focus beyond manageable proportions, since the Jena group started a fashion with their championship of Bohme, with the result that casual references to Bohme the poet became something of a commonplace. A more important issue is finding a suitable name for the relationship obtaining between Bohme and his Romantic recipients. As already argued, the term influence is both inappropriate and misleading. To sum up the objections, "influence" attributes to Bohme's theosophic writings an active, formative role, to the Romantics the passive one of disciples; it also leaves out of the equation the role played by the Bohme who is the product of Romantic hagiography. Of other possible

The Seduction of Influence

17

terms (beside the neutral "reception"), "appropriation" seems to me the most apt.15 It allows us to include the man as well as the works, the mythical and constructed as well as the historical. More importantly, it characterizes accurately the nature of the relationship: deliberately selective, polemical, or even tendentious, creative and aggressive in the changes it operated in the borrowed material - one might almost say, predatory. Indeed, if one wanted to employ the term influence, one would have to reverse its direction. The Romantics were not changed by their encounter with Bohme, they were merely pleased to discover a convenient tool for their anticlassicist, antirationalist polemics and, later, a source of apt phrases with which Christian idealism might be expounded. On the other hand, Bohme, or better said, his public image and the prevailing reading of his theosophy, were drastically changed by the treatment they received at the Romantics' hands, to a degree that has yet to be fully realized.

15 For a precis of the history of the meanings and scholarly applications of the word "appropriation" see Prickett, Origins of Narrative, s6ff. Prickett argues that a definition must encompass both the negative and the positive connotations of the word: "there is in the very idea of 'appropriation' both a quality of thinly disguised theft and a recognition that such a take-over is a necessary part of the way in which any person, or even society, makes an idea its own — that appropriation is, in other words, a normal condition of intellectual and cultural vitality" (Origins of Narrative, 32, emphasis in the original).

2

Bohme 's Thought: A Precis

Jakob Bohme (1575-1624), the son of relatively well-to-do peasants, was a citizen of Gorlitz and a shoemaker, though he later abandoned this calling in favour of shopkeeping in order to have more time to dedicate to his writing. Though certainly not a learned man, he was by no means so unlettered as he represented himself or has since occasionally been portrayed, and there can be no doubt that he was fairly well read at least in the fields of alchemy and mysticism. In particular, a degree of indebtedness to such precursors as Paracelsus or Valentin Weigel cannot be disputed. Bohme maintained (and this was firmly believed at least by his Pietist admirers) that the source of his teachings was direct divine revelation, conferred on him by means of two visions or illuminations. These occurred in 1600 and 1610, the second more or less directly resulting in the writing of his first work, Die Morgenrote im Aufgang or Aurora (1612; The Rising Dawn or Aurora).1 The unusual nature of Bohme's theogony, and probably even more his attacks on reason and on the outward forms of observance when not supported by spiritual rebirth and illumination, met with strong condemnation from the Lutheran orthodoxy, in the person of the pastor primarius of Gorlitz, Gregor Richter. Richter considered Bohme a dangerous heretic and left no stone unturned in his campaign to silence the mystic. This in turn could not fail to strengthen Bohme's dislike of institutionalized religion, which found expression in increasingly bitter

i Bohme's works normally have a German and a Latin title. I shall refer to them by the Latin name, as is the usual practice in scholarship.

Bohme's Thought

19

invective against nominal Christians and churches made merely of stone instead of believers.2 It is not easy to give a precis of Bohme's thought without simplifying or glossing over obscurities and contradictions. Much of his terminology, whether used only by himself or taken over and adapted (more or less idiosyncratically) from other sources, defies clear definition. Furthermore, the nature and function of various concepts constantly changed from one work to the other. Consequently, any accurate account must be a genetic one. The exposition of Bohme's theosophical system in its entirety would be well beyond the scope of the present study. The following precis therefore concentrates on the few salient themes that were of particular interest to the Romantics, namely: the notion of a self-generating divinity manifesting itself in and through creation, the explanation of evil, the role played by will and desire, both in the genesis of the world and in the salvation of man.3 The basic building block of Bohme's system are the seven qualities (variously Quellgeister, Qualitdten, Quaaleri)4 of which both God and the universe are constituted. Their precise nature is difficult to establish;

2 See for instance De incarnatione verbi (On the Incarnation of the Word) i, 13,3: "O die wahre Kirche Christi hat kein Gesetz, Christus ist der Tempel, da wir mussen eingehen, der Steinhauffe machet keinen neuen Menschen; aber der Tempel Christi, da Gottes Geist lehret, der wecket die halb-todte Bildnip auf ... Darum thuts dieser Welt Witz gar nicht, sie machet nur Hoffart und aufgeblasene Vernunft, sie will oben aus und will herrschen"; "O! alas! the true Church of Christ has no Law: Christ is the Temple or Church, into which we must enter. The Heaps of stone make no New Men; but the Temple, Christ, wherein God's Spirit teaches, that awakens and raises up the half dead Image ... Therefore the wit and wisdom of this World does it not, it makes only Pride and Puft-up Reason, it will fly out aloft, and desires to rule and domineer" (Bohme, Works, 2: 78). Mysterium magnum 36, 34: "Da(i wir aber zertrant sind, und in Meinungen eingefuhret worden, das ist die Ursache der Baumeister (i.e. vom Turm von Babel): Als der hohen Schulen, Pfaffen, Pabste, Bischofe, Doctoren"; "But the very Cause that we are divided and brought into Opinions, is, by Reason of our Master-builders and Founders, viz. of the high Schools, Priests, Popes, Bishops, Doctors" (Bohme, Works, 3: 202). Citations from Bohme's works are from Theosophia Revelata (n.p. 1730), repr. as Jakob Bohme, Sdmtliche Schriften, ed. Wilhelm Erich Peuckert (Stuttgart: Frommann 1955-61). References are given by title of work, then chapter and paragraph numbers. 3 For a comprehensive account of Bohme's thought see especially Alexandre Koyre, La Philosophie deJacob Boehme (Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin 1929), or of recent studies, David Walsh, The Mysticism of Innerworldly Fulfillment: A Study of Jacob Boehme (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida 1983), and Andrew Weeks, Boehme. An Intellectual Biography of the Seventeenth-Century Philosopher and Mystic (Albany: SUNY Press 1991). 4 In Bohme, Works, translated as qualifying or fountain spirits, qualities, sources.

2O

Jakob Bohme

they seem to be something like forces or determinations, "{quelque chose} qui 'fait' qu'une chose est telle, quelque chose qui la rend telle en s'y incarnant et en y penetrant."5 Their names and respective roles, too, change from the earlier to the later works, but their function is clear enough: their interaction, their desire to possess or escape each other produces life of every kind and at every level. The first three or four qualities always retain a double potentiality - they are the source of life but also the dark core of the divinity which, if not mitigated by other qualities, becomes the fire of wrath, that is, hell. In the Aurora, the first and third qualities, namely, sharpness (contraction) (Herbe) and the pungency of bitterness, irritate and combat each other, producing a dark fire. This can be transformed into light and become a recipient of divine love if mitigated by the second quality, sweetness or water. The fourth quality is heat, generated by the struggle of the first and third, and the fifth is love, which makes a harmonious cooperation possible. The sixth quality is sound, while the seventh is the synthesis and product of the other six, being corporality or nature itself. Movement, and therefore life, is generated by the mutual attraction and repulsion of contraction and bitterness, and body - of God as well as of creatures - is created above all by the first four qualities, though it must be noted that this is not a coarse material body, but an intangible

Kraftleib.6 Tangible bodies are produced by excessive contraction in the

intangible ones, extinguishing light, rejecting love and producing a hardness which is a kind of death.7 Bohme's next work, De tribus principiis (1619; On the three Principles) , superimposes a Paracelsian model based on three principles and their corresponding elements (Sulphur, Mercurius, and Sal) on the earlier one based on the seven qualities - with somewhat confusing results. The three principles can be best described as modes of God's existence. The first, the principle of Zornigkeitor Grimmigkeit (anger, wrathfulness), is a dark fire and the source of all life. It results from the interaction of 5 Koyre, La philosophic, 88. "{something} which causes a thing to be the way it is, which makes it what it is by embodying itself in it and penetrating it." 6 Bohme, Works, translates Kraftleib - somewhat misleadingly - as "powerful body" (see for instance Bohme, Works, i: 169). "Force-body" would be more appropriate, since what is meant is a body consisting of intangible forces rather than of matter. For the seventh quality, and for a summary of the model as a whole, see especially chapter 11. 7 For the genesis of evil in terms of the interaction of the qualities see chapters 13-16; for the creation of corporeal matter as a result of the destruction caused by Lucifer's fall see chapter 17.

Bohme '5 Thought

21

the first three qualities, contraction, bitterness, and heat, whose mutual attraction and repulsion produces a cycle of Angst.8 This is the core of God's being, but Bohme stresses that God in his first principle is not yet properly God, since he is wrath and not love.9 The kindling of light marks the beginning of the second principle (the birth of the Son, God's heart), characterized by love inspired by the presence of light in the qualities. The first principle is identified with the Father in the Trinity, the second, in which God becomes the living, merciful personal God, with the Son,10 while the Holy Spirit is the power and outflow of both. The third principle is the manifestation of the other two in the material world. In this work, the tendency emerges that becomes prevalent in later works: desire is the driving force of the system, since the divinity's life cycle begins with the first quality's desire for light.11 In subsequent works, Bohme turns to the question why God should undertake the creation. To answer it, he introduces a new concept, the Ungrund. It is the state of undifferentiated oneness that precedes the cycle of the divinity's self-generation; it is God as potentiality or as 8 See for example De tribusprincipiis 1,2: "Urn ersten Principio} ist der ernstliche Quell der Grimmigkeit, nach welcher sich Gott einen zornigen, grimmigen, eiferigen Gott nennet. Denn in der Grimmigkeit stehet des Lebens und aller Beweglichkeit Urkund." "(In the first principle) is the earnest Fountain of the Wrathfulness, according to which, God calls himself an angry, wrathful, and zealous God. For the Original of Life, and of all Mobility, consists in the Wrathfulness" (Bohme, Works, 1:9). Bohme, Works, translates Angst as anguish; I do not find this apt, as anguish refers mostly to pain whereas Angst is rather anxiety or fear. Perhaps the modern notion of angst does as well as any other. 9 "Und heisset Gott nach dem ersten Principio nicht Gott, sondern Grimmigkeit, Zornigkeit, ernstlicher Quell, davon sich das Bose urkundet" (De tribus principiis, i, 8). "And God is not called God according to the first Principle; but according to that, he is called Wrathfulness, Anger, the earnest [severe or tart] Source, from which Evil ... (has its} Original" (Bohme, Works, i: 10). 10 "so nun nicht das andere Principium in der Geburt des Sohnes anbrache und aufginge, so ware der Vater ein finster Thai" (De tribus principiis 4, 58). "And if now the second Principle did not break forth and spring up in the Birth of the Son, then the Father would be a dark Valley" (Bohme, Works, i: 29). 11 "Also verstehet man gar eigentlich, wie das Licht Gottes aller Dinge eine Ursache ist, und verstehet herinnen alle drey Principia: Denn wenn die Gottliche Kraft und Licht nicht ware, so ware auch in der finstern Ewigkeit kein Sehnen darnach, so ware das herbe Begehren (welches ist die Mutter der Ewigkeit) auch alles ein Nichts" (De tribus principiis 7, 14). "Thus it may very plainly be understood, that the Light of God is a Cause of all Things, and you may hereby understand all the three Principles: for if the Power, Virtue, and Light of God were not, then there would be also no attractive Longing in the dark Eternity, and also the sour Desire (which is the Mother of the Eternity) would be nothing at all" (Bohme, Works, i: 44).

22

Jakob Bohme

Nothing, without contraries, without motion, and therefore devoid of being and self-awareness.12 To attain self-knowledge, the divinity must divide itself, must go out of itself and become object as well as subject. Self-differentiation occurs through the life-producing wheel of birth of the first three qualities, resulting in the generation of eternal nature: "Die Gottheit ist die ewige Freyheit ausser aller Natur, als der ewige Ungrund, aber sie fuhret sich selber also in Grund zu ihrer Selbst-Offenbarung, und zur ewigen Weisheit und Wunderthat ein" (De signatura rerum [On the Signature of Things], 14, 33).13 For the same reason, God in due course creates the angels, material nature, and especially man, in order that divine love may have an object and manifest itself. Such a causal connection between God and the world involves Bohme in the - to him highly unwelcome - implication that God needs creation in order to complete the process of his self-revelation. A fourth element of the divinity still has to be mentioned: Sophia or divine wisdom. She is the feminine, passive element of the divinity, the mirror in which the eternal will (the Father) sees itself and in which it projects the images of all possible things. In the created world, she is the divine element in the human soul, the heavenly bride whom Adam lost by his fall. The continuity in the cycle of God's self-manifestation is provided by the theory that the material world was created out of the ruins of Lucifer's kingdom, and that man was intended to bring forth a new angelic host to replace the fallen one (Aurora, especially chapter i gff). Aurora, a fragment, does not relate man's creation and fall, but subsequent works (particularly De tribus principiis) present the myth with a wealth of imaginative detail. Adam was originally possessed of a heavenly immaterial body similar to those of angels. He was both male and female and able to reproduce without bodily pain ("Zerbrechung des Leibes").14 He partook of all three principles and was therefore the fullest image of God. He was to rule over the material world, giving every creature and thing its appropriate name by virtue of the Natursprache (language of nature) with which he was endowed, yet did not share its materiality. 12 See for instance De incarnatione verbi, 2,1, 8ff. 13 "The Deity is the eternal Liberty without all Nature, viz. the eternal Abyss; but thus it brings itself into Byss for its own Manifestation, eternal Wisdom, and Deeds of Wonder" (Bohme, Works, 4: 117). Law uses the opposing pair "Abyss" and "Byss" to translate Bohme's Ungrund and Grund. Modern scholars usually translate the pair as "Abyss" (or, more rarely, "Unground") and "Ground." 14 "tearing [rending, dividing in himself]" (Bohme, Works, i: 67).

Bohme's Thought

23

Instead of setting his will and imagination solely in God, Adam was drawn into desiring the pleasures of the tangible world, as embodied in the fruit of the tree of good and evil. The sleep which overcame him, during which Sophia left him and was replaced by Eve, was the consequence of this first fall. Henceforth, men and women would be longing for the lost heavenly Sophia, and seeking her, vainly, in the opposite sex. With the eating of the forbidden fruit came the second fall, by which man acquired a tangible, mortal body. As a consequence of man's fall, longing became the principal and best feeling in the created world. Not only would man long for the lost communion with Sophia and the forfeited participation in the second principle, but nature also, cursed because of man's fall, would long for restoration to its pristine state. As salvation was lost, so must man regain it, namely, by a proper redirection of will and desire. That is to say, man must give himself over to complete love and faith in Christ, and, most importantly, to true "Gelassenheit" (resignation), the abandonment of all self-will and total reliance on God's will. Perhaps the most troublesome point of Bohme's system - the one that caused him, and many a subsequent admirer like the Romantics, the greatest discomfort - was the problem of accounting for evil. Reconciling God's omnipotence with the existence of an evil freely chosen by created beings is and has always been a stumbling block, but Bohme's difficulties were complicated by his doctrine that God and creatures were of one essence, the product of the same interaction of the same seven qualities. Over time, Bohme explored three types of explanations, but none of them resolved the problems. The first account (appearing in the early chapters of Aurora) maintains that there is a good and a bad species in all the qualities, that is, a life-bringing and a destructive mode (Aurora i, 2ff). That is, the qualities as they exist in the creatures, where they are capable of being kindled to anger, have a good and a bad species, but in God only the good mode, the source of joy, is present (Aurora 2, 35ff). This explanation in fact explains nothing and, as he develops the details of his cosmogony, Bohme replaces it with one deriving evil from disrupted order. In God, the struggle of the first four qualities is playful and brings forth nothing but light and joy because it is moderated and contained by love. In the creatures, however, pride, or the desire to shine more brightly than God's light, can cause the sharp and bitter qualities to become inflamed, to seek to dominate over or devour the gentle elements (Aurora, chapter 8). The result is evil and destruction. In the Aurora (especially chapter 8), the fall of Lucifer is described in these terms. Pride in his own resplendent beauty misled Lucifer into despising the heart of God (love and

24

Jakob Bohme

humility, the Son). Wishing to become brighter and more powerful than God, Lucifer exerted contraction in himself to such a degree that the sweet quality was dried up and his body became hard, cold and dark, unable to receive light/love. At this point, Bohme states that God could not foresee this rebellion (or it would not have been a free act) and that he was powerless to prevent it: he could not meet Lucifer with love because Lucifer had already rejected love, while meeting him with anger would only have hastened his downfall. The explanation of disrupted order went some way towards explaining how the same elements that produced only good in God could work for evil in the creatures and it continued to play a role in subsequent works. However, the contingent nature of evil, and even more the accompanying notion that God did not foresee the fall, represented an unacceptable detraction from God's power. The scheme of the three principles introduced in Bohme's second book offered the means of creating a theory that would incorporate evil in the overall design of God's self-manifestation, and thus preserve divine omniscience and omnipotence. As mentioned earlier, God in his first principle is the darkly burning fire of wrath that is the source of evil in created beings.15 Eventually, notably in Mysterium magnum, this principle is identified as the abode of demons and worms of hell.16 In one respect, this account, too, derives evil from disrupted order: the first principle is the source of life as well as of wrath, and it is not evil as long as it remains subordinate to the second principle (love). Alternatively, God created creatures for each principle, and these are not unhappy or in pain as long as they remain in their allotted place. Lucifer is a devil because he fell from the second into the first principle, while humans suffer and commit evil deeds because Adam directed his desire from the second to the third principle, so that the latter took full possession of him. From there, humans can fall into the first principle through sin. Accompanying this model is the notion that everything which exists, including evil, does so because God willed it as necessary to his self-manifestation. Contraries are the means by which the divinity differentiates itself and attains self-knowledge: "Wenn alles nur Eines ware, so ware ihm das Eine nicht selber offenbar" (Mysterium magnum, 3, 22). l 7 Specifically, if 15 See above, notes 8 and g. 16 In Mysterium magnum the first principle is hell in so far as it is an enmity to light (3, 26) and a despairing of goodness (5, 9). 17 "for if it all were only One, then the One would not be manifest to itself (Bohme, Works, 4: 17).

Bohme's Thought

25

the first principle were not there, the second could not be manifest, "so keine Angst ware, so ware ihr die Freude selber nicht offenbar" (Mysterium magnum, 3, 22); l S and if men did not sin God could not manifest his love: "Wenn der Zorn nicht hatte die Menschheit eingenommen, und in sich verschlungen, so ware die tiefeste Liebe Gottes im Menschen nicht offenbar worden" (Mysterium magnum 28, i6).19 The inevitable conclusion to be drawn is that God actually needs evil to complete the process of his self-revelation, and Bohme does draw it, though he strenuously denies having done so: "Sonst wann das Bose im Wiederwillen kein niitz ware, so wiirde es Gott, als das ewige einige Gut, nicht dulden, sondern zu nichte machen ... und ist ein Werckzeug Gottes, damit Er sein Gutes bildlich machet, auf da(3 das Gute erkant werde" (Mysterium magnum 71, 17).20 From the Romantics' point of view, this cosmogony had several attractions. It presented important parallels to Fichtean idealism and at the same time alternatives to those very features of Fichte 's system to which the Romantics objected. It derived everything, matter as well as spirit, from a divine first principle that was dynamic rather than static perfection. Yet at the same time it did not relegate matter to nonbeing, but rather assigned it a vital role in the manifestation of the divinity. It made room for feeling as well as intellect by assigning a primary function to will and desire, and it did all of this in the language of religion and more or less within the frame of Christian theology - in the long run the key consideration for its appropriation by Schelling and Schlegel. How quickly any of these attractions struck the Jena Romantics it is now impossible to tell. Judging by what comments have come down to us, the philosophical applications of Bohme's system only gradually drew their attention. Initially, Bohme's appeal lay in the resonances of his name, in the various connotations that had become attached to it over the century and a half that had elapsed since his death, and in the ways these could be adapted to further the Romantic campaign against the literary establishment and the programme of Universalpoesie.

18 "if there were no Anguish, then Joy would not be manifest to itself (Bohme, Works, 4: 17). 19 "if the Anger had not taken hold of the Humanity, and devoured itself into itself, then the deepest Love of God would not have been manifest in Man" (Bohme, Works, 4:

135)

20 "Else if the Evil in the contrary Will were not profitable, God, viz. the eternal only God, would not endure it, but annihilate it; ... and it is an Instrument of God, whereby he makes his Good conceivable, that the Good may be known" (Bohme, Works, 4: 453).

3

Bohme's Reception in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: A Typology I now turn to earlier receptions of Bohme in order to establish how they might have affected the Romantics. The following sketch is intended to identify types of receptions rather than to establish continuity of transmission. The reasons for this decision are twofold. In the absence of reliable studies on the subject, a continuous history of Jakob Bohme's reception would be a far larger undertaking than possible or even necessary for the purposes of this study. Furthermore, earlier receptions do not stand to the Romantic one in the relationship of mediating sources, but rather as partners in an intertextual exchange, to be challenged, refuted or appropriated and transformed. Attempts to establish mediation to the Romantics by earlier authors have been far from convincing, so that, in the absence of substantial evidence to the contrary, there is no reason to doubt Tieck's own assertion that his discovery of Bohme was fortuitous. Bohme having once been discovered, however, earlier and current opinions on him played a crucial role in determining the ways in which he could be made useful. From this point of view, what is important is not so much to establish which groups or individuals did or did not admire Bohme (or were or were not influenced by him), but rather to describe how Bohme was perceived in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Even so circumscribed a task is bedevilled by the shortage of reliable scholarship to lean upon. With the exception of Bohme's importance for Pietism, his reception during these two centuries has not so far been the object of any detailed study. The only sources of information available are brief accounts found in two of the three dissertations on Bohme and the Romantics and in a few monographs on the mystic's life

Bohme 's Reception in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

27

and works.1 As is perhaps inevitable when surveying so large a topic in such compressed form, these studies adopt a rather impressionistic approach, regarding a brief remark or an occasional similarity in content or language as proof enough of influence. The treatment of Goethe's putative relationship to Bohme is a good illustration of the problem. Undeniably there are parallels between the thought of Bohme and that of Goethe, particularly in his preclassical period. Since Goethe was interested in alchemy and in Neoplatonism, since he had contacts with Pietism, it does not seem so farfetched to assume that he would have read Bohme. And indeed, Hoffmeister and Lemper do not hesitate to leap to just this conclusion: "Unter den Dichtern, die Ideen Bohmes in sich aufnahmen, steht Goethe obenan."2 As proof, Lemper cites the entire thematic range of Faust: "Im Faustdrama werden zentrale Ideen und Vorstellungen Bohmes aufgegriffen und dichterisch weiterverarbeitet: Gott und Teufel, Schopfungsmythos, Alchimie, Paracelsismus, Humanismus, Lutherkritik, Christentum und antiker Olymp, weltlicher und geistiger Triumph des Menschen, menschliches Elend, Verfuhrung, Siinde, Siindenbekenntnis, Besinnung, Umkehr, Einswerden mit der Gottheit."3 This sweeping claim raises questions as to the reliability of Lemper's work, since most of these themes are common to all of Christian, or indeed all of western thought, while some of them are entirely foreign to Bohme. However, even so outstanding a Goethe scholar as Erich Trunz explains a more limited group of Faust's motifs in terms of borrowing from Bohme.4 Although it is possible that Goethe did read Bohme, there is absolutely no evidence to this effect. Nowhere in Goethe's extensive correspondence, or in those of his conversations i See for instance Ederheimer, Boehme, and Paschek, Einfluf}; also, Gerhard Wehr, Jakob Bohme in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten (Reinbek: Rowohlt ig7i);Joachim Hoffmeister, Der ketzerische Schuster: Leben undDenken des Gorlitzer Meisters Jakob Bohme (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt 1 975) ; Ernst-Heinz Lemper, Jakob Bohme: Leben und Werk (Berlin: Union Verlag 1976 2 Hoffmeister, Der ketzerische Schuster, 174. For Lemper's remarks to the same effect see Lemper, Bohme, 194-5. "Among the poets who absorbed some of Bohme's ideas Goethe is at the forefront." 3 Lemper, Bohme, 194-5. "^n Faust central ideas and concepts of Bohme are taken up and poetically elaborated: God and devil, the myth of creation, alchemy, Paracelsism, humanism, criticism of Luther, Christianity and ancient Olympus, secular and spiritual triumph of humanity, human misery, temptation, sin, confession of sins, reflection, repentance, union with the divinity." 4 Goethe, Werke (Works), 3: 495ff.

28

Jakob Bohme

that have been recorded, or indeed anywhere in his oeuvre, does Goethe express any interest in Bohme - a situation which makes a direct reception extremely unlikely. Some scholars, while acknowledging the absence of a connection, have nevertheless sought to present Goethe as a disciple of Bohme on the grounds of spiritual affinity,5 but such a relationship, even if its existence could be convincingly shown, does not constitute reception. If, on the other hand, one recalls that Bohme is but one example of a long and comprehensive tradition (encompassing Neoplatonic philosophy and mysticism, the Cabbala, alchemy, and Naturphilosophie, to name but a few), any similarities to Goethe become readily explicable.6 The case of Goethe is therefore a further reminder that Bohme's reception should be viewed in its broader context, rather than within the stifling confines of influence. The following sketch of the first two centuries of Bohme's reception therefore does not aim to list all the thinkers who were influenced by Bohme, or to assess the mystic's significance for any one individual, but simply to provide a descriptive typology of the receptions, using individual instances as examples only. It is intended to prepare the way for the answering of two questions: how was the Romantic reception unique, or at any rate different from its predecessors? Which aspects of Bohme's prior vicissitudes made him a particularly apt vehicle for Romantic plans? BOHME'S FIRST BIOGRAPHER The earliest document of Bohme's reception is a short biography written by his friend and disciple Abraham von Franckenberg (1593-1652). This text played a major role in shaping later receptions, since it was the main source of information on Bohme's life and character. The wide circulation of Franckenberg's biography is attested by its publication history. Probably written in 1652 (twenty-eight years after Bohme's death), it was first published in a volume of Bohme's works of unknown date, then appeared in all the editions of collected works (that is, 1682, 1715, 1730 and thereaf-

5 Wehr, Bohme, 131-2; Julius Richter, "Jakob Bohme und Goethe," 2off. 6 Goethe's interest in this tradition, particularly in alchemical sources, has been extensively researched. See Ronald D. Gray, Goethe the Alchemist: A Study of Alchemical Symbolism in Goethe's Literary and Scientific Works (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1952), and Rolf-Christian Zimmermann, Das Weltbild desjungen Goethe: Studien zur hermetischen Tradition des deutschen iS.Jahrhunderts, 2 vols. (Munich: Wilhelm Fink 1969 1979).

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29

ter, including the twentieth century).7 As a result, anyone who had access to Bohme's collected works would automatically have access to Franckenberg's biographical account. Because of the authoritative aura with which, as an eyewitness account, the text surrounded itself (and in the absence of competing versions) Franckenberg's biography could determine future receptions not only by its content, but by its interpretation of it. The image of Bohme transmitted throughout history and accepted right down to today, may, in other words, have litde to do with the historical figure: it is Bohme as Franckenberg wished him to be seen, even - to a degree now impossible to determine - Franckenberg's creation. In the circumstances, it is of primary importance to uncover the aims and strategies that shaped Franckenberg's Bohme-myth. To achieve this, one must recognize the text's genre, the conventions and assumptions on which it relies. That is to say, one must recognize its remarkable conformity to hagiography in the principle governing the selection of material, in the interpretations this receives, and in the personal traits attributed to the hero. Franckenberg's Bohme, in other words, is in every respect a typical, or stereotypical, saint, and may well bear no more resemblance to the actual historical person than the legendary heroes of medieval hagiography did. Scholarship on hagiography has identified the goals of the genre as, first, the celebration of the saint and, secondly, but most importantly, the education of the public by inspiring it to emulate the saint's deeds.8 In addition, though this is usually only implied, the text itself plays a constitutive role in what it wishes to celebrate: the right to saintly status rests on the occurrence of prodigies, so that the written record of these can function as a patent of sainthood. Sacred biography differs from its modern secular counterpart in that it attaches importance, not to what is singular and individual about its subject, but only to those deeds and characteristics that embody socially accepted paradigms, because it is only these that can serve as universal model. More specifically, as Christ represented the ultimate ideal of Christian behaviour, a saint was considered admirable to the degree that his conduct exemplified imitatio Christi. Since every saint's life must display as many as possible of a limited set of motifs, the extensive standardization and borrowing typical of the genre are easily explained. Indeed, diey are functionally necessary, 7 See Bruckner, Abraham von Franckenberg, 37ff. 8 See, for instance, Thomas J. Heffernan, Sacred Biography: Saints and their Biographers in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1988); or chapter i of Alison Goddard Elliot, Roads to Paradise: Reading the Lives of the Early Saints (Hanover, University Press of New England 1987).

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because, as Heffernan explained, imitatio Christi depends on the device of anagnorisis. Heffernan traces anagnorisis back to its biblical source, Luke's life of Saint Stephen (Acts 7). Because Saint Stephen is to be seen "in the conventional biblical role of the persecuted prophet," his tale duplicates elements from Christ's life, so that the readers may recognize his likeness to and, consequently, his participation in Christ.9 Franckenberg presents Bohme as a saintly figure and a heroic witness to the true Christian faith. Like all hagiographers, Franckenberg is celebrating his subject's greatness and hoping to inspire his readers to emulation. In a century of heated confessional controversy, however, this goal has acquired a new polemical thrust. Franckenberg, a radical separatist Pietist, hopes to turn the tables on orthodox Protestants by showing that they are false Christians in that they persecuted Bohme who was God's emissary and an exemplary follower of Christ.10 These aims give the text its shape and its bite. Franckenberg's outlook was shared by an entire strain of Pietism, which thankfully adopted the hero thus provided. Bohme's notoriety therefore results from and proves the success of Franckenberg's effort at hagiographic mythmaking. Given its unique importance, Franckenberg's biography must be analysed in some detail. It is extremely short, comprising fifty-nine paragraphs, of which the last nineteen no longer relate to Bohme directly, but rather present Franckenberg's views on theology as practised by the schools (including much vituperation of Aristotle), on the godly and godless paths to knowledge, on true Christian humility and the false pride of the learned, and on the significance of Bohme as a moral example. This homily is of interest chiefly because it betrays the intent underlying the preceding biographical account. The main threads of Franckenberg's text are easily identifiable. The basic organizing principle is found in the wish to demonstrate that Bohme, and through him the version of Christianity to which he is meant to witness, enjoyed divine sanction. Consequently, the biography skims over 9 Heffernan, Sacred Biography, 116ff. For a general account of the genre's characteristics see Heffernan, Sacred Biography, §ff; also Morrison, Conversion, 4off. 10 Such an adaptation, though striking, was certainly not unprecedented. Heffernan (Sacred Biography, 18) remarks on the use of hagiography during the Protestant Reformation: "the reformers wrote saints' lives using models from their papist predecessors." More specifically, Eike Wolgast, in her article "Biographic als Autoritatsstiftung," 41-71, draws attention to the debt these owed to hagiographic strategies in establishing Luther as a figure of absolute and unquestioned authority, and describes them as "eine Art sakularisierter Hagiographie" (42), "as a kind of secularized hagiography."

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the outward circumstances of Bohme's life, concentrating rather on the prodigious and the exemplary as evidence of a divine plan. At the same time, Bohme's elect status means that what he rejected was worthy of rejection, and conversely, that those who persecuted him - Franckenberg's own confessional enemies - were ungodly. The text makes full use of this weapon, constantly comparing Bohme to his opponents, underlining their failings and castigating their ill-treatment of God's chosen witness. Franckenberg's treatment of Bohme's youth exemplifies his debt to hagiography most clearly. Typically, sacred biography is interested in the saint's youth only to the degree that it reveals his predestination. Franckenberg, too, is concerned with only two episodes from Bohme's early years. After a brief captatio benevolentiae and an even briefer report of Bohme's place and date of birth and the conditions of his parents, the third paragraph of the biography introduces an episode of such importance that its veracity must be emphatically attested: Franckenberg insists that his information came from Bohme himself, indeed, that Bohme showed him the very spot where the episode took place. While serving as shepherd for his village, the boy Bohme found a mysterious, doorlike opening at the top of a mountain (the Landeskrone) and went in. Inside, he found a pot full of money. Horrified ("woriiber ihm ein Grausen angekommen"),11 he ran away without touching any of it. Franckenberg is at pains to underline the miraculous nature of this event. Although he repeatedly sought it in the company of other boys, Bohme could never find the entrance again, a fact that Franckenberg explains as follows: "welches eine Vorbedeutung auf seinen geistlichen Eingang in die verborgene Schatz-Kammer der Gottlichen und Natiirlichen Weisheit und Geheimnissen wol seyn konnen" (Franckenberg, §4).12 Years later, the story continues, a foreign artist took the treasure, "woriiber solcher Schatz-Graber (weil der Fluch dabey gewesen) eines schandlichen Todes verdorben."13 The following paragraph compares this episode with tales of the mountain of Venus and so turns it into a required element of every saint's life: daemonic temptation successfully withstood. 11 "about which he was overcome by dread." 12 I cite Franckenberg's biography from vol. i o of the facsimile reprint of the 1730 edition (see above, ch. i note 2). "which could well have been an omen of his spiritual entrance into the hidden treasure-chamber of divine and natural wisdom and mysteries." 13 "because of which said treasure hunter (because it was accursed) died a shameful death."

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Jakob Bohme

In one swift paragraph, Franckenberg then disposes of Bohme's entire outward existence, from schooling through occupation, marriage and children, to the end. In reporting the first illumination that God granted Bohme, Franckenberg makes explicit the claim implied by his strategy throughout, that Bohme belongs to the ranks of divinely inspired teachers: by giving himself up to God's guidance, Bohme - unlike the theologians of his time - has entered the school from which "die H. Patriarchen, Konige, Propheten, Apostel und Manner Gottes" have always learned the wisdom they proclaimed (Franckenberg, §8).14 To underscore the key point of Bohme's divinely chosen status, Franckenberg introduces a second childhood episode drawn from the traditional repertoire of hagiography.15 While working as a shoemaker's apprentice, Bohme is called by name out of the shop by a mysterious, imposing stranger, who prophesies for him a great future in the service of God, attended by suffering and persecution as well as by exceptional divine grace: "Jacob, du bist klein, aber du wirst grof} und gar ein ander Mensch und Mann werden, da(3 sich die Welt iiber dir verwundern wird! ... du wirst viel Noth und Armuth mil Verfolgung leiden miissen; Aber sey getrost und bleib bestandig, denn du bist Gott lieb, und Er ist dir gnadig!" (Franckenberg, §9).16 Such prophecies not only announce the hero's predestination for sainthood, but are also a signal to the readers that they are to seek symbolic significance behind every detail of the life to follow, since all were arranged by God for the fulfilment of his plan and the edification of those who witness it. The account of Bohme's adult life is governed by the same principles. Franckenberg combines descriptions of Bohme's exceptional godliness with narrative episodes that show his hero receiving signs of exceptional grace. He dwells on the four illuminations experienced by Bohme (§§ 7, 11, 12, 15) and intersperses comments on the persecution Bohme endured as well as diatribes against the church authorities responsible for it. The anecdotes in the second half of the text (following an overview of Bohme's writings and the citing of authorities for their truthfulness) all stand under the sign of imitatio Christi: they show 14 "the holy patriarchs, kings, prophets, apostles and servants of God." 15 On the portentous childhood of the saint see, for instance, Elliott, Roads to Paradise, chapter 4, and Le Goff, "'Vita'," 105-20. 16 "Jacob, you are little but you shall be great and you shall become a completely different person and man so that the world will be astonished about you ... you will have to suffer much misery and poverty together with persecution; but take comfort and remain constant because God loves you and has you in his favour."

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Bohme as a true Christian martyr, accepting undeserved suffering with exemplary patience and humility, or in the guise of a prophet, recognizing and blessing the pious, admonishing the evil, and foretelling the future with supernatural accuracy (§§ 22, 23, 29). 1? The narration of Bohme's death also stands in the tradition of sacred biography, as Franckenberg himself points out. Bohme, like many legendary saintly figures, foretells exactly the hour of his death, which he accepts not merely with humility, but with joy and confidence. In death, he is granted the gift of hearing heavenly music. The latter, Franckenberg explains, is a blessing that Bohme shared with "den alten frommen und einfaltigen Christen" (Franckenberg, §3i), lS but that was no longer seen in Bohme's corrupt age. Similarly, descriptions of Bohme's character and circumstances present him as conforming in every way to the truly Christian pattern exhibited by Christ and his apostles. Franckenberg stresses Bohme's poverty, humility, piety, gentleness, the patience with which he suffered the taunts and persecution of the benighted authorities and of the populace, and - again and again - his lack of formal learning.19 It is in the descriptions of these traits, particularly the last mentioned, that the new dimension in this sacred biography is most evident. Franckenberg's selection of praiseworthy traits in Bohme is actually guided by two principles: on the one hand, it is governed by the needs of imitatio Christi; on the other, Bohme is to appear as the diametrical opposite of a type that Franckenberg wishes to castigate - the orthodox Lutheran theologian. Herein lies the reason for the importance Franckenberg attributes to Bohme's modest origin and lack of formal learning. Indeed, the latter is so essential that Franckenberg feels compelled to explain away Bohme's use of Latin terms (§20). 17 Wolgast states that Luther's early biographers presented him as one of a long line of God's chosen prophets, and notes the importance of foreknowledge of the future: "Da ein richtiger Prophet die Zukunft vorauszusehen hat, fugte Mathesius seiner Biographic auch einige Weissagungen ein, 'die auff heutigen tag zum meysten theyl erfullet und von tag zu tag augenscheinlich ins werck kommen' " ("Biographic als Autoritatsstiftung," 64). "Because a true prophet has to foresee the future, Mathesius included in his biography also several prophecies, 'which up to today have been mostly fulfilled and which evidently are being fulfilled from day to day.'" 18 "the old pious and simple Christians." 19 When discussing the life of Christina of Markyate, Morrison comments on the motif of docta ignorantia as follows: "The objective was to declare that Christina was holy and therefore that, while she lived on earth, her conversation was in heaven," that is to say, "Christina penetrated the hidden things of God's wisdom by her enduring purity of heart, not by her learning" (Conversion, 52).

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Jakob Bohme

By contrasting Bohme's lack of formal knowledge with the depth of his insights (he was able to see "{den} innersten Grand oder Centr{um} der geheimen Natur" [§n]), 20 Franckenberg highlights their miraculous origin. Everything Bohme knew, in other words, came to him directly from God. This is further proven, Franckenberg argues, by the fact that, although unschooled, the mystic was able to write the purest, most eloquent high German, and that he had no need to revise what he wrote, "sondern wie es ihme von dem Geiste Gottes in den Sinn gegeben, also reinlich und unabcopiret aufgeschrieben" (§2i). 2 1 By contrast, Franckenberg calls the book learning of the theologians an aberration, motivated by falsity and pride and leading to ungodliness. In short, the humbler Bohme was shown to be, the greater his value as a moral example: "Sintemal es Gott nach seinem weisen Rath und gnadigen Willen also gefallen, nicht was hoch, was machtig, was edel, was weise, was reich, was etwas sondern was niedrig, was schwach, was unedel, was thoricht, was arm und nichts vor der Welt ist, zu erwehlen, auf daf$ er zu Schanden mache was hoch und gewaltig ist" (§41 ). 22 Both Franckenberg's views and Franckenberg's portrayal of Bohme found a receptive audience among religious reformers and separatists, so that the style and content of this text set the trend followed by later religiously motivated receptions. THE PIETISTIC RECEPTION

During the seventeenth century there developed a religiously motivated reception that followed Franckenberg's lead. Simply put, there are two major aspects to Bohme's oeuvre. Bohme's theosophy, his speculation about the nature of God and the universe, links him with philosophy, specifically with the Neoplatonic tradition. The inner spring of Bohme's thinking and writing, however, was not philosophical but emotive, namely the need to break through to a more direct and personal form of worship than that allowed for by orthodox Lutheranism. This need finds expression in oppositions of inner (the means of salvation) and outer 20 "the innermost core or centre of secret nature." 21 "but written as it was given to him by the spirit of God, so cleanly and without copying." 22 "Since it pleased God according to his wise counsel and his merciful will not to elect what is high, powerful, noble, wise, rich, what is something, but rather what is low, frail, ignoble, foolish, poor and nothing before the world, so that he shall put to shame what is high and mighty."

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(empty formalism): salvation comes from individual faith in God and the individual pious life, not from adherence to correct dogma and formal observances; the true Christian church is the invisible community of all believers, not a building of brick and stone; true knowledge comes directly from God and is not learned from a book. In this respect, Bohme is but one instance of the periodic unrest that punctuates the history of the Christian churches. Time and again, whenever an established Christian church was able to consolidate its wealth, power, and dogma, some of its members came to feel that it was becoming worldly and complacent, that it might be losing sight of the original ideals preached by Christ and lived by Christ's early followers. These concerns found expression in mysticism, in reform movements, in sectarianism. Invariably, each of these movements would adopt heroic figures from the past as its standard bearers and, in its clash with the authorities, would produce new martyrs and symbols. Bohme was an ideal choice as a model in a number of respects: he was himself motivated by the desire for reform, he was or so Franckenberg tells us - a man of great personal piety and direct faith, he was persecuted for his convictions by the clerical authorities of his city, his writings contain impassioned denunciations of nominal Christians and of dogmatic intolerance. It is as a religious hero and moral example that Bohme attracted attention during the reformist unrest that took shape in Germany in the second half of the seventeenth century, the most significant expression of which was Pietism. Pietism was born as a programme for reforming the Lutheran church from within. As conceived by its first great exponent, Philip Jakob Spener (1635-1705), it located the essence of Christianity in the leading of a pious life, informed in all its aspects by the love of God and of one's fellow man. A distinctive feature of Spener's programme, as outlined in his book, PiaDesideria (1675; Pious Desires), was the aim to restore the universal priesthood of all believers in its original meaning. To this end, he insisted that the Bible be read by all, and proposed to complement regular church services by informal assemblies (Collegia Pietatis) with active participation and free expression by all members.23 Spener's efforts crystallized the widespread dissatisfaction with the religious status quo. For a time, malcontents and dissentient groups rallied around him. Yet their divergent views on the truly Christian life could 23 For a general history of Pietism see Ernst Stoeffler, German Pietism during the Eighteenth Century (Leiden: E.J. Brill 1973), and Erich Beyreuther, Geschichte des Pietismus (Stuttgart: Steinkopf 1978), on Spener's Pia Desideria, looff.

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not be united in a single movement for long. By the end of Spener's life, several distinct subdivisions had appeared. The most conservative group was the Halle school, considered to be most nearly in Spener's spirit, in that it was concerned with reforming the Lutheran church from within, while adhering strictly to its traditional doctrine. Its programme was one of simplification (concentrating only on those dogmas relevant to leading a Christian life), accompanied by more intense emotional appeal. Similar in beliefs and continued faithfulness to the Lutheran church, though rather more broadminded and tolerant, was the Pietism that developed in Wurttemberg. Finally, the term radical Pietism denotes the most extreme groupings of the movement, encompassing various factions and individual rebels. While to a large extent the term is therefore one of convenience, it has been suggested that these radicals shared at least two main characteristics: the tendencies towards separatism and towards mysticism of the Bohmist kind.24 Briefly, the features that distinguished the radicals from the churchly Pietists were: the condemnation of the church as ungodly and corrupted past all hope of reform, the tendency towards chiliasm and mysticism (many espoused a form of Sophia mysticism more radical than Bohme's own), the doctrine of Wiederbringung (apokatastis - the ultimate salvation of all, including the devils), and the insistence that all true Christians must experience a spiritual rebirth. Given the nature of Pietism, and of radical Pietism in particular, it is not surprising that Bohme the pious and persecuted Christian should hold the stage to the effacement of Bohme the philosopher. Needing uplifting models around which to rally in the face of attacks by the authorities, the radicals identified with Bohme because, like them, he denounced the abuses of the established churches, and like them, was persecuted for his beliefs.25 As a corollary, they identified with Bohme's stance that true Christianity was a matter of personal experience: knowledge is revealed 24 See, for instance, Beyreuther, Pietismus, 2g2ff. For an account of radical Pietism and its relationship to Bohme, see Chauncey D. Ensign, "Radical German Pietism (c. i675~c. 1760)" (diss. Boston University, School of Theology, 1955, Ann Arbor: UMI, 195. 12296 84). Ensign (16) goes so far as to suggest that Bohmism was the one unifying principle of radical Pietism. 25 See also Stoeffler, German Pietism, 170: "Perhaps the most direct and important result of his {i.e. Bohme's) speculations was the rise of a profoundly critical spirit within traditional Protestantism. It was the malcontents and rebels within the established churches who looked to Boehme for inspiration, and who, once having absorbed his attitude, often went beyond him in their rebellion."

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by God directly to each individual, and godliness consists precisely in this individual experience of God, that is, in remaining faithful to man's heavenly partner, Sophia. Two examples will suffice to illustrate this type of reception. The first of these is chosen partly because it very probably played an important role in ensuring widespread awareness of Bohme. Gottfried Arnold (1666-1714) has been regarded as "perhaps the most historically significant of all the radical Pietists."26 Arnold studied theology and early church history at Wittenberg but, as a result of an "awakening," abandoned these pursuits and dedicated himself to writing. He enjoyed the friendship and patronage of Spener, who obtained several posts for him. He soon became attached to the separatist view, holding up the early apostolic church (before its alliance with the state) as the paragon of the true Christian church. Though he later became more moderate, renouncing separatism and accepting a position as pastor, Arnold was and remained a convinced Bohmist. For instance, he popularized Sophia mysticism, describing spiritual union with her in glowing sensual terms in his collection of poems, Gottliche Liebesfunken aus dem grofien Feuer der Liebe Gottes in Christojesu (Divine Sparks of Love from the Great Fire of God's Love in Jesus Christ). 27 In typical Pietist fashion, he was interested not so much in the speculative as in the pragmatic aspects of Bohme's thought. That is, Bohme was for him above all a divinely inspired teacher and model of a truly Christian way of life. On the whole, Arnold was not really an original thinker, but rather a popularizer of radical Pietistic views. His most influential work was his Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie (1699; History of the Church and of Heretics), which reverses established church history by portraying the heretics as the champions of true Christianity. It was very widely read, not just in Arnold's own time, but generations later. Even Herder, otherwise no admirer of Arnold, praised this work, which he considered an important

26 Ensign, "German Pietism," 131. Beyreuther, Pietism, 314, describes Arnold as "der geniale Vertreter und dann auch Uberwinder des radikalen Pietism us," "the author who brilliantly represented and then also overcame radical Pietism"; Stoeffler, German Pietism, 175—76, calls him "the most widely known among the radical Pietists of the eighteenth century," and his Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie (History of the Church and of Heretics) "a milestone in the writing of the history of Christianity." 27 An even more radical representative of Sophia mysticism wasjohann Georg Gichtel (1638-1710), who edited and published the first edition of Bohme's collected works, which appeared in Amsterdam in 1682.

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step towards religious tolerance.28 Goethe, in Dichtungund Wahrheit (Poetry and Truth), part n, book 8, acknowledges Arnold's contribution to the development of his views on religion during his time at Straf3burg: "Einen groften Einflup erfuhr ich dabei von einem wichtigen Buche, das mir in die Hande geriet, es war Arnolds 'Kirchen- und Ketzergeschichte' ... Seine Gesinnungen stimmten sehr zu den meinigen, und was mich an seinem Werk besonders ergetzte, war, da|3 ich von manchen Ketzern, die man mir bisher als toll oder gottlos vorgestellt hatte, einen vorteilhaftern Begriff erhielt."29 The Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie devotes a lengthy chapter to Jakob Bohme. Arnold's mode of presentation indirectly bears witness to the extent to which Bohme had become identified with the cause of radical Pietism, so much so, in fact, that his name was at the centre of religious controversy between the reformers and the orthodox. Arnold deploys the same hagiographic strategies that Franckenberg had adopted in order to present Bohme as a martyr to the true religion. Arnold, too, repeatedly denounces Bohme's detractors (unnamed) as blind, intolerant, and ignorant, whereas Bohme himself appears as the model of the devout Christian suffering for his faith. The reader is meant to infer that those who follow Bohme, i.e., the radical Pietists, are ranked among the godly. Conversely, by attacking Bohme's enemies, Arnold at the same time castigates his own.30 Bohme's piety and honesty, Arnold insists, were

so great that even his detractors admitted that his life had been "unstrafflich und von lastern rein."31 Likewise, Arnold allows no room for doubt as to the truthfulness of Bohme's visions and of the revelations that ensued from these. When concluding the biographical section, Arnold 28 Both Herder's doubts about Arnold and his praise of the Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie are found in his journal Adrastea, vol. 3, first entry, 1802. Herder, Sammtliche Werke, 23: 493-4. 29 Goethe, Werke, 9: 350. "I experienced a great influence from an important work that fell into my hands: it was Arnold's History of the Church and of Heretics ... His sentiments chimed in very well with mine: and what particularly delighted me in his work was, that I received a more favourable notion of many heretics, who had been hitherto represented to me as mad or impious" (Oxenford, Autobiography, i: 379). I have quoted this passage not merely because it attests to Arnold's popularity but also because it is the most likely source for any knowledge of Bohme that Goethe may have had (see also Lemper, Bohme, 194). The tenor of Goethe's remarks would lead us to expect that he would be favourably disposed towards Bohme, as do the similarities in their ideas, but, as mentioned above, there is no evidence that Goethe ever acquired deeper knowledge of the mystic. 30 For his account of Bohme's life Arnold, as indeed all others after him, draws on Franckenberg's biography. 31 Arnold, Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie, i: 1136. "beyond reproach and free of vice."

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shores up his own position by a list of authorities who shared it; he quotes a number of famous or influential men who admired Bohme, in order to show that, "es nicht so gar ungewohnlich oder entsetzlich sey, wenn Jacob Bohme vonjemanden recommendiret worden."3* Two main issues are at stake in the account. The truthfulness of Bohme's visions must be established because on it depends his status as divine emissary; at the same time, the principle of imitatio Christi must be reflected in his life in order to authenticate his saintly aura. Arnold's summary of Bohme's thought, presented largely by means of long quotations, is governed by the anxiety to demonstrate that the mystic's views were everywhere in accordance with the Bible. Bohme, Arnold wishes to make clear, was a faithful interpreter of God's word. In the concluding attack on Bohme's (and his own) enemies, Arnold makes the hagiographic motif explicit by comparing Bohme's sufferings to Christ's. Seen in this light, accusations of fanaticism and heresy levelled at Bohme can be denounced as a sin against the Holy Spirit, "so, wie sie allezeit von Phariseern und Schrifftgelehrten begangen worden; zugleich aber auch vor Bohmens sonderbare ehre, die er mit Christo und seinen jiingern gemein gehabt."33 Arnold's characterization of Bohme as divinely chosen prophet is clearly summed up in a later chapter of the history: "Dieser ist der eintzige Scribent, welchem Gott den grund von der natur derer geistlichen und leiblichen dinge entdecket hat."34 The poet and visionary Quirinus Kuhlmann (1651-89) offers the most striking example of a radical Pietistic reception of Bohme, one that shares most of the themes addressed by Arnold but adds a focus on Bohme's chiliastic prophecies. Kuhlmann's religious convictions were dominated by his chiliastic beliefs, so that he devoted himself to preparing the way for the coming of God's kingdom. In 1689, he travelled to Russia, where he attempted to realize the kingdom of God (as he envisaged it) already here on earth. In the process he attacked the German Lutherans established there. Feeling threatened by his activities, these 32 Arnold, Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie, i: 1135. "it would not be so unusual or awful if Jacob Bohme was recommended by somebody." 33 Arnold, Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie, i: 1154. "such as they have always been committed by Pharisees and Scribes; at the same time, however, to Bohme's particular honour which he had in common with Christ and his apostles." 34 Arnold, Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie, 2: 1191. "This is the only writer to whom God has revealed the core of nature and its spiritual and corporeal things."

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Jakob Bohme

denounced him as a heretic to the Russian authorities. Kuhlmann was then arrested, convicted of heresy and burned at the stake.35 The title of Kuhlmann's first religious work leaves no doubt as to the aspects of Bohme's thought that concerned him, namely, the mystic's chiliastic prophecies and his condemnation of the established church: Neubegeisterter Bohme / begreiffend hundert funftzig Weissagungen / mit der Funften Monarchi oder dem Jesus Reiche des Hollandischen Prophetenjohan Rothens ubereinstimmend / und mehr ah 1000000000 Theosophische Fragen alien Theologen und Gelehrten zur beantwortung vorgelegt', wiwohl nicht eine eintzige ihnen zu beantworten / wo si heutige Schulmanir sonder Gottes Geistfolgen / Darin zugleich der so lang verborgene Luthrische Antichrist abgebildet wird.^ Kuhlmann professed agreement with Bohme's teaching in its entirety, insisting that it was literally true in every respect.37 Yet this stance is not motivated by any great interest in Bohme's speculations on the nature of God and the world, but rather - in the same spirit as Franckenberg and Arnold - by the wish to promote Bohme as an example of the right way to attain knowledge, as part of a concerted attack on the theology of the schools. Like Arnold, Kuhlmann insisted that Bohme's teaching accorded perfectly with the Bible, because, like the Bible, it consisted of revelation proceeding directly from God: "Unser hohe Schulen verwerfen ja noch zu tage di wahre Erkantnis von Gott / mit dem Munde fuhren si uns zu Gott / ... mit ihren eigen / Exempeln aber zum Teufel / als dem Vater der Liigen / weil si seine Liigenaposteln / Aristotelen / und andere Heidnischchristliche Schuler offentlich zu lehren sich nicht schamen. Der einfaltige Bohme hergegen schrib aus Gottes Kraft."38 35 For an account of Kuhlmann's life and writings see Walter Dietze, Quirinus Kuhlmann: Ketzer und Poet. Versuch einer monographischen Darstellung von Leben und Werk (Berlin: Riitten & Loening 1963). 36 "Newly Inspired Bohme Comprising one hundred and fifty Prophecies in Accordance with the Fifth Monarchy or the Kingdom of Christ of the Dutch Prophet Johan Roth, and more than 10000000000 Theosophical Questions Presented to All Theologians and Scholars to be Answered; even though they {will not be able to) Answer a single one if they Follow Today's School Fashion without God's Spirit. In which the so long Hidden Lutheran Anti-Christ is also Depicted." Quirinus Kuhlmann, Neubegeisterter Bohme (Leiden: Loth de Haes 1674). 37 See, for example, Kuhlmann, Bohme, 51. 38 Kuhlmann, Bohme, 46. "Our universities still up to this day reject the true understanding of God. They lead us to God with words ... but with their own examples they lead us to the devil as the father of lies, since they are not ashamed to teach publicly the devil's apostles of lies Aristotle and other pagan-Christian disciples. The simple Bohme on the other hand wrote out of God's power."

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Bohme, Kuhlmann argued, had been selected as a vessel for God's word because, with true humility, he gave himself up entirely to God's guidance. Accordingly, Kuhlmann praised Bohme's "truly Christian" virtues (his simple piety and blameless life), in much the same terms as Franckenberg and Arnold did: "Er lebte auch nach aller zeugnis sonst unstraflich / li(3 allenthalben einen heiligen eifer eines wahren Christenthums verspuhren in ungefarbter sanfftmutt / demutt und libe."39 The only aspect of Bohme's ideas (as opposed to his life) to which Kuhlmann devotes a lengthy discussion are the prophecies relating to the coming of God's kingdom. Since he saw himself as its apostle, he quoted and interpreted these at great length, holding them up to the theologians as grim warnings and reminders. Bohme also seems to have found a large audience among churchly Pietists, at least among the lower orders. In particular, he seems to have been a favourite reading in conventicles.40 The leaders of mainstream Pietism, on the other hand, remained for the most part aloof. Spener, for instance, obstinately refused to voice a judgment on the mystic, pleading incomprehension of Bohme's writings.41 It has been suggested that his refusal to take a stand on this issue might be partly due to motives of policy, namely, to an unwillingness either to ally himself with the radicals or to sever ties with them,42 a consideration that confirms assumptions of the close identification of Bohmism and radical Pietism. An exception to this aloofness was a late exponent of Wurttemberg Pietism, Friedrich Christoph Oetinger (1702-82). Oetinger's reception 39 Kuhlmann, Bohme, 43. "He lived according to all testimony beyond reproach / he displayed in everything the holy enthusiasm of true Christianity in genuine gentleness / humility and love." 40 Evidence for this are the experiences of such men as Oetinger and Jung-Stilling. Oetinger's attention was drawn to Bohme by the owner of the Tubingen powder mill, J.K. Oberberger, a member of a conventicle. Jung-Stilling, himself brought up in Pietist circles, wrote: "Indessen sind noch immer zwei Manner merkwurdig, die ... unvermerkt unter dem Publikum fortwirken; der Eine ist das Haupt der Wiedertaufer, Simon Menno, und der andre der bekannte Jakob Bohm ... Bohms Wirkungen sind schon immer insgeheim unter dem gemeinen Volk sehr machtig" (Jung-Stilling, Sdmmtliche Schriften [Collected Works], 6: 10). "At the same time two men are still noteworthy, whose ... effect on the public continues still unnoticed; the one is the head of the Anabaptists, Simon Menno, and the other the famous Jakob Bohme ... Bohme's effects have always been secretly very powerful among the common people." 41 For an account of Spener's views on Bohme see Wallmann, Spener, 34off; Obst, "Jakob Bohme," 22-39. 42 See Obst, "Jakob Bohme," 23.

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Jakob Bohme

of Bohme is unique within Pietism in some respects, typical in others. A keen admirer and defender of the mystic's thought, Oetinger tried to extricate Bohme from the radical cause with which he was entirely out of sympathy. Because he evinced an interest in Bohme's theosophical thought, Oetinger has been regarded as a precursor of the Romantic reception,43 yet it must be pointed out that he shared some of Spener's doubts and even conceded certain strictures voiced by enlightened critics. For all its unique features, Oetinger's reception of Bohme fits into the Pietistic tradition, and even shares features with radical Pietism, in that it is religiously motivated, centring on Bohme as an instrument of divine revelation and as a moral example. Oetinger's reception of Bohme, like that of radical Pietism, indirectly confirms the strength of opposition to the mystic by its polemical, defensive approach. Oetinger's essay, Aufmunternde Griinde zur Lesung der Schriften Jakob Bo'hmes (1731; Reasons that Encourage us to Read the Works of Jakob Bohme), concedes some of the accusations levelled against Bohme, but attempts to defend him from others by distinguishing him from his radical supporters. It is unjust, Oetinger argues, to despise Bohme because he has been misappropriated by the separatists and "Neusectirisch-gesinnten"44 (those inclined to renewed sectarianism); the Schwdrmerei (religious enthusiasm) for which Bohme is condemned should be attributed to these alone. On the other hand, Oetinger feels compelled to agree with complaints about Bohme's poor and obscure style.45 He is unable to defend Bohme, but pleads that the mystic should be read nevertheless because of the excellence of the content. Bohme's "Lebensregeln" (maxims), Oetinger explains, are "so rein, so Seelenerquickend ... aus einer tiefen und lebendigen Erkenntnis Gottes, des Schopfungs- und Erlosungs-Werks, der Natur und Gnade, in dem 43 See, for instance, Stoeffler, German Pietism, 11 off; Wollgast, "Jakob Bohme," 163-72. The validity of this view cannot be established here, since, like the claims for influence on the Romantics, it hinges on the difficulty of determining whether any similarity in ideas can be attributed to borrowing from Bohme, rather than from some other source, or even to coincidence. In any case, I can find no good reason for regarding Oetinger as a mediator of Bohme to the Romantics. There is no evidence that any of them except Schelling were familiar with Oetinger before their discovery of Bohme, and, since Schelling did not become actively interested in Bohme until around 1802 (long after the mystic had become fashionable), there is no reason to suppose that Oetinger, whom Schelling may or may not have read in his youth, was a factor in this development. 44 Oetinger, SdmmtlicheSchriften (Collected Works), n, i: 252. 45 Complaints of this kind were voiced already by Spener, and became a commonplace in the eighteenth century.

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43

wundersamsten Zusammenhang geflossen."46 In short, his work is an example of how God mixes his light with darkness in order to test man's faith. As this quotation indicates, the same two themes that characterized the radical Pietistic reception are still central for Oetinger, in only slightly altered form. Oetinger, too, regards Bohme as a vessel of divine revelation: his works contain "{den} wesentlichen Funken aus dem Herrn Jesu" and "{die} Krone der Weisheit Adams und Salomos."47 As a result, Bohme was able to attain the greatest wisdom: "Er erkannte sich selbst als den Inbegriff aller Dinge und das Bildnis der Gottheit. Dadurch war ihm zugleich das Innerste der Natur, als durch einen einzigen Blick aufgedeckt."48 Like the radical Pietists, Oetinger insists that Bohme's teaching was not heretical, but accorded with the Bible. Displaying something of Spener's caution, however, Oetinger added a caveat, to wit, that Bohme is not as reliable as the Bible because, though divinely inspired, he may have fallen into error when interpreting and explaining his visions. Only those of his ideas that do conform with the Bible should therefore be adopted.49 Also like the radical Pietists, Oetinger regards Bohme as a moral example, not only because of his piety, but primarily because he exemplifies the right path to knowledge. By this, Oetinger, too, means humble passivity and reliance on God's will, but the alternative which he is opposing has changed. For him, the wrong way is no longer the dogmatic learning of the theologians, but rather enlightened exaltation of human reason. Because of these more moderate aims, Oetinger makes far less use of hagiographic strategies than the radicals did; his Bohme is not so much a sharer in Christ's glory as a humble, sometimes misguided, if mostly admirable, human. Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling (1740-1817) was strictly speaking not a Pietist, although he was brought up in a Pietist milieu and retained many features of the movement; yet his views of Bohme offer an apt overview of the Pietistic reception, because they exemplify its main themes in a 46 Oetinger, Sdmmtliche Schriften, 11,1:252. "so pure, so refreshing for the soul... drawn from a deep and living knowledge of God, of his work of creation and salvation, of nature and grace ... coming together in the most wonderful connection." 47 Oetinger, Sdmmtliche Schriften, n, i: 258. "the essential spark from the Lord Jesus" and "Adam's and Solomon's crown of wisdom." 48 Oetinger, Sdmmtliche Schriften, n, i: 270. "He recognized himself to be the embodiment of all things and the image of the divinity. Through this was revealed to him at the same time the innermost core of nature as if in one glance." 49 Oetinger, Sdmmtliche Schriften, n, i: 309.

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Jakob Bohme

manner which highlights the contrast to Romanticism. Jung-Stilling read Bohme in his youth as part of his religious education. Looking back, he remembered finding in Bohme a source of lofty, beautiful thoughts.50 Like all the Pietists quoted thus far, he praised Bohme as a good and devout Christian who possessed true gnosis51 and conformed to Lutheran doctrine. On the other hand, the unease that Spener and Oetinger felt towards religious enthusiasm is even stronger in Jung-Stilling. Summarizing his judgment of Bohme's teaching, Jung-Stilling praises it in so far as it agrees with true Christianity, regards its philosophical speculations as harmless, and adds that much is incomprehensible and therefore useless.52 More tellingly, while Jung-Stilling, like Oetinger, absolves Bohme himself of Schwdrmerei, he warns that certain features of the mystic's work can become the cause of Schwdrmereiin others. These are: "seine iiberaus bilderreiche und bei aller seiner Einfalt erhabene Sprache, die erstaunungswiirdige {sic} Materien, welche er verhandelt, und die feine Gnosis, welche bei alien, oft sehr ungereimten Ausdriicken und Redensarten, doch iiberall hervorleuchtet," as well as "das Feuer der Einbildungskraft," and the "Drang der Vervollkommnung."53 The qualities here described as dangerous - Bohme's metaphoric language, his imagination, the originality of his ideas - are the very ones which will later enable the Romantics to describe him as an allegoric poet. The defensiveness, the willingness to concede faults we have observed in Oetinger and Jung-Stilling, confirm how far the Pietistic reception of Bohme derived its vitality from its polemical reformative motivation. The avowedly, even aggressively, positive reception focussed on a life and a personality which it deliberately constructed in the tradition of sacred biography in order to have a standard against which to find its enemies wanting. Once divested of this combative intent and redirected to Bohme's actual ideas, the Pietist reception became tentative, allowed the growing rationalist vituperation of Bohme to rob it of its certainty. While continuing to defend Bohme as a devout and orthodox Christian, it developed a tendency to disregard or excuse those very aspects in which his originality resides, and on which the later secular reception of his work was to be grounded. 50 Jung-Stilling, Lebensgeschichte (Autobiography), 99. 51 Jung-Stilling, Schriften, 6: 10. 5 2 Jung-Stilling, Schriften, 6:11. 53 Jung-Stilling, Schriften, 6: 10. "his extremely metaphoric and - for all its simplicity sublime language, the astonishing topics he treats, and the fine gnosis which shines through everywhere in spite of his often silly expressions and sayings."

Bohme 's Reception in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

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THE ENLIGHTENED RECEPTION

The term "Enlightened reception" is used here solely for the sake of brevity and convenience, since the philosophical movement known as Enlightenment did not in any substantial way receive Bohme. Bohme's name was indeed widely cited and generally familiar among rationalist thinkers, neoclassicist literary theorists, and the general public. This currency, however, was by no means the result of any interest in or engagement with either Bohme's persona or his oeuvre. Quite simply, Bohme had become a standard example of two failings held up for public condemnation, the very two that Oetinger had sought to excuse: turgidity of style and Schwdrmerei. There is no reason to suppose that Bohme's notoriety in rationalist and neoclassicist circles was based on firsthand knowledge of his work; indeed the unspecific, offhand nature of the references to him suggests the contrary. It seems therefore likely that it originated with one or a few authoritative texts which were then widely echoed. Gottsched's Versuch einer critischen Dichtkunst (1730, recte 1729; Essay on German Critical Poetic Theory) may have been such a trendsetter. In attempting to define the rules for good literary writing, Gottsched attacks the advocates of a "diistre asthetische Schreibart," and explains: "Man kann auch dogmatische und historische Sachen in einer schwiilstigen und finstern Art des Ausdruckes vortragen: wie Jakob Bohme, Pordatsch {presumably the Bohmist John Pordage}, Erasmus Francisci, und andre Schwarmer mehr gethan haben. Allein solche wilde asthetische Kopfe sind darum keine Homere und Maronen."54 This passage is typical, perhaps prototypical, for the period and the type of reception in every respect: the nature of the criticism, the standards against which Bohme is measured, the tone, the brevity, and offhand manner of the references.55 Bohme's reception at the hands of Enlightenment philosophers differs from that by literary critics - if it differs at all - only in the degree 54 Gottsched, Dichtkunst, 93. "obscure aesthetic style," "One can also present dogmatic and historical matters in a bombastic and obscure style: as Jakob Bohme, Pordatsch, Erasmus Francisci and other enthusiasts have done. But this does not turn such wild aesthetic minds into Homers or Maros (i.e., Vergils}." 55 Along the same lines, Zedler's encyclopedia accords Bohme no great importance, devoting no more than a page to him. It briefly relates Bohme's life, lists his writings, and mentions the controversy that had raged about him, giving the titles of the more famous works on either side. The only comment included is a complaint that the Aurora was "sehr dunckel geschrieben" (written in a very obscure style) Zedler, Universal-Lexikon, 4: 356.

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Jakob Bohme

of firsthand knowledge, not in essence. For instance, it has been suggested that Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) read and admired Bohme.56 While it is true that Leibniz read Bohme and approved of him to the extent that he considered him the first German philosopher, his praise is always qualified, and balanced by frequent criticism. In his Ermahnung an die Teutschen, ihren Verstand und Sprache besser zu uben (1679; Admonishment to the Germans, to Use their Understanding and their Language Better), Leibniz exhorts scholars to write in German, and applauds Bohme as a simple, honest German who, by using his native language to good effect, was able to move and instruct more effectively than more learned authors could: "{Wegen einiger} Bucher, deren autor ein guther ehrlicher alter teutscher, wie wohl sonst ein schlechter man gewesen, {bin} ich in mich gangen und {habe} mich mein selbst und unser Zeit geschamet, wenn ich betrachtet[,] wie alles so deutlich[,] so nachdrucklich und dabey so rein und so natiirlich gestellet, da(3 ich offt zweifelen mu(3en, ob ichs ihm wiirde haben nachthun konnen; und dennoch war gnugsam zu spiiren, dap ihm solches ohne viel nachsinnen aus der feder geflopen."57 It should be noted, however, that Leibniz found this achievement remarkable, not so much in absolute terms as in view of Bohme's lack of learning. In his Nouveaux Essais sur I'Entendement Humain (1703-5; New Essays on Human Understanding), Leibniz remarked that Bohme's work has "quelque chose de grand et de beau pour un homme de cette condition"^ and therefore perhaps deserves more belief than other mystics. On the whole, Leibniz had no great opinion of mystics, and appears to have had little enough respect for Bohme's teachings: "Lites de Boehmianis sententiis inanes esse censeo, et Boehmium nee sibi, nedum aliis intellectum."59 56 Beck, Early German Philosophy, 240. Beck does not, however, provide documentation for this claim. 57 Leibniz, Samtliche Schriften (Collected Works), iv, 3: 814. "Because of some books, whose author was a good honest old German, even if he was otherwise a simple man, I reviewed my thinking and was ashamed of myself and our time, when I saw how everthing had been presented so clearly, so emphatically and at the same time so purely and so naturally that I often had to doubt whether I could have imitated him; and yet one could feel clearly enough that all this flowed from his pen without much reflection." 58 Leibniz, Samtliche Schriften, vi, 6: 507-8. "something great and beautiful for a man of such social standing." 59 Leibniz, Samtliche Schriften, i, 9: 672. "I consider disputes about Bohme's teachings to be nonsensical, and Bohme intelligible neither to himself nor to others." For a similar comment see also the letter to Landgraf Ernst of January 1687 (Leibniz i, 4: 414-5). It has

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47

Dieterich Tiedemann's influential history of philosophy withholds even such moderate praise as that bestowed by Leibniz. Tiedemann accords Bohme only five pages, whereas Plotinus (also a Schwdrmer [religious enthusiast] in Tiedemann's view) occupies more than two hundred. Though Tiedemann displays a degree of familiarity with Bohme's life and works, his exposition is essentially a more detailed version of Gottsched's strictures from sixty years earlier. Tiedemann had no doubt that Bohme, although an honest and pious man, was a Schwdrmer. his lonely life as a shepherd together with the strong impression which nature made on him, "{hatten} seinen feurigen Geist zu frommen Empfindungen gestimmt, welche von Religions-Vorstellungen ... zur Schwarmerey erhoht warden."60 Tiedemann's further remarks on this topic afford valuable insight into the eighteenth-century diagnosis of the causes leading to Schwdrmerei. Bohme's oeuvre, both in content and language, betrays a man, "bey dem mehr das Toben der iiberspannten Phantasie als das ruhige Wirken der Vernunft, Gedanken erzeugte."61 From this failing, Tiedemann derives the second criticism typically levelled at Bohme during this period, incomprehensibility: Bohme's writing cannot be understood, "weil er, um tiefer einzugehen, und unerhortere Dinge zu sagen, sich selbst nicht mehr verstand"62 - the very view already expressed by Leibniz. Lessing, like so many others, cites Bohme as an example of Schwdrmerei and, like Tiedemann, attributes this to the confusion of thinking and feeling. Schwdrmerei, Lessing explained in his 49. Literaturbrief (Letter on Literature), results when feelings, which he seems to regard as a conbeen suggested that at least one philosopher of the Enlightenment, Christian Thomasius, admired Bohme. However, opinions on this point are divided, nor has any convincing argument been made for a significant reception. I do not expand on this question here, since it obviously had no effect on the prevailing view of Bohme. For arguments in favour of Thomasius' interest in Bohme see Heubaum, Bildungswesen, 104; Engfer, "Christian Thomasius," 232; Bloch, Christian Thomasius, 30. On the other hand, Schneiders, Naturrecht, 231, believes that Thomasius, although interested in mysticism, maintained a critical distance from it. 60 Tiedemann, Philosophic, 5: 525. "had tuned his fiery spirit to pious sentiments which were raised by religious ideas ... to religious enthusiasm." 61 Tiedemann, Philosophic, 5:527. "In whom the raging of an overexcited imagination rather than the calm working of reason produced thoughts." It will be remembered that Jung-Stilling also warned that Bohme's "fiery imagination" might lead unwary readers into Schwdrmerei. 62 Tiedemann, Philosophic, 5: 528. "because he, in order to penetrate more deeply and to express more incredible things, no longer understood himself."

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Jakob Bohme

fused form of thought, are allowed to usurp the place of rational reflection: "Mit wenig deutlichen Ideen von Gott und den gottlichen Vollkommenheiten, setzt sich der Schwarmer hin, uberlafh sich ganz seinen Empfindungen, nirnrnt die Lebhaftigkeit derselben fur Deutlichkeit der Begriffe, wagt es, sie in Worte zu kleiden, und wird, - ein Bohme, ein Pordage." 63 For this reason Lessing finds Bohme wholly contemptible and remarkable only for his undeserved fame: "Endlich besinne man sich noch auf die Schwarmereien des erleuchteten Schusters von Gorlitz, welcher ohne Wissenschaft und Gelehrsamkeit, durch seinen blo^en Unsinn, das Haupt einer Sekte und der Theosoph Deutschlands zu werden, das Gliick hatte." 64 It is worth noting that Lessing felt confident that his readers would understand this reference even if he did not actually mention Bohme's name - a clear indication that the use of Bohme in this context must have been a commonplace of enlightened discourse.65 In the introductory chapter of his dissertation Paschek briefly discussed the Enlightenment's rejection of Bohme, but found a significant exception in the person of Lichtenberg. Lichtenberg - so Paschek believes - had a passionate admiration for Bohme which must have influenced the Romantics.66 An examination of Lichtenberg's references to Bohme, however, fails to bear out this conclusion. In support of Paschek's view, it can be pointed out that Lichtenberg's notebooks contain a number of references to Bohme,67 some of which reveal a certain knowledge of the mystic's life and works.68 Nevertheless, while some comments can indeed be construed as approbation, many are characterized by an ambiguity that makes caution advisable, while others still, par63 Lessing, Werke (Works), 5: 171. "The enthusiast sits down with few clear ideas of God and divine perfections, he abandons himself completely to his sentiments, he mistakes their vividness for clarity of concepts, he dares to clothe them in words and becomes, - a Bohme, a Pordage." 64 Lessing, Werke, 7: 48. "Finally one should recall the effusions of the illuminated shoemaker of Gorlitz, who, without science and learning, only through his sheer nonsense, had the luck to become the head of a sect and the theosophist of Germany." 65 Lessing's collected works contain three more references to Bohme, more neutral in tone than those quoted here (though two are most probably ironic). All share the offhand tone characteristic of references to a generally familiar view. See Lessing, Werke, i: 100, 3: 637, and 8: 478. 66 Paschek, Einflufi, 67, 71. 67 Georg C. Lichtenberg, Schriften und Briefe, ed. Wolfgang Promies (Munich: Carl Hanser 1968—1974) vol. i. Individual references are given by notebook and note number. 68 For references to Bohme's life, see D 163 and D 172. For references to aspects of Bohme's thought see, for instance, A 12, D 172, E 170, E 226.

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ticularly in the later notebooks, have a disparaging tone strongly reminiscent of the other thinkers quoted in this section. Admittedly, Lichtenberg condemns the overhasty classification of Bohme as a Schwdrmer. "Da[3 Jacob Bohm ein enthusiastischer Pinsel gewesen, will ich jedem, der es behauptet, gerne zugeben, wenn er mir erlaubt ihn dafur fur einen noch gro(3ern zu halten"; "Wir lachen iiber Jacob Bohmen? Als wenn das Ubernatiirliche das er sprechen wollte natiirlich klingen konnte."69 In contrast to many of his contemporaries, Lichtenberg seems to find truth in the mystic's writings: "Man lese die Schriften dieses Mannes und leugne hernach noch den inneren Sinn";7° yet the preceding entry qualifies this praise by striking an uncertain note: "Vielleicht ist Jacob Bohms Buch, wovon ein Engel eben das Urteil fallen wiirde das wir davon fallen, zuweilen Nonsense, und zuweilen sogar erhaben."71 Two other notes, however, present the exactly opposite viewpoint, maintaining that any meaning to be found in Bohme's writings must be supplied by the reader: "Wenn man unverstandlichen nonsensicalischen Dingen eine verniinftige Deutung geben will, so gerat man ofters auf gute Gedanken, auf diese Art kann Jacob Bohms Buch manchem so niitzlich sein, als das Buch der Natur"; "{Viele Oden} sind das in der Poesie was Jacob Bohms unsterbliche Werke in Prosa sind, eine Art von Pickenick, wobei der Verfasser die Worte (den Schall) und der Leser den Sinn stellt."72 Entries in later notebooks are more negative still, apparently taking for granted a consensus that Bohme's writings are simply error-ridden ravings. In F 215, Lichtenberg dismisses an essay printed in the Deutsches Museum (German Museum) by saying that, were it not for a few simple and reasonable lines in it, "so wiirde man {ihn} als die betriibten Faseleien eines zerriitteten Kopfs

69 D 158: "That Jacob Bohme was an enthusiastic simpleton I shall happily grant anybody who says so, if he allows me to think him in return an even greater one"; D 172: "We laugh about Jacob Bohme? As if the supernatural things which he wanted to express could sound natural." 70 0173: "Let people read the works of this man and afterwards try to deny their inner meaning." 71 D 172: "Perhapsjacob Bohme's book, which an angel would judge just as we do, is at times nonsense, at times even sublime." 72 D 159: "If one wants to give a reasonable interpretation of nonsense, then one arrives at good ideas now and then. In this way Jacob Bohme's book can be as useful to many people as the book of nature." E 104: "{Many odes) are in poetry what the immortal works of Jacob Bohme are in prose, a kind of picnic, where the author provides the words (the sound) and the reader the meaning."

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Jakob Bohme

unter die Werke Bohms u.a. werfen."73 Similarly, he attacks Kant by stating that such works as his do not repay the effort of deciphering them, because "da kann es sein dap der Verfasser sich geirrt hat und da|3 alles auf Jacob-Bohmismus hinauslauft."74 Determining Lichtenberg's attitude (or attitudes, as they may well have changed over time) towards Bohme would require a lengthier study than is possible here, yet even so cursory a survey as I have presented casts grave doubts on the belief that his reception differed radically from the type I have described as the "Enlightened reception." The latter was worth dwelling on, not for what it reveals about Bohme, but because it created the public opinion on which Kotzebue relied for the effect of his anti-Romantic satire, and which the Jena circle deliberately challenged by its championship of Bohme. The survey of the different types of reception enjoyed by Bohme's works could end here since, contrary to what might have been expected, the pre-Romantic generation showed no interest in him. Goethe, as discussed earlier, cannot be shown to have had any interest in Bohme, while Herder actually seems to have disapproved of the mystic. In his Alteste Urkunde des Menschengeschlechts (1774-76; Oldest Document of the Human Race), Herder rejects an approach that he calls "Physica Sacra," because it leads to the creation of ever new systems, in which revelation is drowned in a flood of explanations, notes and interpretations: "Bibeln und Weltgeschichten, Philosophien und philosophische Historien, Physiken und Dogmatiken sind davon voll; die beruhmtesten und thorichsten Namen unter und neben einander - da steht die kleine, simple, schlichte Offenbarung im Text wie ein abgerissenes Ufer, und vom Ufer hinab, eine Sundfluth Noten, Erklarungen, Auslegungen; Auslegungen der Auslegungen - Unsinn!" In a footnote, he then illustrates the point by a list of names, among which he includes Bohme.75

73 "then one would throw (it) as the disturbed ravings of a madman to the works of Bohme etc." 74 j 270: "it is possible that the author erred and that everything amounts to no more than Jacob Bohmism." 75 Herder, Werke 6: 197. "Bibles and histories of the world, books on philosophy and histories of philosophy, books on physics and dogmatics are full of it; the most famous and the most foolish names mixed together - there stands the small, simple, unpretentious revelation in the text like a broken off river bank, and down from the bank a great flood of notes, explanations, interpretations; interpretations of the interpretations - nonsense!"

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Though individual thinkers may have continued to be interested in Bohme for religious reasons, no other significant type of reception appeared before the Romantic one. Nevertheless, the question of Lavater's interest in Bohme must be addressed briefly because of Feilchenfeld's claim that he mediated Bohmist material to Novalis. Whether Lavater was interested in Bohme, and to what extent, cannot be established without extensive research. All the same, several scholars have already cast doubt on the belief that he was a fervent admirer of Bohme.76 In any case, to prove that Lavater adopted specific Bohmist ideas, and that these were then taken over by Novalis, would be a virtually impossible undertaking, and one, moreover, which is not sufficiently motivated by any otherwise unexplained aspects of Novalis's thought. In fact, since the Romantics do not mention any intermediate source for their discovery of Bohme, but on the contrary expressly derive it from Tieck's chance encounter with the Aurora, no such direct lines of transmission can be drawn. What one can assume is, first, an awareness of the religious type of reception as I have sketched it here, 77 secondly, familiarity with the Enlightened position towards Bohme,78 and lastly, an awareness that Bohme had been a controversial figure from the moment his first book became known. This knowledge helped to shape the Romantic reception of Bohme in a number of ways. First, the image of Bohme as prophet for the coming reign of Poesie presupposes an established picture of Bohme as a religious

There is no agreement on the question of how well Herder knew Bohme. A. Gillies, Herder, 7, maintains that Herder was well read in mysticism and familiar with Bohme; Antoine Faivre, "La critique boehemienne de Franz von Baader," 136, asserts that Herder knew Bohme only very slightly; Robert T. Clark, Herder, 168—9, merely refers to the passage I have quoted. 76 The view that Lavater was a great admirer of Bohme was put forward in the early part of this century by Feilchenfeld and also by Lutgert in his Die Religion des deutschen Idealismus und ihrEnde, 2: 49. For criticism of their position see Paschek, Einflufi, 64ff, Faivre, Baader, 136, and Heinze, Bengel, 101. 77 Texts the Romantics are most likely to have known are Franckenberg, Arnold, and perhaps Oetinger. However, this is pure speculation on my part. 78 Given the fact that the use which Enlightened authors made of Bohme's name suggests that their view was widely known, no particular contact point for the Romantics need be sought. That they were familiar with the Enlightened type of reception is confirmed by Tieck's description of the expectations with which he approached the Aurora, and by a comment found in a letter which Friedrich Schlegel wrote to Schleiermacher. Both of these will be quoted in Part n.

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prophet in the traditional sense, and indeed draws on the language and content of religious accounts intended to secure Bohme's prophetic status. Secondly, the aura of controversy surrounding Bohme, and in particular the cautionary role he performed in Enlightened discourse, greatly enhanced his effectiveness as a weapon for provocation and subversion of established norms.

PART II

Jakob Bohme and the Jena Circle. The Story of a Reception

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4

The Discovery: Ludwig Tieck

The first reference to Bohme by a member of the Jena circle occurs in a letter by Friedrich Schlegel to Novalis, written on December 2, 1798. Schlegel discusses the project of founding a new religion and lists some harbingers of its imminent birth, among them: "Tieck studirt den Jacob Bohme mit groper Liebe."1 Two years later, Novalis himself will thank Tieck for having introduced him to Bohme.2 Since it was chronologically the earliest, Tieck's reception can safely be assumed to have set the tone for the Jena circle's encounter with Bohme. And indeed, Tieck's remarks on Bohme touch upon all the themes developed by his friends. Viewed on its own, however, Tieck's Bohme reception is more remarkable for the strategies and discourses it employs and for the effects these had on others (including twentieth century Germanists) than for its significance in the context of Tieck's oeuvre. Indeed, in this respect, it is the embodiment of a paradox: its claims bear little or no relation to its actual observable instances, yet it makes an important contribution to the understanding of Romantic thought, though not in the manner one might reasonably expect. To illustrate this peculiarity, I shall start with a brief summary of the prevailing scholarly reading of Tieck's Bohme reception.3 Most accounts run along the following lines. Tieck discovered Bohme by chance and was completely won over by his works, the influence of which can be seen 1 Friedrich Schlegel, Kritische-FriedrichrSchlegel-Ausgabe, ed. E. Behler et al, 35 vols. (Paderborn: Schoningh 1958-), 24: 207. Subsequent references to this edition, cited as KA, will appear in parentheses in the text. "Tieck is studying Jacob Bohme with great love." 2 See Novalis, Schriften, 4: 32 iff. 3 Individual contributions by various scholars will be discussed in the last section of this chapter.

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clearly in his writings between 1799 and 1802, particularly in Genoveva, Kaiser Octavianus and Der Runenberg. Tieck borrowed not so much a system of thought as an attitude to God and nature, or, at the very least, Bohme's language and style, in the form of individual words and images. As Der Runenberg shows, the preoccupation with Bohme caused Tieck to concentrate on the dark side of nature, thereby ushering in a period of depression and unproductivity that ultimately led to a rejection of mystics in general and Bohme in particular. The task is to compare this interpretation with the textual evidence available. What can actually be found in Tieck's writings is perhaps best described as not one, but two receptions, with an interval of sixteen years of silence between them. The first reception occurred in the years 1798-1801. It is the outcome of Tieck's discovery and study of Bohme, the object of discussion with other members of the Jena circle, and the subject of the scholarly accounts described above. It can be pieced together from various contemporary documents, such as Tieck's correspondence and a few passages from his poetic works. Its Bohme is a divinely inspired prophet and the poet of nature's joyful, productive life. In later years (beginning in 1817), Tieck was to look back on this earlier Bohme reception, reflect on its significance and, again and again, retell it as a connected narrative including its own interpretation. Given the time elapsed, and even more in view of their style and content, these late accounts should not be regarded as reliable documents of the earlier period, but rather as a new phase in Tieck's reception of Bohme in relation to his self-understanding. The account just outlined differs from previous ones in that it identifies two distinct receptions where only one has been assumed, and even more because neither corresponds to the picture of influence on the poetic works drawn by other studies. Barring the possible adoption of a few phrases, no borrowing from Bohme can be identified in Tieck's poetic works, and various considerations militate against such a possibility. The cause for this misconception on the part of Tieck scholars is not far to seek. All claims for influence repeat, more or less unquestioningly and often echoing his very words, Tieck's own late accounts - a remarkable tribute to the efficacy of Tieck's mythmaking. THE EARLY RECEPTION

Bohme is mentioned often enough in Tieck's writings in the period 1800-1 to leave no doubt that he was the object of much thought and

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attention.4 Both the import and the context of Tieck's remarks about the mystic suggest a focus on three closely interconnected themes: Bohme was a divinely inspired prophet; he was also a great poet, and hence a living incarnation of the fusion of Poesie and religion aimed at by the Romantics; he was a German who lived in the period from which Tieck drew most of his literary raw material and his examples for the Romantic anticanon. On the simplest level, Bohme's status as poet is established by association: in the fifth act of Tieck's play, Prim Zerbino, Bohme is mentioned as one of the inhabitants of the marvellous garden of Poesie, keeping company with such great poets as Dante, Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Goethe.5 By a more sophisticated strategy, the language with which Bohme is discussed in two letters to Tieck's sister Sophie subtly fuses the two identities of poet and prophet. In the first of these (written early in the year 1800) Tieck advises his sister to read Bohme "mit Andacht" (with devotion) - the treatment accorded to recognized religious texts. His reason is that, through Bohme, she will reach (as he himself already has) a true understanding of God, and therefore of the created world: "Du wirst einen neuen Sinn, ich mochte sagen, eine neue Seele bekommen, mir erscheint die Welt anders, ich weip seitdem von Gott."6 A further letter, dated Easter 1800, expands on this topic, first praising Bohme in veiled terms as a great poet of nature, then describing him - by way of explanation for the first - as a great teacher of religion: "sei nicht so triibsinnig ... lies wenn es Dich anwandelt den Jakob Bohm, da ist die Lebensfulle, da ist der ewige Friihling, wie er nirgends mehr bliiht. Dieser Mann ist durchaus mit Gott angefullt, und keiner kann so wie er, die Seele unmittelbar zu Gott fuhren, besonders in der Morgenrothe."7 In the first sentence, Bohme is praised for capturing the essence of nature's bountiful 4 In January 1800, Tieck was planning a poem on Bohme for the Athendum, though he later abandoned this idea; see Jonas, Aus Schleiermachers Leben, 3: 148 and 186. In July 1801, during a quarrel with the Schlegel brothers, Tieck explained his request for the manuscript of Heinrich von Ofterdingen by stating: "er gehort mir zu Bohme, zu dem ich bestandig Studien mache" (Liideke, Tieck, 87). "for me he belongs with Bohme, whom I constantly study." 5 Tieck, Schriften, 10: 283. 6 Krebs, Runge, 46. "You will receive a new sense, I would say, a new soul, the world appears to me in a different light, since that time I know about God." 7 Krebs, Runge, 48. "don't be so melancholic ... if depression overcomes you, read Jakob Bohme, there is the fullness of life, there is eternal spring, such as no longer blossoms anywhere. This man is wholly filled with God, and nobody can lead the soul direcdy to God as he can, especially in the Aurora."

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life, that is, for reflecting nature's unbroken connection with God - and what is this other than the often repeated Romantic definition of true Poesie? Bohme's poetic status having been established, the claim that his poetic works are filled with the divine spirit, and therefore afford direct knowledge of God, serves to order his prophetic persona as a function or precondition of the poetic one. Lastly, it is worth noting that this perfect fusion of religion and Poesie is recommended to Sophie as the best antidote to depression.8 The same themes and the same images reappear in expanded form in Tieck's play DerAutor (The Author), with the addition of a nationalistic element. Though mainly a satire on contemporary, "Enlightened" views on literature and on other forms of philistine thinking, Der Autor also presents a version of that favourite Romantic theme, the education of the artist. Like Franz Sternbald, the protagonist of this play, a poet, is faced by temptations that he must reject in order to remain true to his calling. The various figures, representing the viewpoints to be ridiculed, offer temptations in the form of worldly goods and fame, or endanger the poet's constancy by causing him to despair of having any effect. Towards the end, after the various worldlings have come and gone, leaving the young writer in a state of deep despondency, encouragement and consolation arrive in the person of the Altfranke (the stalwart Franconian), emissary of an age that to Tieck embodied Germany's strength, honesty, and freedom. This character preaches courage and manly strength, urges the poet to disregard the weakness of the present and to devote himself to the task of lending poetic expression to the tales of Germany's great past. As an antidote to life's miseries, he prescribes the reading of great writers, in particular, Goethe and Bohme: Doch bist du allzusehr verdrossen Und steckst voll dummer irdscher Possen, So steck die Nas' in ein gutes Buch, So wirst du wieder gesund und klug, Und willst mal recht in die Tiefe schauen In alien Sinnen dich erbauen, 8 Another remark in this letter bears further witness to Bohme's status as a prophet by its use of religious terminology, and incidentally confirms Tieck's role as discoverer and popularizer of Bohme among the Romantics: "ich bekehre hier alle Leute zu ihm und bin sein Predigef' (Krebs, Runge, 48). "I convert everyone here to him and I am his preacher."

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Den Wein des Lebens schliirfen ein, So recht im Fruhling heimisch sein, Wo aus alien Blxithen Nachtigallen Und tausendfach Gesange schallen, Unendlichfach die Geister quallen, So hab dir ja ein Buch erschlossen, Wo schon manch Himmelsstunde hast genossen, So gab ich dir noch aup*er Gothe, Auroram, jene Morgenrothe, Von dem Propheten, den sie schelten, Dem aufgeschlossen alle Welten, Des heilger unentweihter Mund Der Gottheit Tiefe hat verkundt, Den gro(3en deutschen Jakob Bohme, Da(3 er von dir die Schwermuth nahme, Jedwedes Wort in ihm dir lacht, Und all umzogen mit Glanz und Pracht, Er hat durchaus sich gesponnen ein In eitel Glori und Heiligenschein9

Although this passage contains nothing new, it is worth pausing over, because it presents the entire scope and essence of the early reception with particular clarity. The description of Bohme's poetic gifts elaborates the now familiar spring metaphor. It blends the natural and supernatural world, using Bohme's own terminology for the latter: Bohme is a true poet, in other words, because he has grasped the organic unity of the two. The second part, more specifically devoted to the religious aspect, makes even bolder use of religious terminology. Bohme is expressly termed a prophet, and saintliness, with its visual manifestation 9 Tieck, Schriften, 13: 323. "But if you feel too cross and if you are full of stupid earthly crotchets, then put your nose into a good book and you will once again be healthy and clever ... And if you want to look into the depths and if you want to edify yourself in all senses, to drink the wine of life and to feel at home in spring, when nightingales and thousandfold songs sound from all blossoms, and an infinite number of spirits appear, then I opened a book for you where you have already enjoyed many a heavenly hour. I gave you besides Goethe the Aurora, that dawn by the prophet whom they condemn, to whom all worlds were unlocked, whose holy undefiled mouth has proclaimed the depths of the divinity. I gave you the great German Jakob Bohme so that he may relieve you of your melancholy. Each word in him laughs for you and they are all enveloped in splendour and magnificence. He has completely enclothed himself with perfect glory and a saint's halo."

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(Heiligenschein [halo]), is attributed to him. The greatness and validity of his insights are attested to by images of both vertical and horizontal extension ("Dem aufgeschlossen alle Welten" and, "Der Gottheit Tiefe hat verkundt"10). The final few lines fuse the poetic and religious aspects, just as they are fused in Bohme and should be in all truly Romantic writing. This is the reason why the Altfranke can prescribe Bohme as a treatment for depression ("Dap er von dir die Schwermuth nahme"), 11 just as Tieck did for his sister. This last point is particularly significant, since it is, or should be, the shoal on which attempts to ascribe the dark, pessimistic portrayal of nature in Tieck's poetic works to Bohme's influence founder. THE LATE R E C E P T I O N

From the very beginning, Tieck had endowed Bohme with a sacral aura, had presented him as a divinely chosen poet-prophet. Concomitantly, he had described his encounter with the mystic as a conversion experience ("mir erscheint die Welt anders," "ich bekehre alle Leute zu ihm").12 Years later, when Tieck looked back on his Bohme reception, this aspect assumed paramount importance, shaping his interpretation and subsuming all other motifs within itself. Tieck's later accounts of his Bohme reception, in other words, are cast in the mould of religious conversion, and as such are determined by the conventions and language of sacred biography (to the same extent, though not quite in the same manner, as Franckenberg's biography of Bohme). The theme of conversion thus constitutes the link between the two phases of the reception. At the same time, a new and discordant element is introduced into the narrative. At some point between the dissolution of the Jena circle and Tieck's friendship with Solger, Tieck lost interest in or became disenchanted with Bohme. In an attempt to account for both positions while producing a coherent, ideologically meaningful narrative, Tieck reinterpreted the effects Bohme had on him. Although he is able to integrate the negative phase within his tale of a conversion and a journey towards spiritual plenitude, he starkly contradicts the remarks made at the time of his Bohme enthusiasm. This raises questions about the role 10 "To whom all worlds are unlocked" and "{Who} has proclaimed the depths of the divinity." 11 "that he may take your melancholy from you." 12 "the world appears to me in a different light" "I convert everybody to him."

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played by memory and by Tieck's current spiritual needs in shaping his interpretation of the past. Incidentally, Tieck's late reinterpretation of his experiences lays the groundwork for the misconceptions to which scholars were to fall prey. As mentioned earlier, there are four texts presenting the older Tieck's reading of his Bohme reception, two first person direct accounts (in a letter to Solger and in the preface to the eleventh volume of his Schriften [Works]), a fictionalized version (the novel Der Aufruhr in den Cevennen [The Uprising in the Cevennes]), and an oral retelling recorded in writing by his friend Kopke. All of these portray Tieck's early encounter with Bohme as a conversion experience that had drastic effects on his life. All four deploy very much the same language to the same purpose, remarkably so, given the divergence in context, writing intention, and addressee. By contrast, only two of these four texts include an explanation of Tieck's estrangement from Bohme, and these explanations are not consistent with each other. To try and reach some understanding of this situation, it will be helpful to approach Tieck's accounts as traditional conversion texts, determined by the conventions of the genre. To understand the differences in the texts, however, consideration must be given to the context and intention of each. Accordingly, some idea of these must be given before turning to the tradition of writing on conversion. Chronologically the first account is found in a letter to Solger, dated March 24, 1817. The letter is primarily a panegyric to Solger, who is praised for helping Tieck reach a true understanding of philosophy, and indeed of his own emotional and intellectual development. In his introduction, Matenko comments pertinently: "For Tieck, one must remember, always strove for an explanation which might comprehend the totality of experience."13 This need provided a most powerful reason for the appropriation of spiritual autobiography. Volume 11 of Tieck's Schriften contains a lengthy introduction, in which the poet "explains" the works reprinted in the next few volumes, explains them, that is, by outlining the circumstances in which they came to be, the ideas and events that prompted their writing. Here, the story of Tieck's Bohme experience appears at the culmination of a discussion of religion. In order to place his Autorin the intellectual climate of its time, Tieck outlines first the literary controversies that raged around the emerging Romantic school, then the declining fortunes of religion during the late Enlightenment. After a 13 Matenko, Tieck and Solger, 359.

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digression on the sufferings inflicted on religion by its ignorant enthusiasts at the time he is writing (1829), Tieck returns to his Autor, only to digress again and relate the role played by Bohme in his spiritual development. The very same narrative appears in Tieck's novel, DerAufruhr in den Cevennen. The novel treats the problem of religious controversy, portraying the ravages brought about by the intolerance of both Catholic and Protestant extremists. The positive figures in the novel are moderate, tolerant Catholics with Protestant sympathies. Of these, the best is the old priest Edmund Watelet, the only one who survives, and thus the figure to which hopes of a better future must attach. Years later, Tieck's friend Kopke was to comment: "Von dem Eindrucke, den Jakob Bohme's Schriften auf ihn machten, erzahlt er in der Person des Pfarrers Watelet in den 'Cevennen,' dessen religiose Ansichten die seinen sind."14 One need not follow Kopke in this somewhat hasty identification of author and character, yet it is clearly no accident that Watelet reached his admirable faith through the agency of Bohme's works. When he couched this recurring tale in the language of religious conversion, Tieck knowingly referred to an ancient, broad, and established tradition, with which his readers were familiar, and which would evoke a predictable range of associations and connotations. It is therefore necessary to give some consideration to this background. Spiritual autobiography can be classed as a subset of sacred biography, adding some special needs (and techniques for meeting them) to those already discussed in connection with the broader genre.15 Chief among these is the need for a discourse with which to make conversion intelligible. However, an important distinction needs to be made here. As Morrison argues, literature of conversion makes intelligible, not the experience itself, but the ways in which it is thought and written about. Tales of conversion should be seen, not as reliable psychographs, but rather as ritualized, dramatic spectacle: "The form, or exemplar of conversion was ... a poetic scenario in search of actors, in search, moreover, of countless improvisations. That scenario, within the limits and degrees of empathy, was provided in the context of myth."16 The two exemplars for writing on conversion were Saint Paul's experience on the road to Damascus and Saint Augustine's conversion in the garden 14 Kopke, Tieck, 2: 152. "he tells about the impression which Jakob Bohme's works made on him in the person of the priest Watelet in the 'Cevennen,' whose religious ideas are the same as his own." 15 See above, pp. 2gff. 16 Morrison, Conversion, xvn.

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at Milan. The literary expression that Augustine gave to his experience, the Confessiones, became paradigmatic for spiritual autobiography, and spawned a variety of adaptations, from the lives of pious women, to Pietistic autobiographies, to Rousseau's Confessions and their imitators. Any or all of these, as well as homiletic and medieval hagiography, are possible sources for Tieck's familiarity with this tradition. One further feature on which Morrison's work helps to shed light is the significance of the time gap between the experience and its written record. Morrison discusses two such "works of recollection" (one first-person and one third-person, as is the case here), and comments: "they present exercises in deliberate assembling, sorting, and reconstituting shards of the past."17 In Tieck's three texts, the discrepancies in the order and interpretation of the same narrative elements confirm the thesis that the texts reflect, not an immediate impression, but rather the selective working of memory attempting to make sense of an experience, to assign it a meaning and a functional place within a larger structure. To bring out the character of Tieck's texts, I shall organize my discussion around the traditional phases of sacred (auto) biography featuring a conversion. The first stage, life prior to conversion, is characterized by abandonment to sin or at least to worldly frivolity; yet an undercurrent of tension is already present, since the hero's vocation makes itself known through a confused longing for the truth. In the life of Saint Augustine, for instance, carnal passions battled with a desire for the true religion.18 Similarly, the young Tieck of the letter to Solger is wholly given over to worldly frivolity ("frevlem Leichtsinn");19 the one of the preface, to overconfident rationalism: "Als ein Genosse meiner Zeit hatte ich mich fruh jenen freien Geistern zugewendet, die der Religion nicht bediirfen. Alles schien mir abgemacht, bewiesen und widerlegt."20 The young Edmund Watelet in Der Aufruhr in den Cevennen is a confirmed atheist and a frivolous worldling.21 In the two autobiographic texts, the vocation that would lead to conversion is already present in a more or less dormant state. The letter to Solger refers to an "Instinkt zu 17 Morrison, Conversion, 51. 18 Augustine provides a particularly apt comparison, not only because of his importance for the genre, but because the letter to Solger in which the Bohme conversion is narrated indicates that Tieck was familiar with the Confessions. See Matenko, Tieck and Solger, 363. 19 Matenko, Tieck and Solger, 361. 20 Tieck, Schriften, 1i: LXXIII. "As a person of my time I had turned early towards those free spirits who do not need religion. To me everything seemed settled, proven and refuted." 21 Tieck, Schriften, 26: 302.

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Religion" (instinct for religion) that found partial expression in a love of Poesie; the preface goes a step further and derives from this a longing for religion: "Indem ich, von selbst getrieben, nach Vollstandigkeit, oder nach Umsicht strebte, entwirrte sich aus der Liebe zur Poesie eine Sehnsucht zum Religiosen."22 The drama reaches its peak with the conversion scene. It is here that inner developments become spectacle. The change of heart is brought about by an outside agency (God) and it strikes its subject with the suddenness and force of a catastrophe. The imagery typically employed at this juncture reflects the theme of God's beneficent violence. Saint Paul, to name but one famous example, is literally struck blind by the divine light that suddenly envelops him. Tieck's three texts make full use of this convention. By chance, the protagonist picks up a copy of Bohme's Aurora and begins to read, expecting to be amused by its nonsense. Instead, the divine spirit in the text takes possession of him and alters the entire course of his existence. The texts are worth quoting at some length, as their language bears eloquent witness to the theme of beneficent violence. In the letter to Solger, Tieck relates how Bohme's book, "sich binnen kurtzem aller meiner Lebenskrafte bemachtigte: der Zauber dieses wundersamsten Tiefsinns und lebendigster Poesie beherrschte mich nach zweijahren so, da(3 ich von hier aus nur das Christenthum vers[te]hn wollte."23 The preface heightens the drama by employing the metaphor of blinding divine light that characterized the Saul-Paul conversion: "ein Zufall gab mir den Bohme in die Hand, und ich ward geblendet von dem Glanz des innigsten, bliihendsten Lebens, von der Fiille der Erkenntnip*, erschiittert ward ich von dem Tiefsinn, und von dem Aufschlu^ begluckt, der sich aus diesem neuentdeckten Reich iiber alle Rathsel des Lebens und des Geistes verbreitet."24 In Der Aufruhr in den Cevennen the fire imagery suggests even greater violence: "{ich} hatte den Feuerbrand in mein Haus getragen, der bald alle diese Gebaude des Hochmuts und weltlichen Frevelsinns in Flammen setzte ... 22 Tieck, Schriften, 11: LXXIII. "As I, driven by myself, strove for perfection or for insight, a longing for religiosity developed from the love of poetry." 23 Matenko, Tieck and Solger, 361. "took hold of all my faculties in a short time: the magic of this most marvellous profundity and most vivid poetry dominated me after two years so much that I wanted to understand Christianity only from this perspective." 24 Tieck, Schriften, 11: LXXIII-LXXIV. "by accident I got Bohme into my hands and was dazzled by the splendour of the most ardent, flourishing life, by the range of cognition, I was deeply affected by the profundity, and blessed by the understanding which spread from this newly discovered realm to all riddles of life and spirit."

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Das Buch lie|3 mir keine Ruhe ... es qudlte mich."25 Such moments of illumination are usually followed by certainty of faith, and Tieck's three texts are no exception. Watelet turns to studying the Bible and becomes a priest, the Tieck of the two autobiographic texts is convinced that he has been handed the key to a perfect understanding of religion and philosophy, and hence to the truth. For all his adherence to the forms of conversion writing, Tieck has radically changed the implications of the genre by adding a new element, one that he and his contemporaries hoped to fuse with religion, but which would eventually trivialize the latter. For Tieck, as indeed for Novalis, conversion to religion and to Poesie are one and the same. In the letter to Solger, it is the love of Poesie that leads Tieck to Bohme: "meine Liebe zu Poesie, zum Sonderbaren und Alten fuhrte mich, anfangs fast mitfrevlem Leichtsinn, zuj. Bohme."26 Bohme then operates a conversion to religion, but can only achieve this because his writing is Poesie: "{Bohme bemachtigte} sich binnen kurtzem aller meiner Lebenskrafte: der Zauber dieses wundersamsten Tiefsinns und lebendigster Poesie beherrschte mich nach zwei Jahren so, da(3 ich von hier aus nur das Christenthum vers[te]hn wollte, das lebendigste Wort im Abbild der ringenden und sich verklarenden Nat[ur]krafte." 27 Bohme, in other words, made possible that fusion of religion and Poesie, reached only by those who understand that Poesie duplicates nature's own mirroring function - mirror, that is, in the sense of symbolic manifestation of the divine. Thanks to this insight, an understanding of philosophy, the third element of Universalpoesie, could easily be achieved: "von meinem Wunderlande aus las ich Fichte und Schelling, und fand sie leicht, nicht tief genug, und gleichsam nur als Silhouetten oder Scheiben aus jener unendlichen Kugel voll Wunder."28 From this, the significance of the 25 Tieck, Schriften, 26: 303. "{1} had carried the firebrand into my house which soon set fire to all these edifices of pride and worldly frivolity ... the book left me no peace ... it tormented me." 26 Matenko, Tieck and Solger, 361. "my love for poetry, for strange and old things led me, at first almost with sacrilegious frivolity, to J. Bohme." 2 7 Matenko, Tieck and Solger, 361. " {Bohme took hold of] all my faculties in a short time: the magic of this most marvellous profundity and of this poetry, truly full of life, dominated me after two years so much that I wanted to understand Christianity only from this perspective, the word, truly full of life, as an image of the striving and transfiguring powers of nature." 28 Matenko, Tieck and Solger, 362. "from my enchanted kingdom I read Fichte and Schelling and found them easy, not profound enough, and like silhouettes or slices of that infinite sphere full of miracles."

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conversion emerges. What Tieck had vainly been searching for, and believed he had found in Bohme, was a harmonious, organic view of the universe, the well known Romantic fusion of religion, philosophy, and Poesie. Similarly, the preface presents the Bohme-induced conversion as a moment of overwhelming insight around which a new edifice of true knowledge could be constructed. In particular, it allegedly helped Tieck to an understanding of philosophy: "Dieses Studium, das mich einige Jahre beschaftigte, hat mich spater zur Philosophic gefuhrt."29 In the preface, Tieck concludes the topic of his Bohme conversion with the image of the convert firmly embarked on the path to true knowledge. Having appended some remarks on the importance of mysticism for the true philosopher, he passes on to another topic, without giving any account of how he came to lose interest in Bohme, or indeed even mentioning that he did so. The situation is far different in the letter to Solger. The intention of the letter is to hail Solger as Tieck's true teacher and saviour. The history of Tieck's spiritual journey develops the compliment to Solger by showing how many failures preceded his intervention. This has serious implications for the tale of conversion: if Solger is to emerge as the true prophet, Bohme must be unmasked as a false, or at least an imperfect, one. Accordingly, the true understanding of religion, philosophy and Poesie reached by means of the Bohme experience is subsequently described as an illusion, an error with destructive consequences. Having just praised Bohme for combining "wundersamsten Tiefsinn und lebendigste Poesie,"30 Tieck claims paradoxically and, to my mind, inconsistently - that the mystic fed his "Hange zum Tiefsinn"31 to the point where it destroyed his grasp of Poesie: so karri es dahin, da(i mein jugendlich leichter Sinn, meine Lust zur Poesie und am Bilden mir als etwas Verwerfliches, Verfehltes erschien, da(3 ich nun glaubte, Spekulation und das innere Leben gefunden zu haben, da[3 es sich fur mich aber nicht mit den sonstigen weltlichen Bemuhungen vertriige: so gab es nun viele Stunden, wo ich mich in die Abgeschiedenheit eines Klosters wiinschte, um gantz meinem Bohme und Tauler, und den Wundern meines Gemuths leben zu kon29 Tieck, Schriften, 11: LXXIV. "This study, which occupied me several years, led me later to philosophy." 30 "this most marvellous profundity and this poetry, truly full of life." 31 "inclination to melancholy."

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nen. Dies hatte sich schon im Zerbino leicht poetisch, in der Genoveva dunkler, und im Octavian verwirrter geregt. Meine Produktionskraft, mein poetisches Talent schien mir auf immer zerbrochen.32

In his eagerness to unmask Bohme as a false prophet, Tieck does not explain how Bohme, whom he had just hailed as the embodiment of true Poesie, could bring about such an estrangement from it. Indeed he does not identify what he regards as Bohme's philosophical error until later in the letter; even then, he only mentions it as an appendage to his praise of Solger's thought, and does not (cannot?) link it to the earlier claim of Bohme's antipoetic effect. At first, the narrative continues, Tieck resolved the crisis by simply laying aside mysticism, and co,ncentrating exclusively on literature. The encounter with Solger at last made possible a more balanced position by helping Tieck identify the error of mysticism, and therefore to accord it a more limited validity. This new peripeteia in the tale, it should be stressed, confirms rather than undermines the debt to spiritual autobiography, since the insight imparted by Solger bears the same character of a sudden revelation, of a quasimiraculous illumination that distinguished the encounter with Bohme: "ich glaubte mich plotzlich wie durch einen Zauberstab Ihrer selbst und aller Ihrer Krafte bemachtigt zu haben, und sah und fuhlte mit freudigem Erschrecken, dap* dies mein eignes Innerstes sey, das, was ich immer gesucht, und immer nur scheinbar gefunden hatte."33 Paradoxically, the similarity is underscored by the imagery that presents Solger's thought as a beneficent magic neutralizing Bohme's destructive one: "Zugleich sank nun auch auf immer die Magie, die bei jedem Mystiker entstehn mu|3, mir auf ewig als caput 32 Matenko, Tieck and Solger, 362. "so it happened that my youthful frivolity, my love of poetry and of writing appeared to me as something reprehensible, misguided, so that I now believed I had found speculation and the inner life, that this however did not agree in my case with the rest of worldly endeavours; thus there were many hours when I wished for the solitude of a monastery in order to live completely for Bohme and Tauler and for the wonders of my spirit. This had already appeared in light poetic form in Zerbino, more darkly in Genoveva and more confusedly in Octavian. My creative powers, my poetic talent seemed to me to have been broken for ever." 33 Matenko, Tieck and Solger, 361. "As by a magic wand, I believed I had suddenly taken hold of you and of all your powers and I saw and felt with happy shock that this was my own innermost being, that this was what I had always searched for and which I had always found only seemingly."

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mortuum unter."34 The new conversion proves its definitive worth by its correction of the previous extreme swings: Upon the worship, then the rejection of Bohme follows "nicht Abfall sondern richtiger Freundschaftsbund, Granzvertrag mit meinem J. Bohm."35 The philosophical error now attributed to Bohme cannot be reconciled with the paralysing effect it supposedly had on Tieck's poetic productivity (and, as mentioned, Tieck does not attempt to explain the connection), but it does explain why Bohme is now unmasked as a false prophet, since it seriously impairs his ability to provide that harmonious, totalizing vision that Tieck always strove to grasp. Bohme, and indeed most mystics, Tieck now feels, accord evil too much power, so that they are unable to subsume it within the good principle. As a result, their systems present an unresolvable dualism instead of a unified organic whole. Solger by contrast, avoids both this and the opposite extreme (the Augustinian notion of evil as privation) in that, as his letter to Tieck (February 2, 1817) explained, he conceives evil as the "real nothingness" which is the existence of the individual in so far as it does not manifest God.36 34 Matenko, Tieck and Solger, 364. "At the same time the magic which has to arise with every mystic became for ever a caput mortuum (i.e., worthless residue}." 35 Matenko, Tieck and Solger, 364. "not desertion but rather a true treaty of friendship, a boundary settlement with myj. Bohm." Hegel, in his review of Solger's posthumous works and correspondence edited by Tieck, singles out this letter for detailed commentary, sharply taking Tieck to task for his unphilosophical attitude. Hegel overlooks the hagiographic strategies at work in the letter, which causes him to question the religious vocabulary; he objects, for instance, to the phrase "frevlem Leichtsinn" with which Tieck describes his preconversion state: "worin das Frevelhafte bestanden hatte, sieht man nicht" ("one does not see what the sacrilege should consist of). On the other hand Hegel, as one might expect, sees very well the inconsistencies and logical gaps in Tieck's narrative. In particular, he questions the attribution of the crisis in Tieck's productivity to an absorption in mysticism; he terms it hypochondria and comments that in such a state Tieck would have been as incapable of mystical speculation as of creative writing. Again, he objects to the phrase "Leichtsinn" for Tieck's abandonment of Bohme. In sum, Hegel regards the entire passage as evidence of misguided notions generated by Tieck's onesided and unphilosophical mysticism. See Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Werke, 11: asyff. 36 Tieck's objection to Bohme presents noteworthy parallels to the views of his by then estranged friends, Schelling and Friedrich Schlegel. As will be shown in Part in, Schlegel also came to object to the power and status that Bohme accords to evil. Schelling, on the other hand, saw in it a possibility of achieving what Tieck misses, namely, a dualism subsumed within a higher unity.

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In addition to the internal inconsistencyjust discussed, the account of Bohme's antipoetical effects is also incompatible with the view represented by the Altfranke in Der Autor and by Tieck in the letters to his sister, namely, that Bohme's writings expressed the joyfulness of life and therefore brought consolation in adversity. The imagery deployed in the letter to Solger presents the greatest possible contrast to the springtime metaphor associated with Bohme in Tieck's early period: "Ich kampfte schmerzhaft, da sich mir die heitre Welt und mein Gemiith so mit Finsternis bedeckte, die mir anfangs im helleren Glantz geschienen hatte."37 It seems reasonable to attribute the inconsistencies and improbabilities of Tieck's self-analysis to the victory won over the complexities of life by his need for a unilinear narrative presenting an unbroken series of unequivocal causes and effects. Just as his growing interest in a theory that would articulate the cooperation of religion, philosophy, and literature, occurring at the very time of growing friendship with men like Novalis, Schlegel, and Schelling, is distilled into a single overwhelming conversion experience, so too a time of discontent and uncertainty, occurring when the dissolution of the Jena circle brought disorientation to more than one of its former members, is derived from one cause alone, a cause, moreover, that allows Tieck to magnify the compliment to Solger. One question still needs to be answered: why should Tieck wish to portray his passion for Bohme's oeuvre as a religious conversion? Once again, the tradition of sacred biography can be invoked. A conversion resulting from sudden illumination establishes the convert's title to revealed truth and therefore functions as a certificate of membership to the ranks of the elect. Saint Paul, for instance, was the only Apostle who did not know Christ personally; his right of admittance to this select group rested solely on the vision of the risen Christ that led to his conversion.38 The Bohme-induced conversion in Der Aufruhr in den Cevennen has just such a validating function. The priest Watelet provides an ideal model of true Christianity in a novel that treats the ravages of misguided religious zeal. Before his positive role is confirmed by his actions, the Tightness of his faith is proved by the tale of its inception: 37 Matenko, Tieck and Solger, 362. "I fought painfully, since the serene world and my spirit were so covered by darkness which had appeared to me at the beginning in a brighter light." 38 Krailsheimer, Conversion, 13—4.

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Watelet's form of Christianity must be a true one because God himself led him to it by means of Bohme's book. In the two autobiographic texts, Tieck appropriates hagiographic strategies in order to validate his own status as a poet. Through the fusion of religion and literature, the poet acquires a prophetic mission, and hence unprecedented importance; moreover, by presenting himself as the recipient of a divinely engineered conversion, the autobiographer proves to himself and his readers that he, personally, is to be counted among the true poets. I have already remarked on Tieck's need to understand his life as a ideological, meaningful progression towards an ultimate state of plenitude. The Bohme episode plays a crucial role in giving the overarching tale of Tieck's life journey the sacral aura in which the promise of fulfilment is grounded. As already mentioned, the fact that the first illumination does not end the struggle confirms rather than weakens the structural parallel to spiritual autobiography. Augustine's Confessions, Pietistic autobiographies, and countless other texts in the genre exhibit a similar pattern of continuous struggle punctuated by illuminations. This pattern is inevitable, since the arduous journey towards the kingdom of God can reach its goal only after death. The moments of illumination, however brief, have the all-important function of warding off despair. They confirm that the traveller has chosen the true road, and hence they anchor the meaning of the entire text. This is especially true of the first such illumination, the crucial moment of conversion. Finally, the fact that in all three texts conversion occurs through the medium of a book deserves some comment. The motif is by no means unknown to hagiography. In Augustine's Confessions, for instance, conversion through a book occurs twice, though the second time combined with supernatural intervention. Augustine is first unsettled by hearing how two holy men were converted to the religious life by reading Saint Anthony's vita, then himself experiences a sudden illumination brought on by reading Saint Paul.39 Although conversion is far less frequently induced by a book than by a direct irruption of the divine, it is not a surprising choice for Tieck's purposes, since it is particularly appropriate to a narrative seeking to elevate literature to the status of religion. Furthermore, the use of Bohme in this connection functions as a shorthand notation for the ideal that is being put forward, namely, the fusion of religion, philosophy, and Poesie that Tieck never entirely abandoned.

39 Augustine, Confessions, 88ff.

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In his biography of Tieck, Kopke provides an account of his friend's experiences with Bohme that simply summarizes Tieck's own. For the most part, Kopke relies on Tieck's images, particularly from the version in Der Aufruhr in den Cevennen, though at times he enlarges on interpretations latent in Tieck's versions. Since this is by now a familiar narrative, much time need not be devoted to Kopke's retelling. Once again, it begins with a young Tieck who is indifferent to religion, experiencing "gottliche Ahnungen" (divine forebodings) only in Poesie, but subconsciously in search of a more fulfilling faith. He took up the Aurora in the expectation of amusing himself but - and here Kopke most closely echoes Tieck's novel - found himself quite literally captivated: "Bald mufhe er erkennen, da^ er nicht der Herrschende, sondern der Beherrschte sei. Diese Gedankenkette lie|3 ihn nicht los, er muphe ihr folgen, auch wenn er nicht gewollt hatte."4° What Tieck found in Bohme was a harmonious union of Poesie, religion, and philosophy that made even the latter accessible to him: "Hier verschwanden alle Gegensatze zwischen Glauben und Wissen, Verstand und Phantasie, es war alles in allem Eins, ein ungetheiltes Ganze, in dem Gottes Geist lebte und athmete. Von hier aus glaubte er das Christenthum, die Natur, die Philosophic zu verstehen."41 When he describes the beginnings of Tieck's friendship with Solger, Kopke follows Tieck in attributing the crisis from which Solger saved his friend to the depressing effects of Bohme. His explanation of this builds on Tieck's image of a magic spell: "{Bohme's Gedanken} erwuchsen zu einer furchtbaren Macht, welche alles Andere zu verschlingen drohte, sie beherrschten Talent, Gefuhl und Stimmung ... Es war ein festes geschlossenes System, das ihn beherrschte, ein philosophischer Glaube, den er aufgeben mufhej^wenn er frei werden wollte."42 Kopke - or the older Tieck - now seems to attribute the paralysing effect to the adoption of someone else's already complete system, and makes no mention 40 Kopke, Tieck, i: 239. "Soon he had to recognize that he was not the ruler but the ruled one. This train of thought would not let him go, he had to follow it, even if he had not wanted to do so." 41 Kopke, Tieck, i: 239-40. "Here all oppositions disappeared - between faith and knowledge, understanding and imagination — everything in everything was one, an undivided whole, in which the spirit of God lived and breathed. From this standpoint he believed he understood Christianity, nature, philosophy." 42 Kopke, Tieck, i: 364-5. "(Bohme's thoughts} grew into a terrible power, which threatened to devour everything else, they dominated talent, feeling and mood ... .It was a fixed closed system which dominated him, a philosophical faith which he had to give up if he wanted to become free."

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of Tieck's earlier view that the absorption in mysticism caused him to regard literature as frivolous. This version is also not readily reconcilable with Tieck's remarks around 1800, or indeed with its own first half. If Bohme had helped Tieck to a vision of perfect Romantic unity, how could he subsequently have such destructive effects? Or, if the difficulty lay in being subjugated by another's system, how would substituting Solger's for Bohme's constitute a release?43 THE P R O B L E M OF THE POETIC R E C E P T I O N

Tieck's narrative of his experiences with Bohme naturally included an account of the effects the mystic had on his poetic production. In the letter to Solger, for instance, Tieck had advanced the view that his obsession with mysticism, his compulsion to abandon literature and devote himself to contemplation, had found expression in his Prim Zerbino, his Genoveva and his Kaiser Octavianus, albeit in a dark and confused manner. This claim depends on Tieck's belief, seventeen years after the fact, that his spiritual crisis was caused by Bohme, and is furthermore so vague and general that it can neither be confirmed nor refuted. Tieck's belief that Bohme affected his works written around 1800 persisted, without, however, becoming more specific. In 1822 Karl Forster attended Tieck's reading of Genoveva, and recorded in his journal the following remark by the author: "als ich die Genoveva schrieb, habe ich allerdings J. Bohmes Schriften mit gro|3en {sic} Interesse gelesen und so ist vielleicht manches aus ihnen, mir bewufklos, in mein Stuck iibergegangen."44 By the time of the conversations reported by Kopke, Tieck seems to have convinced himself of the truth of this remark, since he now omits the word "perhaps": "Das {Studium des Jakob Bohme} hat auf die Haltung dieser Dichtung keinen geringen Einflup gehabt."45 Kopke's biography adds one further 43 Kopke's version follows the letter to Solger in relating Tieck's difficulties with Bohme's notion of evil: "Hatte Jakob Bohme in der That die letzten Rathsel gelost? Wie wollte er seinen Lucifer mit Gott ausgleichen? Gerieth er nicht in die Gefahr eines furchtbaren Dualismus?" (Kopke, Tieck, i: 365). Once again, however, the various elements of the narrative remain unreconciled. "Had Jakob Bohme in fact resolved the ultimate riddles? How was he going to reconcile his Lucifer with God? Did he not expose himself to the danger of a terrible dualism?" 44 Quoted in Schweikert, Tieck, i: 203. "when I wrote Genoveva, I was reading Jakob Bohme's writings with great interest and so perhaps this or that from them went into my play without my knowing it." 45 Kopke, Tieck, 2: 172. "(The study ofJ.B.) has had no small influence on the attitude of this work."

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work to the list of those supposedly affected by Bohme: Der Runenberg. He sees this work as the expression of a preoccupation with the dark and destructive powers of nature that was fostered by the reading of Bohme and by conversations with Steffens: "Aus diesen Gesprachen bildete sich jenes schauerliche Marchen 'Der Runenberg,' in dem die Natur als dunkle und unwiderstehliche Macht erscheint, die den freien sittlichen Entschlu(3 des Menschen vernichtet."46 As mentioned above, scholars who considered the question of Bohme's influence on Tieck have tended to take Tieck at his word, both about the nature of his Bohme-crisis and about the role that Bohme played in the early poetic works. Finding documentation for Tieck's assertions, however, has presented a problem. Attempts to identify a reception of Bohmist concepts have had to fall back on ideas so general that they could be derived from almost anywhere (or, most probably, from nowhere in particular), such as the concept of the universe as an organism,47 or the "Neoplatonic awareness that external nature is evidence of the divine."48 For the most part, however, scholars recognize that no substantial reception took place on the conceptual level, and so fall back on the claim that Bohme's "influence" unfolded on the level of language and imagery: "None of his {Tieck's} works written between 1799 and 1801 is free of Bohme, even if the influence is only confined to image."49 Since they generally do not adduce specific instances, these claims cannot be dealt with conclusively, yet it is useful to examine a few examples. In discussing the Bohmist elements in Tieck's Genoveva, Ranftl points to the prophetic speech of the Unbekannte (stranger) and to that of the witch at Strasbourg, claiming that the notion of the universe as an organism, 46 Kopke, Tieck, i: 292. "From these conversations that eerie fairytale 'Der Runenberg' took shape; in it nature appears as a dark and irresistible power, which destroys the free moral will of humans." 47 Ranftl, Genoveva, 122. 48 Paulin, Tieck, 100. Paulin is quoting Ederheimer. On Ederheimer see above, part i, p. 14. 49 Paulin, Tieck, 100. Similarly, Ranftl, Genoveva, I2off, detects "losgerissene Splitter" (isolated fragments) of Bohme, in the form of images, tone, and individual thoughts, in the Genoveva and even in the Phantasien iiber die Kunst (Phantasies on Art). Minder believed that Bohme's terminology inspired the religious language of the Genoveva. See Minder, Un poete romantique allemand, 276. Halter, while regarding Bohme as merely one of countless sources that fed Tieck's "Stoffhunger" (hunger for raw material), sees linguistic echoes of the Aurora almost everywhere in Tieck's oeuvre, including the late oeuvre. See Halter, Octavianus, i66ff.

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the correspondence of man and the planets, and much of the language can be traced to Bohme.5° Both of these speeches pertain to the practice of necromancy and are thus not unnaturally steeped in the language of astrology and alchemy. Bohme indeed shared these interests and much of the system of thought behind them, having discovered them in the works of Paracelsus. Nevertheless, in the form adopted by Tieck, the language of astrology is so universal that no direct connection with Bohme need be assumed. Various beliefs in the influence of the stars on human life, or of physiological and psychological correspondences between man and the planets, formed the basis of much of medieval and early modern medicine and science, as well as of most of the alchemical and occult systems that enjoyed great popularity in eighteenth-century Europe. Paulin's attempts to discover Bohmist material in Kaiser Octavianus and Der Runenberg are equally problematic. With regard to Octavianus, Paulin states: "Bohme's language is enlisted in the service of fantasy and love, as if to deepen and enrich the mystery of poetry."51 Turning to a speech by the poet in the play's prologue, he comments: "It is in its imagery, pure Bohme; and there are further Bohmian-sounding words which give intimation of the ever changing world of the poetic creation."52 The speech contains no single identifiable Bohmist image, but rather appears to me typical of Romantic enthusiasm for nature and for poetry, as a few lines, beginning with the line that Paulin gives as reference point, will readily illustrate: "Was dieser fliehnde Schimmer will bedeuten, / Die Bildnip}, die sich durch einander jagen, / Die Glanzgestalten, die so furchtbar schreiten, / Kann nur der Dichter offenbarend sagen."53 As for Bohmiansounding words, I can offer as possible candidates "ewge Wille" (eternal will), "Gebaren und Erzeugen" (giving birth and generating), and "Lebensquell" (source of life), none of which need be connected with the mystic. At best, this speech can be said to witness to the reception, not of Bohme, the sixteenth-century theosophist, but of the thematic complex for which the name Bohme became a cipher in the writings of the Jena Romantics. When dealing with Der Runenberg, Paulin makes no attempt to identify individual Bohmist images, but simply rephrases Kopke's view: the story, 50 Ranftl, Genoveva, I22ff. For the speeches in question, see Tieck, Schriften, 2: 67-70 and i72ff. 51 Paulin, Tieck, 142. 52 Paulin, Tieck, 145. 53 Tieck, Schriften, 1:11. "Only the poet can divine the meaning of this fleeting glimmer, the images which chase each other, the shining shapes which walk so awesomely."

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Paulin states, is the "product of conversations on nature mysticism with Steffens"; in it, Bohme has come to represent a "descent into terror, the Nachtseite of nature."54 Obviously recognizing that this is the very opposite of Bohme's actual thought, Paulin attempts some explanation: "It is as if Tieck, unsettled by Bohme, fascinated by Novalis, perhaps too attentive to Steffens' nature philosophy, had chosen to overlook their sense of organic wholeness."55 To counterbalance this view, it must be pointed out that nihilistic tendencies and dark moods are present everywhere in Tieck's oeuvre, including the works written before his discovery of Bohme, and that, as Halter points out,56 mysterious, devilish characters in all works, including the early ones, speak in what critics have claimed was a Bohmian manner. At the same time, there is only Kopke's, or at best Tieck's, word for it that Bohme was the cause of this mood, and it is a word given many years after the fact and motivated by a strong need to find an explanation. It is now evident that Tieck's entire Bohme reception was driven and shaped by the need for a totalizing explanation. Tieck had discovered Bohme at the time when the need for a unifying account of the world that would be both emotionally and intellectually satisfying was causing the young Romantics to construct a programme for the organic union of Poesie, philosophy, and religion. Bohme had appeared to achieve this, and had accordingly been included in the Romantic canon. His name is a keystone of the appropriation of religious discourse by which the poetprophet was to be exalted. The newly coined Romantic myths around this figure were so successful and convincing that they acquired a life of their own. For Tieck, Bohme remained associated with conversion experiences and with the exalted status of the prophet. In later life he therefore coopted this thematic complex for his attempt to order his life into a unilinear teleological narrative, in which every stage was endowed with meaning and significant in terms of ultimate fulfilment. And once again, so convincing was this narrative, that scholar after scholar was won over by it and utterly failed to question it.

54 Paulin, Tieck, 142. 55 Paulin, Tieck, 143. 56 Halter, Octavianus, 166.

5

An Interrupted Reception: Novalis

Of all the Romantics who expressed enthusiasm for Bohme, Novalis has attracted the most attention. In his masterly article, "Novalis und Plotin," Hans-Joachim Mahl painted a telling portrait of previous scholarship, one that fits the reception of Bohme as well as that of Plotinus and is as valid today as it was in 1963: "das Studium Hardenbergs wurde jedenfalls beliebter Ausgangspunkt einer Romantikforschung, die nicht nur in ihrem Bemuhen, 'Einflusse' nachzuweisen, bis an die Grenze des Grotesken gegangen ist, sondern die auch ... das gedankenlose Nachschreiben iiberlieferter Fehlurteile sinnfallig dokumentiert."1 The three dissertations pertaining to Bohme's "influence" on Novalis all exemplify the type of study that Mahl justly criticizes. Nevertheless, though this approach has for the most part been abandoned, the last and best of these dissertations (Paschek's) has become the established and generally quoted authority on the subject of Novalis and Bohme. This is the more paradoxical, since the major premise on which Paschek's influence argument rests is now regarded as untenable, while the individual arguments resting on it continue to be accepted unexamined. To argue "influence," Paschek has to show that reading Bohme brought about a substantial change in Novalis's thought. To this end he assumes, for the period from late 1799 to early 1800, a turning away from philosophical speculation to questions of practical poetics, and from Fichtean idealism to a mystical, pansophic outlook. This view is untenable on i Mahl, "Novalis und Plotin," 141. "the study of Hardenberg became at any rate a popular starting point for the type of Romanticism research which not only went to almost grotesque lengths in its efforts to demonstrate 'influences', but also graphically exemplifies the unthinking copying of handed down errors."

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a number of grounds. Novalis's interest in mysticism and theosophy long predates his discovery of Bohme; conversely, his interest in Bohme would be inexplicable if he had indeed turned away from philosophical and scientific pursuits. Furthermore, the distinction drawn by Paschek between early philosophical and scientific fragment collections and later poetical ones does not exist: the "early" and "late" notebooks either overlap in time or are separated by a few months at best, nor can they be strictly separated by subject, since the late ones contain philosophical and scientific entries, the earlier ones literary notes. Indeed, Paschek himself cannot sustain this distinction, and constantly turns to entries from Das attgemeine Brouillon (The General Brouillon) to support his arguments on Novalis's pansophic interests. Uerlings' critique of Paschek's work focusses on this very point: "Da^ Bohme bei der Schaffung einer romantischen Mythologie eine zentrale Rolle zukommt, ist nach den Arbeiten Pascheks nicht mehr zu bezweifeln. Da(3 aber Hardenberg seine 'romantischen Dichtungen in den Dienst der Wiedererweckung Bohmes' gestellt habe, stellt die Zusammenhange doch wohl auf den Kopf. Die behauptete radikale Wende von den tranzendental-idealistischen Versuchen zu einer 'theosophischchristlichen Grundlegung der Asthetik' um 1799/1800 gibt es kaum."2 Surprisingly, Uerlings accepts as proven Paschek's individual instances of "influence," although they are grounded on the premise he has just rejected.3 I am further encouraged to reconsider the supposedly Bohmist provenance of these motifs by the recent fortunes of one instance, the Sophia doctrine. In his monograph devoted to Novalis's spiritual world, Florian Roder ascribes the remarkable similarities in the Sophia cult of Novalis and of Bohme to spiritual affinity and to similarity in experiences. He has no hesitation in rejecting the possibility of influence for the following reason: "Novalis hatte seinen eigenen Gedankenkosmos 2 Uerlings, Hardenberg, note 24, 113-4. "That Bohme had a central role in the creation of a romantic mythology cannot be doubted anymore after Paschek's research. But that Hardenberg is supposed to have written his 'romantic works in order to resurrect Bohme' stands the relationship on its head. The purported radical turn from the transcendentalidealistic experiments to a 'theosophic-Christian foundation of aesthetics' around 1799/ 1800 hardly exists." 3 "Paschek weist eine Fiille von Gedanken, Themen und Bildern nach, die Hardenberg Bohme endehnt hat" (Uerlings, Hardenberg, note 24, 114); when discussing Klingsohr's Marchen, Uerlings (Hardenberg, 49gff) lists a series of motifs that- he asserts on the authority of Paschek and of previous influence studies — are clearly derived from Bohme. "Paschek shows a wealth of thoughts, themes and images which Hardenberg borrowed from Bohme."

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bereits ausgebildet, als er auf Bohmes Werke stiep."4 Since this objection applies equally to all other claims of Bohmist influence, Paschek's entire argumentation needs to be reevaluated in its light. Since 1966, only one study has appeared on our topic. Though it rejects Paschek's thesis of a pansophic, specifically Bohmist, grounding to Novalis's late thought, Strack's Im Schatten der Neugier5 does not undertake a reevaluation of the evidence. Strack maintains that Bohme's influence has been conclusively proved, not only by Paschek, but also by Feilchenfeld's more dubious study. His own efforts at tracing other instances of borrowing represent a methodological regression from Paschek's close argumentation and careful documentation. Strack does not follow Paschek's exclusion of works that precede Novalis's study of Bohme; for instance, he detects evidence of borrowing in Die Lehrlinge zu Sais (The Apprentices at Sais) and in the Hymnen an die Nacht (Hymns to Night), based on some slight similarities in vocabulary and imagery. In general, his arguments betray the circularity that all too often bedevils influence studies: influence is claimed on the grounds of superficial parallels (a common word, some similarity in an image or the use of a concept), then the tenuousness of the connection is explained by the assertion that the recipient has changed his source out of all recognition. The following pages seek to provide a long overdue detailed critical reevaluation, not only of Paschek's work, but of the evidence for Novalis's reception of Bohme. THE ISSUE OF I N F L U E N C E

Beyond general methodological considerations, certain circumstances militate against the influence thesis in Novalis's case. The period of possible reception is very short, since Novalis came to Bohme quite late, by which time he had not only already defined his own views (as Roder points out), but had acquired at least second-hand familiarity with Neoplatonism both ancient and early modern, as well as with alchemy and Naturphilosophie. Bohme's oeuvre therefore offered very little in the way of wholly new ideas. The same is true of Bohme's Christocentric outlook and even of his Sophia mysticism, since Novalis had encountered all of 4 Roder, Novalis, 271. "Novalis had already developed his own thought-cosmos when he encountered the works of Bohme." 5 Friedrich Strack, Im Schatten der Neugier. Christliche Tradition und kritische Philosophie im WerkFriedrichs von Hardenberg (Tubingen: Niemeyer 1982).

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these in the Pietist tradition in which he was brought up. On the other hand, both the tenor of Novalis's few remarks on Bohme, and the fact that Bohme was the one author in the pansophic vein whom Novalis read in the original, support Paschek's view that Bohme appealed to him primarily as a poet - a line of investigation that Paschek, sidetracked by the effort to prove the influence of Bohme's oeuvre, failed to exhaust. The time frame of Novalis's study of Bohme can be easily established. On the evidence of a notebook entry, Novalis borrowed an edition of Bohme's works from the library in Weimar in August i7gg.6 In the winter 1799-1800, Novalis is deep in the study of the mystic, as he assures his friend Tieck in a letter dated February S3-7 Dating the active reception is more problematic. Whereas Paschek assumes it begins from late summer 1799, I can see reason for caution even after that date. To begin with, the complete absence of excerpts, reading notes, comments, or indeed anything more detailed than the mere mention of the name before February 1800 raises doubts as to how much, if anything, Novalis had actually read before then. The concentration of the few references that exist in early 1800, including the presence of Bohme's works in a list of books that Novalis wished to obtain and read, the formulation in the much quoted letter to Tieck - "Jacob Bohm les ich jezt im Zusammenhange, undfange ihn an zu verstehn, wie er verstanden werden mup"8 all suggest that any previous acquaintance was cursory at best. True, we have Novalis's own word for it that he was engaged in an organized study of Bohme as of early 1800, yet, given his fulltime occupation as inspector of saltworks and mines, his efforts to further his career, his continued geological and medical studies, his poetic writing and his worsening state of health, one might well wonder how much time he was able to devote to the reading of Bohme's numerous works.9 At a 6 Novalis, Schriften, 3: 573. 7 Novalis, Schriften, 4: 321-3. 8 Novalis, Schriften, 4: 322. "I am now reading Jacob Bohme in sequence, and I am beginning to understand him in the way in which he has to be understood." Zusammenhang usually means connection or context. In the present instance, this can only mean that Novalis is undertaking a systematic study of Bohme, intending to read all his works one after the other. "In sequence" seems to be the translation that comes closest to this. 9 For this reason, claims for instances of influence that depend on knowledge of one specific Bohme text (particularly the shorter, more strictly theological works) seem to me shaky at best: one cannot assume that Novalis read Bohme's entire oeuvre and, if we are to avoid circular argumentation, we have no means of establishing which works he did read.

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conservative estimate, there remains a reception period of roughly one year, from spring 1800 until Novalis's death on March 25, 1801. During this period, he read an unspecifiable number of Bohme's works "im Zusammenhange" (in sequence) but - uncharacteristically - appears to have made no excerpts or study notes. A possible reason for this omission may lie in another circumstance to which influence studies fail to give due weight: given Novalis's previous studies, very little, if anything, in Bohme's thought would be radically new to him. Mahl's article gives an exhaustive account of Novalis's acquaintance with the Neoplatonic tradition, beginning as early as the middle of 1798. In particular, Novalis was interested in two sources that, despite their rationalistic bias, were remarkable for their thorough analysis of both ancient and early modern Neoplatonism and natural philosophy: Kurt Sprengel's Versuch einer pragmatischen Geschichte der Arzneikunde (1792-94; An Attempt at a Pragmatic History of Medicine) and Tiedemann's Geist der spekulativen Philosophic (The Spirit of Speculative Philosophy). Novalis read Sprengel in the fall of 1798, acquiring second-hand knowledge of ancient Persian emanation theories, of the Cabbala, of Paracelsus. From the first two of these, his notes retain the idea of a divine origin of language and the notion that everything in the universe is linked by mysterious sympathies inasmuch as it is an emanation of the divinity. The lengthy excerpts from Paracelsus centre on his connection with ancient emanation theories, his view of cosmic harmony and sympathies, his theory of signatures.10 Also in the fall of 1798, Novalis embarked on a study of Tiedemann, beginning with volume 5, devoted to the early modern period. In his excerpts, Novalis retained passages dealing with Paracelsus (notably the theory that we can only see God through his manifestation in his creatures), with Pordage and his commentator, and finally with Giordano Bruno - all, as Mahl remarked (i53ff), in the Neoplatonic tradition. Oddly enough, Novalis's attention does not seem to have been drawn to Tiedemann's, admittedly brief, account of Bohme. From volume 4, Novalis excerpted a passage from the medieval Arab philosopher Tophail, dealing with the nature and correspondences of the different elements and kingdoms in nature, a view, in other words, in tune with the other thinkers who attracted his attention.11 By December of that 10 On Novalis's reading of Sprengel see Balmes's commentary in Novalis, Werke, 3: 490—1, and Mahl, "Novalis und Plotin," 167ff. 11 Mahl, "Novalis und Plotin," 163.

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year, Novalis was busy with Tiedemann's lengthy exposition of Plotinus (volume 3). Mahl isolates the main themes of Novalis's reception: the concepts of emanation and of a world-soul (neither new to him), the theory of ecstasis as the way to reach intuition of the divine and as an inner phenomenon of light, the similarity of Plotinus' theory of the highest being and its hypostases to Fichte's theory of the logical selfunfolding of the ego-principle, and - perhaps most important - the valuation of Plotinus' figurative language as a recognition that "der heilige Weg zur Physik" (the sacred path to physics) takes the form of poetic creativity, which imitates the working of creative nature and thus penetrates it.12 Thanks to Sprengel and Tiedemann, by early 1799 Novalis was familiar with all the themes that might have been expected to arouse his enthusiasm for Bohme, and in which, indeed, critics have located Bohme's peculiar contribution to Romanticism. It is worth stressing that Mahl does not present even this first encounter with the Neoplatonic tradition as a case of "influence," but rather draws a picture of Novalis as an aggressive, selective reader who ignored what did not suit him (in this case Tiedemann's and Sprengel's rationalistic commentary) and retained only what confirmed his own thoughts.13 A striking example of how Novalis's previous studies undermine Paschek's, or any, argument for Bohme's influence is provided by the theory of signatures in which the notion of a symbolic language is grounded. The parallels to Bohme's concept of a Natursprache and its continued existence in the signatures of all things are indeed striking. Yet, if one looks at the evidence, nothing offers itself from which one could derive a causal connection. Rather, the opposite is the case. Not only was Novalis familiar with this doctrine from his earlier reading, not only does it appear in his writings before he ever read Bohme, but it is never mentioned in connection with Bohme, and indeed some of the terms no longer occur in his writings by the time of the Bohme reception. As mentioned earlier, signatures and the sympathy of the sign with that which it denotes appear in Novalis's 1798 notes in connection with Sprengel's accounts of ancient emanation and of Paracelsus. The word signatures occurs once in the Freiberg papers and twice in Das allgemeine Brouillon, then never again. The terms Natursprache and Ursprache (original language), or even mystische Sprachlehre (mystical 12 Mahl, "Novalis und Plotin," i84ff and 204ff. 13 Mahl, "Novalis und Plotin," 185.

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doctrine of language) are very rare in his writings, and do not appear in connection with the theory discussed here, while the notion of a symbolic language of nature finds its clearest expression, besides in the notes already discussed, in Die Lehrlinge zu Sais, not in Heinrich von Ofterdingen. Although the considerations presented thus far invalidate the notion of influence, the fact remains that Novalis expressed great enthusiasm for Bohme, and clearly assigned him an important role in his own poetic endeavours. What little evidence there is reveals one thing: Novalis praised Bohme as a poet or, more specifically, as a writer who presented an inspired, poetic view of nature. In this connection it is significant that Bohme was the one speculative mystic whose work Novalis knew at first hand. Conceivably, this is the reason why Bohme alone was singled out as a poet, since only in his case did Novalis experience the figurative language in a manner not possible through Tiedemann's sober exposes.14 As mentioned earlier, Paschek based his study precisely on the thesis that Novalis valued Bohme not as a thinker, but as a poet. From this premise, Paschek derived two others: as a poet, Bohme provided Novalis with a favourable alternative to Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, and also with a model for his Heinrich von Ofterdingen. Paschek demonstrates the first of these claims convincingly by means of a comparative analysis of Novalis's remarks on the two authors. His second claim, however, is by its very nature unprovable, and is certainly not proved by Paschek's list of supposedly borrowed motifs, particularly since he does not succeed in demonstrating causal relationships. The root of the trouble lies in a misconception about the role played by Bohme-the-poet in Novalis's thought. The notion of influence led Paschek to expect imitation and appropriation of the mystic's work. By concentrating on this line of enquiry, he overlooked another, more concrete, actually demonstrable form of reception: Novalis's references to Bohme all deal, not with any aspect of his thought, but with the man himself, or rather with a mythical Bohme figure, whom Novalis created by adapting the hagiographic legends woven by Bohme's first biographer and transmitted by later Pietist admirers. Novalis celebrates, not Bohme's poetry, but Bohme the poet, Bohme the religious poet, Bohme 14 Mahl presents convincing evidence that Novalis's knowledge of Plotinus was limited to what he read in Tiedemann. The same is most likely true of the early modern texts, since we have nothing to suggest that Novalis read or even intended to read them in the original. Possible exceptions to this are Fludd and Helmont, both of whom he wished to obtain through August Wilhelm Schlegel.

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the Romantic poet-prophet. The two are obviously related, since his reasons for choosing Bohme for this role must be grounded in an appreciation of Bohme's ideas (in this respect the examples collected by Paschek are indeed helpful), but they are not the same. Bohme was not a model for imitation, but a name to be added to the canon by which the Romantics sought to combat Neoclassicism; he was an example by which Novalis and his friends could illustrate their views on the nature and value of literature; in short, he could be made into a precursor for the ideal Romantic poet. The Bohme who appears in Novalis's writings, in other words, is a fictionalized character like any of the other poet figures in the oeuvre, and fulfills much the same function as the legendary Heinrich von Ofterdingen. With this thesis in mind, one can now reexamine the references to Bohme found in the notes and correspondence, then turn to an interpretation of the one poetic text that gives a fully fledged Bohme reception, the poem An Tieck, to which Paschek assigned only a minor supporting role. As mentioned earlier, Novalis refers to Bohme surprisingly rarely, and only in very general terms. In all, Bohme's name appears less than a dozen times in his writings. Several references merely include the name in a list, most often of books to be ordered or read. From these we can infer with some accuracy that and when Novalis planned to read Bohme, but they are not enough to show how much of his projected connected study of Bohme he actually carried out.15 One entry, dating from the winter 1799-1800, is slightly more informative, since it confirms Paschek's view that Novalis focussed on what he called Bohme's poetic treatment of nature: "Abhandlung iiber Jakob Bohme - Seinen Wert als Dichter. Uber dichterische Ansichten der Natur uberhaupt."16 Already the reference in Die Christenheit oder Europa (Christendom or Europe), however, points to a different kind of reception than that envisaged by Paschek, namely, to a hagiographic one in the style of Franckenberg, the Pietists, and Tieck. Die Christenheit describes Lutheranism as a religion adhering to the letter rather than the spirit of Christ's teaching, and maintains that it did not therefore lead to any manifestations of the divine, except for sporadic, isolated instances: "nur selten, da(3 hie und da ein gediegener, ewiger Lebensfunke hervorspringt, und eine kleine Gemeinde sich assimilirt. Er verlischt und die 15 See Novalis, Schriften, in: 573, 585, 654, 754, and iv: 52, 691. 16 Novalis, Schriften, i: 436 and in: 646. "Treatise on Jakob Bohme - his value as poet. On poetic views of nature in general."

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Gemeinde fliefk wieder auseinander und schwimmt mit dem Strome fort. So Zinzendorf, Jacob Bohme und mehrere."17 Similarly, the fact that, according to a paralipomenon, Jakob Bohme was to make an appearance towards the end of the Ofterdingen18 bears witness to an appro-

priation of the man rather than of his writings. The parallels between the novel and the poem An Tieck (they were written at roughly the same time and both narrate the spiritual development of a youth destined to become a poet) suggest that Bohme's role would have been much the same in both. Before turning to the poem, however, Novalis's one lengthier (and therefore much quoted) account of his interest in Bohme, his letter to Tieck of February 23, 1800, must still be discussed. In discussing the letter, Paschek concentrates on the relationship between Bohme, Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, and Novalis's own Heinrich von Ofterdingen; these exemplify respectively true Poesie, false Poesie, and imitation of the positive model.19 The merit of Paschek's exposition lies in his recognition that Novalis related the three with reference to the question of Poesie, of its nature and task. The precise relationship, however, is not as straightforward as Paschek described it. It is true that Novalis regarded Bohme as his own precursor in so far as both are poets, and to this extent it cannot be accidental that Bohme and Heinrich von Ofterdingen are mentioned in the same letter. This is not enough, however, to support the thesis of a relationship of model to imitation, and nothing in the letter suggests such a causal connection. The novel was intended as an "Apotheose der Poesie" (an apotheosis of poetry), an aspiration that is not new in Novalis's thought. By 1800, it had become especially urgent thanks to the stimulation received through the friendship with Tieck and the reading of Tieck's works, without need of prompting from Bohme; on the contrary, no one who was not already thinking in these terms could have thought of identifying Bohme's theosophy as an instance of true Poesie. In the letter, Novalis describes his intentions for 17 Novalis, Schriften in: 512-3. "Only rarely does a genuine, eternal spark of life leap forth here and there and a small congregation form. It expires and the congregation dissolves again and drifts with the current. This is how it was with Zinzendorf, Jacob Bohme, and many others." Such a hagiographic reception need not depend on any direct knowledge of Bohme's works, so that the timing of this reference does not invalidate the dating of a concerted study of Bohme from 1800. Novalis could and probably did get the idea of presenting Bohme in a sacred light from Tieck and, indirectly, from Franckenberg and the Pietists. 18 Novalis, Schriften, i: 341 and in: 672. 19 Paschek, Einflu/i, 81 ff.

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the novel, the work already done, and his prognosis for its completion; then he passes on to other topics. Only later does he mention that at that moment (part one of the novel was already nearly finished) he is engaged on a study of Bohme ("Jacob Bohm les ich jezt im Zusammenhange"),20 from which he hopes for help with his second novel, a reshaped Lehrlinge zu Sais. Given the explicit connection made here between Bohme and the work he was to help with, one cannot help thinking that, had such a relationship already existed with the novel then in progress, Novalis would have mentioned it. In fact, the letter gives us little more information on Bohme's importance to Novalis than had the notebook entry, connecting a plan for an essay on Bohme's poetic value with considerations on poetic views of nature in general.21 What little is added, however, militates against Paschek's view that Bohme contributed to a turn away from science and philosophy towards literature, rather suggesting a continuity in Novalis's views and intentions. The Lehrlinge zu Sais, as it is to be written after the study of Bohme, will be "ein achtsinnbildlicher, Naturroman."22 The reason why Bohme can help with such a task goes back to the notebooks of 1798, to the study of Neoplatonism and early modern theosophy. Bohme's worldview fits into this framework, because he, too, presented nature as a living, self-generating organism, the product of elemental forces engaged in constant struggle: "Man sieht durchaus in ihm den gewaltigen Fruhling mit seinen quellenden, treibenden, bildenden und mischenden Kraften, die von innen heraus die Welt gebaren - Ein achtes Chaos voll dunkler Begier und wunderbaren Leben - einen wahren, auseinandergehenden Microcosmos."23 Bohme, in other words, was a desirable model of true Poesie because he embodied a philosophical position Novalis had long held. This belies the distinction between a philosophic-scientific and a poetic phase on which Paschek's thesis of a Bohme influence on Heinrich von Ofterdingen is predicated. Furthermore, though it is true that, in relation to the ideal of Poesie, Bohme is preferred to Wilhelm Meister, the distinction is one of content, not of form. It is not that Goethe's novel is unpoetic; rather, it is reproached for using Poesie to elevate economics, which is to say that Poesie 20 Novalis, Schriften, iv: 322. 21 See above, p. 83. 22 Novalis, Schriften, iv: 322. "will be a genuinely metaphoric novel of nature." 23 Novalis, Schriften, iv: 322-3. "One can see in him clearly the mighty spring with its surging, thrusting, forming and mixing powers, which bring forth the world from inside — a genuine chaos full of dark desire and marvellous life - a true unfolding microcosm."

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is made to self-destruct: "ich sehe so deutlich die grof$e Kunst, mit der die Poesie durch sich selbst im Meister vernichtet wird."24 Paschek's instances of Bohme's influence on Heinrich von Ofterdingen fail to convince, once deprived of the support of the general premise and considered on their own merits. They range from the plausible but unprovable to the definitely unlikely. Though it is by no means impossible that some of Bohme's imagery and vocabulary found its way into the novel, Paschek's candidates for this role are all so general that they could come from almost anywhere. A few examples will suffice to illustrate the point. The fact that Novalis was interested in the theory of signatures is hardly proof that his use of the lute as a symbol for the poet is based on Bohme's comparison of the signatures with the strings of a lute25 - after all, the lute is a standard accompaniment to the Romantic portrayal of the medieval poet. Similarly, the phrase "schone und liebliche Frucht des Lebens" (beautiful and pleasing fruit of life) is too tenuous a link with which to join Novalis's description of the feast given by Heinrich's grandfather with Bohme's paradise,26 and Freya awaiting awakening by Eros shares only her location in the north with Bohme's "mitternachtige Crone" (midnight crown). 27 The clearest example of the problems that Paschek's approach presents is his treatment of Sophia. The Sophie in Klingsohr's Mdrchen (fairy tale) shares with Bohme's Sophia only her name and the attributes "godlike," "holy," "full of unearthly gladness." On the other hand, her nature and role are quite different. Bohme's Sophia is not only the divine bride of unfallen man, but a stage in the life of the divinity, the mirror in which God sees himself, thereby attaining self-knowledge. Novalis's Sophie is not only not divine in this sense, but is also only the mediator who sets the saviours (love and poetry) on the true path; she is not the bride who must be attained for the new kingdom to begin (that role falls to Freya). While the similarities between the two probably struck and pleased Novalis, they simply do not share enough characteristics to sustain the argument of influence, the more so because Novalis's cult of Sophie and his identification of that name with

24 Novalis, Schnften, iv: 323. "I see so clearly the great art with which poetry is made to annihilate itself in Wilhelm Meister." 25 Paschek, Einfluf}, 214. 26 Paschek, Einflu/3, 232. 27 Paschek, Einfluf), 258.

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"wisdom" began much earlier than his reception of Bohme. Without a doubt, Roder's argument for affinity rather than causal connection is the likelier explanation. This argument from similarity to influence is characteristic of Paschek's entire study. While it is unnecessary to examine each instance in order to restate the absence of cogent proof, one further example should be discussed because of the conclusions that have been drawn from it. Paschek detected Bohme's influence in number 12 of the Geistliche Lieder (Spiritual Songs)28 and - in the absence of external evidence - used it for dating the poem.29 His dating and its basis have been generally accepted, despite the circularity of his argument: the poem betrays the influence of Bohme because some of the images and concepts are similar to Bohme, so it must have been written after Novalis had become acquainted with Bohme, which acquaintance in turn shows that the similarities were due to influence and not to accident.30 Paschek's argument depends on the contention that Novalis adds a number of motifs not present in his source (Friedrich von Spec's "Der Altvater Verlangen nach dem Messias"): 31 "der kosmische, Natur und Kreatur mit seinem Wesen erfullende Christusgott... , der Kampf zwischen Christus und Luzifer ... , die in alien Dingen wirkende kosmische Liebe ... , die Einsetzung des Abendmahls ... die Symbolik der Jahreszeit ... und das Motiv des blumengeschmuckten Heilandes."32 Yet, on closer inspection, these additions can be recognized either as present, at least in nuce, in Spec's version, or else as commonplaces of early modern pansophic thought, of Pietist devotion, or even of Christian mysticism in general. The notion of a cosmos permeated by Christ's presence (Paschek makes much of the link with the four elements) is not only a topos of Neoplatonic mysticism, but is present in Spec, where Christ is to come in the form of dew or rain (stanza 2), to break out of the earth like flowers 28 Novalis, Schriften, i: 173-5. 29 Paschek, Einfluft, 334ff. 30 In his commentary, Balmes reports: "Meist wird das Lied wegen der deutlichen Bohme-Einflusse auf Ende Februar 1800 datiert." Novalis, Werke, 3: 99. See also Uerlings, Hardenberg, 266ff. "Usually the poem is dated end of February 1800 because of the evident influence of Bohme." 31 See Balmes in Novalis, Werke, 3: 99; Uerlings, Hardenberg, 264. "The longing of the patriarchs for the Messiah." 32 Paschek, Einfluf}, 336. "the cosmic Christ-God who fills nature and creatures with his being ... , the struggle between Christ and Lucifer ... , cosmic love which is at work in all things ... , the establishment of the eucharist ... the symbolism of the season ... and the motif of the saviour adorned with flowers."

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(stanza 3), and to shine forth as the sun (stanza 5). The fact that Novalis makes more of these notions can be attributed to the Romantic tendency towards divinization of nature as easily as to any fresh influences that might have come into play, and does not in any case point to Bohme specifically. Similarly, the struggle between Christ and Lucifer is indeed a new element, but, being a basic Christian tenet, does not point to any specific source, bearing witness at best to mystical leanings, in so far as it speaks of paradise on earth: "So wird der heil'ge Kampf gekampft,/ So wird der Holle Grimm gedampft,/ Und ewig bliihend geht allhier / Das alte Paradies herfur."33 The reference to spring might indeed seem to point to Bohme, since Novalis did use it to describe the mystic's work, for instance, in the letter to Tieck, but this too is only one of several possible associations. The image is used in the very same manner by Spec (stanza 3). Likewise, the reference to communion - "Wird unsre Speis' und unser Trank,/ Treusinn ist ihm der liebste Dank"34 - is too general to support Paschek's contention of a specifically Bohmist understanding of transsubstantiation.35 On a broader plane, the notion of a "die Natur und Kreatur erfullenden Christus"36 is familiar to Novalis from the entire tradition of which Bohme was but an instance, and as a central theme of seventeenthcentury religiosity is germane to Spec's poem. The Christocentric overtones are common to Pietism as a whole, to Spec's poem, and are in any case weakened, not strengthened, in Novalis's adaptation. The seventeenth-century poem calls to Christ to break forth out of the Heavens etc., while Novalis calls to the Father to send the Son. Viewed in this context, the similarities singled out by Paschek show, not a causal connection, but simply an affinity that may be entirely fortuitous. The reevaluation of Paschek's dissertation suggests that arguments of influence, or indeed of reception of any kind, based on similarity, cannot carry weight unless supported by other evidence. It is significant that Paschek's most plausible instance of Bohme's "influence" on Heinrich von Ofterdingen — the link he perceives between the vision in which the "creatures" speak intelligibly to Heinrich and Bohme's doctrine of signatures - derives much of its cogency from the fact that Paschek connects it with the Bohme of Franckenberg's vita as he reappears in An 33 "Thus the holy fight is fought, thus the fury of hell is muted, and the ancient paradise, forever blooming, is reestablished here." 34 "becomes our food and drink, loyalty is his preferred form of gratitude." 35 See Paschek, Einflufl, 338. 36 "Christ pervading nature and creatures."

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Tieck.^ Paschek himself, however, does not recognize that this parallel points to a different kind of reception from the one claimed by his dissertation: the appropriation, not of any ideas generated by the actual, historical Bohme, but of the name Bohme for a fictionalized figure who acts as the bearer of a Romantic creed that Novalis is in the process of defining. THE HAGIOGRAPHIC RECEPTION

I have already noted that, on the evidence of a paralipomenon, Bohme was to appear as a character in part two of the Heinrich von Ofterdingen. In An Tieck,^ the only one of Novalis's poetic works undeniably based on a reception of Bohme, the mystic is featured as a central character. Bohme is thus no different from Heinrich von Ofterdingen, a historical figure whose name Novalis appropriated for his portrayal of a prototypical Romantic poet. Nevertheless, there are certain suggestive differences between the two, carrying both advantages and disadvantages for their intended role. Heinrich von Ofterdingen was known to have been a poet, whereas Bohme's claim to this title had as yet to be established. Conversely, no prophetic aura as yet attached to the name Ofterdingen, whereas Bohme had already been the subject of hagiographic mythmaking and came ready endowed with the authority of prophet, martyr, and religious leader. This background facilitated his contribution to the sacralizing of Poesie considerably; on the other hand, the fact that a version of his life, whether or not it was regarded as reliable, was readily available and widely known made him a poor choice for the leading role in a new fiction, unlike Ofterdingen, of whose life nothing was known. The solution that presented itself to Novalis, that he implemented in An Tieck and obviously meant to extend to the Heinrich von Ofterdingen, was to cast Bohme in a secondary but vital role: that of teacher to the hero, who would therefore inherit Bohme's ready made authority along with Bohme's knowledge. An Tieck, the story of a young poet's education, parallels Heinrich von Ofterdingen in more overtly religious terms. By its structural and thematic similarities to Novalis's other versions of the same theme and by its use 37 Paschek, Einflu/3, 2 i6ff, argues that the miner, like the Bohme of Franckenberg's anecdote, finds treasures but does not desire them (an anecdote alluded to in An Tieck), and that Heinrich, like the young Bohme of An Tieck, is now able to see the inner essence of all creatures. 38 Novalis, Schriften, i: 411-13.

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of Bohme, it enacts the fusion of literature and religion that was one of the key tenets of the Romantic programme. As was the case with Tieck, Novalis, too, coopts and continues the genre of hagiography, using its conventions to create a legendary life for a future Romantic poetprophet. An Tieck narrates two sacred lives, one recollected from the distant past, the other just entering the conscious phase. The choice of Bohme as one of the two protagonists brings together the realms of religion and Poesie. It combines the two models of sacred life discussed earlier39 - that of predestination adopted by Franckenberg and that of conversion appropriated by Tieck. The protagonist of An Tieck, a child, is predestined to become a poet and the prophet of a new golden age. Yet the poem focusses on a moment of conversion, the turning point when the child reads Bohme's Aurora (which he found by chance, as was the case in Tieck's texts), and is visited by the spirit of Bohme, who helps him to a consciousness of his mission; with the presumable result, though this lies beyond the scope of the poem, that the hitherto instinctive search becomes a conscious and purposeful journey. The poem's close connection to earlier sacred biography is grounded in its use of anagnorisis: on one level, the same patterns (recalling Franckenberg) are repeated in the life of Bohme and of the protagonist, so that their essential identity may be recognized; on the broader plane, both lives replicate biblical and hagiographic models, so that the place of both in the long line of God's prophets may become evident. In the following discussion of An Tieck, I shall show that the intertextual connection to sacred biography explains all major aspects, from the choice of protagonist and of locale, to the main plot elements, to the selection and idiosyncratic use of sources. Novalis's choice of a child as protagonist has so far posed a problem for interpretation. Some explanation is needed, since Novalis's typical hero is the "Jungling," the youth on the threshhold of manhood. Scholars have drawn attention to a wealth of associations, mostly centring on the connection of the child and the golden age. Richard Samuel, for instance, regarded a text by Tieck, Uber die Kinderfiguren auf den Raffaelschen Bildern (On the Figures of Children in Paintings by Raphael), as a probable source, arguing that Novalis is known to have excerpted a passage which refers to children as "Propheten einer schonen Zukunft."4° While these associations enrich the texture of An Tieck, they 39 See Part i, pp. sgff. and Part n, pp. Gaff. 40 Novalis, Schriften, i: 683. "Prophets of a beautiful future.''

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cannot explain its protagonist, who is, as Schulz pointed out, an entirely different kind of child: "Das Kind hier im Gedichtjedoch fugt sich nicht ganz in diese Vorstellung. Es ist nicht symbolischer Saugling, sondern tatiger Mensch, denn immerhin findet es ein Buch und kann lesen."41 The hagiographic tradition in general and Franckenberg's life of Bohme in particular suggest a functional reason for the choice of a child protagonist. As mentioned earlier,42 a prophecy during the saint's childhood provides evidence of predestination, as was the case with Franckenberg's anecdote of the imposing stranger who prophesied a great future for the apprentice Bohme. Novalis's poem portrays just such a situation, in which the role of prophet is assigned to Bohme himself. In addition to the coincidence of plot and the presence of Bohme, the connection to Franckenberg's text is strengthened by a small, but in the circumstances not insignificant echo of language: Franckenberg described the prophetic stranger as "ein fremder zwar schlecht bekleideter, doch feiner und ehrbarer Mann"; Novalis's Bohme is "ein alter Mann, / Im schlichten Rock."43 The remainder of the first stanza establishes the child's predisposition for his calling. The images here are familiar from other representations of the poet exiled in an antipoetic world. The protagonist's longing and faithfulness to tradition are of hagiographic significance; they represent a still imperfect expression of his calling, roughly equivalent to Tieck's "Instinkt zu Religion."44 The events described in the poem take place in a desolate garden ("oden Garten"). Speyer interprets this as "Kontrastimitation fur das verlorene Paradies,"45 but in the absence of any definite signals it seems 41 G. Schulz, "Totenzierte Poesie'," 250. Schulz's objection applies to Vordtriede's reading of the child as symbol of humanity's childhood and as restorer of the golden age. See Vordtriede, Novalis, 125—6, and equally to Speyer's reference to the role played by children in ancient cultic rituals. See Speyer, "An Tieck," 42. Schulz himself does not attempt an explanation (251). 42 See Part i, p. 32 and note 15. 43 "a stranger, simply dressed but fine and respectable"; "an old man / in a simple coat." That Novalis would have understood "schlecht" as "schlicht," and that this detail would have caught his attention, seems more than probable, when one considers that both are true of another Romantic text. Fouque's biography of Bohme retells Franckenberg's episode, describing the stranger as "ein ihm (i.e. Bohme} unbekannter, schlichtgekleideter jedoch ehrbarfeiner Mann" (Fouque, Bohme, 16). "an unknown, simply dressed but fine and honourable man." 44 "instinct for religion." See above, pp. 63—4. For other possible associations see G. Schulz, "Totenzierte Poesie'," 249-50. 45 Speyer, "An Tieck," 44. "Contrastive imitation for the lost Garden of Eden."

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unlikely that this relationship could occur to any reader. It is equally difficult to see how such an allusion would fit the context. Speyer further equates the desolate garden with the strange land ("fremde Land") of the first stanza, the fallen world out of which only the child can find the way.46 Their respective positions in the poem, however, make this identification unlikely; rather, the garden is an appropriate repository for the forgotten message of salvation, because it is a separate, isolated place within the land. Literature of conversion offers an association more pertinent to the narrated events: Augustine's famous conversion experience (which also involved a book!47) took place in a garden, which (according to Courcelle) is a conventional locus for conversations leading to conversion.48 Novalis's triple insistence on the ruined condition - the scene features along with the desolate garden a long decayed bench ("langst verfallene Bank") and, later, Bohme's desolate grave ("6de{s} Grab") - may symbolize the extent to which the true religion/ Poesie has been forgotten and allowed to fall into decay, with the result that its rediscovery has the character of a resurrection. Similarly, it may refer to the extent to which Bohme had been maligned, rejected, and forgotten by both church authorities and rationalist intellectuals. This assumption is strengthened by the fact that Bohme's grave probably was "ode" (desolate), since the cross on it had been destroyed by the populace, as Franckenberg indignantly related (Franckenberg, §32). In this garden the child finds a book, Bohme's Aurora. Speyer points to the long tradition in which the finding of a precious book symbolizes revelation of a divine truth.49 His observations are pertinent; how else could one explain the gold decoration, characteristic of precious manuscripts, so surprisingly acquired by the Aurora? However, Speyer limits his discussion to ancient versions of the topos, to the exclusion of Christian ones, among which the very motif portrayed by the poem, the book as agent of conversion, is to be found. As mentioned earlier, Augustine's Confessions contain two conversions by means of a book, both occurring in a garden, the first involving a book found by chance. Furthermore, it should be remembered that Tieck spoke of having been "converted" by reading the Aurora. While the child reads, Bohme's spirit rises out of his grave to deliver his prophecy. The appearance of Novalis's Bohme, an imposing, silver46 47 48 49

Speyer, "An Tieck," 44. See above, p. 70. Courcelle, Les Confessions, 123. Speyer, "An Tieck" 44.

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haired old man, owes little to Franckenberg's description or to the evidence of portraits. According to Franckenberg, Bohme was very unprepossessing: "{er war} verfallen, {von} kleiner Statur, niedriger Stirne, erhobener Schlaffe, etwas gekriimmter Nasen" (Franckenberg §27),5° and he died at the age of fifty. On the other hand, he shares with the mysterious stranger who prophesied Bohme's future not merely his simple ("schlicht") apparel, but also the aura of portentousness, created by his imposing appearance and by the combination of seriousness and serenity. Both Franckenberg's stranger and Novalis's Bohme, in other words, are endowed with the majesty of Old Testament prophets, an association that Novalis strengthens by describing Bohme as "holy" ("der heilge Mund"). The prophecy in the second half of the poem begins with a recapitulation of Bohme's life. It is here that the principle of anagnorisis is most obviously at work. Bohme's status as divinely chosen mouthpiece is to be recognized by his similarity to his great predecessors. To this end, an instance of imitatio Christi is introduced: like Christ and most saints (and like Franckenberg's Bohme) Bohme remained "verkannt und arm" (misunderstood and poor) to the last. More important still are the prodigies by which God reveals a saint's extraordinary status: "Es sind an mir durch Gottes Gnade / Der hochsten Wunder viel geschehn."51 The two miraculous events that Novalis singles out are visions granted to Bohme, one a free adaptation of material from Franckenberg, the other his own creation. The second of these is phrased in a way that associates Bohme with no less a figure than Saint John of the Apocalypse: "Des neuen Bunds geheime Lade / Sahn meine Augen offen stehn."52 The other vision is constructed around an allusion to Franckenberg's tale of the boy Bohme's experience on the Landeskrone. Surprisingly, Novalis follows Franckenberg in interpreting the episode as a sign that Bohme would be granted insight into divine mysteries, but radically changes the plot.53 In An Tieck, Bohme finds, not a pot of gold (and a daemonic one at that), but a "himmlisch Buch" (heavenly book) that 50 "(he was} emaciated, of small stature, with a low forehead, raised temple, a somewhat bent nose." 51 "Many miracles have happened to me through the mercy of God." 52 Revelation 11: 19. "My eyes saw the secret ark of the new covenant standing open." Speyer noted the quotation from Revelation, but did not mention its implications for the status of Novalis's Bohme figure. Speyer, "An Tieck," 47. 53 Schulz noted this intertextual connection, but did not comment on the change that Novalis wrought on the episode. G. Schulz, "'Potenzierte Poesie'," 251.

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enables him to penetrate the mysteries of creation. Here, anagnorisis is operating in reverse. Novalis achieves a parallel between the biographies of his two prophets by including the motif of finding a book in both. The two lives, like all saints' lives in the eyes of hagiographers, are in fact one, and Bohme reinforces their continuity by naming the child as his heir. This continuity is essential, because it authenticates the child's status as poet-prophet. Bohme's authority is established by pointing to God's intervention in his favour, and by shaping his life according to the established saintly pattern. The child comes to share this authority when he is chosen as Bohme's spiritual heir. In the last four stanzas, Bohme's spirit announces to the child the imminent coming of God's kingdom, and delineates the new poet's mission as "Verkiindiger der Morgenrothe" (the herald of dawn) and "Des Friedens Bote" (the messenger of peace). The imagery of these stanzas evokes at once Bohme, the Bible, and the chiliastic tradition in general. At first glance it might seem as if Novalis had turned from a reception of Bohme's vita to one of his oeuvre, but in fact, all that he has included are references to the titles of two of Bohme's works and some chiliastic hopes so general that they need not be linked to any one source ("Du wirst das letzte Reich verkiinden, / Was tausend Jahre soil bestehn").54 Only the repeated references to "Morgenrothe" (dawn) and the image "nicht verborgen / Soil das Mysterium mehr seyn" (the mystery shall no longer be hidden) suggest a specifically Bohmist colouring to this new kingdom of God, and these are merely allusions to the titles Aurora oder Die Morgenrothe im Auffgang55 and Mysterium magnum. The fact that Novalis does not really use material from the works, even though by then he must have read at least some of these, confirms that his excitement arose not from the discovery of new ideas, new terminology or new imagery with which to dress his own thoughts, but of a new hero to add to the Romantic canon, one who performed a service as yet unfulfilled by the others. Thanks to Bohme's preestablished identity as a divine mouthpiece, Romantic Poesie and its heroes could be invested with some of the authority of traditional Christian heroes. The fact that Bohme was accepted in this guise only by a small and radical Pietist minority would be a benefit rather than a hindrance, since the Romantic creed was deliberately subversive. A prophet crying in the wilderness was in any case most in the spirit of ancient Christianity. 54 "You will announce the last kindgom which will last a thousand years." 55 Literally: "Aurora or the Rising Dawn."

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As a final remark on the hagiographic mode of reception, it should be noted that, though Tieck is to be regarded as its initiator inasmuch as he was the first to discover and preach Bohme (in the letter of 23 February Novalis expresses his joy at having discovered the mystic through the agency of his friend Tieck), the chronology of the texts leaves little doubt that both the image of spring and the details of the legend woven around Bohme originated with Novalis. Tieck adopted both, varying and reusing them whenever he referred to Bohme, and eventually adapting them to the needs of self-justification.

6

Towards A Mystical Science:]. W. Ritter

In June of the year 1800 Friedrich Schlegel wrote to his friend Schleiermacher: "Ritter hat {Bohme} sehr studirt und will auch iiber seine Physik schreiben."1 Schlegel is referring to the physicist Johann Wilhelm Ritter, a member of the Jena circle and a particular friend of Novalis. Like Novalis and Tieck, Ritter wished to participate in the promotion of Bohme, the Romantic writer. On the face of it, he planned to leave the issue of Bohme's poetic value to his poet friends and to concentrate on a topic in which he was especially versed: physics. The results might have revealed a great deal about the reasons for Bohme's appeal to the Romantics; regrettably, like Tieck and Novalis, Ritter, too, never wrote an essay on Bohme. There is no evidence on which to base a comprehensive picture of Ritter's Bohme reception; many of his writings have been lost, and those still extant contain only two references to Bohme. There is no reason to think - it should be noted in passing - that the thesis of influence fits this reception any better than the others. On the contrary, the arguments that militated against an influence on Novalis2 apply here equally. Ritier's familiarity with the traditions of alchemy, hermeticism, early modern natural philosophy, and natural science make an influence by Bohme in particular less rather than more likely.3 Even more unlikely is the notion that Ritter's scientific endeavours might have been "influenced" by a system nearly three hundred years out of date. What then

1 Jonas, Aus Schkiermachers Leben, 3: 192-3. "Ritter studied {Bohme} extensively and also wants to write about his physics." 2 See the previous chapter, pp. yGff, especially pp. 86-88. 3 Worbs, "Ritter," 63-76, advances an argument for influence. The same objections can be raised against Worbs as against the dissertations pertaining to Tieck and Novalis. The similarities Worbs lists - the interest in magic and alchemy, visionary leanings, the theory of signatures (see the discussion of this theory with respect to Novalis in the

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might have constituted Bohme's attraction for Ritter? The two references to Bohme included in Ritter's Fragmente aus dem Nachlasse einesjungen Physikers (Fragments from the Posthumous Papers of a Young Physicist)4 point to a type of reception very similar to that by the other members of the group. Once again it is Bohme's symbolic language, his way with a vivid image, and the manner in which his images fuse the physical and supersensible spheres, that is being pressed into service. In other words, contrary to what one might have expected, the physicist Ritter, like Novalis and Tieck, is appropriating Bohme the poet - poet, that is, according to the Romantic definition of Poesie. Number 51 of the Fragmente is devoted to iron, to its ubiquity in nature, its chemical composition, its magnetic properties, its function in the great organism that is nature. Early in the fragment, Ritter writes: "Alle Stoffe auf Erden scheinen zerlegtes Eisen zu seyn. Eisen ist der Kern der Erde, 'der sichtbare Quellgeist der Erde' (Jac. Bohme)."5 Almost certainly - despite the way it is presented - this is not a direct quotation from Bohme.6 Equally probably, it is also not a paraphrase of an idea from Bohme's oeuvre. Iron is mentioned only rarely in Bohme's writings, and then usually as part of a list of correspondences between planets and metals. It does not itself play any particular role, it is not the core of the earth, in fact, it is not a "Quellgeist" (source spirit) at all.7

previous chapter, pp. 80, 8 iff.), a tendency to think in polarities, a love of nature and of children, the preoccupation with the phenomenon of light - could all have come to Ritter through countless different sources, including secondhand through compendia and histories of philosophy, as Mahl was able to show in Novalis's case. 4 Johann Wilhelm Ritter, Fragmente aus dem Nachlasse eines jungen Physikers (Heidelberg 1810, reprinted Heidelberg: Lambert Schneider 1969). 5 Ritter, Fragmente, 1,51. "All earthly elements seem to be broken-down iron. Iron is the core of the earth, 'the visible source spirit of the earth' (Jac. Bohme)." 6 Despite repeated and careful searching, I was not able to find any such statement in Bohme's writing. Worbs does not commit himself on this issue, but his choice of words suggests that he, too, cannot regard it as an accurate quotation: "als er es schreibt, da kommt ihm die Lektiire der Bohmeschen Schriften in den Sinn. War da nicht davon gesprochen worden, wie im Quellen der sieben 'Quellgeister' die Welt wird? ... und als gelte es ihm, dem diese Formulierung zu eigen ist, ein Denkmal zu setzen, fugt er in Klammern hinzu: Jac. Bohme" (Worbs, "Ritter," 71). "as he writes it, the reading of Bohme's writings comes to his mind. Wasn't there talk in them of how the world comes to be in the qualifying of the seven 'source spirits'? ... and, as if to erect a monument to him whose formulation this is, he adds in brackets: Jac. Bohme." Furthermore, in die case of his second reference to Bohme, Ritter notes work, chapter, and paragraph number, whereas here he merely mentions Bohme's name. 7 For a list of the seven qualities or "Quellgeister" see Part i, pp. 19-21.

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What kind of a reception does this pseudoquotation constitute? Clearly not an appropriation of Bohme's physics, or of his theosophy, or of any aspect of his thought, since the ideas presented in this fragment bear no relation to any of these. What is being appropriated is simply and solely a striking term with the aid of which Ritter is able to construct a vivid image to illustrate his theory. This interpretation holds equally true of Ritter's second reference to Bohme.8 Section IV of the Fragmente deals with the subject of light, its colours, its refraction by means of a prism, its rate of acceleration, its relation to heat, and so on. Fragment 256 begins with a series of empirical observations on these topics and their interpretation. Then, in a manner typical to the collection as a whole, it passes seamlessly from the physical to the metaphysical, from scientific observation to theosophic speculation. Ritter accomplishes the switch by using in a metaphoric sense the very terms he had just applied literally. Having talked of the refraction of light, he reflects that everything in nature could be the medium by which the rays of the universe are refracted, then considers how this notion could serve to describe the relationship between God and humanity: Im Menschen brechen sich gottliche Strahlen. Sie zerlegen sich, und ihre Farben sind das harmonische Spiel seiner Gedanken. Man konnte sprechen von Gedanken, die durch geradlinigtes Begegnen, und andern, die durch schieflinigtes entstanden. Das Herz ware der Strahl Gottes, der senkrecht auf den Menschen fiele; alles ubrige fallt schief. Oder auch: der eigentliche Mensch ist das Herz, das Innere, am Menschen, in diesem bricht sich alles Aeu(3ere. Das Leben ist das Farbenspiel, was dadurch im brechenden Medium entsteht. Der Mensch soil keine Farbe einzeln nehmen; alle in der Vereinigung nur geben das vollendete Bild Gottes in ihm, welches erscheint in der Liebe, welche nichts ist, als die Freude, die sie an und iiber sich selbst hat.9 8 Ritter, Fragmente, iv: 256. 9 "Divine rays refract themselves in man. They separate, and their colours are the harmonious play of his thoughts. One could speak of thoughts which originate in straight encounters and of thoughts which originate in diagonal encounters. The heart would be the ray of God which falls vertically onto the human being; the rest fall diagonally. Or one could say: actual man is the heart, the inner part, of man. In this all outer things are refracted. Life is the play of colours which is in this way produced in the refracting medium. Man should not take any colour individually; only all of them jointly produce the complete image of God in man, which image appears in love which is nothing but the joy which it has of and about itself."

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As was the case with fragment 51, Ritter, having presented his own thoughts, embellishes and illustrates them by means of an image culled from Bohme: "Gleichwie, als wann der Blitz in mitten der gottlichen Kraft aufgehet, da alle Geister Gottes ihr Leben bekommen, und sich hoch freuen, da ist ein liebliches und heiliges Halsen, Kussen, Schmecken, Fuhlen, Horen, Sehen und Riechen - und umpfangt ein Geist den andern, wie in der Gottheit (J. Bohme. Morgenrothe xn. 39.) "10 At first glance, one might be tempted to see in this fragment a reception of Bohme's thought, since light plays an important role there too. The centrality of light in Bohme's theosophic speculations may have attracted Ritter's attention and contributed to his appreciation of the mystic, but there is little similarity in the way the two regard light. That the physical accounts of light should differ radically is no great surprise, but on the metaphysical level as well, the similarities are in the images rather than the content. In Bohme's Christocentric model, light is the manifestation of the Son, who is the heart of God. Ritter, on the other hand, is using the image of light rays to make the point that the human heart is the sole locus of direct contact with the divine. A further sign that this fragment represents an appropriation of imagery rather than content lies in the fact that the subject matter of the fragment and of the quotation do not match. Chapter 12 of the Aurora does not deal with light, or with human beings, or with human beings' relationship with God; it describes the nature, function, and blissful life of the angels. The passage that Ritter quotes describes at once the relationship of the seven source spirits within God himself and the relationship of the angels to each other. Ritter has divorced the image from its original context and meaning, reinterpreted it, and adapted it to a purpose wholly unrelated to its original one. What attracted him was a metaphor rich in symbolic potential. The transition from the analogy to the quotation gives us a clue as to what drew Ritter to this image: it portrays "Liebe" (love) and "Freude" (joy) in terms of physical manifestations, more specifically, of happy, sensual, playful activity - one is reminded of the springtime metaphor by which Novalis and Tieck described the spirit of Bohme's oeuvre. In other words, Ritter, like the other Jena Romantics, regards the universe as an integrated, harmonious organism, 10 Both the quotation marks and the reference in parentheses are Ritter's. Ritter's quotation is incomplete. "As when the Flash ... rises up in the Center of the Divine Power, wherein all the Spirits of God attain their Life, and highly rejoice, there is a loving and holy Embracing, Kissing, Tasting, Touching, or Feeling, Hearing, Seeing, and Smelling ... and one Spirit embraces the other, as it is in the Deity" (Bohme, Works, i: 108).

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encompassing God, nature, and human beings, spirit and matter; all parts coming together in a rich, fertile and happy life. This is precisely the mood that the passage from chapter 12 of the Aurora vividly evokes. The Bohme whom Ritter appropriated for the purposes of his fragments is thus solely Bohme the creator of poetic images, the very Bohme that the other Romantics extolled. Unexpectedly, Ritter's mode of appropriation elucidates the meaning of a critique of Bohme that Tieck, purportedly quoting Novalis, wrote to his friend Solger: "nun begreife ich erst gantz, warum Novalis den J. Bohme willkiirlich nannte, warum er ihn als einen allegorischen Poeten angesehn wissen wollte, in dessen Manier und Sinn man gleich weiter denken, sich die Natur und alles so vorkommen lassen konnte, ja selbst so zu schreiben fortfahren mochte, wem dies gro(3e Talent verliehn."11 This comment, whether or not it was Novalis's opinion, provides a strikingly apt description of what Ritter has done with Bohme: there is always a degree of arbitrariness in the way a poet fits a symbol to a literal context; by divorcing the symbol from its first referent and attaching it to a new one, Ritter carries the allegorizing and the arbitrariness a step further, and at the same time has "continued to write" in the manner of his source.

11 Matenko, Tieck and Solger, 477. "Only now I understand completely why Novalis called J. Bohme arbitrary, why he wanted him to be regarded as an allegorical poet in whose manner and spirit one could continue to think, to see nature and everything, in whose manner one could even continue to write, if one had been given the great talent."

7

The Limits of the Reception: F.E.D. Schleiermacher, August Wilhelm, Caroline, and Dorothea Schlegel The appropriation of Bohme became something of a group project for the Jena Romantics, drawing into its orbit even those members of the group whose interest was lukewarm at best. This state of affairs is by no means surprising, given the daily interaction and lively exchange of ideas that characterized the time of the group's residence in Jena. Worthy of notice is the way in which remarks by members of the circle, who were only peripherally involved in the reception of Bohme, confirm my observations on its nature and aims. Judging by the absence of evidence of an active reception or by positive evidence to the contrary, an active engagement with Bohme extended only to half the group, to Tieck, Novalis, Ritter, and Friedrich Schlegel.1 August Wilhelm, Caroline and Dorothea Schlegel, and Schleiermacher remained on the sidelines. Their attitudes ranged from sympathetic encouragement to ironic detachment yet, such was the efficacy of the pro-B6hme campaign, sooner or later all found themselves accepting and even promoting the mystic's canonical status. All through the period of daily interchange at Jena, Tieck was preaching Bohme and proceeding with the conversion of Novalis, Ritter, and Friedrich Schlegel, as witness remarks on Bohme by all of these. By contrast, Caroline and Dorothea never mentioned the mystic. Indeed, Dorothea seems to have been more than a little sceptical about the aestheticized religion of which Bohme was to be the crowning example. In a letter dated November 15, 1799, she describes the prevailing atmosphere to Schleiermacher (who was living in Berlin): "Das Christenthum ist hier a 1'ordre du jour; die Herren sind etwas toll. Tieck treibt die i As I shall show, Schelling did not join their ranks until several years later.

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Religion wie Schiller das Schicksal; Novalis glaubt Tieck, ist ganz und gar seiner Meinung; ich will aber wetten, was einer will, sie verstehen sich selbst nicht und einander nicht."2 Admittedly, her sarcasm may have been motivated by hurt feelings on her husband's behalf; a letter by Friedrich to Schleiermacher, also of late November 1799, suggests that he may have felt somewhat left out and therefore adopted the role of devil's advocate: "hier gehts ziemlich bunt und storend durcheinander Religion und Holberg, Galvanismus und Poesie ... Da die Menschen es so grimmig trieben mit ihrem Wesen, so hat Schelling einen neuen Anfall von seinem alten Enthusiasmus fur die Irreligion bekommen, worin ich ihn denn aus alien Kraften bestatigte."3 Whatever her motivation, Dorothea is unlikely to have been converted by Tieck's arguments, so that the lack of references to Bohme can be attributed to lack of response. There is no evidence that she ever did engage either with Bohme's persona or his writings, yet she did come to accept as self-evident Bohme's right to a place among the great philosophers extolled in the Romantic programme. In September 1804 - that is, at the time when her husband was revising his idealism so as to accommodate established Christian doctrines - Dorothea writes to her friend Caroline Paulus, urging her not to give up the study of philosophy because of recent false philosophers incapable of furthering the discipline: "Es giebt keine Weisheit, die nicht schon langst verkiindigt worden ware ... Wer Dir sagt, er habe ein neues System erfunden oder dergleichen, den darfst Du dreist auslachen. Was Plato und Spinoza und Jakob Bohme und die Apostel gelehrt haben, das konnen sie jetzt umbacken."4 By the company in which she places him, Dorothea grants Bohme that status as teacher of divine truths to which Tieck, Novalis and eventually Friedrich Schlegel laid claim for him grants it, moreover, in the unemphatic tone of one citing a generally familiar, long established and unarguable fact. 2 Raich, Dorothea von Schlegel, i: 20. "Christianity is here the fashion of the day; the gentlemen are a little bit crazy. Tieck deals in religion as Schiller in fate; Hardenberg believes Tieck, is completely of his opinion; but I would bet anything that they don't understand either themselves or each other." 3 Jonas, Aus Schleiermachers Leben, 3: 133-4. "things here are pretty wild and annoyingly chaotic - religion and Holberg, galvanism and poetry ... Because these people carried on like this so much, Schelling has had a new attack of his old enthusiam for irreligion in which I encouraged him as much as I could." 4 Raich, Dorothea von Schlegel, i: 140. "There is no wisdom which has not already been announced a long time ago ... If anyone tells you that he has invented a new system or something like this, you can happily laugh at him. What Plato and Spinoza and Jakob Bohme and the apostles have taught, they can now rehash."

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Like her sister-in-law, Caroline left no evidence that she felt any interest for Bohme. All that can be said is that she was aware of Bohme's relevance to her companions' plans and did not object to it. A letter to August Wilhelm dated March 18, 1802 reports that a catalogue of books has arrived for him, which however contains "nichts merkwurdiges ... als drey oder viermal Jacob Bohms Werke."5 Friedrich Schleiermacher was openly sympathetic to Friedrich Schlegel's plans for the appropriation of Bohme and even declared himself willing to participate in their execution. On the other hand, we have his word for it that he had not read Bohme and was not planning to do so in the foreseeable future.6 Unlike most of his friends, Schleiermacher was not a regular participant in the circle at Jena, since he resided in Berlin. His contact with the enthusiasm for Bohme was therefore indirect, mediated through Friedrich Schlegel. The exchange of letters in which the two friends discussed Bohme is particularly informative for the nature and purposes of the appropriation and deserves detailed consideration. In June 1800 Friedrich Schlegel wrote to Schleiermacher urging him to read Bohme: "Fast mochte ich es Dir zur Pflicht machen den Jak. Bohme zu studiren."7 This is necessary, Schlegel explains, because of the role Bohme can and will play in Romantic thought and Romantic anticlassicistic polemics: "Es mufi noch viel von ihm die Rede {seyn}, weil in ihm grade das Christenthum mit zwey Spharen in Beriihrung steht, wo jetzt der revolutionare Geist fast am schonsten wirkt - Physik und Poesie. Ritter hat ihn sehr studirt und will auch iiber seine Physik schreiben ... Tieck legt sich gewaltig auf ihn und wird ihn hinlanglich tieckisiren ... Noch ein Grund, warum ich es besonders schicklich finde, den Bohme zu predigen, ist dap sein Name schon den grofken Ansto(3 bei den Philistern erregt; kein andrer kann mehr polemische Energie haben."8 Schleiermacher's 5 Schmidt, Caroline, 2: 325. "Nothing noteworthy ... except three or four copies of the works ofjacob Bohme." A letter to Schelling (May 10,1806) confirms that the latter owned an edition of Bohme, but reveals nothing of Caroline's own attitude. See Schmidt, Caroline, 2:456. 6 That contemporary reviewers should have detected clear traces of Bohme in his Reden (see above, Part i, p. 11) is ironic but not surprising; it is simply another testament to the extent to which "Bohmism" had become an identifying feature of Romanticism in the public mind. 7 Jonas, Aus Schleiermachers Leben, 3: 192. "I would like to make it almost your duty to study Jakob Bohme." 8 Jonas, Aus Schleiermachers Leben, 3: 192—3. "We must still talk a lot about him, because in him, precisely Christianity is in contact with two spheres in which now the revolutionary spirit is having the greatest effect - physics and poetry. Ritter has studied him a great deal

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answer, dated July 10, 1800, enters into Schlegel's argumentation, though Schleiermacher at this stage has no intention of taking up the study recommended to him: "Den {Bohme} werde ich allerdings studiren, weil ich mir mit der Mystik noch viel zu schaffen zu machen denke; aber freilich das wann ist mir noch sehr dunkel, und nach alien Berechnungen, die ich mir vorlaufig machen kann ist der fruhste Termin 1804. Ad extra dachte ich iibrigens ware das nothwendigste mit dem Bohm, daf$ man ihn skiagraphirte in usum saeculi mit einer rechten Hautgout Sauce von Polemik und von Dithyramben fur die Mystik. Ist das alsdann noch nicht geschehen, so will ich mich wohl dazu verstehen."9 This exchange contains a number of significant points. To begin with, it is of great help in establishing the extent of the appropriation. As described by Schlegel, this lies almost entirely in the future, even as late as June 1800: Tieck and Ritter are studying Bohme and will appropriate him and/or write about him, Schlegel makes no mention of any study or appropriation he himself might be carrying out and Schleiermacher does not intend to occupy himself with Bohme until 1804. Especially noteworthy in view of twentieth-century influence studies is the complete omission of Novalis. Furthermore, Schlegel points to the arbitrary and idiosyncratic character of Tieck's reception - a perceptive and accurate observation. Lastly, both friends focus on the polemical aspects of the projected appropriation. Friedrich Schlegel hopes that Bohme will play a role in forging Universalpoesie, since he brought together physics, religion, and Poesie, but he clearly has little idea what form this contribution is to take. By contrast, he has no doubts about Bohme's usefulness as a means of shocking the establishment, thanks to the mystic's preexistent notoriety. Schleiermacher has even less idea than his friend how the first part of the project might be carried out; he has nothing to offer

and wants to write about his physics ... Tieck is very taken up with him and will tieckify him sufficiently ... another reason why I find it particularly suitable to preach Bohme is that already his name provokes the greatest annoyance among the philistines; no other can have more polemical energy." 9 Jonas, Aus Schleiermachers Leben, 3: 203, emphasis in the original. "I will indeed study Bohme, because I plan to occupy myself quite a bit with mysticism, but nevertheless it is still very unclear when, and by all calculations I can make at the moment, the earliest date is 1804. As to the rest, I would think what's most needed with Bohme would be to draw a silhouette of him for general use with a nice piquant sauce of polemic and dithyrambs for mysticism. If it hasn't happened by then, I'm willing to take it on."

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on the subject beyond his willingness to read mysticism in general and Bohme in particular. Like Schlegel, he is much more definite on the polemical issue, and even goes so far as to offer tactical suggestions. It seems not unreasonable to think that the character sketch seasoned with polemic that Schleiermacher has in mind would closely resemble the appropriation carried out by Tieck and Novalis: the hagiographic exaltation of one who to the addressees of the polemic was an exemplary object of contempt.10 August Wilhelm Schlegel like Schleiermacher had no firsthand knowledge and most probably no very pressing interest in Bohme. Unlike Schleiermacher, he participated to some slight degree in the Romantic appropriation of Bohme by citing him in the lectures on Romantic literature. August Wilhelm Schlegel's references to Bohme add nothing new to the reception; they merely show how it would have affected someone observing it from close by, and incidentally confirm the extent of familiarity with the topic that could be expected from an audience. The one surprise lies in what is omitted rather than in what is included: though he is mentioned in connection with poets Bohme is not himself represented as a poet - a much needed reminder to twentieth-century scholars that the Romantic claim to this effect was unexpected, subversive, and idiosyncratic, not natural and self-evident at all. Before examining the uses to which August Wilhelm does put Bohme, one general observation should be made. Schlegel's references to Bohme are similar to Lessing's11 in that the mystic plays a secondary, supportive role in an argument not concerned with him. They thus presuppose in their audience a high degree of familiarity both with Bohme's name and with the attitude to him being put forward, else his inclusion would confuse rather than strengthen the argument. The difference is one of content; Schlegel is citing Bohme as an authority on things religious, not as the epitome of Schwdrmerei. He must therefore have felt confident that the notoriety achieved by his companions' claims had prepared the terrain sufficiently. On the evidence of his correspondence, August Wilhelm Schlegel had not read Bohme. His references to the mystic always deal with 10 Despite his good intentions, it seems unlikely that Schleiermacher ever got around to reading Bohme. He never mentions the mysdc again, either in his correspondence or anywhere else. Probably he had too little free time and, once the friendship with Friedrich Schlegel had cooled, no real interest in pursuing the subject. 11 See Part i, pp. 47-8.

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someone else's efforts, August Wilhelm taking a merely editorial interest.12 Indeed, a letter to Tieck (dated May 28, 1801) leaves little doubt that August Wilhelm had not as yet read Bohme, though he appears to contemplate doing so. Discussing submissions to the almanach he and Tieck were planning, August Wilhelm refers to some poems sent in by Novalis's brother Karl von Hardenberg and asks Tieck to write to their author because: "ich {i.e. August Wilhelm} mich auf Jakob Bohme noch gar nicht verstehe."13 The cycle of lectures Geschichte der romantischen Literatur (History of Romantic Literature), given in Berlin in the winter of 1802-3, contains three references to Bohme. Contrary to what one might expect, Bohme does not appear in his guise as Romantic poet and member of the anticlassicist canon (the guise, that is, to which we have become accustomed from Novalis's and Tieck's remarks, and in which he will reappear in Friedrich Schlegel's lectures several years later). The place where he might have been featured is easily identified. The section entitled Kurze Ubersicht der Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Poesie (A Brief Survey of the History of the German Language and Literature) devotes a good deal of attention to the early modern and Baroque periods. August Wilhelm praises Hans Sachs (at some length, though not entirely wholeheartedly), briefly describes the Meistersanger, then discusses several authors with whom he is only partially or not at all in sympathy: Opitz, Weckherlin, Fleming, Gryphius, Lohenstein. He is particularly interested in the genre of hymns, in which connection he praises the Jesuit Spec for the very qualities the other Romantics habitually associated with Bohme - love, longing, intuitive understanding of nature. Bohme does not even appear in the passage in which Schlegel, closely echoing Novalis's Christenheit, cites a few writers of hymns (Luther, Paul Gerhard, Johann Rist, Simon Dach) as exceptions to the general Unpoesie brought about by Protestantism ("Uber das ungiin-

12 A letter to Tieck dated November 23, 1800 (Liideke, Tieck, 59), and one to Schleiermacherofjune 16, 1800 (Jonas, Aus Schleiermachers Leben, 3: 186) refer to poems on Bohme written or planned by Novalis and Tieck respectively. A letter to Tieck of July 10, 1801 mentions Bohme while giving a polemical answer to Tieck's reasons for wanting the manuscript of Heinrich von Ofterdingen (Ludeke, Tieck, go; see also Tieck's letter, beginning of July 1801, quoted in Part n, note 4). 13 Ludeke, Tieck, 77. "I (i.e., August Wilhelm} don't yet understand Jakob Bohme at all."

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stige Verhaltnis des Protestantismus zur Poesie 1st schon oft die Rede gewesen").14 This omission need not mean that August Wilhelm disagreed with the group's contention that Bohme was indeed a Romantic poet. Rather, one can speculate that August Wilhelm, more of a straightforward literary critic and less of a philosopher and innovator than his brother Friedrich or Novalis, may have been somewhat at a loss how to discuss Bohme in poetic terms since, unlike all the other authors to whom he attends, the mystic did not write in any established literary genre. In other words, Bohme could only be included in Poesie if it were redefined in some philosophical, symbolic manner - as both Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis did. Despite this striking omission, August Wilhelm does refer to Bohme in ways derived from the appropriation the mystic underwent at the hands of other members of the Jena group. In the introduction to his lectures August Wilhelm draws attention to his brother's list of early modern exemplars of the German character. He quotes the fragment (Ideen 120) in which Friedrich cites Bohme, Luther, Kepler and Diirer as great examples of the national character.15 With his second reference, August Wilhelm coopts Bohme's religious authority to support an argument for the revival of truly spiritual literature. The plethora of contemporary adaptations - or, in his view, mutilations - of the Faust theme lead August Wilhelm to muse on the - in his eyes - deplorable waning of the Christian faith. The Faust theme must be treated in a Christian context, not because pagan traditions lack convincing presentations of magic, but because, "Die Darstellung des Ringens der himmlischen und hollischen Machte um eine menschliche Seele ist eine eigentumliche Schonheit der christlichen romantischen Poesie."16 The 14 A.W. Schlegel, Kritische Schriften und Briefs, 4: 67. "The unfavourable relationship of protestantism to poetry has already often been discussed." Similarly, the survey of German poets with which the text of the lectures concludes omits Bohme: "Ubersicht der deutschen Poesie. Minnesinger. Hans Sachs. Opitz. Flemming. Weckherlin. Lohenstein. Neukirch. Gottsched. Bremische Beitrager. Klopstock. Lessing. Wieland. - Goethe. Neueste Aussichten." A.W. Schlegel, Kritische Schriften und Briefe, 4: 222, emphasis in the original. "Survey of German poetry. Minnesinger. Hans Sachs. Opitz. Flemming. Weckherlin. Lohenstein. Neukirch. Gottsched. Bremische Beitrager. Klopstock. Lessing. Wieland. - Goethe. Most recent perspectives." 15 A.W. Schlegel, Kritische Schriften und Briefe, 4: 39. 16 "The representation of the struggle between the heavenly and hellish powers for a human soul is a particular beauty of Christian romantic poetry."

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contrast between the pagan and the Christian point of view is explained with the aid of an indirect quotation from Bohme: "Mit diesem Gedanken ist es allerdings ubereinstimmend, da|3 die Heiden, welche in den himmlischen Geheimnissen so blind waren, da(3 sie, wie Jakob Bohme sehr richtig sagt, bis vor das Antlitz Gottes kamen, ohne es schauen zu konnen, von der Zauberei ebensoviel verstanden als die neuere Zeit."17 The reference is to the second chapter of Bohme's Aurora. The context is similar to the extent that both writers are discussing the difference between true (Christian) and false (pagan) knowledge. In the Aurora, Bohme argues that true knowledge of nature is only possible with God's help. If the reader's soul is not illuminated by the Holy Spirit, "so wird {es ihm} gehen wie den weisen Heiden, die sich in der Schopfung vergaffeten, und wolltens aus eigener Vernunft erforschen, und kamen in ihrem Dichten bis vor Gottes Antlitz und konnten dasselbe doch nicht sehen und waren in der Erkenntnis Gottes stockblind."18 August Wilhelm bends the image to the service of an aesthetic, rather than a doctrinal argument, since his aim is true poetry rather than salvation. Although Schlegel did not present Bohme as a poet, the fact that the mystic occurs to him at the moment when he is arguing a necessary connection between Christianity and Poesie is unlikely to be coincidental. The conclusion suggests itself that, like Tieck and Novalis, he is coopting Bohme's hagiographic authority to shore up a polemical argument, something which runs counter to the mood of the times. The third and final reference to Bohme goes a long way towards confirming this reading. It makes use of Bohme's theosophy in securing a religious aura for the works of the Italian "romantic" poets. Dante is August Wilhelm's example of the ideal poet who combines literature, natural science and religion. Dante is here what Bohme was to Tieck, Novalis, and Friedrich Schlegel. August Wilhelm goes so far as to equate Dante's endeavours with those of Novalis himself.19 To create a sacral aura around Dante's works, August Wilhelm is not content with point17 A.W. Schlegel, Kritische Schriften und Briefe, 4: 142. "It is congruent with this thought that the pagans, who were so blind to the secrets of heaven that they, as Jakob Bohme very rightly says, arrived in the sight of God without being able to see his face, understood as much of sorcery as modern times." 18 Jakob Bohme, Aurora, 2, 13. "it will be {with him), as it was with the wise Heathens, who gazed on the Creation, and would search and sift it out by their own Reason; and though with their Fictions and Conceits they came before God's Countenance or Face, yet they were not able to see it, but were stark blind'm their Knowledge of God" (Bohme, Works, i: 28). 19 A.W. Schlegel, Kritische Schriften und Briefe, 4: 175.

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ing to the theological aspects of the Divina Commedia, but supplements it by sacralizing the poet's love for Beatrice. Discussing the Vita Nuova, August Wilhelm describes a progression from secular love, to religious devotion, to theosophic insight, and argues that all are the outcome of the same emotion. For the final step, August Wilhelm, like his companions, enlists the aid of Bohme's preestablished sacral aura: Es lapt sich nichts mil der innigen Kindlichkeit, su(3en Unschuld und Liebeszartheit dieser Erzahlung von der ... Liebe zu Beatrice ... vergleichen, als etwa die Darstellungen der altesten Maler von der Maria und dem Christkinde, den Engeln und Heiligen ... Es ist, als ob dies Menschengeschlecht eine Anschauung von einer so innerlichen und geistigen Region des Daseins gehabt, da(3 alles unser Bewuptsein dagegen auperlich und sinnlich wird. Sie sind mit ihrer Kontemplation immer da, wo nach Jakob Bohmes Ausdruck die Seele in ihrer innersten Geburt steht.20

In essence, this passage repeats the intent and the strategy of Novalis's poem An Tieck. In both cases, the protagonist is to be established as a prototypical Romantic poet-prophet; in both cases, Bohme, a figure whom some Pietists had portrayed as a prophet and whom the Romantics were hailing as a poet, is called upon to lend his authority to the new hero.

20 A.W. Schlegel, Kritische Schriften und Briefe, 4: 170. "Nothing can be compared to the heartfelt, childlike quality, to the sweet innocence and loving tenderness of this tale of the ... love for Beatrice, except perhaps the portrayals of Mary with the Christ child, of the angels and saints by the oldest painters ... It is as if this race had had an intuition of such an intimate and spiritual region of existence that all our consciousness becomes superficial and sensual compared to it. They are with their contemplation always there where, according to Jakob Bohme's expression, the soul stands in its innermost birth."

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PART III

From Universalpoesie to Christian Idealism: Bohme 's Thought and Philosophical Romanticism

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8

Universalpoesie, Mythology, and Christian Idealism: Friedrich Schlegel Scholars have paid far less attention to Friedrich Schlegel's Bohme reception than to those by Novalis, Schelling, or even Tieck. This is the more paradoxical since only in Schlegel's case do we have a substantial body of remarks on Bohme, including a group of reading notes (the absence of which was so puzzling and so sorely felt in the case of Novalis), that allows us to form a well-founded picture of the reasons and goals underlying the group's championship of the mystic. Furthermore Schlegel's Bohme reception, multifaceted and ever changing in its details, paradoxical and even self-contradictory in its overall configuration, is a challenging and provocative object of study in its own right. In fact, it would be more exact to speak of "receptions." As the letter to Schleiermacher made clear, Schlegel hoped to further the cause of Romantic Poesie by awarding Bohme an honoured place in its canon. Traces of this project can be detected in tentative remarks on Bohme's value for Poesie and in numerous plans for poetic works. Over the years, as Schlegel deepened his knowledge of Bohme, his views underwent radical if gradual changes. As a result, the comments in the philosophical notebooks and in the lectures on philosophy and literature present a variety of receptions - different both in import and motivation - under a mantle of constant terminology. It should be added that none of these receptions, except the critiques in the lectures, proceeded beyond the preliminary stage. This is an all too familiar occurrence in Schlegel's career, yet certain peculiarities of the relationship to Bohme and the temporal framework of the reception combine to make this a particularly striking case. The overall pattern of the reception can be traced as follows. Once Bohme was brought to his attention by Tieck, Schlegel was quick to

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perceive the mystic's potential applications for various aspects of the Romantic programme. These, cogently outlined by Schlegel himself in his letter to Schleiermacher (June iSoo),1 can be summed up as follows: as a weapon for controversy in the dispute against classicistic definitions of literature; as an early embodiment of the ideal harmonious union of all higher disciplines (philosophy, Poesie, religion, physics) in which Romanticism was to culminate; as an example of the shape the individual disciplines were to take in order to contribute to this achievement; within the sphere of philosophy itself, as a stepping stone towards the synthesis of realism and idealism, and therefore towards Realidealismus, the ultimate form of philosophy; as an important source of images and concepts for the creation of the new, universal, idealistic mythology through which Romantic literature was to acquire the centre that would enable it to surpass ancient literature. These far-reaching plans were for the most part never carried out. Schlegel incorporated Bohme in his original writing only to a small extent, and then not in the way he had originally envisaged. For this, time and the accidents of Schlegel's life and spiritual development were responsible. The evidence suggests that Schlegel, though aware of Bohme and his potential usefulness as early as 1798, only slowly acquired firsthand knowledge of the mystic. In all probability, his views on Bohme throughout the Jena period were based on information from Tieck and perhaps on a more or less cursory reading of the Aurora. A more intensive study seems to have begun during his stay in Paris (1802-3) and to have reached peak intensity during the Cologne years (1804-5). By then the Jena group had disbanded, to Schlegel's bitter disappointment. Bereft of its support, Schlegel began to redefine his position with regards to idealism, to established religion, to some extent even to literature. Within this altered context Bohme's works were judged from a different perspective and contributed to different goals than had originally been intended. There is indeed continuity within this change: Bohme is still to provide raw material for a new mythology, he is still instrumental in the forging of perfect idealism, and he is still a model of true Poesie. Underneath this unchanging surface, however, change is radical and decisive: the perfect philosophy is no longer defined as the combination of realism and idealism but rather as that of idealism and Christianity and eventually as a kind of philosophical Catholicism; the definition of true Poesie and the manner in which Bohme embodies it also change to match Schlegel's emergent esi The relevant passage was quoted in Part n, p. 103.

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pousal of Catholicism; mystical physics in a Bohmist spirit is tried in one text, then finally abandoned; from about 1802 on a new, religious - indeed doctrinal - mode of reception emerges. As a result, Schlegel's approval of Bohme becomes increasingly qualified: Bohme is now seen within his historical context as great for his time rather than as absolutely great, and is eventually criticized on confessional grounds. Given the long span of time covered (1798-1828) and the range of different, often conflicting issues, it seems best to examine the individual thematic complexes separately. The first section of this chapter will be devoted to Schlegel's philosophical development, to the concepts of Realidealismus, idealism, Universalpoesie, to their changing focus, and to the role and significance of Bohme within each phase. The second section will examine the Christian doctrinal reception, the new topics it introduced, and the changes it caused in the overall attitude to Bohme. This section will give detailed consideration to Schlegel's study notes on Bohme, since these are the sole such record of how one of the authors studied here actually understood Bohme's thought. The last section will weigh the evidence of a "poetic" reception (consisting in some plans for poetic works and in a section of the 1805 lectures on philosophy), in order to determine the limitations as well as the nature of Schlegel's borrowings from Bohme. As a first step, the evidence for the extent and timing of Schlegel's study of Bohme must be briefly outlined. Schlegel first mentions Jakob Bohme in a letter to Novalis dated December 2, 1798. He relates approvingly that Tieck is studying Bohme "mit gro(3er Liebe" (with great love) (KA 24: 207) - a sign that the coming of the new age and the new religion is imminent. During the years 17991801, the mystic's name occurs some fifteen times in notes, in published works, and in the letter to Schleiermacher. It is striking that, although all the possible "Romantic" applications of Bohme are already present, Schlegel's remarks are noticeably vague and general; several of the specific ways in which Bohme is to be made fruitful do not occur to him until later, at a time when his views on literature and philosophy were moving into different channels. Bohme's name is coupled with those of Spinoza and Fichte a few times during this period, but only with reference to Poesie or to peripheral qualities; not until 1802 does Schlegel begin to consider possible ways of making Bohme fruitful for the dialectics of realism and idealism from which the perfect philosophy was to emerge. The concentration on Bohme as a poet and as a great German - the aspects stressed by Tieck, and to some extent by Novalis - suggests a reliance on information received from his friends. This is borne out by Schlegel's use of the

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image of springtime fertility initiated by Novalis and adopted by Tieck. Similarly, Schlegel's sole reference to a specific passage (drawn from the Aurora} is the same one cited by Ritter.2 In other words, there is no reliable evidence and no cogent reason to assume that Schlegel had read much, if any, of Bohme's work during his time at Jena. This hypothesis is strengthened by the contrast with later references. During the course of 1802, Schlegel begins to consider Bohme in contexts different from those in which Novalis and Tieck had placed him and more exclusively pertinent to Schlegel's particular concerns: the development of Christianity, speculative mysticism, the conflict of different philosophical approaches. Furthermore, from this time on, the references to Bohme grow more frequent, in 1802 Schlegel complains of Bohme's incomprehensibility,3 by 1804 his references are more specific, and the reading notes mentioned earlier appear. It seems therefore reasonable to conclude that Schlegel's actual study of Bohme began in Paris then slowly gathered momentum, reaching its peak during the first two years in Cologne. Finally, both the incidence and the nature of later references suggest that after 1806, once the decision for Catholicism had been made, Schlegel's interest in Bohme began to wane, though the mystic retained a favoured position to the end, inasmuch as he was virtually the only Protestant whom Schlegel counted among God's chosen prophets. B O H M E A N D T H E P L A N S F O R T h UNIVERSALPOESIE e Seduction of Influence 15

Between the years 1799 and 1801, Schlegel's references to Bohme all bear more or less directly on the plans for creating a "Romantic" programme, that is, defining Romantic Poesie, providing it with a canon of great writers, proving its superiority to its classicistic counterpart, and preparing the way for the ultimate fusion of religion, philosophy, Poesie, and physics by redefining each of these. Schlegel includes Bohme in his Romantic canon in the hope that he could be made to contribute to each of the higher disciplines, and could therefore be presented as a key example of their intended fusion. The vagueness of Schlegel's remarks, however, suggests that he was only gradually forming a picture of Bohme's potential usefulness. Not surprisingly, the aspects that attain clearest expression in this period are those already 2 See above p. 99. 3 See KA 18, vi, 78 and vn, 59.

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developed by Tieck and Novalis - Bohme as a great model of German virtues and Bohme as a great (German) poet. To gain some understanding of Schlegel's own, as yet inchoate, ideas on Bohme's place in philosophy and physics, it is necessary to proceed indirectly, by identifying to whom and how Bohme is compared, then referring to the more exhaustive remarks on these other names. The analysis begins with the ideas shared with Tieck and Novalis (and discussed in Part n of this book), then moves on to the first seeds of Schlegel's philosophical and religious reception of Bohme.4 One of the earliest and best known Romantic strategies, initiated by Tieck's and Wackenroder's Herzensergiefiungen eines kunstliebenden Klosterbruders (Effusions of an Art-loving Friar), was the rediscovery and idealization (idolization?) of German greatness during the late Middle Ages and the early modern period. That Bohme belonged to this epoch and that he had been endowed by Franckenberg with the very virtues Tieck and Wackenroder had discovered in Diirer, likely played a significant role in recommending him to Tieck's notice. For confirmation one need look no further than the little play Der Autor,5 in which the Altfranke, Diirer's compatriot and the spokesman for the virtues of unadulterated Germanness, recommends Bohme to the aspiring poet as an antidote for modern degeneracy. Schlegel contributed to Tieck's campaign with two fragments published in the Athenaeum collection, Ideen (Ideas). As was typical, indeed inevitable, at this epoch, Schlegel locates German greatness in the area of arts and learning and, like Tieck, sees the purest and greatest flowering of this truly German spirit in the early modern period: "Der Geist unsrer alten Helden deutscher Kunst und Wissenschaft mu(3 der unsrige bleiben so lange wir Deutsche bleiben. Der deutsche Kunstler hat keinen Charakter oder den eines Albrecht Diirer, Kepler, Hans Sachs, eines Luther und Jakob Bohme" (KA 2, Ideen, i2o). 6 At the risk of overinterpreting, some observations should be made here. Schlegel's list is primarily determined by the image of a certain character - the typical German character - that history or legend had at 4 The fourth element of Universalpoesie, the mystical metaphysics, will be discussed in a later section, as it is evident almost exclusively in plans for poetic works and therefore constitutes a different type of reception.

5 See Part n, pp. 58ff.

6 "The spirit of the old heroes of German art and science will remain ours for as long as we are Germans. The German artist either has no character at all or else that of an Albrecht Durer, Kepler, Hans Sachs, or of a Luther and Jacob Bohme" (Firchow, Lucinde, 252).

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some point attributed to each of the figures mentioned. Schlegel's particular choices, however, show not only his indebtedness to tradition and to Tieck/Wackenroder, but also the beginnings of his own peculiar contribution. His list starts - in the best spirit of the Klosterbruder (friar) - with Diirer, and includes another name that, just once mentioned in the Herzensergiefiungen, is an obvious choice, namely, Hans Sachs. At the same time, his list of "deutsche Kunstler" (German artists) accomplishes in its small way that fusion of the higher disciplines that was so central a tenet of his vision; it includes, besides a painter and a poet, a natural scientist, a religious leader and reformer, and Bohme, that puzzling chameleonlike figure, whom the Romantics in general and Schlegel in particular would variously represent as a prophet, a poet, a physicist, a philosopher, or various combinations of these. Schlegel then outlines the virtues of the German character: "Rechtlich, treuherzig, grimdlich, genau und tiefsinnig ist dieser Charakter, dabei unschuldig und etwas ungeschickt. Nur bei den Deutschen ist es eine Nationaleigenheit, die Kunst und die Wissenschaft blo(3 um der Kunst und der Wissenschaft willen gottlich zu verehren" (KA 2, Ideen iso). 7 With the exception of the last, these qualities can easily be referred to the legend of Bohme, both as it was transmitted to the Jena Romantics and as it became in later Romanticism. The parallel to the childlike simplicity and serenity combined with wisdom and insight, to the unworldliness and patient endurance exhibited by Novalis's Bohme (himself an heir of Franckenberg's hagiographic treatment) is too obvious to need discussion. At the same time, the list reads like a character sketch of the typical artist-hero of the Romantic novel and provides an archetype for later depictions of Bohme in this role. Fouque's biography of the mystic,8 for instance, is no more and no less than a full-length elaboration of this very portrait.9 Various entries in the notebooks of this period indicate that Schlegel valued Bohme not simply as an example of the German character, 7 "Righteous, guileless, thorough, precise, and profound is this character, but also innocent and somewhat clumsy. Only with the Germans is it a national characteristic to worship the arts and sciences simply for their own sakes" (Firchow, Lucinde, 252). 8 See Part 11, ch. 5, note 43. 9 A second fragment in this collection reiterates the same ideas just discussed without adding anything new, except in that it continues the list to Schlegel's own time: "Gedenke noch einmal an Kepler, Durer, Luther, Bohme; und dann an Lessing, Winckelmann, Goethe, Fichte" (KA 2, Ideen 135). "Think again about Kepler, Diirer, Luther, Bohme; and then Lessing, Winckelmann, Goethe, Fichte."

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but as a great German poet. In this guise he could be instrumental in drawing attention to German literature of past ages, in extolling its greatness and its superiority to the generally admired French writers. Such notes as "Die dritte Epoche d[erj deutschen TT [Poesie] ( i ) burgundfisch] 2) schwab.[isch]) istjak.[ob] Bohme" (KA 16, ix, 936),10 fit in with Schlegel's "Epochen der Dichtkunst" (Gesprdch uber die Poesie) ("Epochs of Poetry"; Dialogue on Poetry), or Tieck's rediscovery and reworking of chapbooks and medieval saints' lives. This anti-French canon of course included not merely German, but Romantic writers Romantic in its early Schlegelian sense of nonclassical or classicistic. Bohme thus finds himself rubbing shoulders with such august figures as Dante and Shakespeare: "Dante, Bohme und Shakspeare machen ein A zusammen d.[er] moderne Homer" (KA 16, ix, 836).1J What Schlegel conceived Bohme's contribution to Poesie to be and why he occasionally coupled the mystic's name with those of his favourite philosophers (Fichte, Spinoza, Plato) cannot be determined from his references to Bohme. To discover Bohme's significance one has to turn to Schlegel's programmatic statements on Poesie, philosophy, religion, and to his views on the poets and philosophers with whom he associated Bohme. During the Jena period, Schlegel does not refer to Bohme in connection with philosophy in a strict sense. By contrast, in the years following, Schlegel devoted many a notebook entry to the question of the philosophical approach that best describes Bohme, so that the absence of this topic prior to 1802 confirms the thesis that his familiarity with Bohme's writings was still quite limited. Nevertheless, a few remarks from the Jena period testify to an incipient connection of Bohme and philosophy. He is, for instance, tentatively placed within differing constellations of philosophers as in: "Fichte's Methode ist wohl eher magisch als mystisch; so mags auch eine astrologische geben. (Viellfeicht] hat die Bohme - oder so fremd es klingt- auch der Spinosa" (KA 18, v, 412); or: "Spinosa ist gleichsam die Centralsonne der (f>cr [Philosophic], Plato der (himmlische) Aether derselben. - Aristoteles viell[eicht] d[er] Uebergang vom Plato zu unsern Idealisten" (KA 18, v, 967).12 It would 10 "The third epoch of German Poesie ( i ) Burgundian (2) Suabian is Jakob Bohme." 11 "Dante, Bohme and Shakespeare form a A together the modern Homer." See also KA 16, ix, 95 and 734. 12 "Fichte's method is probably rather magical than mystical; and so there may also be an astrological one. Perhaps Bohme has it - or, however strange it sounds - also Spinoza." "Spinoza is so to speak the central sun of philosophy, Plato its heavenly ether - Bohme the earth full of spring. Aristotle perhaps the transition from Plato to our idealists."

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appear from this that Schlegel considered Bohme a philosopher, yet both he and Spinoza are as likely to appear in the context of Poesie or of religion: "Ohne 77 [Poesie] wird hinfuhro niemand d[en] Eingang zum Spinosa und Plato finden und zum Bohme. Diese enthalten d[ie] eigentl[iche] Religions (f>a [philosophic]" (KA 18, v, 848); "Die Form der Fr.[agmente] viell[eicht] nach d[er] Bib. [el] und Jak. [ob] Bohme doch die classische fur die Rel[igion] und Schlei [ermacher] s p [Rhetorik] - nur falsche Tendenz" (KA 18, v, 555).13 Schlegel's attitude to these thinkers and the precise import of groupings such as those just quoted cannot be understood without reference to the broader issues to which they belong. Accordingly I now turn, first, to the fragment collection Ideen for a precis of Schlegel's attempts to define the relative positions of philosophy, Poesie, and religion, secondly to his remarks on Fichte and Spinoza in order to understand his definition of idealism and realism, and finally to the "Rede iiber die Mythologie" (Gesprach uber die Poesie) ("Speech on Mythology") for an account of the relationship of the two approaches, and of the nature of Spinoza's - or alternatively Bohme's - contribution to their fusion. In the Ideen Friedrich Schlegel, in an effort to determine his own position with respect to his friend Schleiermacher, experiments with possible definitions of religion and of its relationship to philosophy and Poesie. The concept of the divinity that emerges from these fragments is essentially a philosophical abstraction, namely, the infinite, the totality of all that exists: "Ein Geistlicher ist, wer nur im Unsichtbaren lebt" (KA 2, Ideen, s), 14 "{Religion ist} eine originelle Ansicht des Unendlichen" (KA 2, Ideen, i3), 15 and - conclusively - "Jede Beziehung des Menschen aufs Unendliche ist Religion, namlich des Menschen in der ganzen Fiille seiner Menschheit. Wenn der Mathematiker das unendlich Gro(3e berechnet; das ist freilich nicht Religion. Das Unendliche in jener Fiille gedacht, ist die Gottheit" (KA 2, Ideen, 8i). 16 Such a divinity can never be fully grasped, but strong intimations of it can be obtained through a combina13 "Without Poesie from now on no one will find access to Spinoza and Plato and to Bohme. These contain the real philosophy of religion." "The form of the fragments perhaps after the Bible and Jakob Bohme after all the classical one for religion and Schleiermacher's rhetoric - only a false tendency." 14 "A priest is someone who lives only in the invisible world" (Firchow, Lucinde, 241). 15 "(religion is an) original way of looking at infinity" (Firchow, Lucinde, 242). 16 "Every relation of man to the infinite is religion; that is, man in the entire fullness of his humanity. When a mathematician calculates what the infinitely great number is, that of course isn't religion. The infinite conceived of in such fullness is God" (Firchow, Lucinde, 248).

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tion of feeling and free intellectual activity, that is to say, through the agency of Poesie and philosophy. Accordingly, philosophy and Poesie stand in a relationship of mutual interdependence with religion. On the one hand they are the factors or means of expression of religion (KA 2, Ideen, 46): "Das Leben und die Kraft der Poesie besteht darin, da(3 sie aus sich herausgeht, ein Stuck von der Religion losreifk, und dann in sich zuriickgeht, indem sie es sich aneignet. Ebenso ist es auch mit der Philosophic" (KA 2, Ideen, 25) ;17 and again: "Wer Religion hat, wird Poesie reden. Aber um sie zu suchen und zu entdecken, ist Philosophic das Werkzeug" (KA 2, Ideen, 34) . l8 Very little attempt is made to distinguish Poesie and philosophy; they differ solely in approach: "Die Andacht der Philosophen ist Theorie, reine Anschauung des Gottlichen, besonnen, ruhig und heiter in stiller Einsamkeit. Spinosa ist das Ideal dafur. Der religiose Zustand des Poeten ist leidenschaftlicher und mitteilender" (KA 2, Ideen, 137).19 On the other hand, Schlegel is at pains to make it clear that philosophy and Poesie are not subordinate to religion. They do not merely lend religion expression, but also keep it from straying or degenerating: "Ohne Poesie wird die Religion dunkel, falsch und bosartig; ohne Philosophic ausschweifend in aller Unzucht und wollustig bis zur Selbstentmannung" (KA 2, Ideen, 149).20 One might summarize the relationship in these terms: the divinity (the infinite and all-encompassing), though never fully grasped, can be partially intuited by a combination of feeling (religion), speculative thinking (philosophy), and symbolic reflection of the visible world (Poesie}. To elucidate the full meaning of these I now turn to Schlegel's views on idealism and realism. Friedrich Schlegel, like Novalis and Schelling, maintained that philosophy must find a way to combine idealism and realism. As early as 1797, Schlegel argued this necessity: "Idfealismus] und Re[alismus] nur Seiten des Systems, Profile, Ansichten" (KA 18, n, i5o). 21 Transcendental 17 "The life and power of poetry consist in its ability to step out of itself, tear off a fragment of religion, and then return into itself and absorb it. So too with philosophy" (Firchow, Lucinde, 243). 18 "Whoever has religion will speak in poetry. But to seek and find religion, you need the instrument of philosophy" (Firchow, Lucinde, 244). 19 "The piety of philosophers is theory, pure contemplation of the divinity, calm and gay in silent solitude. Spinoza is the ideal of the species. The religious state of the poet is more passionate and more communicative" (Firchow, Lucinde, 244). 20 "Without poetry, religion becomes murky, false, and evil; without philosophy, extravagant in its lewdness and lustful to the point of self-emasculation" (Firchow, Lucinde, 255). 21 "Idealism and realism are only sides of the system, profiles, aspects."

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philosophy, he stressed, depends on the recognition of the identity of the real and ideal.22 The meaning of the two approaches is best understood by examining Schlegel's statements on the two philosophers who most frequently exemplify these in his mind, Fichte and Spinoza. Schlegel regarded Spinoza as the best and most consistent proponent of realism and praised the true sense of the infinite that permeates his philosophy (KA 18, n, 567) and enables him to give a "Charakteristik d[er] Gottheit" (KA 18, n, 724). 23 True idealism on the other hand focusses on the activity of spirit or consciousness: "Der wahre Idealismus erzahlt nicht blo(3 da(3 wir das Objekt machen; sondern er construirt d.[as] Universum und zeigt wiewirs, machen." (KA 18, in, 2ig). 2 4 Schlegel is, however, by no means certain that Fichte is such a true idealist.25 He approves of Fichte's concept of the ego because of its self-constitutive action, but rejects the nonego as just another word for the thing (the opposite of spirit and therefore not idealistic) (KA 18, iv, 1253). What he values above all are the freedom Fichte assigns to infinite reflection and the concept of intellectual intuition, which Schlegel interprets as "nichts als das Bewu|3tsein einer prastabil.[ierten] Harmonic, eines nothwendigen, ewigen Dualis[mus]" (KA 18, iv, 1026).26 The lectures on transcendental philosophy in the winter 1800-1 sum up the contrast of idealism and realism in the following way: "Die Fichtische Philosophie geht auf das Bewufitseyn. Die Philosophic des Spinoza aber geht auf das Unendliche" (KA 12, 5). 27 It is Schlegel's contention that philosophy cannot be reduced to a single first principle, since, if one abstracts from everything that is not the infinite, one is still left with two elements: the infinite and the abstracting consciousness. In other words, Schlegel hopes to accomplish the synthesis of idealism and realism by reducing them to opposing onesided principles (spirit and nature, subjectivity and objectivity), thus paving the way for his own entry on the scene as synthesizer or mediator, as he who can see both viewpoints and chart the path for their productive interplay. 22 See, for instance, KA 18, n, 743, 984, 993, and HI, 185. 2 3 "A characterization of divinity." 24 "True idealism does not just say that we create the object; but rather it constructs the universe and shows how we do it." 25 See, for instance, KA 18, n, 134 and 137. 26 "nothing but the consciousness of a preestablished harmony, of a necessary, eternal dualism." 2 7 "Fichte's philosophy deals with consciousness. The philosophy of Spinoza, however, deals with the infinite."

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Because he sees himself as mediator rather than as source of new, original ideas, Schlegel's notes regarding the perfect philosophy (variously called Realidealismus, perfect idealism, transcendental philosophy) usually consider ways of combining past exponents of the two approaches: Plato, Fichte, and Spinoza (KA 18, iv, 955 and 1201), for instance, or Goethe and Fichte. Schlegel's own system, which would represent perfect idealism, would be based on the interplay and eventual synthesis of Fichte and Spinoza. One peculiarity requires a word of explanation: Schlegel is using Goethe and Spinoza as interchangeable examples of realism. This ceases to be a problem if one recalls that in the Ideen, Poesie and philosophy were described as differing only in form and temperament, not in subject matter. The opposing pair idealism and realism need not be restricted to the accepted sphere of philosophy, and it need not be determined whether Spinoza is here cited as philosopher or as poet (or both). In fact, as Hans Eichner explained, Schlegel at this time tended to regard idealism as the only higher philosophy and to assign realism to the sphere of Poesie: "Alle Philosophic ist Idealismus und es gibt keinen wahren Realismus als den der Poesie" (KA 2, Ideen, 96).28 In the "Rede iiber die Mythologie," too, Goethe and Spinoza are coupled and extolled as indispensable models for future poets.29 The "Rede iiber die Mythologie" takes up the question of the relationship of realism and idealism from an unexpected perspective. It pleads for the creation of a new mythology that will be the product of the "tiefsten Tiefe des Geistes," (KA 2: 3i2), 3 ° encompassing philosophy (idealism as well as Spinoza's thought), the findings of contemporary physics, and all past mythologies. This new mythology is to help the higher disciplines to achieve perfection. Romantic literature is only in28 "All philosophy is idealism, and there exists no true realism except that of poetry" (Firchow, Lucinde, 250). 29 In his commentary on the Rede, Hans Eichner states: "Spinoza gehort in diesen Zusammenhang, da Schlegel... alle echte Philosophic damals fur idealistisch hielt und den zur Erganzung der Philosophic notwendigen Realismus als Vorrecht der Poesie ansah, so dap er Spinozas realistisches, auf dem Substanzbegriff beruhendes System vollig folgerichtig nicht als Philosophic, sondern als Poesie, ja durchaus schon als einen Ansatz der neuen Mythologie einschatzen konnte und mupte" (KA 2: xcii). "Spinoza belongs in this context because Schlegel ... at that time regarded all true philosophy as idealistic and the realism which was necessary to complement philosophy as the prerogative of Poesie. As a consequence he logically could and had to consider Spinoza's realistic system based on the concept of substance not as philosophy but as Poesie, indeed already as a beginning of the new mythology." 30 "deepest depth of the spirit."

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ferior to its classical counterpart in that it lacks the kind of focal point (Mittelpunkf) that Greek mythology provided; physics lacks nothing except "eine mythologische Ansicht der Natur" (KA 2: 3i5)- 31 The relationship to idealism is more complex: idealistic philosophy is to be both the mother and, in its ultimate form, the child of this new mythology: "Der Idealismus in jeder Form mu|3 auf ein oder die andre Art aus sich herausgehn, um in sich zuriickkehren zu konnen, und zu bleiben was er ist. Deswegen mu(3 und wird sich aus seinem Scho(3 ein neuer ebenso grenzenloser Realismus erheben; und der Idealismus also nicht blop in seiner Entstehungsart ein Beispiel fur die neue Mythologie, sondern selbst auf indirekte Art Quelle derselben werden" (KA 2: 3i5). 32 This realism, the speaker continues, can only be found in Poesie, "denn in Gestalt der Philosophic oder gar eines Systems wird der Realismus nie wieder auftreten konnen" (KA 2: 3i5). 33 This brings the speaker to Spinoza and to the clearest exposition of how he is regarded. By means of a comparison to Saturn, the text argues that Spinoza, the representative of a philosophical realism that has rightly been surpassed and rejected, can render invaluable service to the new realism if he is divested of his philosophical trappings and reduced to his poetical core (which is, as can be inferred from all that has been said and will be said on the topic, his intuitive insight into the nature of the divinity): "Die neuen Gotter haben den Herrlichen vom hohen Thron der Wissenschaft herabgestiirzt. In das heilige Dunkel der Fantasie ist er zuriickgewichen ... Er entkleide sich vom kriegerischen Schmuck des Systems, und teile dann die Wohnung im Tempel der neuen Poesie mit Homer und Dante und geselle sich zu den Laren und Hausfreunden jedes gottbegeisterten Dichters" (KA 2: 316-7).34 Spinoza is further described as one of the greatest and most objective representatives of mysticism. This assertion should be read in the light 31 "a mythological view of nature." 32 "In every form, idealism must go outside of itself in one way or another in order to be able to return to itself and to remain what it is. Therefore, a new and equally unbounded realism must and will emerge out of the womb of idealism. Thus, idealism must not and will not merely become a model for the new mythology based on its own mode of development, but rather will indirectly be a source of it" (Schulte-Sasse, Theory, 184). 33 "for realism will never again be able to appear in the shape of either philosophy or even a system" (Schulte-Sasse, Theory, 185). 34 "The new gods toppled that magnificent figure from the high throne of science. He receded into the holy darkness of fantasy ... May he strip himself of the warlike trappings of the system, share with Homer and Dante the temple of the new {Poesie}, and join the Lares and intimate friends of every divinely inspired poet" (Schulte-Sasse, Theory, 185).

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of what Schlegel identified as the core of Spinoza's thought, namely, the insight into the infinite, and of the definition of religion as "eine originelle Ansicht des Unendlichen."35 To these is now added a new element, love. Love is the thread that links humanity to the divine, making such insights as Spinoza's possible; it is also the mainspring of the imagination and of its product Poesie; lastly it is the spirit that permeates Spinoza's work: "ein klarer Duft schwebt unsichtbar sichtbar iiber dem Ganzen, uberall findet die ewige Sehnsucht einen Anklang aus den Tiefen des einfachen Werks, welches in stiller Grope den Geist der urspriinglichen Liebe atmet" (KA 2: 3i7). 36 It is only natural that Bohme, a mystic whose entire system revolves around the love that unifies and ensouls the universe, should be cited as interchangeable with a Spinoza so understood, and this is indeed what happens in the conversation following the "Rede." Discussing other representatives of the realism - now revealingly referred to as "Astrologie, Theosophie oder ... eine mystische Wissenschaft vom Ganzen" - exemplified by Spinoza, the participants mention Plato and Bohme, "An dem Sie zugleich batten zeigen konnen, ob sich die Ideen iiber das Universum in christlicher Gestalt schlechter ausnehmen, als die alten" (KA 2: 325).37 This is the key to Schlegel's early understanding of Bohme. Bohme is classed with realism rather than idealism because he offers insights into the nature of the divinity, into the infinite (the objective sphere), rather than into the spirit (the subjective sphere); he is a poet thanks to this realism, and more particularly because his work is the product of imagination, fired by eternal longing and by "dem Geist der urspriinglichen Liebe" (KA 2: 317) .38 This in turn explains why his work, like Plato's and Spinoza's, is said to embody "d[ie] eigentl[iche] Religions 0cr [philosophic],"39 why he is associated on the one hand with Fichte, Plato, Spinoza, on the other with Shakespeare, Dante, Homer. It also explains why Schlegel, echoing his friends' image, describes Bohme 35 "{religion} is an original way of looking at infinity" (Firchow, Lucinde, 242). 36 "a clear fragrance hovers invisibly visible, over the whole, everywhere eternal yearning resonates in the depths of the simple work that, in silent greatness, breathes the spirit of original love" (Schulte-Sasse, Theory, 185). 37 "astrology, theosophy or ... a mystical science of the whole" (Schulte-Sasse, Theory, 190). "With whom you simultaneously could have demonstrated whether ideas about the universe in a Christian form come off less favorably than those of the ancients" (SchulteSasse, Theory, 190). 38 "the spirit of original love" (Schulte-Sasse, Theory, 185). 39 "The true philosophy of religion" (KA 18, v, 848, quoted above, p. 120).

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as "die friihlingsvolle Erde" (springtime earth), albeit with a difference. Tieck and Novalis, in associating Bohme with the spring, also wanted to praise his poetic quality, the beautiful chaos of the creative force, the expression of love that both characterizes and unites nature (as natura naturans) and the poet; by adding the reference to earth, Schlegel is reminding himself that Bohme (and Poesie in general) belong to the sphere of nature rather than of spirit, to realism rather than idealism - a distinction that is uniquely his own. The themes isolated from the "Rede iiber die Mythologie" provide key elements for the future of Schlegel's Bohme reception, elements both of change and of continuity. As Schlegel's attitude towards realism and his definition of idealism changed over time, so would his view of Bohme's position with respect to these. Bohme's Christianity, now mentioned only in passing as a - not necessarily preferable - alternative to ancient mythology, would later acquire ever growing importance and become the decisive factor, first for the privileging of Bohme, later for his marginalization. On the other hand, the classification of Bohme as a poet (he who lends imaginative, symbolic expression to the secrets of the divine) maintained its constant position as the focal point of the reception, changing only in that its importance grew steadily over the next few years. The years 1802-3 found Schlegel in Paris, disappointed by the dissolution of the Jena group and increasingly embittered towards its still surviving members. His thought on the triad religion-philosophy-^^.^ is characterized by a surface continuity that masks incipient changes. The same is true of his attitude to Bohme. Gradually, as he acquires firsthand knowledge of Bohme's theosophy, he develops more specific notions of how and why the mystic could fulfill the role of divinely inspired, Romantic philosopher-poet. At this stage, the first seed of a most far-reaching change, the growing doubts about realism and its representative Spinoza, only serve to anchor Bohme more firmly in this privileged position. Likewise, the mode of reception that makes its first appearance during this time (the theological, historic one), initially underscores Bohme's uniqueness rather than relativizing his value as it does later. All the topics considered earlier reappear in the Paris writings, often with new overtones or new cogency. The latter is certainly the case for the appreciation of Bohme as a great German. Schlegel, perhaps as a reaction to being away from his homeland, is becoming increasingly

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concerned with German culture and with the unique contribution it could make to the regeneration of Europe. Bohme, as a result, is praised not merely as a great German and a key figure in one of the great ages of German literature,40 but as a representative of another discipline that Schlegel associates exclusively with Germany, Naturphilosophie: "Natur a [philosophic] vonjeher Deutsch- Bohme- Stahl, Keppler. (Haller) 1st Helmont zu d[en] Deutschen zu rechnen?" (KA 18, vi, 258). 41 Bohme's presence in this constellation is probably due, not only to Schlegel's new knowledge of Bohme's account of the physical world, but also to the need to replace another champion formerly named in this field, now conspicuously absent from the list: Schelling, with whom Schlegel had become disenchanted ever since the fracas over Caroline. Bohme still features most prominently in the field of Poesie. Some notes written in this period indicate the qualities that earn him his place in Schlegel's literary canon. Bohme is now associated with Shakespeare quite as a matter of course, the two being cited as the third great age of German literature (already in the Jena period Shakespeare had been appropriated as a German poet honoris causa}. Two notes give some details on the perceived similarities. These are worth pausing over, since they lead back to that close identification of poetry and philosophy that forms the core of Schlegel's programme for both: "Sh.[akespeare] durch Histor[ische\ und W[it]z[i]g[e] Construction der Fabel schon ganz zu Jak.[ob] Bohme; dazu auch d[ie] tiefe Charakteristik" (KA 16, xn, 117); "Shaksp[eares] histor. [ische] und tiefe Charakteristik hangt allerdings mil dem W[issen]sch[aftlichen] Princfip] d.[er] TT [Poesie], ja mit Bohme noch sehr zusammen" (KA 16, 132).42 These jottings are quite enigmatic - in what way can Bohme be said to practice "historische und witzige Construction der Fabel"?43 Or for that matter, what is the "Fabel" (fable) in his works, and to what does "Charakteristik" (characterization) pertain? Schlegel offers no further help with these questions, but a tentative explanation can be 40 See KA 16, xi, 115; KA 16, xn, 212; also, by inference, KA 16, xm, 270. 41 "Philosophy of nature has always been German - Bohme - Stahl - Keppler. (Haller) Can Helmont be counted among the Germans?" 42 "Shakespeare already belongs wholly with Jakob Bohme by his historical and witty construction of the plot; also the deep characterization." "Shakespeare's historical and deep characterization is indeed related to the scientific principle of Poesie, indeed to Bohme." 43 "Historical and witty construction of the plot"?

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constructed by referring back to the "Rede iiber die Mythologie". The "Rede", it will be remembered, praised Spinoza's (and therefore, by inference, Bohme's) works as the product of imagination inspired by love and longing; might not this thought lie behind the use of the literary term FabeR Alternatively, Schlegel may be referring to the myths by which Bohme often develops his theories, the more so as the "Rede" collapsed the distinction between mythology and literature. As for "Charakteristik" (characterization), the depiction of individual fictional characters can hardly be intended; it therefore seems reasonable to assume that both poets are praised for penetrating characterization of the object world, of the sphere of natura naturata in its varied manifestations. Natura naturata is after all the sphere to which the "Rede" assigned Poesie, realism, Spinoza and therefore Bohme: Spinoza is a great poet because he has an original, intuitive insight into the divinity (the objective pole of philosophy), and because his oeuvre lends symbolic expression to love, that "milden Widerschein der Gottheit"44 which permeates the created world; might not this be the very "scientific principle of Poesie" referred to in the notebook entry? A philosophical understanding of Poesie goes some way towards explaining the somewhat startling fact that these two notes hold Bohme up as the standard against which Shakespeare is measured. The essay Literatur (printed in Europa, 1803) helps to confirm this definition of the "scientific principle of Poesie': "{Poesie ist} die erste und hochste aller Kiinste und Wissenschaften; denn auch Wissenschaft ist sie, im vollsten Sinn dieselbe, welche Plato Dialektik, Jakob Bohme aber Theosophie nannte, die Wissenschaft von dem, was allein und wahrhaft wirklich ist" (KA 3: 7). 45 The term theosophy straddles philosophy and religion, and so recalls the third element of the triad. It also explains why Schlegel, though still uncertain whether Bohme can, strictly speaking, be termed a philosopher,46 is increasingly inclined to assign the mystic this label.47 Once again, better knowledge may be a reason for this move, but the need to replace a falling idol probably 44 "the gentle reflection of the divinity." 45 "{Poesie is} the first and highest of all arts and sciences; because it is also science, in the fullest sense the very one which was called dialectics by Plato, but theosophy by Jakob Bohme, the science of that which alone is truly real." 46 "Dante und Bohme selbst vielleicht (J [Philosophen]" (KA 18, vi, 10) "Dante and Bohme themselves are perhaps philosophers." "Bohme ist kein 0 Spinosa J

(KA 19, ix, 131).6g

Schlegel gives us no help with the reasons for these associations, so that one is forced to rely on speculation. It seems reasonable to assume that Schlegel recognized a similarity between the model that explains the world as emanation from the divine perfection and Bohme's account of a creation driven by desire for self-manifestation and made out of God's very substance. Earlier, Schlegel would have welcomed this,70 now he deems Bohme's cosmogony a false one (KA 19, ix, 127), its error being, "die vollendete und die werdende Welt sind darin vermischt" (KA 19, x, igo). 71 Bohme is associated with Manicheanism in as much as his evil is an eternal principle.72 The latter may be the reason why Schlegel at this time most frequently labels Bohme a dualist: "Bohmeist moralischerDualist (boses Prinzip = uberrmithige Vernunft Ich(^ieit).''"73 He can hardly mean

69 "Bohme probably the most complete of all mystics - at the same time closest to the old system of emanation as well as to the new one of the Manicheans." "P auf der eignen innern Kraft und auf einer kiinstlichen Methode, sondern lediglich auf hoherer Anschauung und Eingebung ... Dem Inhalt nach ist seine Lehre Philosophic der unbedingten Ichheit, der Form nach eine Philosophic der Offenbarung; und eben gerade in dem Elemente der Offenbarung bestande ihr Vorzug vor der neuern Philosophic, wenn dieses Element nur nicht von subjektiven Lichtnebeln und Regenbogenkreisen umgeben ware" (KA 12: 257). 8s In the midst of his enthusiasm, it should be noted, Schlegel still leaves himself an escape route by which he can correct those of Bohme's ideas that do not suit his theological standpoint. In the peroration that concludes the section, this privileging of Christianity comes into the open. Bohme's teaching is "das grofke, tiefste, eigentumlichste, vortrefflichste Werk des Idealismus,"84 not only because it combines the most speculative elements of Plato and Fichte, 80 "In so far as he in general presents an emanation system he is admittedly a pantheist, but in so far as he develops it more extensively and connects it with his construction of nature, he is — though he looks like a realist — yet at the same time to the highest degree an idealist." 81 "his view of the original being is that of incessant activity, of something which is in motion, which is never at rest and permanent; he actually declared that the divinity is always active, that it is never at rest and permanent." 82 "Idealism of unconditioned selfhood." 83 "{Bohme's doctrine} is not merely based on its own inner strength and on an erudite method, but rather purely on higher intuition and inspiration ... In its content his doctrine is a philosophy of absolute selfhood, in its form a philosophy of revelation; - and precisely in the element of revelation would lie its superiority over the newer philosophy, if only this element were not surrounded by subjective aureoles and rainbow-rings." 84 "the greatest, most profound, most individual, most admirable work of idealism."

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but especially because it "atmet christlichen Geist,"85 because it is a commentary on and continuation of the Bible (KA 12: 259). This brings Schlegel to his most open profession of Christianity yet, to an overt claim that Christian dogma and true idealism are one and the same: "Dies Anschliepen an das Christentum ist um so wichtiger, als es wohl das meiste zu der so durchaus idealistischen Ansicht des Bohme beigetragen hat; das Christentum ist namlich als auf die Oberherrschaft des Geistes iiber den Korper und die Nichtigkeit der Sinnenwelt gegriindet, eine ganz idealistische Religion" (KA 12: 259-60) ,86 This claim finally brings Schlegel back to Bohme, the poet, by way of the statement that Poesie at its best is an allegory of Christian mysteries (at which Bohme could not be beaten): "eben durch diese sinnreichen, zum Teil vortrefflichen Erklarungen der christlichen Symbole und Allegorien verdient Bohme den Vorzug vor Plato, er ist ein vollkommenerer Idealist, sozusagen, ein groperer Deuter, der mehr als alle andre Dichter und Autoren die schonsten, bedeutendsten Allegorien enthalt" (KA 12: 260).8? In a sense, Bohme is now in complete possession of the role that in the "Rede iiber die Mythologie," he had shared with Spinoza and Plato - he provides a concept of the infinite and symbols with which to express it. The significant difference (beyond his new-found preeminence) is of course that he is now entitled to this post not by virtue of his realism (that is, his insight into the sphere of the objective), but by virtue of his adherence to the religion that is now identified with true idealism. Schlegel's summation of Bohme's philosophy - "die Form derselben ist religios, der Inhalt philosophisch, der Geist poetisch" (KA 12: 26o)88 - is therefore an apt illustration of the interplay of continuity and change that characterizes his thought in this transitional period: continuity in the wish to synthesize the higher disciplines, change in the definition of the ultimate goal and of the individual contributions towards it. 85 "breathes Christian spirit." 86 "This connection with Christianity is all the more important as it has probably contributed most to Bohme's completely idealistic standpoint; for Christianity, since it is founded on the predominance of spirit over body and on the vanity of the world of the senses, is a completely idealistic religion." 87 "precisely because of these ingenious, in part admirable, explanations of Christian symbols and allegories Bohme deserves to be preferred to Plato. He is a more perfect idealist, so to speak, a greater interpreter who more than all the other poets and writers contains the most beautiful, most significant allegories." 88 "its form is religious, its content philosophical, its spirit poetical."

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From Universalpoesie to Christian Idealism

Although the official conversion to Catholicism did not take place until 1808, by 1806 this watershed, to which the changes in Schlegel's ideas over the past few years had been tending, had been crossed in spirit. The decision once made, the rest of Schlegel's intellectual life would see no more drastic turns, but only a steadily growing attachment to Catholic dogma and consequently a privileging of Catholic poets and philosophers over Protestant or pagan ones. Poesie had already been redefined as the handmaiden of religion in the 1805 lecture cycles. This definition serves Schlegel's later purposes equally well, and is thereafter not essentially revised, except in so far as the highest praise is eventually reserved, not for Christian poets in general, but for Catholic ones. In the field of philosophy, on the other hand, some further redefinition of the categories, more thoroughgoing revision of the canon, and a renaming of the final goal take place between the 1805 lectures and those prepared for Mme. de Stael in 1806. These changes will now be discussed. Pantheism/realism had already been condemned in 1805. Later writings needed to add only a more overt statement of the theological motivation behind this position. In the 1812 lectures, for instance, Spinoza's philosophy is severely criticized for not distinguishing God and the world, for describing everything as "Kraftauperungen des Einen" (KA 6: 355).8g This view, Schlegel maintains, is fatal to religion, because it denies personality to God, freedom to man (KA 6: 355). Elsewhere, Schlegel describes Spinoza's concept of the divinity- one of the two principles on which he had intended to ground his own idealistic system in 1801 - as a deification of the very concept that, in his 1805 lectures, bears the blame for all philosophical errors: stasis or "jenes tote Gottwesen der unendlichen Substanz" (KA 8: gi). 9 ° Schlegel's opinion of Fichte and of Fichtean idealism has undergone a more radical change. The seeds of a theologically motivated critique of Fichte were already sown by 1805 and, a year later, have matured into a fully fledged condemnation. Fichte has sunk even lower than Spinoza, in so far as Schlegel blames the flaw in the latter's system on a philosophical error, that of the former on the sin of pride - Lucifer's very own sin. What Fichte has done, Schlegel writes in the lectures for Mme. de Stael, is to substitute a daemonic principle (pride) for the divine one (love): "LTdealisme se detruit lui-meme 89 "manifestations of the power of the One." 90 "that dead divine being of infinite substance."

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comme le Panth[eisme] [;] il met 1'orgueil a la place du sentiment" (KA 13: 404); "Fichte - Idealisme absolu [;] pourquoi il est seul de son genre - dans sa nouvelle forme, 1'orgueil qui imite le langage du devouement et du sentiment" (KA 13: 424). 91 This daemonic sin turns Fichte into an atheist (KA 19, xi, 236) and vitiates the findings of his philosophy, even the potentially true ones: "P aus Nachahmung der Bibel sondern nothwendig." (KA 19, x, 440). "In Bohme there is only spiritual intuition without any logic; hence the fragmentary form not merely in imitation of the Bible but necessary." 139 "he {Bohme} sees everything only in the light of the Trinity, he does not know or think anything else." "It is also like this with nature; therefore for Bohme every natural being is only a symbol of the Trinity." Another note expresses the nature of this link even more directly: "In d. [er] Signatur ist der Zweck der Welt gesucht in Offenbarungund Darstel/wng" (KA 19, x, 447). "In Signatura rerum the purpose of the world is sought in revelation and representation."

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Bohme exemplary value for Schlegel's own cosmogony: "Die leibliche Welt soil nicht vergehen sondern verklart werden" (KA 19, x, 452). 14 ° These considerations of content and form lead up to the enthusiastic appraisal of Bohme the poet that appears late in this set of notes: "B.[6hme] enthalt d.[ie] INNERSTEN Principien der Allegorie (und eben damit der Poesie), nach ihm verwandelt sich die ganze Welt in Allegorie, der Zweck alles Daseins ist Offenbarungund DARSTELLUNG" (KA 19, x, 457); "ImJ. [akob] B.[6hme] ist der Kern der christl. [ichen] Poesie und Mythologie. Er hat die Poesie erfunden" (KA 19, x, 459).141 In other words, he who gives symbolic expression to a Christian conception of God and to a Christian account of creation is the greatest poet. At this stage, Bohme seemed to Schlegel to fit the bill better than any other, but this would change as soon as Schlegel's doubts about Bohme's account of evil and about Bohme's definition of the Father took on more definite shape. By the time he compiled his 1805 lectures on philosophy Schlegel had already implicitly parted company with Bohme on the issues of evil and of the Trinity. However, this difference of opinion did not result in overt criticism of Bohme until a group of notes written in 1810-2. What chiefly troubles Schlegel is that in Bohme's late works the first principle of the divinity is at once the Father, God's anger, the source of all life, and the Grimmigkeit (wrathfulness) that constitutes hell. Love and mercy, on the other hand, are assigned to God's second principle, the Son, with the corollary that God is not really God except in his second principle. By contrast, the Catholic Schlegel considers the various qualities of God inseparable, not apportioned to different persons of the Trinity, and demands a complete separation of evil and God: "Jacob Bohme's Hauptirrthum ist, dap er den Zorn des Vaters mit ubertriebenen Farben schildert, oder vielmehr zu sehr von seiner Barmherzigkeit trennt ... Der Zorn des Vaters ist so zu sagen nur die auperste Grenze und herbste Gestalt seiner Barmherzigkeit (Zorn ist selbst Barmherzigkeit; denn Gottes ganzes Wesen ist nichts als Liebe; seine Barmherzigkeit mit seinem Wesen vollig Eins)" (KA 19,

140 "It is a major question whether paradise is only the return to quiet bliss or is conceived of as magical and of infinite plenitude. The corporeal world is not to perish but to be transfigured." 141 "Bohme contains the innermost principles of allegory (and therefore of Poesie)." "In Jakob Bohme lies the essence of Christian Poesie. He invented Poesie."

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Beil. x, 7). 142 According to the next entry, Schlegel sees in Bohme's doctrine a radical misunderstanding of the divinity: "Jener grope Irrthum J. Bohme's, da(3 er das bose Princip mit in die Construction Gottes aufnimmt - den vom Sohne getrennten Vater in die Finsterni(3 versetzt - riihrt blofi daher, da^ er den ewigen Urgrund mit Gott verwechselt, oder vielmehr vereint und verschmilzt, statt beide sorgfaltig zu scheiden" (KA 19, Beil. x, 8).143 It should be noted, however, that Schlegel's comments are based on a misunderstanding or misrepresentation of Bohme's concept of the Ungrund (abyss). The Ungrund is the first stage in the life of the divinity, an eternal undifferentiated stillness, a nothing, unknown and unknowable even to itself. It is neither evil nor good because it is without any predicates, and it is not yet God. In this Ungrund, God's Grund (ground) takes shape through the will of the Nothing to become a Something and so acquire self-knowledge. From this will, die four qualities that make up the first principle successively take shape. Bohme therefore does in fact distinguish between the Ungrund and God, establishing a relationship of source to fulfilment, potentiality to actuality. If Schlegel fails to recognize this, it is because he himself confuses the Ungrund with the evil principle: "Das Resultat der neuen deutschen Philosophic ist eigentlich die unbewufite Entdeckung des bosen Princips (der reinen Vernunft, des Absoluten). " (KA 19, Beil. x, io).144 Paradoxically, by taking this logical shortcut towards separating God and evil, Schlegel associates evil with the embryonic stage of the divinity, and therefore unwittingly assigns it even greater priority and necessity than Bohme did. 142 "Jacob Bohme's chief error is that he describes the anger of the Father in exagerated colours or rather that he separates it too much from his mercy ... The anger of the Father is, so to speak, only the outermost limit and the most bitter form of his mercy (anger itself is mercy; for God's whole being is nothing but love; his mercy is completely identical with his being." 143 "That great error of Jakob Bohme, that he includes the evil principle in the construction of God - that he shifts the Father, separated from the Son, into darkness - derives only from the fact that he confuses the eternal primal ground with God, or rather that he combines and fuses it with God instead of separating the two carefully." 144 "The result of the new German philosophy is actually the unconscious discovery of the evil principle (of pure reason, of the absolute). 1979-

Index

Absolute: definition of, 188, 189, 202, 212; relation of world and, 188, 189, 190, 192 allegory, 100, 131, 162, 165, 166 Angst, 21, 157: wheel of, 200, 210, 212-15 appropriation, 17, i7ni5, 165 Arnold, Gottfried: and Bohme, 37-9; life and works, 37; Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie, 37-9 Augustine, Saint, 62, 63, 70

Romantic, 6, 83, 96-7; Sophia, 22, 23, 37; thought, summary of, 19-25; as Volksschriftsteller, 148-51, 195, 216-17 Brown, Robert E, i8on7 Brown, Marshall, 178n174

Baader, Franz von: influence on Schelling, 181 Beierwaltes, Werner, 182 Benz, Ernst, 185, 186 biography, sacred. See hagiography Bohme,Jakob: Aurora, 20, 22, 23, 99, 108, 156-7; De signatura rerum, 156, 157; De tribusprincipiis, 20, 22, 156; divinity, account of, 158; Enlightened reception of, 6, 45—50; evil, 159; first principle (Father, centrum naturae), 20—1, 24, 156, 199, 200, 201; as great German, 46, 107, 115, 117-19, 126-7; hagiographic reception of, 6, 30-4, 39, 59-60, 83-4, 89-95, 108-9, 222-4; life, 18; and Lutheran orthodoxy, 18, 35; Mysterium magnum, 24, 25, 157, 158; pietistic reception of, 36—44; as poet, 5, 57—8, 59, 82—3, 97, 100, 115, 119, 127—9, 1 3 1 ~ 2 > 167; principles, 20 (see also principles); qualities, 19-20 (see also qualities); as

divinity, 165; Bohme 's account of, 158; relation to creation, 165-8, 176; selfgenerating, 21-2, 158-9, 173, 193, 199, 200, 210-11; self-manifestation of, 22, 24-5, 165, 166, 172 Burner, Manfred, i8in8, 182, 220

conversion: as literary genre, 62-5; Novalis and, 90; through a book, 70, 92; Tieck, 60—1, 62—5, 69-70. See also hagiography

Ederheimer, Edgar, 14 Eichner, Hans, 123 emanation, 136, 139, 145-6, 159, 161, 167, 176; Novalis and, 81 evil: Bohme on, 23-5; Schelling on, 191, 193, 197-9, 204-7, 212> Friedrich Schlegelon, 136, 159, 162-4, X 74> 177! Tieck on 68, 68n36; the qualities and, 23 fall, 191-2; of man, 22-3; Schelling on, 183-4, 192, 199; Friedrich Schlegel on, 164 Feilchenf eld, Walter, 14, 15

240

Index

Fichte,Johann Gottlieb: Schelling on, 188, 190; Friedrich Schlegel on, 122-3, 134> 140, 142-3, 176 Fouque, Friedrich Baron de la Motte: Jakob Bohme: Ein biographischer Denkstein, 91, i18,120,222-4 Franckenberg, Abraham von: biography of Bohme, 28-34, 91, 92, 93-4 Fuhrmans, Horst, i8on7, 195, 196 God. See divinity; Absolute Goethe: and Bohme, 27-8; and Kirchenund Ketzerhistorie, 38 Gottsched, Johann Christian: Versuch einer critischen Dichtkunst, 45 Grimmigkeit (wrathfulness), 162, Grimm (wrath), 177. See also principles, first hagiography, 29—34, 9°> anagnorisis, 30, 93-4; appropriation of, 69—70, 94; definition of 29-30. See also Bohme, hagiographic reception of Halter, Ernst, 75 Haym, Rudolf, 12 Heffernan, Thomas J., 2gn8, 30, 3onng, 10 Heine, Heinrich, 12 Herder, Johann Gottfried: Alteste Urkunde des Menschengeschlechts, 50 Hoffmeister, Joachim, 27 Holz, Harald, 179-80, 181, 182, i84nig Huch, Ricarda, 12 idealism, 6, 25; Friedrich Schlegel on, 1214, 132-5, 139, 142, 146-7, 171-8. See also under Schelling, philosophy of identity influence studies: characteristics of, 13-16, 78 Jung-Stilling, Johann Heinrich, 43-4 Kant, Immanuel: Metaphysische Anfangsgriinde der Naturwissenschaft, 211; theory of time and space, 171, 172, 174 Kopke, Rudolf: Ludwig Tieck, 62, 71-2 Kotzebue, August von: Des Pfarrers Tochter, 3-7 Kuhlmann, Quirinus, 39-41

Lavater, Johann Kaspar, 14; on Bohme and Novalis, 51 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 46 Lemper, Ernst-Heinz, 27 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 47-8, 105 Lichtenberg, Georg C., 48-50 Mahl, Hans-Joachim, 76, 80, 81 Manicheanism, 146, 159, 164 Morrison, Karl F., 3onio, 62, 63 nature: definition of 85, 167—8, 188, 201, 202; Poesieand, 125-6 Naturphilosophie, 78, 127, 152-4 Natursprache, 22; Novalis and, 81-2 Neoplatonism, 165, 189; Novalis and, 80-2; Schelling and, 189, 190, 191; Friedrich Schlegel on, 152-4 Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg), 7695; Das allgemeine Brouillon, 77, 81; Bohme, hagiographic reception of, 83, 84, 89-95; Bohme, study of, 78-80; Die Christenheit oderEuropa, 83; and conversion, 90; education of the poet, 89-90; golden age, 90; Heinrich von Ofterdingen, 82, 84, 85, 86, 88, 89; Die Lehrlinge zu Sais, 82, 85; nature, definition of, 85; and the Neoplatonic tradition, 80-2; Poesie, definition of, 84-6; scholarship on Bohme and, 76—8; Sophia, 77, 86-7; and theory of signatures, 81-2; An Tieck, 84, 89-95, 109; on Wilhelm Meister, 83, 85 Oetinger, Friedrich Christoph: and Romantic reception, 42, 42n43, 185; on Bohme, 42—3 pantheism: Schelling's defence against, 197; Friedrich Schlegel on, 132—3, 136, 139-40, 142, 164. See also realism Paschek, Carl, 14, 15, 76-8, 79, 82, 88: on Heinrich von Ofterdingen, 86; on Lichtenberg, 48; on number 12 of Geistliche Lieder, 87-8 Paul, Saint, 62, 64, 69 Paulin, Roger, 74-5

Index Pietism: Bohme, reception of, 36—44; definition of, 35-6 Plato: Schelling on, 190, 191; Friedrich Schlegel on, 137-9, 17^ Poesie: fusion of religion and, 5, 6, 57, 58, 65-6, 70, 90, 94; Friedrich Schlegel's definition of, 58, 128, 141, 160; See also Universalpoesie; Bohme as poet; Schlegel, Friedrich, relation of Poesie, religion, and philosophy; and nature, 125-6; Novalis on, 84-6; and physics, 166 principles, 20-1, 24: first principle, 21, 156, 159, 162, 199, 200, 201. See also under Bohme: first principle qualities, 19-20, 156—7, 200-1 Ranftl, Johann, 73 realism: Friedrich Schlegel on, 121-4, 132-3, 153, 164. See also pan theism; Schelling, philosophy of identity religion: fusion of Poesie and, 5, 6, 65—6, 70. See also Universalpoesie Ritter, Johann Wilhelm, 96—100; Bohme as poet, 100; Bohme as Romantic, 96-7; Fragmente aus dem Nachlasse einesjungen Physikers, 97-9; and influence thesis, 96-7 Roder, Florian, 87: on Novalis and Sophia, 77-8 Roos, Jacques, 14 Samuel, Richard, 90 Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph, 179221: Absolute, definition of, 188, 189, 202, 212; Absolute and the world, 188, 189, 190, 192; angst, wheel of, 211-15; Baader's influence on, 181; Bohme, appropriation of, 196-215; Bohme, critique of, 215-19; Bohme as Volksschriftsteller, 216—17; Bohme reception, chronology of, 182-6; creation, 183-4, 188, 194, 197, 199, 208-9, 212; defence against Fichte, 195; defence against pantheism, 197; evil, 191, 193, 197-9, 204-7, 212; fall, 183—4, 1 9 1-2 > *995 infinite and finite, 188, 191, 193, 199,211;

241

matter, 191, 194, 197; nature, definition of, 188, 201, 202; philosophy of identity, 188-94; and Friedrich Schlegel, 183, 189, 195, 198, 206, 216; scholarship on Bohme and, 179-82 works: Aphorismen zurEinleitung in die Naturphilosophie, 196; Bruno, 190; Darlegung des wahren Verhdltnisses der Naturphilosophie zu der verbesserten Fichteschen Lehre, 195; Fernere Darstellungen aus dem System der Philosophie, 190; Ideen zu einer Philosophic der Natur als Einleitung in das Studium dieser Wissenschaft, 184; Philosophic der Offenbarung, 215-19; Philosophic und Religion, 191—4; Philosophische Briefe uberDogmatismus und Kriticismus, 183, 188', Philosophische Untersuchungen uber das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit, 193, 197—209; Stuttgarter Privatvorlesungen, 210-12; System der gesammten Philosophic, 194; System der Weltalter (lectures), 215-19; System des transcendentalen Idealismus, 189; Von der Weltseek, 188, 189; Weltalter (fragments), 210, 212-15 Schlegel, August Wilhelm, 105-9; Bohme, hagiographic reception of, 108-9; Bohme as great German, 107; Geschichte der romantischen Literatur, 106—9 Schlegel, Caroline, 101, 103 Schlegel, Dorothea, 101-2 Schlegel, Friedrich, 113-78; allegory, 131, 162, 165; and Schelling, 183, 189, 195, 198, 206, 216; on Bohme, 96, 103-5, 139-41; Bohme, reception of, 113-20; 125-8; 135-7, 1 44~5 2 > Bohme, study notes on, 155-62; Bohme and Shakespeare, 127, 148; Bohme as great German, 115, 117-19, 126-7; Bohme as Neoplatonist, 152-5; Bohme as poet, 115, 119, 127-9, 1 3i~ 2 >i47~8> 160-2, 167; Bohme as Romantic, 116; Bohme as Volksschrifisteller, 148-51, 195, 216-17; Cologne lectures, 137-9, !72~8; cos~ mogony, 171-8; evil, 136, 159, 162-4, 174, 177; on Fichte, 119, 122—3, 134' 140, 142-3; idealism, 121-4, 129, 1325, 139, 142-3, 146-7, 171-8; Ideen,

242

Index

117-18, 120—1; on Kant, 171, 172, 174; mythology 123—4; nature, definition of, 167-8; Neoplatonism, 152-4; pantheism, 132-3, 136, 142; Paris lectures, 137—9; physics, 164—7; on Plato, 137—9; Poesie, definition of, 124-5, 1 2 &> 141* 160-1; realism, 121-5, 132-3, 139-40, 142; "Rede iiber die Mythologie," 123, 126, 128; relation of divinity and creation, 165-8, 172-3, 176; relation of philosophy - Poesie - religion, 114, 116, 120-1, 128, 130-1, 225 (see also Universalpoesie); on religion, 130, 139-40; on Romantic reception of Bohme, 103-4; on Spinoza, 119—20, 122—5, 12 9> i33> 142; Vienna lectures, 149—52; Ungrund, 163-4, 173; World-Ego: 172, 173, 174, 176, 177, 178 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 11-12; on Bohme, 103-5; and Friedrich Schlegel, 10 3-5 Schulz, Gerhard, 13, 91 Schulz, Walter, 180 Schwarmerei, 44, 45, 47, 48, 183, 195 Spec, Friedrich von: Der Altvdter Verlangen nach dem Messias, 87 Spener, Philip Jakob, 35-6; on Bohme, 41 Speyer, Wolfgang, 91-2 Spinoza, Benedictus de: Friedrich Schlegel on, 120, 122-5, 129' 1 33> 14°! Schelling on, 188, 189, 190

Sprengel, Kurt: Versuch einerpragmatischen Geschichte der Arzneikunde, 80—1 Strack, Friedrich, 78 Tieck, Ludwig, 55-75: Bohme as poet, 57—8, 59; and Bohme's Aurora, 64; and conversion, 60-70; on the education of the poet, 58; evil, 68, 68n36; on Germany's past, 58; scholarship on Bohme and, 55-6, 73-5 works: DerAufruhrin den Cevennen, 62, 63-5, 69-70; Der Autor, 58, 62, 69, 117; Genoveva, 56, 72; Kaiser Octavianus, 56, 72, 74; Preface to vol 11 of Schriften, 61; Prinz Zerbino, 72; DerRunenberg, 56, 74; and Solger, 61, 66 Tiedemann, Dieterich: on Bohme, 47; Geist der spekulativen Philosophic, Novalis 's study of, 80-1 Trunz, Erich, 27 Uerlings, Herbert, 77 Ungrund, 21, 23, 163-4, 1 73> 2OO< 2O3 Universalpoesie (fusion of religion, philosophy, and Poesie), 25, 65-6, 104, 129-30, 164 Wackenroder, Wilhelm Heinrich: Herzensergiefiungen, 117—18