The purpose of this paper is to back down over Novalis’ Hymns to the Night by mobilizing as well the Fichtean base of his conceptuality as the major influence of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The paper subsequently shows, through a meticulous reading of each hymn, that these poems concern the Novalis’ recurring problem of image or appearance. Far from being a solitary praise of invisible, the Hymns to the Night questions the visible about the otherness, as nocturnal bottom of life.
Dumont, A. (2011). Angoisse et extase de l’image transcendantale dans les Hymnes à la Nuit, ou Shakespeare à l’épreuve de Novalis. Etudes Germaniques, 263, 623-660. https://doi.org/10.3917/eger.263.0623 (Original work published 2011)