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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 August 2018
IN HIS UNFINISHED ROMANTIC NOVEL Heinrich von Ofterdingen (1799– 1801) Novalis tells the medieval tale of the young poet Heinrich, who sets out with his mother from his paternal home in Eisenach to her childhood home in Augsburg. The journey south to his motherland is a mystical journey that leads Heinrich both back in time and into his future. Through the recurring theme of reincarnation—recollections of moments previously experienced and lives previously lived—all time is one. After a jocular evening of wine and tales of martial valor with old veterans of the Crusades, Heinrich takes his leave “gripped by a war-like enthusiasm,” with “his whole soul in a state of tumult.” Wandering through a thicket, disoriented, he comes into a moonlit clearing and his mind is stilled:
The tumult of war faded away, and there remained only a clear yearning [Sehnsucht] crowded with imagery. He felt the want of a lute, little as he knew how one really looked and what kind of effect it produced. The bright spectacle of the glorious evening lulled him into soothing fancies: from time to time the flower of his heart flashed upon his inward eye like heat lightning. He was rambling through the wild thickets and clambering over mossy boulders when all at once out of a deep vale nearby the tender, affecting singing of a female voice with a wonderful, melodious accompaniment woke to life. He felt certain it was a lute….
Heinrich listens breathlessly to the song of the beautiful Arab maiden Zulima, whom he discovers comforting a crying child. Heinrich's heart swells with compassion as Zulima recalls “the romantic beauties of the fruitful regions in Arabia” and the “colonies of paradise … full of fresh springs that ripple through dense grass and over sparkling stones among venerable old groves.” She laments the brutal wars of the crusaders, the horrors of which have “separated the East from Europe forever.” Heinrich does his best to console Zulima, and the next day, before Heinrich departs, she seeks him out and gives him the lute upon which she played the previous evening. “It was my brother's,” she explains; “take this small token of my gratitude and let it be a pledge of your remembering poor Zulima.
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