Product Description
This bilingual, revised, third edition of Dick Higgins' popular translation presents the complete Athenaum version of Frederich von Hardenburgh's classic romantic long poem, and the substantially different manuscript version of the first section. The German text is en face. The six hymns comprise a deeply affecting poem that speaks across the centuries with unquestioned radiance. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Brilliant
This is Novalis' masterpiece. An absolutely sublime collection of six poetic hymns, each of which centering on a deeply routed problematic configured within Novalis' complicated commitments. The symbolism and imagery of the night is particularly luminous here-it is clear that Novalis was preoccupied with an implicit death-drive. This work is also the thinker's most decisively Christian work, which has turned off readers to it in the modern era. Considered in terms of its place in the history of the Romantic movement, this work should be regarded among the masters like Tieck, Goethe, and the like.

A guide to the Blessed Eternal Night
Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg (May 2, 1772 - March 25, 1801), better known as Novalis, accomplished with his short but mercurial, explosive chronicle of God, a dark romantic faith, the fecund subconscious, the dark underbelly of poetry (described by William Blake as "the eternal night") what no poet has done before or since.That is, to reconcile Jung's "shadow self" with the Divine Light we hear in Beethoven and Bach.A tremendous inspiration for all seers or would be seers, Novalis placed himself in the company of Keats, Stravinsky (when he composed "The Rite"), Rimbaud, and all artists of any kind who sacrificed themselves entirely in the name of a a certain holy quest for God's answer to man in the form of the Word, Logos.

With the death of his beloved fiancee Sophie Von Kuhn at only 15 years old from tuberculosis, a fate Novalis would also succumb to in the following years, the grief and mourning which followed did not produce the madness or the loss of faith of a Poe: indeed, the "Blue Flower" blossomed in this Romantic's mind like never before.


"Must the morning always return?Will the despotism of the earthly never cease?Unholy activity consumes the angel visit of the Night.Will the time never come when Love's hidden sacrifice shall burn eternally?To the Light a season was set: but everlasting and boundless is the dominion of the Night" (pg. 11).

The death of this young woman whom Hardenberg's biographer described as "giving an impression which--because it was so gracious and spiritually lovely--we must call superearthly or heavenly, while through this radiant and almost transparent countenance of hers we would be struck with the fear that it was too tender and delicately woven for this life, that it was death or immortality which looked at us so penetratingly from those shining eyes; and only too often a rapid withering motion turned our fear into an actual reality" had finally torn away all that was irrelevant and trivial from Novalis' mind.He knew that the night, dark green with the wisdom of Yeat's fairies
and Rimbaud's "singing flower bells" was all that was left to pursue.

Christ, the presence of the living God *through* Sophie, the intermediary, is made crystal clear through a focused reading: "More heavenly than those glittering stars we hold the eternal eyes which the Night hath opened within us.Farther they see than eyes which the Night hath opened within us.Farther they see than the palest of those countless hosts.Needing no aid from the light, they penetrate the depths of a loving soul that fills a loftier region and bliss ineffable.Glory to the queen of the world, to the great prophetess of holier worlds, to the foster-mother of blissful love! she sends thee to me, thou tenderly beloved, the gracious sun of the Night"(page 10).

Sophia, a name for Wisdom in early Christian mysticism, had been reconciled in these lines with Lorca's duende, the daemon chasing Van Gogh, the psychotic prophecies of British poet David Gascoyne.

This is not an easy text to understand (sacred texts never are) but is essential for anyone who wants to understand what poetry is and is not. A beautiful and eternal work.

too literal
This translation is almost freakishly literal.As a result it doesn't work as poetry.The old George Macdonald translation is much better at capturing the spirit of the poem in poetic language.Having the German original in this edition on facing pages is nice, and some of Higgin's translation is illuminating, but ultimately it does not do justice to the original.

Brilliant Poems; Dreadful Translation
Five stars for the *Hymns*; zero stars for the (mis)translation

Novalis's *Hymns to the Night* are a true gem of late 18th-Century Romantic poetry. A brilliant and original mingling of prose-poetry and verse, the *Hymns* celebrate night, darkness, and death as bearers of tremendous revelation. They do so in supple, elegant, and sensuous language filled with yearning for a deeper reality than that which gaudy daylight reveals. Particularly notable is the erotic dimension of this Romantic yearning, or *Sehnsucht*, that Novalis daringly offers the reader.

Given the above, one can only react with disgust at Dick Higgins's vulgar travesty of the *Hymns*. His specious and, not to put too fine a point on it, idiotic rationalization for butchering this work is that Novalis's language was modern for its time; therefore, to preserve that flavor, it should be rendered into the modern "poetic" idiom of, say, William Carlos Williams and other banal writers of simple prose disguised as poetry by dividing it into lines and pseudo-stanzas. Higgins has simplified Novalis to the point of idiocy.

Those English-speaking readers who wish to read the *Hymns* as Novalis wrote them should consult the Charles Passage and George Macdonald translations. They are hardly perfect, but, unlike Higgin's's misbegotten manglings, they represent Novalis's magnificent *Hymns* with at least a modicum of their original dignity intact. It would be wonderful to have a competent and faithful contemporary English translation of the *Hymns*. Higgin's translation, however, is not that work. *Caveat lector*.

Poetry and Philosophy
The German culture can be said to oscillate between two extremes. The first is the predisposition to obsessively systematize and classify life's experience into knowledge with a calm and indifferent demeanor. The second is the reverse tendency to discard the rational and dive off into the realm of the fantastic and the perverse, the moody and the emotionally erratic. Novalis presents a fascinating case study in paradoxically representing both of the tendencies. His "Hymns to the Night" are filled with despair, longing, and a visionary quality that sort of puts one into a trance when reading. However hidden beneath this highly charged emotional atmosphere are layers of allegory and thought. Hence what we have here is that unique poem which combines a very human story of loss, sorrow, and grief with intriguing philosophical meditations on love, [end of life], religion, resurrection, and the relation of mind and body. Much more could be said and should be said. But additional details would spoil the joy of discovering the beauty of the poem on your own.... ... Read more

Product Description
Novalis: Philosophical Writings is the first extensive scholarly translation in English from the philosophical work of the late eighteenth-century German Romantic writer Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg). His original and innovative thought explores many questions that are current today, such as truth and objectivity, reason and the imagination, language and mind, and revolution and the state.

The translation includes two collections of fragments published by Novalis in 1798, Miscellaneous Observations and Faith and Love, and the controversial essay Christendom or Europe. In addition there are substantial selections from his unpublished notebooks, including Logological Fragments, the General Draft for an encyclopedia, the Monologue on language, and the essay on Goethe as scientist.

"A reliable, faithful, and readable English translation of Novalis's influential philosophical and aesthetic writings has been a conspicuous desideratum in Anglo-Saxon scholarship on German Romanticism. Stoljar's book fills this gap in every respect and is, therefore, most welcome and timely. The translation is impeccable and reflects the often highly complex original texts most felicitously. Stoljar's introduction is a model of sound and up-to-date critical scholarship: it provides circumspect exposure to Novalis as an independent and imaginative thinker, situates and characterizes the individual texts in the overall context of Novalis's conceptual universe, and abounds in clearly formulated interpretive insights.

"In Stoljar's lucid translation, Novalis's writings come across as fascinating and seminal as they are in the German original; the collection is a veritable eye-opener for anyone concerned with the wide-ranging impact of the best of German Romantic thought on subsequent developments in European literature, philosophy, history, science, psychology, music, the visual arts, etc., in other words, across the entire cultural landscape through the nineteenth century to the present." -- Steven Paul Scher, Dartmouth College ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Excellent Collection
This brief compendium of Novalis' corpus serves to demonstrate the complexity and depth of though of this early German Romanticist. Known primarily for his poetry, Novalis' philosophy has been overshadowed by the giants of the Romantic period for too long. This little volume gives us a window into the range of topics Novalis was really dealing with, including language, science, politics, and of course poetry. Novalis was the great unifier of our systems, and this small but significant collection will allow us to see him in his creative genius.

Not another Nagasaki
Early in the Introduction, Margaret Mahony Stoljar proclaims, "In his original, unprejudiced, and undogmatic questioning of any issue that interests him, Novalis displays to a remarkable degree the kind of innovative thought that will characterize the Romantic movement throughout Europe.Being a practicing scientist and creative writer as well as possessing a comprehensive approach to theoretical inquiry that in his time was what was meant by `philosophical,' Novalis engages with a wider spectrum of questions than do most of his contemporaries.But it is his readiness to subject any philosophical concept to radical interrogation that marks his published and unpublished work as of enduring interest.For contemporary readers accustomed to the critique of the categories of reason that has followed in the wake of Nietzsche, Novalis's writings can seem uncannily pertinent.They address issues that in recent years have continued to expand the parameter of our thinking on truth and objectivity, language and mind, symbol and representation, reason and the imagination.In form and style too, Novalis's manuscripts demonstrate the associative fluidity of thought characteristic of Nietzsche."(pp. 1-2).There are no entires in the index for Nietzsche and Derrida.In this translation, Novalis sees philosophy as a progression from passive thinking to magical idealism, at least in number 33 of the Teplitz Fragments:

"An empiricist is:one whose way of thinking is an effect of the external world and of fate--the passive thinker--to whom his philosophy is given.Voltaire is a pure empiricist and so are several French philosophers--Ligne tends imperceptibly to the transcendent empiricists.These make the transition to the dogmatists.From there the way leads to the enthusiasts--or the transcendent dogmatists--then to Kant--then to Fichte--and finally to magical idealism."(p. 107).

There is not much of a story in what happened to Novalis because he died young, in March 1801, while Kant (1724-1804) was still alive.By the time Novalis published POLLEN in the winter of 1797-1798, Kant had accepted a ban on publicly speaking or writing about religion, but he was about to declare that he did not consider the ban binding after the death of King Frederick William II in 1797.Novalis's first fiancee, Sophie, died in March 1797 at the age of fifteen."King Frederick William III and Queen Luise of Prussia ascended the throne at the end of 1797."(p. 16).Papers were eager to publish anything that would make this look like a great event, and soon thereafter "Novalis had already achieved a degree of notoriety as a political thinker with his second published collection of fragments, FAITH AND LOVE OR THE KING AND QUEEN, which appeared in July 1798 in the Berlin journal `Yearbooks of the Prussian Monarchy.'"(p. 16).

Frankly, the attitude I find most clearly in FAITH AND LOVE OR THE KING AND QUEEN reminds me of the works of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), who had a doctrine of correspondences that arose from a spirit similar to a selection on the first page of this work by Novalis:

"4.One finds what one loves everywhere, and sees similarities everywhere.The greater the love the more extensive and manifold is this similar world.My beloved is the abbreviation of the universe, the universe is the extension of my beloved.To the lover of learning, all its branches offer garlands and remembrances for his beloved."(p. 85).

Finding ourselves in a modern world, in which shock and awe have become the standard tactic for dealing with anyone who has claimed kingly powers for too long, and a people who have always been promised perfect innocence are often driven to wipe the slate clean after observing the monster which has been created since the preceding last act, thinking about royal situations, we are apt to remember the incineration of Nagasaki, near the end of World War Two, as a gift to the emperor of Japan, which would allow him to openly advocate unconditional surrender without any loss of face, because atomic bombs represented a power superior to anything that a mere royal highness might possess.Most readers might leave such thoughts unthunk, but this book is a blend of political thinking with poetic power that stumbles mainly because it can no longer be our book.Death is in the index, and mentioned early in this book's first selections, MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS:

"11.Death is a victory over the self--which, like all self-conquest, brings about a new, easier existence."(p. 24).

This might not be true for people who try to talk about it. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

Marvelous
This deeply cryptic and beautiful little text is perhaps Novalis' most beautiful and complex work. The Novices of Sais unfolds as a hermetic prose poem in which the various approaches to the study and contemplation of nature are discussed and compared. Novalis sees the poetic as the unifying method-as well as that which is nearest to the inner truth of nature. This brief and beautiful text continues to haunt and inspire its readers, its place has been secured in the tradition. Paul Klee's illustrations are characteristically poignant and simple at once.

Novalis--synesthesia, multimedia
The Novices of Sais and Heinrich von Ofterdingen are two works by Novalis that are very important to me.

I was aware of *The Novices of Sais* long before it was published in translation by archipelago.I vainly searched for out of print translations.I e-mailed someone at Dedalus, asking them to publish a translation.(Dedalus does much important German lit.)So, as I've liked to claim about other German works that appear in print now in the U.S., I feel I conjured this translation.

The work is poetic.It goes into the difficult, antithetical aspect of human reason, and how to deal with that problem.Both naturalism and antinaturalism are embraced.

There is a passage that could very well have inspired Wagner's notion of gesamptkunstwerke."...he heard, saw, touched and thought at once."

He is fleshing out Goethe's naturalism.As God mellows with time (and disappears); nature mellows--

"...then the sun will lay down her harsh scepter."

Caves are important in *The Novices*, as they are in *Heinrich von Ofterdingen*.They are tranformation places; alchemical transformations take place there.(In Hermann Broch's *The Spell*--the mine)Metals were thought to grow underground through "telluric forces".(Alchemy is about human transformation.)

Novalis' mention of the "world soul" reminds us of Fechner, who may have been influenced by Novalis as he developed a conception of the earth that is along the lines of what we now call "gaia".

The last admonition is great advice for anyone, especially artists:

"...he who feels an inner calling to impart the understanding of nature to other men, to develop and cultivate this gift in men, must first give careful regard to the natural causes of this development and endeavor to learn the elements of this art from nature.Having thus gained an insight he will devise a system based on experiment, analysis and comparison, whereby these means may be applied by any individual; this system will become like second nature to him and then he will embark with enthusiasm upon his rewarding task."

While we Americans usually are quite satisfied with the first rawimprovisations that we spew forth.

Novices of Sais
Beautiful little book.Written by Novalis, one of the overlooked literary geniuses of all time, this book is one of his major works.His writings were few and fragmentary due to an early death at age 29.What he did write is profound.The drawings by Paul Klee are interesting but no match for the beauty and depth of Novalis' mind. ... Read more

Product Description
The first English translation of Novalis's unfinished notes for a universal science, Das Allgemeine Brouillon. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Infinitely Complex and Mystifying
The Notes for a Romantic Encyclopedia remains one of the great-unstudied and under appreciated texts of the Romantic period. Novalis attempted to extend mathematical potentiation to all domains of knowledge-to 'raise them to a higher power' in order to unify them and understand their intrinsic relatedness. This is one of the great synthesizing texts in the philosophical tradition. The entries in this volume cover an absurd range of disciplines, from chemistry and mineralogy to poetry. It is impossible to fully understand this incomplete and highly fragmented work, but it is nevertheless entirely necessary in order to grasp what the project of German Romanticism actually was. ... Read more

Product Description
A strange, ingenious novel, the most representative work ofearly German Romanticism! This extraordinary fusion of novel, fairy tale, andpoem, published posthumously in 1802, is the most representative work ofearly German Romanticism. It reflects, in part, events in the life of its author,who is best known for his Hymns to the Night. Young Henry, a medieval poetwho seeks the mysterious Blue Flower with the lovely face of the yet unknownMathilda, sets out on a journey that is interspersed with beautiful tales andexquisite songs. Henry's "education," as he catches first glimpses of the world,is of special interest to students of philosophy as well as literature, foringeniously involved in literary form is the crux of Fichte's mysticism. Novalis,like Rouseeau, makes an interesting contribution to the "supreme realism" thattranscends the ordinary. Henry von Ofterdingen is an important landmark inthe history of literature and the most distinguished work of its brilliant andtragic author. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Strange and Wonderful
Novalis' incomplete novel, Heinrich von Ofterdingen, is characteristic of this great poet/thinker's fascination with nature, poesy, and myth. Although the Marchen of this text are rather hackneyed, there are nevertheless remarkable reflections on the nature of poetic creation in this peculiar text. There are plenty who cite this as Novalis' finest literary achievement, but I will easily take his Hymns to the Night as well as the Novices of Sais both in terms of the creative synthesis of ideas and beauty of their form. However, it is in Heinrich, that we get a glimpse at some of Novalis' more cryptic fascinations with Christian and Middle Age myth.

Fast transaction, Quality product
Transaction was quick and product was as described.Would recommend on basis of this transaction.

Incomplete Bildungsroman-- probably not for everybody.
I had some specific goals in mind reading this novel fragment. It turned out to be more difficult to read than I had thought it would be. I was only familiar with Novalis' poetry, which was influential at a certain point in my life.

What makes it difficult to read? Probably the biggest reason is that it is a fragment. While the first part (Expectations) has a lot of promise, I have the feeling that it really needed the second part (The Fulfillment) to balance itself out as a book. Other reasons have most likely to do with the general nature of German Romanticism and the Bildungsroman. I always find the style a little bit sticky-- a problem often down to the translation.

Speaking of which, I have to say that I wasn't wonderfully impressed with this translation-- it felt awkward and obtuse to read. On the other hand, it has a good reputation and people whose German skills are far better than mine find it acceptable.

I got what I was looking to get out of it (the dream in literature), but I'm not sure how I would have felt about it if I wasn't reading for something specific. "Know what you are about to read" would be my advice for the potential reader.

I Gave It My Best Shot...
... but I can't understand why I bothered. It was laziness, perhaps, to read an English translation when I can, with some effort, read German. This translation is pedestrian at best, and the rhymed translations of the poetry incorporated in the narrative are doggerel.

I've read most of Novalis's acclaimed "Hymns to the Night" in the original Deutsch. There's no other way; no translation of this sort of poetry will ever be worth a moment. If you can read German... well, you've probably already encountered Novalis and formed your own opinion. He's every bit as lucid and uplifting as Joel Barlow or Timothy Dwight, his rough contemporaries.,

"Ofterdingen" is described as an unfinished novel, but that might not quite be the case. Novalis innovated the deliberate writing of "fragments" as a form coherent with his transcendental yearning toward impossible moral perfection. In the text, young Heinrich goes a-traveling, meets various models of wisdom, hears their parables, quests like Parzifal for a symbol of transcendence, in his case a Blue Flower rather than a Grail. It's either mystical or preachy, depending on the reader. Novalis was a seminal figure in the emergence of German Romanticism both in philosophy and in literature. Unfortunately, his philosophy proved not incompatible with ideas of the Superman, the exceptional iconic individual. Thomas Carlyle, the racist proto-fascist philosophizer, promoted Novalis's reputation in English; his turgid essay explicating Novalis is available on-line in its entirety. Ayn Rand also regarded Novalis as a precursor.

Ordinarily I'd hesitate to give a 'classic' of any literature a mere two stars, but in this case the tedious translation makes any higher rating implausible.

focus on our happiness and continuous development
This Bildungsroman is giddy, impetuous, a bit precious.There's the requisite Faustian mannerism--the girl dies, the boy grows from the experience.

Nevertheless, I'm a sucker for this stuff.The impulse behind any bildungsroman is potent to me from the very beginning.What is more important than our happiness and our healthy development as human beings? That there exists about 100 years' worth of material along these lines that is very little known in the anglophone world was a wonderful discovery for me.

Here are some notes I made in the margins:

Pg.93"It is different with those serene, little-known people whose world is their soul, whose activity is contemplation whose life is a gradual development of their inner powers.No restlessness exerts an outward drive.A modest possession contents them.The vast drama around them does not tempt them to play a role in it themselves, but it does seem to them important and marvelous enough to devote their leisure to its contemplation.A desire for the spirit of this drama keeps them from the drama itself, and it is this spirit that has destined them to the mysterious life of the soul in the world of man.The men of affairs, on the other hand, represent the external members and senses and the active forces in this world."

There's a song by Benjamin Britten, with a very ancient Chinese text that admonishes, "Don't help on the big chariot!".

Pg. 130-->
"Here one saw a shipwreck in the background and in the foreground happy peasants enjoying a picnic lunch; there the fearfully beautiful eruption of a volcano, the devastations of an earthquake, and in the foreground a loving couple under shade trees, indulging in the sweetest caresses......."

Good and evil, inextricably interwoven in the wholeness of nature. Adalbert Stifter weaves this oneness of good and evil into all of his stories.This idea is also the emotional climax of Thomas Mann's *The Holy Sinner*.

This line is famous:

"...I realize that fate and soul are two names for one concept."

In the margin I wrote:So, the soul is contingent, unlike spirit.(This elaboration of Novalis' comment I found somewhere else, but I no longer remember where. It's not just me.)This is an elusive concept.I think it works like this:It's a corrolary to Goethe's famous statement that what is within is also without. Fate is the internal/external intersection of spirit and matter.??? ..something like that...

Novalis lived love & death.His fiance died, then he died, he wrote hymns to night.





... Read more

Product Description
This historical study of the esthetic theory of the poet as seer began in an attempt to unravel the meanings of the poems of Rimbaud which have yielded such varied and conflicting interpretations. As the research continued it became increasingly likely that the idea of poet as seer grew out of the Illuminist thought of the Romantic period and it is in this context that author examines the works of the poets discussed. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (4)

nature and self-nurture
In case you are a bit behind on your German Romantic poets, as I was*, here's a brief reminder on Novalis:he lived in the 18th century, died young, and wrote about the spiritual meaning of life and nature.One of his most famous quotes is "Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason."

With this information in mind, I readily enjoyed Melissa Kwasny's book Reading Novalis in Montana.I assumed it would be an ode to all things in nature, but the book is far more complex than that.It does discuss the natural world, with a seeming focus on birds, trees, and animal life, yet it also examines the relationship of nature on the human mind.The questions we ask about nature can be asked about ourselves.The observations we make often reflect what is in our own hearts and imagination.She finds a connection between conscious thought and subconscious connections.

In "Sleep Comes from the Flowers", her reflections on what she sees reveals deeper questions.

Three hours the deer sleep, then back to the vowels
of the water, the all-day drowse of mice and grass and owls.
Snow like white dahlias.Deer curled together like buds.
The ice in the creek cannot bear any more cold
and cracks each night into a thousand mums.Petal
of the squirrel's lid, closed and safe.The trees stay awake,
or asleep, as you prefer.Like me, they take
what is offered them.But the animals strive, pace the fields
for food or mates.Do moths sleep together or apart?
Everything with consciousness must sleep, not merely rest,
though bird dreams last nine seconds or less
and fish can sleep while swimming....
The dark blooms in winter on the walls of the canyon.
We achieve our imagination in increments.

Somehow, her choice of mostly one and two syllable words creates a simplicity and a pace that sounds repetitive and quiet, almost like tiptoes in a quiet night.Yet the words 'consciousness', 'imagination', and 'increments' startle us out of our reverie.It's as though she awakens us from the quieter thoughts of sleep and dreams to what is in front of us:the natural world.It seems significant that she finds motifs of flowers everywhere: in the ice, the snow, the deer bodies, the squirrel's eyelids, and the shadows on canyon walls.

In "Herbs", she discusses nature's changes and emotional change:

Persephone caught
staring at a flower.Can beauty be compensation for grief?
Our own heliotaxis.

Like the robin, for instance, at sunset, atop the high spruce,
turning its breast to the sun,
or the layering through our lives of a particular herbage,

sweet pine, the prairie sages, the pink-rooted grass-
the American grass we braid and burn.

Even without belief, we must admit
to a certain sense of holiness, in their green-lit transparence,

in their capacity for light, and how our eyes are drawn to it....

To be changed internally from afar.

The significance of her words is deepened when you realize (thank you, Google!) that the grasses she mentions (sweet pine, prairie sage, and pink-root) are all herbs used in purification, and found in Montana.The reference to heliotaxis, which is the way a flower turns toward the light, also demonstrates a turning, or change, accomplished by focusing on light and beauty.Here the references to Novalis are especially clear.


This collection is meditative, quiet, and appealing for its breadth of topics, all linked in some way from the outer world to the inner heart.

*Actually, I had no clue who he was.

Some Thought Provoking Insights
I do not agree with one reviewer of this book who suggested that the author experience more and write less.As i do appreciate much of Ms. Kwasny's intellectual reflections in this book. I must admit I am not a child of the 60s.My favorite poems are those very old fashioned magical/emotional narratives that hint at depth of experience rather than seek to rationally explain it.

A Beautiful Meditation
This powerful collection of poems makes great use of the best of what the intersection of poetry and philosophy can offer - a space to meditate on life's larger questions, but a space grounded in the real, messy, beautiful world. These poems are strong, clear, and have a real heft - they stay with the reader long after she's put down the book. Highly recommended!

A look into the world of natural science using poetry as a vehicle
Melissa Kwasny brings readers her third volume of poetry with "Reading Novalis in Montana" is a look into the world of natural science using poetry as a vehicle, and Kwasny executes it excellently. Moving, entertaining, educational are all fine labels to apply to "Reading Novalis in Montana". "11 Fire": White velocity. We dare not interrupt you./Stream of light in the light./Gender. The Surpreme fiction? Gender./The alchemy? Stars you build and stamp out./What is old: you are sweeping through it, jumping the creek. Arnica. Cedar waxwings./The pale pink spider. Your ash, already, anointing them./I cut the tree that fell in this winter's wind./I rake twigs into piles and pull the runners from the tines/to hand to you, to use for your quick ceremonies./Can you take what is negative, correct our mistake? We have/such plans for amelioration. As below, so above./Lightning. Sun. As above, so below. Igneous, metamorphic./You are the weed that grows spiky and voluptuous./You are the verb, sprung from seven sprouts of morning/to the twenty-two of afternoon./Fire beneath our lids, the farce of you.
... Read more

Product Description
This volume presents the first complete translation of Fichte Studies, a critique of Fichtean philosophy by the young philosopher-poet Friedrich von Hardenberg. Under the pen-name Novalis, von Hardenberg became the most well-known and beloved of the early German Romantic writers.Those interested in the fate of German philosophy and literature immediately following Kant will find that this collection of notes and aphorisms consists of original contributions on the nature of self-consciousness, the relationship of art to philosophy, and the nature of philosophical inquiry. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A masterpiece of New Criticism
Bruce Haywood's analysis of Novalis' imagery was the first doctoral dissertation to be published by the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University. It is in effect a primer of the interpretation of poetic imagery and symbolism, precisely defining the differences between the two, and analyzing brilliantly and convincingly the evolution of complex poetic expression in Novalis' major works. This book is, in Milton's famous aphorism, the lifeblood of a master spirit, and more than half a century after publication it continues to enlighten students pondering how to analyze an assigned poem. Too, as all good books do, it enlarges the reader's vocabulary in the process. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR’d book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

NOT IN ENGLISH!
I bought this book not sure whether or not it was translated. I found that it was all in German, however it looks beautiful on the bookshelf and it smells different than American new books so I kept it. I later found thetranslated version here at amizon. Just search for HENRY VON OFTERDINGENinstead of Heinrich. ... Read more

Product Description
Improve your database productivity with this task-oriented guide to using macro and VBA programming to create custom database applications. Building on your basic knowledge of Access, this book takes you to the next level. Master all the skills you'll need to automate complex processes and to design and deliver applications that meet users' exacting requirements--even if you have no prior programming experience. The companion CD contains code from the book for your reuse and sample databases for hands-on experience.Amazon.com Review
Database front ends are the bread and butter of most VisualBasic programmers, so it pays to know how to build them well (and asefficiently as possible). Access 2000 VBA Handbook does a goodjob of explaining the power of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) andhow it can be used to create custom interfaces on top of Access 2000databases. This is a well-written, comprehensively researched bookwell-suited to aspiring Access developers. It's also a fine resourcefor programmers who use older versions of Access and want to learnmore about the newest version, particularly the new DAO-centricapproach to transactions.

The writing style will appeal to thosewith a modicum of familiarity in general programming concepts andprocedures--the sort of knowledge one can gain in a university-levelsurvey programming course. It documents core VBA as it applies toAccess but concentrates mostly on explaining the tools available tosolve various problems. The book doesn't go overboard with codelistings--a greater number of explicitly stated solutions to problemswould have made it better. Instead, it presents long, annotated listsof options and parameters. It also documents lots of step-by-stepprocedures involving Access's graphical user interface. --DavidWall

Topics covered: The Database Wizard, the VBAprogramming environment, basic VBA data and control structures, formdesign, record manipulation, and Structured Query Language(SQL). Object model coverage includes the Access object model, DataAccess Objects (DAO) and ActiveX Data Objects (ADO), with data-accessemphasis on DAO. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

Was what i expected
Keep up the good work it's vendors like you that keep me comming back to amazon for all my shopping needs. Thanks!

Legacy Systems
Application development tools become obsolescent when released and today's entry level developers raised on Visual Studio 2008 or similar may cross their eyes when someone mentions Access 2000.After all, they may have just entered high school when Office Professional 2000 was released.Actually, Office 2000 software and the VBA that came with it were a high water mark for the era and became the virtual end of the line and therefore the highest form of development for the Microsoft strategy of the day.Access 2000 VBA is VBA6, the Office version of Visual Basic 6, which some still consider to be a worthwhile development environment if not still the premier VB development environment.If there is any doubt about the current popularity of VB6 one only need visit eBay to check on the selling prices for the various versions of VB6 that change hands on the site.

On the job, it may still be necessary for application developers to be able to get their heads inside of VB6 and VBA6 and depending on their needs, they may find "old" references useful."Access 2000 VBA Handbook" is aimed at the relatively unsophisticated developer and could be used by one who wishes to get his head inside of Access as a stepping stone to the current versions (2007 and 2010 beta 2).It also can be used as a reference for those who have forgotten or never knew what DAO was.I am certain that many can and may still find a book like this one useful.

Looking back over earlier reviews, I have sympathy both with those who found this to be the best book of its kind or found it to be a terrible book.While it is true that the author seems sometimes to jump around among topics, a less superficial reading usually reveals that the author expects only that the reader will engage his brain and his wits to "fill in the gaps."The apparent gaps are never large and if one treats them as minor brain teasers, he will quickly find that he learns more and more quickly than if everything were spoon fed in agonizingly detailed baby steps.Besides stimulating more rapid learning, the author's presentation style does not bog down as many other's do.For books of this type, the style is actually relatively brisk.

As evident from my five star rating, I cast my lot with those who found this to be an excellent text.Whatever leads the reader to this book, he will find in it VBA6 development up to the intermediate level presented in a style that stimulates the imagination and curiosity.What more can we ask for?

Access 2000 VBA Handbook
Good book. Easy to find the answers to my questions and get back to work.Good examples and written with clear explanations that get to the point.

Good Day.

Thank goodness for Susan Norvalis
This book really stands out from the crowd. Most VBA texts are written by great programmers who are terrible teachers. Not in this case -Using VBA to unlock the power of MS Access is thoroughly and clearly explained - from concepts such as database design and objects to JET, DAO/ADO and beyond.The author shows how to do everything that you can do with Macros, how to do many things that you can't do without VB and then how to most efficiently do all of them!Most useful is the clear way in which the book shows how to perform tasks efficiently in interactive (Forms) and automated (DAO/ADO Recordset manipulation) ways and when to choose each- this book will remain an invaluable tool in my library and be referenced often.

Not useful for developers
I must agree with other reviewers. In spite of a good knowledge of Access the reading of this book does not help to write practical applications, and is very frustrating. The author jumps from topic to topic and gives very little code that can be used in real life situations. I would qualify this book as no more than a broad and theoretical overview. ... Read more

Product Description
-Programmers improve database productivity with this task-oriented guide to using macro and VBA programming to create custom database applications.

--Building on a basic knowledge of Access, this book takes users to the next level, providing coverage of automating complex processes and designing and delivering applications that meet users' exacting requirements.

--The companion CD contains code from the book and sample databases for hands-on experience. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Look elsewhere
I bought this book to accompany the others in the series and this has disappointed time and again. The information that's in here is covered in much better detail in Litwin/Getz/Gunderloy's Access 2002 Developer book by the same publisher. One subject it covers well is creating forms dynamically. So it gets a star. I blame the editors for letting this go to print.

Can't use it enough!
This book has been all that I hoped it would be.I use it as a tutorial one day and a reference the next.I was a beginner Access VBA developer and now with this book I have become much more comfortable around VBA.So much more comfortable that I have developed 4 financial Access applications that are going to be used by multiple departments.I recently picked up the Access 2002 Developer's Handbook Set which is a little more advanced but I keep coming back to this one.

With a little study and committment
I started using Access a few years ago as an adjunct of Microsoft Office, creating simple databases for my Christmas card list and such.Then about a year ago, because of work, I had the opportunity to dig deeper.Where to start?I began with Alison Balter's Mastering Access 2002 Desktop Development, a frustrating and disorganised tome that seemed to be missing all of the secret handshakes, signals and knowledge I longed for to unlock the supposed power of Microsoft Access.Every time it appeared Ms. Balter was going to get to the actual point and impart the wisdom I was seeking...she swiftly moved on to another topic.The book didn't even serve to help me clarify the mind-boggling vocabulary necessary to describe and understand the application.To me, Ms. Balter seemed like somebody whom, if they possessed a lot of knowledge, wasn't giving any of it away.A job change took care of my deadline but I was still intrigued and inherited a larger project when I committed myself to writing a custom database application for my partner's administrative needs.I needed help and serious instruction to achieve the application designs I had in my head.

I turned to Getz, Litwin & Baron's Access Cookbook (1st edition), thinking I could hi-jack some off the shelf solutions and, if not actually learn to write Access VBA, at least tweak the code they supplied to suit my starry-eyed custom application needs.Not a bad idea.Problem was, as intriguing as the book is, it's really for experienced developers looking to take their skills in another direction (skyward).Very strong on methodology too, which is important, but it wasn't exactly getting me off the launch pad (it wasn't even getting me off my mouse pad, to be more accurate).

Seven months on, two books later and still no real understanding of Access VBA.I checked out Getz, Litwin & Gunderloy's Access 2002 Developer's Handbook Set and was ready to dig deep...but one really needs to know the basics and fundamentals of Access VBA to keep up (otherwise it's like reading a foreign language of which you have very little knowledge).One hundred pages in and I sensed that I had skipped a grade and it wasn't going to get any easier.Even Ken Getz & Co. were repeatedly pointing me toward Novalis & Jones' Access 2002 VBA Handbook (useful for 2003 as well) and I can honestly say, after a few months procrastinating and about 2.5 - 3 weeks of focused study, without any previous programming knowledge or experience, I can now read an Access VBA procedure and understand what is actually going on.It's like I'm speaking their language!

Novalis and Jones are thorough and precise to a fault. Despite the repetitive vocabulary of Access application development, they do a stunning job of continually moving the reader along, down what is, it has to be said, a very tricky and treacherous path.("Each AccessObject object has an AccessObjectProperties collection object, sometimes just referred to as Properties, a collection object that stores custom properties for the object.Each AccessObjectProperty in the AccessObjectProperties collection object itself has two properties: Name and Value."Don't worry, by the time you get to Chapter 13, from whence that comes, it'll just make you chuckle instead of sweat.)If you've ever tried to learn Access VBA and have been left scratching your head wondering what some author's glib explanation is supposed to actually mean, you won't be disappointed in this book.Novalis and Jones will not leave you behind.

The experience of reading the book is like one of taking a university course called Access VBA 101.You have to concentrate andfocus while you do your reading.There are procedures aplenty throughout the book with step-by-step demonstrations and explanations about how to write Access VBA.The book is very well structured with regular variation between activity and explanation.(You will be inclined to start writing customisations and applying your newfound knowledge to the code samples as the book continues.)All of the samples are immediately applicable tothe kind of useful procedures you'll want to include in your custom database application--in very simple form.This book is about foundations, however, it is an end in itself because you could finish it and start writing your own procedures.I have 12 different sections specifically earmarked for functionality that I want to include in my application, which is pretty useful.Their section on Creating and Modifying Database Objects (Chapter 14) has given me plenty of ideas about coding tools I want to write to flesh out the VBA IDE and write my code faster.Did I mention that 3 weeks ago I couldn't even read Access VBA?

If at times the book feels like it's hard going, it probably has more to do with the subject itself (maybe I should've taken a few more breaks).You will hit a few walls but everything is surmountable; I made it all the way through the book (save the DAO Appendix) and all of their code worked for me (be careful in Chapter 13 "Working with Groups of Records...", however, because a couple of their early procedures in the chapter will break some of the later ones).Not a quick start and at least a month or so of Sundays but for those looking to lay a solid foundation in Access VBA, this is a wise investment of time and money.I now feel that I know the depth and power of Access using VBA programming and when you're trying to learn and utilise somethingthis complex, that's half the battle.

Not for the hands on learner
I am in chapter 3 and have decided to set the book aside and look for a more hands on approach.It's my learning style.I learn a lot more from a technical book (on a new topic) where you work through more examples.Once I have gone through a book with more examples I suspect that the theoretical approach will be more meaningful.I will come back to read this book at a later time.

Excellent work!
You have done the graphical interfaces of Access to the limit and You need more theoretical knowledge to climb a step further, so your projects can advance for their accomplishments.This book will give You high quality information, meaning knowledge that is in harmony with other sciences, for instance mathematics.You will not find usefull new examples of code, once the book is based on the Access Samples (Northwind), thanks God! You wont find the icecream shop, or the whisky bottlement, or the video rent,etc.These originalities are meaningless to the understanding of the structure of VBA. You will not find that a number divided by zero is zero, or that x = x + 1, without further explanations, and that programming has a special type of logic that blows up whatever You thought credible. So I would advise to buy the book because it is an excellent work, linking the many areas of knowledge in a deep way, although the subjects are managed with as few words as possible, enough to You understand how VBA is conceived. ... Read more

Product Description
GERMAN ROMANTIC POETRY

A study of German Romantic poetry, focusing on the poets Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Hölderlin, Heinrich Heine and Novalis.

Includes lengthy extracts from their poetry.

EXTRACT FROM THE FRIEDRICH HÖLDERLIN CHAPTER

Friedrich Hölderlin believed in the notion of the poet as shaman, a vates, a prophet. As he wrote in ‘An die Deutschen’ (‘To the Germans’), ‘sweet it is to divine, but an affliction too’. And he believed in his poetic world, as poets have to: ‘Hölderlin’s world was one in which he alone believed’, wrote Alessandro Pelegrini. His poetry is marked by a movement towards bliss, the ecstasy of the shaman, which Hölderlin does not hide. Rather, he cultivates it scrupulously. His lyrics are pure lyrics, set in the Orphic mode, that way of making poetry that comes from Orpheus, the ancient deity of shamanic poetry.

Friedrich Hölderlin’s poetry, especially his early lyrics, is powerfully shamanic; it is full of shamanic imagery, as is the early poetry of Percy Shelley or Francesco Petrarch. In Hölderlin’s art we find images of light, of bliss, of motion, of revelation, all shamanic/ religious motifs. Heinrich Heine’s view of the poet as shaman was more political, aware of the role of the poet in societal revolutions: ‘Our age is warmed by the idea of human equality, and the poets, who as high priests do homage to this divine sun, can be certain that thousands kneel down beside them, and that thousands weep and rejoice with them’.

Product Description
"German Romantic criticism represents a fundamentally dialectical type of thinking, " says Ernst Behler in his Foreword. "With Romantic criticism we are on the threshold of that phase of modernity of which we are still the inheritors." Among the brilliant discussions included in this volume are selections from Friedrich Schleiermacher, On the Different Methods of Translation, Jean Paul, School for Aesthetics, Novalis, Aphorisms and Fragments, Friedrich Schlegel, Dialogue on Poetry, Wilhelm von Humboldt, On the Imagination, Heinrich von Kleist, On the Marionette Theater, and a little-known essay of Friedrich Holderlin, On the Process of the Poetic Mind. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Reading the Hieroglyph of Tradition
Angelika Rauch's "The Hieroglyph of Tradition" is a detailed engagement with major German philosophical thinkers, among them, Kant, Novalis, Freud, Benjamin, and Gadamer; these are brought into relation with French thinkers like Lacan, Kristeva, Lyotard, and Derrida. The topic that aligns these thinkers is the question of affective memory and how it is preserved, shaped, and interpreted by (literary) language. Rauch argues that tradition is part of an ongoing epistemological process in which language, the body, experience, imagination, desire, and affect are closely related to tradition as a formative process. She argues that in the case of figures like Kant, Novalis, Benjamin, and Freud we can see the importance that memory plays in terms of processes of cultural signification and how tradition is mediated by questions of subjectivity. Tradition in Rauch's theory concerns a transference of experience into language in which language is an interface between personal mind and cultural history. Fundamental to her work is a psychoanalytic examination of affect and the body and how both get translated into rhetorical figures of language that allude to forgotten experiences and fantasies. Her reading of the prostitute as an allegory of modernity in the context of Benjamin shows how the use of gender and the body are crucial to an understanding of history, allegory, and experience. Her interpretations of Lacan via Gadamer and Derrida via Benjamin are among the many highlights of this very informative book that, at bottom, tries to take a second look at a conventional notion like tradition by analysing how it actually works on the mind as a handing over of experience from the past to the present, from one generation to another, from an other to the self. ... Read more

Product Description