Romantic Vision, Ethical Context: Novalis and Artistic Autonomy by Géza von Molnár (review)

268Rocky Mountain Review Agreeing with some of this book's premises can change one's responses to Tennyson's poetry, the cynical growing less so, the warmly enthusiastic feeling a corrective chill. Tucker's readings do not always convince one, but they do give pause. Other, less happy pauses arise from the book's length (reducing the subjective , occasionally effusive analyses ofTennyson's artistic strategies would help, particularly in the section on the juvenilia), from the playful but excessive use of puns (some bad), and from using literary allusions for their phrasing, only. One tends to grow impatient with these distractions. Still, such idiosyncrasies could be seen as the life in Tucker's book, accompanying his success in finding new vitality and profundity in Tennyson's texts. That one remains unsure about whether or not Tennyson himself sensed the implications Tucker discovers could be an argument for Tucker's approach. He admits, reluctantly, that one might prefer to keep some skepticism about Tennyson , the poet and man, in reserve. DALE K. BOYER Boise State University GEZA VON MOLNÁR. Romantic Vision, Ethical Context: Novalis and Artistic Autonomy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987. 247 p. The epigraph by Georg Lukács succinctly expresses the objective which the author had in mind when writing this study; he wanted to document that "Novalis is the only true poet of the Romantic school. In him alone the whole soul of Romanticism turned to song, and only he expressed nothing but that soul." Novalis is no longer presented in such traditional terms as "The Poet of the Blue Flower." Rather, Molnár shows him to be a superior intellect on the equivalent level ofSchiller and Goethe, more than capable of voicing a critique of the philosophies of Kant and Fichte. This truly challenging study opens with a foreword by Jochen Schulte-Sasse with the title "Do We Need a Revival of Transcendental Philosophy?" Here Schulte-Sasse analyzes cogently the similar and different avenues pursued in Molnár's treatise on Novalis and Jürgen Habermas's Knowledge and Human Interest in their effort to revive the tradition of transcendental philosophy. Subsequently, Molnár follows the intellectual and philosophical development ofNovalis in fifteen chapters starting with the "Early Years" and ending with "Novalis in Contemporary Context." Chapter 2 demonstrates convincingly that Novalis did his "apprenticeship" with Schiller and reveals that the latter's influence over the former was substantial and that Novalis was well aware of it. In succeeding chapters Molnár deals with the early and fragmentary Fichte Studies as a foundation ofNovalis's aesthetic thoughts in the perimeter ofthe latter's personal relationship to Sophie von Kühn. An important departure from conventional interpretations comprises Molnár's contention in the chapter Book Reviews269 "Death and the 'Decision to Live' " that Sophie's death constitutes not a decision for Novalis to commit himself to death but rather to life; his life "undergoes a drastic redirection ofperspective during his period of mourning ..." (73). In the following segment, entitled Heinrich von Ofterdingen, Molnár delineates the growth of Novalis's philosophical thoughts from his Fichte Studies to his fragmentary novel and compares Heinrich's development in the novel to that of Faust. The final section of the book, "The 'Basic Schema' in Historical Perspective," attempts in a most innovative manner to incorporate Novalis into the overall framework ofWestern mysticism with homage being paid to thinkers like Karl-Otto Apel, Jacques Derrida, and especially George Poulet with his Metamorphoses of the Circle. Molnár concludes convincingly that Novalis has a well deserved place in contemporary theoretical thought, thereby giving the book an additional valuable dimension. The author's final words constitute a plea to "focus our attention on the long-neglected implications for practical reason inherent in all forms of communication but demonstrated most effectively in that privileged form of artistic expression we call literature" (202). In the appendix, Molnár provides the reader with a most useful bibliography and a carefully prepared index. This is a provocative and stimulating work for which the author merits recognition, and it needs to be recommended reading for any serious scholar of Romanticism. WOLFF A. VON SCHMIDT University of...