S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 6 - 2 Fa l l 2 0 2 0 2 1 Janneke van der Leest 3 Romantic Poetry By making experience – intuiting and feeling – of the uni - verse the core of religion, Schleiermacher designs a new kind of religion. His romantic artistic friends welcome this, for they are highly concerned with giving expression to their inner experiences . Romantic poets namely want to distinguish themselves from their Enlightenment predecessors including their intellectual poetry with its rigid and artificial conventions. No longer reason, but imagination, feelings and expression of the inner Self – of emotions and experienc - es – become romantic sources of poetic inspiration. In the preface to the Lyrical Ballads – a manifesto of the English Romantic Movement –Wordsworth states: “ all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings ” (Wordsworth and Coleridge 1991, 246). The Romantics strive to be as au - thentic as possible in the expression of their feelings and experiences. Therewith romantic poetry is original and close to the Self. As Hugh Honour describes: “ every Romantic work of art is unique – the expression of the artist’s own personal living experience .” (Honour 1979, 20). Ideally, in the romantic poet’s lives art and life are indeed mixed: “ The Romantics ultimately lived their lives through their art or ‘philosophy’; their art is the art of life, ” states Paul Heelas while analyzing the parallels between Romanticism and modern Spiritualities of Life (Heelas 2008, 43). Of Lord Byron is said that “ [h]e could not detach his work from his experience. His poetry was but his life transmuted into another shape ” (Heelas 2008, 43) [6]. Also in early German Romanticism one can observe a strong entanglement of art and life, so Schle - gel’s famousAthenaeum Fragment 116 recommends, while explaining the task of progressive universal poetry, to “ mix and fuse poetry and prose, inspiration and criticism, the poetry of art and the poetry of nature; and make poetry lively and sociable, and life and society poetical …” (Schlegel 1991, 31). Life and art melts together in an unconventional world view in which the sacred or divine is present and can surely be beheld or experienced in Nature: “ The Romantics practiced their spirituality through their art of life-philosophy, often informing their utopian ‘Genius’ – that is, their experience of the creativities of the life-within – by ‘reflecting’ on nature. ” (Heelas 2008, 43). Nevertheless, however inspired and competent the experienced poet is, a poem will never be an exact expression of an original experience or feeling – as Shelley’s metaphor of “ the mind in creation is as a fading coal ” illustrates, with which he wants to say that “ when composition begins, inspiration is already on the decline ” (Shelley 1972, 53, 54). Also, Wordsworth adds – later on in the preface to Lyrical Ballads – something crucial to his motto: “ I have said that Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility ” (Wordsworth and Coleridge 1991, 266). To show how religious experience, esthetic experience and the expression of those experiences in poetry interact in Romanticism, I will discuss Novalis’ Hymns to the Night and how in this poetic work religious experience (based on lived experience, described in his diary) takes shape. In order to show that the mix between esthetics and religion appears not only among the German Romantics, but that it belongs to a more overall romantic spirit, I will take a look at English Romanti - cism, Wordsworth and Shelley. By studying the poems more closely with Schleiermacher’s Speeches in mind, the poems proof to be simultaneously an illustration and realization of it, and they also appear to be a key to a better understanding of the crisis of the mean - ing of religion. 3.1 Novalis’ Hymns to the Night The collection of six poems (published in 1800) partly reflects the project Novalis (1772–1801, born as Friedrich von Hardenberg) undertakes in his real life. In the first three po - ems of hisHymns to the Night ( Hymnen an die Nacht ) Novalis transcends the physical world in order to enjoy a new spiri - tual freedom on a personal level that culminates in the third Hymnwhere Novalis describes a revelation in which he expe - riences to be one with the universe, and links this experience to a kind of death experience. In the last threeHymnsof the cycle Novalis links his epiphany to a universal Christian revelation, colored by a personal and poeticized Christian mythology. The lastHymn elevates the whole cycle because of the reference to the universal level that Novalis reaches there [7]. While inHymn III andV respectively the beloved one and Christ aremediators , inHymn VINovalis takes this function upon himself and closes the cycle in high emotion. Mediation is not a purely religious phenomenon – Schleier - macher speaks ofmediators also as poets and seers – it is an artistic and esthetic task, as well, as Novalis proofs. I want to focus on the third Hymn , which has strong connections to Novalis’ biography. The poet cannot resign himself
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