2 2 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 to the death of his fiancée, Sophie van Kühn. Therefore, he decides to follow her in her death. Novalis’ project overlaps partly Schleiermacher’s plea to approach reality differently: not to see every object from your own point of view– the view of the empirical ‘I’– and from the outside; but from the middle point of every thing itself, and to approach every thing from all possible relations to its middle point. This means a stepping out of one’s own view, into an overview of all parts of the totality. In Novalis’ diary, on May 13, 1797, there is an announcement of his third Hymnwhere he reports a kind of mystical expe - rience when visiting the grave of his deceased fiancée. The strongly paralleling words of theHymn are as follows [8]: Thou, Night-inspiration, Heavenly Slumber, didst come upon me – the region gently upheaved itself; over it hovered my unbound, newborn spirit. The mound became a cloud of dust – and through the cloud I saw the glorified face of my beloved. In her eyes eternity reposed – (…) Into the distance swept by, like a tempest, thousands of years. (…) It was the first, the only dream – and just since then I have held fast an eternal, unchangeable faith in the heavens of the Night, and its Light, the Beloved. Novalis explores the boundaries of the ‘I’ and transcends them. He reaches a way to surpass human life and describes that it is possible for him to intuit eternity and to witness and experience immortality: he saw that “ in her eyes eternity reposed ” and felt that “ into the distance swept by … thousands of years. ” Which comes close to Schleiermacher’s notion of the immortality of religion: “ To be one with the infinite in the midst of the finite and to be eternal in a moment ” (2015, 54). In this way the universe beyond humanity is discovered: in a personal revelation, described in a poem. Novalis’ beloved one is his mediator in thisHymn and he is the mediator for the reader, by sharing his experience in poetry. Novalis states it is this first and only dream that made such an impression that ever after he held fast an eternal, unchangeable faith in the factors that underlay this experience. Schleiermacher also states that the first religious experience of a person determines his religious life afterwards. 3.2 Wordsworth’s The Prelude Completely apart from the early romantic situation and environment of Germany, William Wordsworth (1770–1850) shows parallels to the religious experience that Schleiermacher describes. The English poet’s sublime experience of nature is like intuiting and feeling the universe. As Schleiermacher states: religion concerns something, which is beyond nature, but it can reveal itself in it. And Wordsworth imagines his oeuvre and his life-project in metaphors of journeys through nature. The Prelude , first completed in 1805, tells Wordsworth’s au - tobiography [9]. In this poem the journey-metaphor plays an important role: “ many of the crucial episodes are literal journeys on foot, which modulate into spiritual landscapes traversed by a metaphorical wayfarer ” (Abrams 2012, 207). In the first book of the poem Wordsworth depicts his first and already decisive experience, as a schoolboy, of overwhelming nature. In the last book he describes the way in which he experiences sublime overwhelming nature as a kind of religious revelation. This last book – theConclusion – shows the climax of Wordsworth’s imaginative life and connects to the opening of the poem. In the first book Wordsworth walks and sails on a plain level, while in the last book he travels up Mount Snowdon and returns to the same surroundings as where he left as a child, but on a higher level . In this last book Wordsworth describes a more or less spiritual experience: a mix of intuiting and feeling the universe. Wordsworth pictures the ascent of Mount Snowdon and his vision there, while being immerged in the overwhelming nature around him, on a mountainside under the moon, con - scious of the dynamic world below and the immutable world above and surrounded by mist. Then, out of the mist there: Was a blue chasm, a fracture in the vapour, A deep and gloomy breathing-place, through which Mounted the roar of waters, torrents, streams, Innumerable, roaring with one voice. The universal spectacle throughout Was shaped for admiration and delight. He immediately reflects on his vision: (…) it appeared to me The perfect image of a mighty mind, Of one that feeds upon infinity.
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