Die Suche nach dem Glück in der deutschen Literatur. Zur Bedeutung der blauen Blume in Novalis’ Heinrich von Ofterdingen

Abstract

Heinrich von Ofterdingen, written by Novalis, is imprinted in the history of the German literature just like Goethe‘s masterpieces Die Leiden des jungen Werthers and Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. It is a meaningful novel also because of its blue flower, a motive added by Novalis into his novel. This paper analyses this blue flower as a symbol of the search for happiness in the German literature. For this purpose the following questions are taken into consideration: the connection between mankind and nature, the importance of the colour blue in Goethe’s studies on colour, the blue flower as a motive of the nature and Heinrich‘s dreams.