W poszukiwaniu błękitnego kwiatu, czyli o romantycznym ideale Bildung w Henryku von Ofterdingen Novalisa
In search of the blue flower or romantic ideal of Bildung in Henry von Ofterdingen by Novalis

Summary/Abstract: The main aim of the paper is reconstruction of the concept of Bildung (considered as forming the man’s personality) in an educational novel entitled Henry von Ofterdingen written by Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg). Novalis’s novel – inspired by Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister Lehrejahre – is one of the most original early romantic works which prove the importance of the idea of Bildung for German culture at the beginning of the 19th century. In the first part of the text the author discusses the literary image of Bildung presented in the plot of the novel and then indicates its inner contradiction. In the second part of the article the author reconstructs the philosophical roots of this ideal regarding Novalis’s notion of Bildung in light of the thought of German idealism (transcendental philosophy of Immanuel Kant and Johann Gottlieb Fichte in particular) because the theory of romantic progressive poetry (elaborated most fully by Friedrich Schlegel) originates there. The perspective taken in the paper allows the author to reveal the universal significance of the inner contradiction of the romantic idea of forming man’s personality as a sign of the fundamental crisis of the modern ideal of humanity.

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