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[German Version] A novel is a fictional narrative of some length, almost always in prose. Since the 18th century, novels have been popular reading material, produced in great quantities for the literary market. At the same time, however, the novel has risen to the peak of the modern literary pyramid; from the 18th century to today, the history of the novel has been a more or less uninterrupted chain of major literary works. No other literary genre can claim to be as central as the novel to the mod…

[German Version] I. Literary Studies A text is a sequence of sentences or other linguistic utterances that can be considered as a unit. It may be oral or written. The term text derives from Latin texere, “weave,” and its associated nouns textum and textus. The metaphor of weaving, already used by Cicero and Quintilian with reference to linguistic phenomena, has had ongoing influence, down to present-day attempts to define the “textuality” of texts. In earlier usage, preserved in the tradition of philology, a text is an existing original …

[German Version] (Mar 10, 1772, Hanover – Jan 11/12, 1829, Dresden), philologist, literary theoretician, historian, and philosopher. At the heart of Jena Romanticism, Schlegel pioneered the Romantic theory of literature (Romanticism: I, 1) and (with his brother August Wilhelm) set the standards for a comparative historiography of literature and philosophy that took the total cultural context into account. After beginning as a classicist (studies of Greek poetry modeled on the work of Johann Joachim Winckelmann), Schlegel caused a stir with the periodical Athenaeum that he edi…

[German Version] I. Art In 1886 the writer Jean Moréas published a Symbolist manifesto, the stated aim of which was not to express artistic ideas directly but to represent them by defamiliarization. This manifesto also profoundly influenced the visual arts at the turn of the 20th century, allowing painting and graphics to turn to the realm of dreams, the unconscious, and the imagination for significant content. Unlike naturalism (IV) and realism (IV), Symbolism sought to express the realm of the hum…

[German Version] (Friedrich v. Hardenberg; May 2, 1772, Oberwiederstedt, Kreis Mansfelder Land – Mar 25, 1801, Weißenfels) I. Life Novalis, a poet and philosopher of early Romanticism, was the second of 11 children of Heinrich Ulrich Erasmus v. Hardenberg, director of the salt works of Electoral Saxony, and his wife Auguste Bernhardine, née von Bölzig. The family moved to Weißenfels in 1785. The boy grew up in a Pietist (Pietism) environment. After studying at Jena, Leipzig (where he met and became friends with F. Schlegel), and Wittenberg, where…

[German Version] I. General – II. Contemporary Discussions ¶ I. General 1. Types of relation between literature and religion The term literature as commonly used today (cf. also Literature, History of) comprises poetry and prose; in prose literature, the fictional genres form the core of what constitutes literature. Scholarly studies, essays, and autobiographical works, especially major achievements that are seldom without an artistic core, are often included in literature. Sometimes, contrary to etymology, litera…