''The Blue Flower'' is the final novel by the British author

Penelope Fitzgerald Penelope Mary Fitzgerald (17 December 1916 – 28 April 2000) was a Booker Prize-winning novelist, poet, essayist and biographer from Lincoln, England. In 2008 ''The Times'' listed her among "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945". ''The Ob ...

, published in 1995. It is a fictional treatment of the early life and troubled relationships of Friedrich von Hardenberg who, under the pseudonym

Novalis Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg (2 May 1772 – 25 March 1801), pen name Novalis (), was a German polymath who was a writer, philosopher, poet, aristocrat and mystic. He is regarded as an idiosyncratic and influential figure of ...

, became a foundational figure of German Romanticism. First published in hardback by Flamingo, the novel became the first paperback title offered by

Mariner Books Mariner Books, originally an imprint of HMH Books, was established in 1997 as a publisher of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry in trade paperback. Mariner is also the publisher of the Harvest backlist, formerly published by Harcourt Brace/Harcou ...

, then a new imprint of Houghton Mifflin. Mariner Books went on to publish paperback editions of all of Penelope Fitzgerald's books. In 2012, ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...

'' named ''The Blue Flower'' one of "the ten best historical novels".

Setting

The novel is based on the life of Friedrich von Hardenberg (1772–1801) before he became famous under the name

. It covers the years from 1790 to 1797 when von Hardenberg was a student of history, philosophy and law at the universities of

Jena Jena () is a German city and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 inhabitants, while the city itself has a po ...

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

and

Wittenberg Wittenberg ( , ; Low Saxon: ''Wittenbarg''; meaning ''White Mountain''; officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg (''Luther City Wittenberg'')), is the fourth largest town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Wittenberg is situated on the River Elbe, north o ...

, and before he embarked on his professional life.

Plot

In 1794 the 22 year old von Hardenberg becomes mystically attracted to the 12-year-old

Sophie von Kühn Christiane Wilhelmine Sophie von Kühn (17 March 1782 – 19 March 1797) was the love interest and eventual fiancée of the German Romantic poet and philosopher Friedrich von Hardenberg, known simply as Novalis. Her image famously appears in Nova ...

, an unlikely choice for an intellectual of noble birth given Sophie's age and lack of education and culture, as well as her physical plainness and negligible material prospects. The couple become engaged a year later but never marry as Sophie dies of

consumption Consumption may refer to: *Resource consumption *Tuberculosis, an infectious disease, historically * Consumption (ecology), receipt of energy by consuming other organisms * Consumption (economics), the purchasing of newly produced goods for curren ...

a few days after her 15th birthday. The blue flower of the novel's title is the subject of the first chapter of a story that von Hardenberg is writing. In it, a young man longs to see the blue flower that "lies incessantly at his heart, so that he can imagine and think about nothing else". Von Hardenberg reads his draft chapter to Sophie and others, and asks "what is the meaning of this blue flower?" No definitive answer is given within the novel, leaving the reader to provide his or her own interpretation.

Background

Fitzgerald first came upon the notion of blue flowers having literary significance in " The Fox", a short story by

D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English writer, novelist, poet and essayist. His works reflect on modernity, industrialization, sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct. His best-k ...

. She first became interested in Novalis in the early 1960s, after hearing a musical setting of his mystical ''Hymns to the Night''. Later she conducted research on

Burne-Jones The Burne-Jones Baronetcy, of Rottingdean in the County of Sussex, and of The Grange in the Parish of Fulham in the County of London, was a title in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 4 May 1894 for the artist and designer E ...

and his

language of flowers Floriography (language of flowers) is a means of cryptological communication through the use or arrangement of flowers. Meaning has been attributed to flowers for thousands of years, and some form of floriography has been practiced in tradition ...

, and discovered that his father-in-law, George MacDonald, was a Novalis enthusiast. At the end of Fitzgerald's earlier novel '' The Bookshop'' a

gentian ''Gentiana'' is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the gentian family (Gentianaceae), the tribe Gentianeae, and the monophyletic subtribe Gentianinae. With about 400 species it is considered a large genus. They are notable for their mostl ...

, a blue flower that has faded into colourlessness, is mentioned as having been pressed into one of two books. In another of her novels, '' The Beginning of Spring'', Selwyn rhapsodizes about the "blue stream flowing gently over our heads", an unattributed quotation from Novalis.

Reception and critical review

In a 2010 introduction to the novel,

Frank Kermode Sir John Frank Kermode, FBA (29 November 1919 – 17 August 2010) was a British literary critic best known for his 1967 work '' The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction'' and for his extensive book-reviewing and editing. He was ...

called it "the finest work of this extraordinarily gifted novelist". ''

The New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

'' opined that "There is no better introduction than this novel to the intellectual exaltation of the Romantic era ..." Writing in

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

Michael Hofmann Michael Hofmann (born 25 August 1957) is a German-born poet who writes in English and is a translator of texts from German. Biography Hofmann was born in Freiburg into a family with a literary tradition. His father was the German novelist Ger ...

called it "a quite astonishing book, a masterpiece". The novel has attracted critical attention and has a chapter of its own in Peter Wolfe's ''Understanding Penelope Fitzgerald'' and in

Hermione Lee Dame Hermione Lee, (born 29 February 1948) is a British biographer, literary critic and academic. She is a former President of Wolfson College, Oxford, and a former Goldsmiths' Professor of English Literature in the University of Oxford and Pr ...

's ''Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life''.

Awards

''The Blue Flower'' won the

National Book Critics Circle Award The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".

References

Bibliography

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Blue Flower, The 1995 British novels Novels set in Germany Novels set in the 1790s Novels by Penelope Fitzgerald Flamingo books