L'Allgemeines Brouillon: il «progetto» enciclopedistico di Novalis

Abstract

By relying on the concept of «project» in the Frühromantik, this essay faces the epistemological issues concerning the perception of world and nature in Novalis’ Das allgemeine Brouillon. Novalis’ occasional annotations of this «enciclopedistic» project must not misled their interpret, because the work must be read at the wake of the romantic chaos «that only awaits the touch of love to unfold in a harmonious world». As it is argued in the contribution the Brouillon therefore meets the needs of the romantic «universal and progressive» project of knowledge of the world by a sincretic explotation of an entire tradition of scientific and philosophical thought. While highlighting the most relevant predecessors of Novalis’ reflection on the “encyclpoedia”, the contribution thus clarifies, on the one hand, the boundaries of the author’s «enciclopedistic» project and, on the other hand, the significance of this work in his production with the aim to free the Brouillon from the most conservative readings of the work.