Heinrich von Ofterdingen travels from Eisenach to Augsburg

Heinrich von Ofterdingen tells the story of the famous minnesinger. In Chapter 2, the naivity of the protagonist is described in spatial terms: "Heinrich was just turned twenty years old. He had never passed the region of his native city; the world was known to him only by stories".1 In Heinrich's case this means that his cultivation necessitates a journey from Eisenach to Augsburg.


  1. "Heinrich war eben zwanzig Jahre alt geworden. Er war nie über die umliegenden Gegenden seiner Vaterstadt hinaus gekommen; die Welt war ihm nur aus Erzählungen bekannt." (My translation.) Novalis, Werke, Tagebücher und Briefe Friedrich von Hardenbergs. Band I. Hrsg. Hans-Joachim Mähl & Richard Samuel. Hanser, München 2004, 248. 

"Der furchtbare Thüringer Wald lag im Rücken". Novalis, Werke I, 276.

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