This German poet was one of the poets that shaped the theory of literary romanticism through the pages of the Das Athenaeum magazine. Born into a noble family in Oberwiederstedt (Saxony), he studied Law, Sciences and Philosophy at the universities of Jena, Leipzig and Wittenberg.

Despite the fact that he worked as a civil servant, he put all his energy into writing; he is famous for his lyric poetry and his prose, infused with a profound religious mysticism and the memory of his fiancee Sophie von Kühn, who died aged 15. This is particularly evident in his Hymns to the Night (1800), in which he expresses his pain and desolation at Sophie's death, but at the same time shows his belief that death is a mystic rebirth before the presence of God.

Novalis also wrote essays in which he expressed his nostalgia over the supposed union of a medieval Christian Europe.