Nietzsche and Novalis on language as trope

Abstract

A critical comparison of the theories of language of Friedrich Nietzsche and the Early German Romantic Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg) based on their models of language as trope. Six forms of trope are used to show how language functions for each thinker and to provide a precise framework for comparison. It is found that both present similar notions of language as tropic in nature, that is to say as fundamentally creative and subjective, but that while for Novalis this underlies the possibility of genuine knowledge and communication, for Nietzsche it undermines these. Novalis' acceptance of trope in language allows him to present a model of the human subject in communion with other human beings, nature, and the divine, while Nietzsche's rejection of the validity of trope results in his essentially negative and isolating philosophy of the subject.