Penelope Fitzgerald

The Blue Flower Penelope Fitzgerald

The Blue Flower is set in the age of Goethe, in the small towns and great universities of late eighteenth-century Germany. It tells the true story of Friedrich von Hardenberg, a passionate, impetuous student of philosophy who will later gain fame as the romantic poet Novalis. Fritz seeks his fathers permission to wed his “hearts heart,†his “spirits guideâ€â€”a plain, simple child named Sophie von Kühn. It is an attachment that shocks his family and friends. Their brilliant young Fritz, betrothed to a twelve-year-old dullard? How can this be? The irrationality of love, the transfiguration of the commonplace, the clarity of purpose that comes with knowing ones own fate—these are the themes of this beguiling novel, themes treated with a mix of wit, grace, and mischievous humor.