La lámpara maravillosa de Valle-Inclán y el Heinrich von Ofterdingen de Novalis o la poética como «camino de perfección

Abstract

Unknown to the Spanish Romantics, Novalis was nevertheless translated by modernist writers and, in the years previous to the making of La lámpara maravillosa, his work was disseminated by people who were attracted to theosophy and other esoteric beliefs. Heinrich von Ofterdingen was a seminal work in the development of the narrative, poetological subgenre that turned Bildungsroman into an aesthetic «camino de perfección». The recurrent critical problem of placing La lámpara maravillosa within a particular genre can be explained in relation to this tradition. As Novalis han done in Heinrich von Ofterdingen, Valle advanced in his work a magic poetics that agreed with the German's on every essential point.