Sophie von Kühn

Who was Sophie von Kühn?

Christiane Wilhelmine Sophie von Kühn was the love interest and eventual fiancée of the German Romantic poet and philosopher Friedrich von Hardenberg, known to many simply as Novalis. Her image famously appears in Novalis’ Hymns to the Night, a foundational text of the literary movement known as German Romanticism.

Although Novalis’s love for Sophie has assumed mythic proportions, their time together was short and uneventful. The two met on November 17, 1794 when Novalis was twenty-two and Sophie was only twelve. They became engaged on Sophie's thirteenth birthday March 17, 1795. Sophie became sick in November 1795, and her sickness continued until her death at the age of 15 in March 1797. The loss of Sophie brought about a deep period of mourning and suffering in Novalis' life. Even so, he became engaged to Julie von Charpentier in December 1798.

The depth of Sophie’s love for Novalis is uncertain given her young age. Some of her diary entries, found in Wm. O’Brien's Novalis: Signs of Revolution, provide some insight into her relationship with Novalis:

March 1. Today Hartenberch visited again nothing happened.

March 11. We were alone today and nothing at all happened.