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''The Blue Flower'' is a novel by the British author Penelope Fitzgerald. It is a fictional treatment of part of the life of Friedrich van Hardenberg, who, after the events in the novel, became an early practitioner of German Romanticism, using the pseudonym Novalis. It was the first book published by Mariner Books, a new paperback imprint of Houghton Mifflin, which went on to publish paperback editions of all of Penelope Fitzgerald's books. In 2012 ''The Observer'' named ''The Blue Flower'' one of "the ten best historical novels". ==Plot== The novel is based on the life of Friedrich van Hardenberg (1772-1801) before he became famous under the name Novalis. It covers the years from 1790 to 1797 when van Hardenberg was a student of history, philosophy and law at the universities of Jena, Leipzig and Wittenberg, before he embarked on his professional life. In 1794 the 22 year old van Hardenberg becomes mystically attracted to the 12-year-old Sophie von Kuhn, an unlikely choice for an intellectual of noble birth given Sophie's age and lack of education and culture, as well as her physical plainness and negligible material prospects. The couple become engaged a year later but never marry as Sophie dies of consumption a few days after her 15th birthday. The blue flower of the novel's title is the subject of the first chapter of a story that van Hardenberg is writing. In it, a young man longs to see the blue flower that lies incessantly at his heart, so that he can imagine and think about nothing else. Van Hardenberg reads his draft chapter to Sophie and others, and asks "what is the meaning of this blue flower?" No definitive answer is given within the novel, leaving the reader to provide his or her own interpretation. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Blue Flower」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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