 If there is a relative distinction between poetry and philosophy in Novalis’s work—the two need one another, yet answer to different human needs and capacities—the situation is more complicated with regard to art and politics. From Heinrich Heine onwards, the aestheticization of politics has been one of the strongest cards played out by the critics of romantic philosophy. And even among the most sympathetic readers of Novalis’s work, the liberally minded will have a hard time swallowing his attempt to create a higher union between politics, art, and religion, and his tendency to valorize religion over philosophy and art. The same applies for the way in which he, for example in a lyrical work such as “Hymns to the Night,” written in response to the death of his young fiancée, infuses the erotic yearning for the beloved with a longing for religious redemption. That said, Novalis’s political thinking neither can nor should be reduced to these potentially reactionary sentiments. Novalis’s idea of a synthesis of art and politics is far more complex than is typically acknowledged by its critics.