Page talk:Novalis Schriften - Volume 2.djvu/159

Kollegium
This word really means something like a professional group, perhaps alluding to group of counsellors or professors. It is translated here as assembly.

Buchstabe
"Buchstalbe" denotes a letter as character of the alphabet. Novalis uses the word primarily in sense of "Sinnbild der (formalen) Genauigkeit symbol of "(formal) accuracy in definition 3 of Buchstabe in the dwds.de Wörterbuch. To convey this sense of "Buchstabe", the two of three occurrences in Faith and Love, and the one occurence in Paralipomena from Faith and Love and the King and Queen are linked to the wiktionary definition of letter of the law, which comes closest to Novalis's primary sense. This definition is also appropriate as it reflects the political nature of this work. The third instance, in the plural form of "Buchstaben", was not linked as its meaning is obvious in context; as of the second instance, occurs earlier in the same Fragment, Fragment 10.

To make matters more complicated, later uses the word "Brief", letter as sense of correspondence, later on. Because is a homonym to letter as character or symbol, this leads to ambiguities and potential associations in English that don't exist in the German.