Novalis encountered the writings of the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte at a young age. His collection Fichte Studies testifies to a profound exploration of Fichte’s magnum opus, Foundations of the Entire Science of Knowledge (1794). The striking sentence “Ich bin ich” (left, line 3; “I am I”) is a direct reaction to Fichte’s theory of the “absolute I”, according to which reality comes about only through postulation by the subject.