What is Sehnsucht?

Sehnsucht isn’t just “yearning.” It’s a boundless longing for something we can’t fully name—like Novalis's Blue Flower. Only imagination can approach it. Because words fail, we turn to metaphor.

The Beeches by Durand (1845)

Sehnsucht is a dream.

(C.S. Lewis - The Chronicles of Narnia)

“Perhaps it has sometimes happened to you in a dream that someone says something which you don’t understand but in the dream it feels as if it had some enormous meaning … a lovely meaning too lovely to put into words, which makes the dream so beautiful that you remember it all your life and always are wishing you could get into that dream again.”

Sehnsucht is a walk in the woods.

Path in the Woods by Vincent van Gogh (1887)

(Freud)

Freud used the word Sehnsucht to describe a feeling that haunted him throughout his life—a longing to walk in the woods with his father, as he did as a child.

Later, Freud explored the idea of the "oceanic feeling," which he described as a sense of oneness with the universe, often linked to religious or mystical experiences. This "oceanic feeling" has been seen as a form of Sehnsucht, as it reflects a deep longing for a transcendent connection with something greater than oneself.

Vladimirka by Isaac Levitan (1892)

Sehnsucht is a lonely road.

(Richard Strauss)

"I went along the lonely road,

I walk it every day, and always alone...

The road stretches far ahead of me;

my heart has longed only for you, only you"

(From Liliencron Der Haidegänger 1890)

The Magic Circle by John William Waterhouse (1886)

Sehnsucht is a wonderland.

(Friederich Schiller).

"For longing is the soul of man, which turns toward the unknown."(Wilhelm Tell 1804)

Moonrise by the Sea by Caspar David Friedrich (1822)

Sehnsucht is on the yonder side. ·(Goethe)

"Everything transitory is but a symbol; what we long for is the eternal. All that is loveable in this world is but a reflection. What we really love is that by which we are made to feel that which is eternal."

(Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship 1795)

Sehnsucht is a rope over an abyss

(Nietzsche)

Stetind in Fog by Peder Balke 1864

"Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman—a rope over an abyss. A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: what can be loved in man is that he is an overture and a going under. I love those who do not know how to live, except by going under, for they are those who cross over." ("Thus Spoke Zarathustra" 1883-5)

Nietzsche is saying here that sehnsucht is a kind of tension between the animal and the divine—the finite and the infinite. We can transcend our limitations and cross over into a new realm of existence, but this requires courage.

Self‑Portrait as a Young Man by Albrecht Dürer (c.1498)

Sehnsucht is your potential self

(Heidegger)

"Dasein [human being] is essentially characterized by the fact that, in its very being, that being is concerned about its being, and thus this concern permeates its whole being. As this being towards its authentic potentiality-for-being,

("Being and Time" 1927)

If there’s a theme here: Sehnsucht is the recognition that what we are now isn’t enough. It’s the pull toward what could be.