Working within the context of current Arnim studies, Bonfiglio demonstrates how Novellensammlung 1812 is a coherent opus that allegorically represents a cosmology structured by Arnim's early work in physics along with his reception of Schelling's Naturphilosophie. These influences laid the foundation for an electromagnetic cosmology that informs Arnim's historiography, aesthetics, and poetics. Bonfiglio focuses his study on how Arnim's Romantic science determines his use of tropes, his Romantic idealism, and his own idiom of Romantic irony.