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E.T.A. Hoffmann and Alcohol
Originally published as author's thesis (Ph.D.--Trinity College, Cambridge).
E.T.A. Hoffmann and the Serapiontic Principle
A comprehensive investigation of Hoffmann's "Serapiontic Principle" and what it implies for his oeuvre.Critics have long sought to elucidate the multilayered texts of E. T. A. Hoffmann by applying to them a particular set of theories and ideas that Hoffmann himself subsumed under the heading of the "Serapiontic Principle." This principle, which Hoffmann expounded in his collection of tales Die Serapionsbrüder, involves a complex intersection of the artist's faculties of imagination and perception. However, Hoffmann's mode of presenting his theory presents an unusual problem: rather than the usual form of an essay or treatise, he adopts a fictional framework, complete with a set of "characte...
Tales of Hoffmann
This selection of Hoffmann's finest short stories vividly demonstrates his intense imagination and preoccupation with the supernatural, placing him at the forefront of both surrealism and the modern horror genre. Suspense dominates tales such as Mademoiselle de Scudery, in which an apprentice goldsmith and a female novelist find themselves caught up in a series of jewel thefts and murders. In the sinister Sandman, a young man's sanity is tormented by fears about a mysterious chemist, while in The Choosing of a Bride a greedy father preys on the weaknesses of his daughter's suitors. Master of the bizarre, Hoffman creates a sinister and unsettling world combining love and madness, black humour and bewildering illusion.
E. T. A. Hoffmann
The essays in this volume address a very broad range of E. T. A. Hoffmann's most significant works, examining them through the lens of "transgression." His writings, perhaps more than those of any other German Romantic, portrayed the "dark side" of existence, which the following essays investigate for an Anglophone audience.
Master Flea
Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann was a contemporary of Ludwig von Beethoven: a composer himself, a music critic, and a late-German-Romantic-movement writer of novels and numerous short stories. His incisive wit and poetic imagery allow the reader to peer into the foibles of society and the follies of human psychology. (In fact, Hoffmann’s wit may have gotten him into a bit of legal trouble, as parts of Master Flea were censored and had to be reworked when authorities disliked certain satirical criticisms of contemporary dealings of the court system.) Join gentleman bachelor Peregrine Tyss as his life as a recluse takes a twist, when he gains an epic advantage of tiny proportions. Part proto-science-fiction and part Romantic fantasy, Master Flea follows the fate of a mysterious, captivating princess at the intersection of numerous suitors, human and insect. Like a lesson from a fable or a tale of classical mythology, Hoffmann’s fairy-tale allegory shows how seeking forbidden knowledge can poison the soul, and how following the heart can heal it.
King's Bride
Happily engaged to the poet Amandus, Fraulein Anna is horrified to discover that a beautiful ring, mysteriously deposited upon her finger whilst tending her kitchen garden, forces her into marriage with the gnome Corduanspitz. Can Anna find any way of removing the ring? Will her poet lover shake off his passive demeanour and come to her aid? And has Corduanspitz truly relinquished all ties to his gnome heritage, as he so proudly claims?Around a love story very much of its time, Hoffman arranges a narrative that brings to mind the most successful elements of contemporary magical realism and surreal comedy. Always entertaining, yet capable of a focused though subtle morality, "e;The King's Bride"e; brings disparate elements into a masterful harmony.
Sandman
The young student Nathanael remains haunted by his childhood fears: he is convinced that Coppelius, a strange night-time visitor who used to come to his house to conduct alchemical experiments with his father - the latter dying as a consequence of one of these sessions - was none other than the Sandman, a mythical figure who was said to steal the eyes of children who refused to go to sleep. When a mysterious Italian salesman with a beautiful daughter moves into town, Nathanael's suspicions are reawakened, pushing him to the brink of madness as extraordinary event unfold. First published in 1816, this classic of German Gothic fiction has enthralled generations ever since, and has spawned countless interpretations by critics intrigued by its powerful symbolism. Sigmund Freud famously examined the novella in relation to his concept of the "e;Uncanny"e;, and an extract from this analysis is included in this volume.
The Golden Pot and Other Tales
Hoffmann is among the greatest and most popular of the German Romantics. This selection, while stressing the variety of his work, puts in the foreground those tales in which the real and the supernatural are brought into contact and conflict. The humour of these tales is a result of the incongruity of supernatural beings at large in an ostentatiously everyday world. They include The Golden Pot, recognized as Hoffmann's masterpiece by himself and posterity; its spine-chilling companion tale, The Sandman, which Offenbach drew on for his opera Tales of Hoffmann, and which Freud examines in his essay `The Uncanny'; two longer and more elaborate fantasies, set respectively in Germany and Italy; and the late story, My Cousin's Corner Window, which shows the powers of the imagination being applied to everyday urban life, and marks a transition in European literature generally from Romanticism to Realism. Ritchie Robertson's detailed introduction places the stories in their intellectual and historical context and explores their compelling narrative complexities.
E. T. A. Hoffmann and Music
E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822) was a man of diversified talents, an artist, composer, conductor, critic, jurist, and writer. Although he is best known for his stories, he was a music critic and composer for years before he wrote his celebrated Tales. Hoffmann has long been considered an extremely important force in the shaping of musical romanticism, yet this volume is the first adequate documentation of his influence. Because much of the primary material upon which the study is based, has not previously been available in English, the author has chosen an unusual but especially appropriate format, in which translations of Hoffmann's writings and the author's critical commentary alternate. This book not only fills a unique gap in the history of the Romantic Movement by showing the effect of Hoffmann's writings on the early phases of musical romanticism in Germany, but also presents an over-all picture of romanticism in its incipient years.
Mysticism and Sexuality, E.T.A. Hoffmann: Hoffmann and his sources
This study aims to show that Hoffmann drew on his own psychic experiences relevant to sexuality, and that he also was writing in a broad literary tradition of roguish sexual humor and ironic portrayal of the psychology of desire that had survived to his time in «opera buffa» and comic theater generally, as well as in certain vestiges of the eighteenth-century «conte licencieux». (In a second volume, «Part Two: Interpretations of the Tales», this perspective will be used to provide new readings of each of Hoffmann's four-dozen tales and of his two novels.)
