A Study of the Major Novellas of E.T.A. Hoffmann (Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture)

A Study of the Major Novellas of E. T. A. Hoffmann

The German Romantic writer and composer E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776–1822) is perhaps best known to the English speaking world through Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker, which was based on the novella Nußknacker und Mausekönig, and through Jacques Offenbach’s opera Tales of Hoffmann. During his lifetime, Hoffmann struggled to convince his predominantly bourgeois public of the merits of art and literature. Not surprisingly, many of his most important novellas are bound up with the dilemmas of art and the challenges faced by the Romantic artist, and it is these Künstlernovellen that are the focus of this study. Birgit Röder argues that Hoffmann’s artists are not simply individuals who create works of art, but rather figures through whom the author explores the predicament of those who reject the conventional world of bourgeois reality and seek to assert the claims of the imagination in a world dominated by prosaic rationalism. Contrary to previous scholars however, Röder demonstrates that Hoffmann’s novellas clearly warn against a view of art as an autonomous aesthetic realm cut off from the world of reality. This is particularly apparent in Röder’s analysis of gender relations in Hoffmann’s oeuvre — especially the relationship between (male) artist and (female) muse — which underlines the extent to which art, literature, and the imagination are inseparably bound up with the prevailing social reality. The novellas that are given extensive consideration are Das Fräulein von Scuderi, Der Sandmann, Die Jesuiterkirche in G., Die Fermate, Der Artushof, Don Juan, Das Sanctus, and Rat Krespel. Birgit Röder teaches German language and literature at the University of Reading, UK.

Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture Edited by James Hardin (South Carolina)




     


 

   

CAMDEN HOUSE

Copyright © 2003 Birgit Röder All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation, no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded, or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. First published 2003 by Camden House Camden House is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Inc. PO Box 41026, Rochester, NY 14604–4126 USA and of Boydell & Brewer Limited PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK ISBN: 1–57113–271–6 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Röder, Birgit, 1965– A study of the major novellas of E. T. A. Hoffmann / Birgit Röder p. cm. — (Studies in German literature, linguistics, and culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–57113–271–6 (alk. paper) 1. Hoffmann, E. T. A. (Ernst Theodor Amadeus), 1776–1822 — Criticism and interpretation. I. Title. II. Studies in German literature, linguistics, and culture (Unnumbered) PT2361.Z5 R63 2003 833'.6 — dc21 2002034931 A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. This publication is printed on acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America.

Contents Acknowledgments

vii

Abbreviations

ix

Chronology of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Life and Works

xi

Introduction

1

1: Hoffmann and the Romantic Dilemma

10

I. Madness 2: Das Fräulein von Scuderi

39

3: Der Sandmann

57 II. Love

4: Die Jesuiterkirche in G.

79

5: Die Fermate

94

6: Der Artushof

105 III. Death

7: Don Juan

129

8: Das Sanctus

142

9: Rat Krespel

153

Conclusions

169

Works Consulted

175

Index

189

Acknowledgments

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to the Conference of University Teachers of German in Great Britain and Ireland, who provided me with a very generous scholarship towards the publication costs of this manuscript. I am similarly indebted to the Department of German Studies at the University of Reading, which also offered considerable financial support for my project. I would like to thank the Editors of Colloquia Germanica for permission to use again the material which forms part of the argument in chapter 7, and which originally appeared as “‘Ich sah aus tiefer Nacht feurige Dämonen ihre glühenden Krallen ausstrecken.’ The Problem of the Romantic Ideal in E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Don Juan,” Colloquia Germanica 34 (2001): 1–14. I would also like to thank the Editors of German Life and Letters for permission to reproduce some material which forms the basis of chapter 9, and which originally appeared as “‘Sie ist dahin und das Geheimnis gelöst!’ Künstler und Mensch in E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Rat Krespel,” GLL 53 (2000): 1–16. A great many people helped with the preparation of this volume. I would particularly like to thank my Ph.D. supervisor, Mr. Graham Jackman, as well as my examiners Dr. Ian Roe and Professor Martin Swales for their helpful comments and suggestions. Needless to say, any remaining errors are entirely my own responsibility. I am especially grateful to the editorial team at Camden House, in particular to Jim Hardin, Jim Walker, and Christine Menendez. Finally, I would also like to thank Julia Allen, who offered many invaluable suggestions as to how the manuscript might be improved. WISH TO RECORD MY GRATITUDE

Abbreviations

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N THE TEXT, THE FOLLOWING

abbreviations for primary sources are used. In each case the abbreviation is followed by the volume number, page number and line/paragraph number (when appropriate): FW

Fichte, Johann Gottlieb. Fichte Werke. Ed. Fritz Medicus. 6 vols. Leipzig: Felix Meiner, 1908-12.

GA

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Gedenkausgabe der Werke, Briefe, und Gespräche. Ed. Ernst Beutler. 24 vols. Zurich: Artemis, 1949.

HSW

Hegel, Georg Friedrich Wilhelm. Sämtliche Werke. Ed. Georg Lasson und Johannes Hoffmeister. 30 vols. Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1952.

SW

Hoffmann, E. T. A. Sämtliche Werke. Ed. Walter MüllerSeidel. 5 vols. Munich: Winkler, 1960-65. All quotations are taken from the edition published by the Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, which is identical to that cited above. In accordance with current practice I have adopted the following system when referring to individual volumes in the above edition: — Fantasie- und Nachtstücke [= I] — Die Elixiere des Teufels. Lebensansichten des KaterMurr [= II] — Die Serapionsbrüder [= III] — Späte Werke [= IV] — Schriften zur Musik [= Va] — Nachlese [= Vb]

Briefwechsel

E. T. A. Hoffmanns Briefwechsel. Ed. Friedrich Schnapp. 3 vols. Munich: Winkler, 1967.

Tagebücher

E. T. A. Hoffmann. Tagebücher. Ed. Friedrich Schnapp. Munich: Winkler, 1971.

NS

Novalis Schriften. Die Werke Friedrich von Hardenbergs. 2nd ed. Ed. Paul Kluckhohn and Richard Samuel with the collabo-

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ration of Hans-Joachim Mähl und Gerhard Schulz. 5 vols. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1960-88. SSW

Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph. Schellings Werke. Ed. Manfred Schröter. 12 vols. Munich: Beck und Oldenburg, 1927-54.

KA

Schlegel, Friedrich. Kritische Ausgabe. Ed. Ernst Behler with the collaboration of Jean-Jaques Anstett, Hans Eichner, et al. 35 vols. Paderborn: Schöningh, 1958.

SFSW

Schleiermacher, Friedrich. Sämmtliche Werke. 30 vols. Berlin: Reimer 1843.

The following acronyms are used to refer to periodicals in the bibliography: DVjs

Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte

FMLS

Forum for Modern Language Studies

GLL

German Life and Letters

GQ

The German Quarterly

GR

The Germanic Review

GRM

Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift

HoffmannJb

E.T.A Hoffmann Jahrbuch

JEGP

Journal of English and Germanic Philology

JWGV

Jahrbuch des Wiener Goethe-Vereins

MHG

Mitteilungen der E. T. A. Hoffmann-Gesellschaft

MLN

Modern Language Notes

MLR

Modern Language Review

Monatshefte

Monatshefte für den deutschen Unterricht, deutsche Sprache und Literatur

NGC

New German Critique

NGS

New German Studies

PEGS

Publications of the English Goethe Society

SiR

Studies in Romanticism

WB

Weimarer Beiträge

ZfdPh

Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie

Chronology of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Life and Works 1776

Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann born in Königsberg (24 January).

1778

Divorce of parents. Hoffmann and his mother move to her (widowed) mother Louise Sophie Doerffer.

1786

Meets Theodor Hippel, who will become his lifelong friend.

1790

Takes lessons in music and drawing. His teachers acknowledge his artistic talent.

1792

Embarks on the study of law at the University of Königsberg. Affair with Dora Hatt (until 1797) who is a married woman nine years his senior.

1795

Having passed his first degree (“erstes juristisches Staatsexamen”) he starts to work for the judiciary in Königsberg.

1796

Death of mother. Hoffmann moves to Glogau to join the family of his uncle, J. L. Doerffer. Works for the judiciary in Glogau.

1797

Death of father.

1798

Engagement to his cousin Minna Doerffer. Having passed his second degree (“zweites juristisches Staatsexamen”) he moves to Berlin to work for the Berlin Kammergericht.

1800

Passes final examinations (“drittes juristisches Staatsexamen”). Hoffmann appointed to the post of “Assessor” in Posen. Travels with Hippel to Leipzig and Dresden.

1802

(February) Hoffmann’s caricatures of leading members of Posen society are distributed during the carnival celebrations. Scandal ensues and Hoffmann is punished by being posted to Plock in Poland. (March) Breaks off engagement to Minna. (July) Marries the Pole, Maria Thekla Michaelina Rorer-Trzcinska (Mischa). Moves to Plock in the summer.

1804

Appointed “Regierungsrat” of the southern Prussian administration in Warsaw. Start of his friendship with Julius Eduard Hitzig.

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1805

Birth of his daughter, Cäcilia. Hoffmann’s first public appearance as a conductor. Changes his name to Ernst Theodor Amadeus in honour of his musical idol, Mozart.

1806

French troops occupy Warsaw. Hoffmann relieved of his post.

1807

Hoffmann takes Mischa to relatives in Posen. He sets up in Berlin where he suffers from illness and the “Not- und Hungerjahre” begin. (August) Death of his two year-old daughter.

1808

(April) Hoffmann appointed musical director in Bamberg.

1809

Ritter Gluck published in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung. Hoffmann writes regularly for the journal. Makes the acquaintance of the wine merchant, F. C. Kunz.

1810

(September) Publication of Johannes Kreisler, des Kapellmeisters musikalische Leiden.

1811

Hoffmann falls in love with his pupil, Julia Marc.

1812

Infatuation with Julia intensifies. (December) Julia marries Johann Gerhard Graepel.

1813

Appointed choirmaster in Dresden.

1814

Returns to take up service for the Prussian Civil Service at the Berlin Kammergericht. Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier published in installments.

1815

Friendship with Ludwig Devrient. Die Elixiere des Teufels published in installments.

1816

Appointed “Kammergerichtsrat.” Successful production of the opera Undine.

1817

Fire at the Berliner Schauspielhaus. The set for Undine is destroyed in the fire.

1818

Publication of Seltsame Leiden eines Theaterdirektors.

1819

Appointed to membership of the “Immediat-Untersuchungskommission zur Ermittlung hochverräterischer Verbindungen und anderer hochverräterischer Umtriebe.” Publication of Klein Zaches. First installment of Die Serapionsbrüder appears. Severely ill.

1821

Death of Hoffmann’s cat, Murr.

1822

Illness continues. The manuscript of Meister Floh is confiscated. Start of disciplinary proceedings against Hoffmann on account of the “Knarrpanti-Episode.” Publication of Kater Murr. (25 January) Hoffmann’s death.

Alles geben die Götter, die unendlichen, Ihren Lieblingen ganz, Alle Freuden, die unendlichen, Alle Schmerzen, die unendlichen, ganz. — Goethe

Introduction BER

HOFFMANN KÖNNTEN WIR leicht einerlei Meinung sein. Sein

ÜGenie kann nur von Genielosen verkannt, von Absprechern geläug-

net werden,” wrote Heinrich Voß, the son of the well-known translator 1 of Homer, Johann Heinrich Voß, in his letter of March 1821. Hoffmann, had he learned of this encomium, would surely have been flattered. Nonetheless, it was an opinion shared by few people during his lifetime and even fewer after his death. Hoffmann’s oeuvre, much like Hoffmann’s biography was then — and still is today — the subject of considerable disagreement. Despite harsh criticism, especially from 2 Goethe, Hoffmann attracted an enthusiastic readership during his lifetime. However, in the years following his death, he gradually developed the reputation as “Gespenster-Hoffmann,” a reputation that, at least in the German-speaking world, lasted for almost a century. Although this hardly spoiled the enjoyment of those readers attracted to his fiction, it was partly responsible for his works being largely ignored by critics. It was only at the beginning of the twentieth century that there was a revival of interest in Hoffmann’s work, at least on the part of literary scholars. This interest was prompted by the predominantly biographically-oriented studies of Georg Ellinger, Carl Georg von Maassen, and 3 Hans von Müller, and was the first serious attempt to produce a critical 4 edition of Hoffmann’s collected works. In the early 1920s Hoffmann’s fortunes rose, possibly because his reputation as a tortured and misunderstood artist coincided with the view of the artist figure espoused by the Expressionist writers of the period. Drawing on the more positivistically-oriented scholarship of Gustav Egli and Ernst Heilborn, Walther Harich came to the conclusion that the artist figures in Hoffmann’s fiction are confronted with the eternal question of finding meaning in a world of chaos. Insofar as Harich praises what he regards as the “irrational” dimension of Hoffmann’s work, his approach to the author reflects the idealized image of the artist as a Nietzschean figure detached from the lives of ordinary human beings, which is found in so many 5 literary works in the early part of the twentieth century. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Hoffmann suffered the fate of many German authors: his work was exploited by the Nazis for the pur-

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poses of propaganda and, in the process, became seen through the spectacles of National Socialist ideology. Accordingly, we find Hoffmann’s characters being praised for the qualities of “Heldentum,” “Führertum,” and “Deutschtum,” which they were alleged to display. The distorted character of literary scholarship during this period of history hardly requires further comment. It is clear that the irrational elements in Hoffmann’s work — like those in a number of other writers of his time — lent themselves readily to such ideological exploitation. It comes as little surprise, therefore, that in the immediate postwar period, when scholars were struggling to re-establish the German literary canon, Hoffmann’s work, with its particular emphasis on the irrational, was largely ignored. Given the Romantic nature of Hoffmann’s oeuvre, it is something of a paradox that the renewed interest in his work in the 1950s and 1960s was promoted by two Marxist scholars, Georg Lukács and Hans Mayer. Although Lukács never tired of emphasizing what he regarded as the inherently reactionary outlook of the Romantic school, he makes an exception of Hoffmann, praising him both for his realistic streak and for 6 his sharp-eyed critique of bourgeois philistinism. Hans Mayer also emphasizes the difference between Hoffmann and the other members of the Romantic school, but for slightly different reasons. He points out that Hoffman’s writing shows him to be an opponent of conservative political 7 tendencies in Germany at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Although both Lukács and Meyer laid the groundwork for Hoffmann’s rehabilitation in the Marxist literary canon, their treatment of his work was sketchy at best; it was left to Hans-Georg Werner to provide a more detailed study of the individual works from a Marxist perspective. Werner questions Lukács’s generally positive view of Hoffmann’s work by highlighting the author’s tendency to seek solace in a metaphysical haven. Of course, this is a charge that has often been leveled at Romantic artists by critics with Marxist leanings, but although Werner concedes that Hoffman had little alternative at the point in history when he was writing, he 8 remains sharply critical of the “irrational” elements in his works. Although this criticism may hold good for some of Hoffmann’s stories, Werner’s position is open to objection on several grounds. In Der Sandmann (1816), for instance, Hoffmann goes to some lengths to point out the tragic consequences that ensue when an individual — in this case Nathanael — turns his back on reality and attempts to seek refuge in a “metaphysical haven.” The same could be said in the case of such figures as Cardillac in Das Fräulein von Scuderi (1819) or Berthold in Die Jesuiterkirche in G. (1816). Indeed, it is hard to escape the conclusion that Werner’s reading of the texts is as much conditioned by his interpretative

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model as by the texts themselves; it is precisely the one-sidedness of this approach that the literary scholar and well-known East German author, 9 Franz Fühmann, was to criticize in an essay published in the mid-1970s. Werner’s approach has also been criticized by those who would prefer to approach Hoffmann’s work via the existentialist categories that are so characteristic of a number of schools of German literary criticism in the mid 1960s. Wulf Segebrecht, who published his important full-length study in 10 1967, also starts out from this perspective. However, it soon becomes clear that his target is not the historical materialism of Werner et al., but 11 what Segebrecht refers to as the “unseliger Biographismus” of the positivistically-oriented scholars at the beginning of the century. Given that well over a third of the book is devoted to an analysis of methodology, the reader soon comes to realize that Segebrecht’s study is as much concerned with the methodological underpinnings of literary biography as it is with an analysis of Hoffmann’s individual works. Segebrecht does indeed offer an analysis of the way in which Hoffmann’s work not only reflects the existential despair of its author, but also represents an attempt to confront it. But although Segebrecht is correct to attack the crude, biographically-oriented criticism of his predecessors, his own metaphysical approach to Hoffmann’s work is open to the charge of a certain reductionism. To claim that Hoffmann’s works represent the author’s attempt to resolve existential questions of identity is not only to overlook the important role played by social factors throughout Hoffmann’s work, but also to ignore the very different types of artist figures that confront us in the texts. The existential crisis of the artist and, by extension, the individual is also a central theme in Rüdiger Safranski’s literary biography E. T. A. Hoffmann: Das Leben eines skeptischen Phantasten, published in 1987. Safranski claims that Hoffmann’s existential despair was the driving force 12 behind his creativity; he arrives at the bleak conclusion that Hoffmann’s work excludes the possibility of human redemption and anticipates the solipsistic position of man in the modern era. Safranski’s interpretation of Hoffmann’s oeuvre has pre-empted the attempts of certain critics, notably the Deconstructionists, to go further than this and see Hoffmann as a precursor not of modernist, but of postmodernist aesthetics. And in his explicitly deconstructionist study Manfred Momberger contrasts Hoffmann’s work with that of earlier Romantics, believing that he represents an extreme phase of Romanticism, “wo die romantische Apotheose 13 des Unendlichen im Werk zerfällt,” and that interpretation is out of place. What we are left with instead is the endless free-play of the signifier, and it is from this, paradoxically, that Hoffmann’s texts derive their coherence. But in sidelining interpretation as a legitimate critical activity,

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Momberger ignores precisely that which has fascinated readers and critics alike over the years. Inevitably, Hoffmann’s portrayal of apparently irrational human behavior has prompted critics of a psychoanalytic persuasion to take a close interest in his work. Following the publication of Freud’s rather idiosyncratic essay on Der Sandmann in 1919, the concept of the “uncanny” (“das Unheimliche”) has been inextricably linked with Hoffmann’s no14 vella. Subsequent psychoanalytic critics have tended to approach Hoffmann’s works either as individual case studies or seen them as symptoms of Hoffmann’s alleged neuroses. In recent years, the main proponent of this approach has been James M. McGlathery, who published a comprehensive two-part study of Hoffmann’s work in 1981 and 1985. He claims that, “Hoffmann [is] perhaps the greatest sexual humorist of all time, and 15 certainly [the] master at portraying unconscious sublimation.” Although sexual desire unquestionably plays an important role in some of Hoffmann’s works, McGlathery, like many other critics writing from a Freudian perspective, is often guilty of focusing his attention on this one aspect of the text to the exclusion of all else. Furthermore, this type of literary criticism is open to the charge of reductionism since the determination to interpret the text in accordance with a (highly speculative) a priori model of human behavior inevitably means that the work will be made to fit the theory, rather than vice-versa. Although such psychoanalytic readings of the text are unlikely to convince those skeptical about psychoanalysis, the contribution made by this line of inquiry to the development of theories of narration should not be underestimated. In their quest to uncover new levels of latent meaning in the texts, psychoanalytic critics have prompted other scholars to turn their attention to the narrative structure of Hoffmann’s texts and particularly to the role of the narrator. Very often such analyses of the role of the narrator have been confined to essays that deal with specific texts; where this is the case, I have discussed them in the context of my 16 own analysis of the story. Sheila Dickson offers perhaps the most detailed study of the role of the narrator and narrative perspective in Hoffmann’s work, although her study is not solely confined to Hoffmann but 17 embraces other writers from the Romantic period. Dickson challenges, quite correctly in my view, the assumption that the Romantics turned their backs on reality and provides a comprehensive analysis of Romantic thought and philosophy. Drawing on a wide range of examples, she identifies a number of different narrative strategies, including the interplay of first and third person narrators, and the creative role of the reader. Her main argument is “to consider form rather than content as

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a reflection of the experience of the world.” The disruption of narrative perspective brought about by a combination of the devices listed above reflects the fundamental Romantic view that the subjectivity of all individual perspectives precludes the existence of an objective truth. Dickson challenges the assumptions of such theorists as Joseph Kunz, who have seen the lack of a unified narrative perspective as a 19 weakness of Romantic fiction; for Dickson, of course, it is its very essence. Her study of narrative strategies is extremely wide-ranging, however it is largely confined to questions of form and touches on questions of interpretation only when she discusses Romantic fiction as an expression of a world experience that is both fragmented and relative. As a result, the reader in search of a new interpretation of Hoffmann’s fiction is likely to be disappointed.

The Ideal and Reality The aim of the present study is to show how Hoffmann explores the conflicts that arise whenever an individual becomes conscious of the discrepancy between a Platonic, metaphysical realm of ideas and the world of everyday reality. In the novellas, these conflicts are almost always presented by means of a central figure who considers himself an artist and who is regarded by society as an outsider. This narrative strategy is, of course, one used by others. Three of Hoffmann’s near contemporaries — Tieck, Wackenroder, and Eichendorff — often present the conflict between the Ideal and reality via the figure of an artist. However, the close correlation between art and questions of an existential, philosophical nature is particularly pronounced in Hoffmann’s work — above all in the figure of Kreisler, the long suffering and misunderstood artist. This itself may be a reflection of the fact that Hoffmann not only thought of himself as an artist first and foremost, despite working for the judiciary, and was active in a variety of disparate artistic genres as a theater director, caricaturist, composer, and writer. The term artist, however, requires some clarification. Although it is true that a number of Hoffmann’s characters earn their living from the arts as painters, musicians, and composers, he nevertheless saw a wider Romantic connotation to the term artist, which goes beyond those endowed with the skills to practice the arts to embrace the individual who longs to capture the Ideal in his creative life. This approach is entirely in keeping with the spirit of Friedrich Schlegel’s remark: “Nicht die Kunst und die Werke machen 20 den Künstler, sondern der Sinn und die Begeisterung und der Trieb.” And it is in this sense that Hoffmann treats, for example, the character

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Krespel in Rat Krespel as an artist even though he is not, strictly speaking, a professional artist in the sense that the painter, Berthold, in Die Jesuiterkirche in G. is. Furthermore, as Hoffmann shows, the crisis experienced by the artist is not simply played out at the level of the individual. As we shall see, the reasons for the downfall of a number of Hoffmann’s figures can be traced back to social factors; it is often the values and conventions of bourgeois society that make the artist feel isolated. The most pernicious of these bourgeois values is a philistine attitude to art, which regards it in purely functional terms, as something decorative, and does not recognize it as a means of cognition in its own right. In such conditions the artist will find his creative imagination severely restricted, and in order to free it, he is tempted to take up positions of an increasingly extreme nature. In this context, it is important to remember that the artist is not simply financially dependent upon his patrons, but also needs an “interlocutor,” a partner who is both willing and able to participate in the dialogue of art — and although Hoffmann remains fascinated by the figure of the artist, on another level his novellas are about the consumers of art. When the latter refuse to participate in this dialogue and are interested only in the superficial, decorative aspects of the artist’s work, the consequences can be catastrophic. For if an artist is shunned by his public, he is cut off from society and becomes isolated, a development that, in extreme cases, can lead to madness, suicide, and even murder. This can be seen perhaps most clearly in the figures of Nathanael in Der Sandmann and Cardillac in Das Fräulein von Scuderi, whose deaths can both be attributed partly to social factors. In Hoffmann’s presentation of the artist, there is another important factor that has all too often been ignored by the critics, namely the question of gender relations. In all the novellas dealt with in this study (and in many of Hoffmann’s others novellas), Hoffmann explores the relationship between the male artist and his work on the one hand, and on the other, a woman who plays a crucially important role for that artist. Hoffmann’s artists are shown to be all too willing to endorse an idealized image of woman, and almost all of them raise one particular woman to the status of an ideal. The consequences of this Romantic idealization — a process for which the individual artists and the society in which they live are both partly responsible — vary considerably in each case. However, the resulting crisis that the artist experiences can almost always be traced back to the same cause, the realization that what he had believed to be the Ideal is, in fact, “merely” a (female) human being, a discovery that underlines the illusory nature of the Ideal he has pursued hitherto. Individual artists will all react differently to this process of disillusionment depending on their

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particular state of mind: Traugott in Der Artushof (1816) arrives at a state of ironic self-understanding; Berthold in Die Jesuiterkirche in G. grows to hate the woman concerned; and Nathanael, in Der Sandmann, is driven mad and eventually takes his own life. Given the breadth and complexity of Hoffmann’s oeuvre, it would clearly be beyond the scope of a study of this kind to embark upon a comprehensive, detailed interpretation of all his novellas; accordingly, I have opted to deal in greater depth with a representative selection. First, I have selected two of the best known novellas, Der Sandmann and Das Fräulein von Scuderi, which have largely been responsible for Hoffmann’s enduring reputation and popularity. I have then tried to strike a balance between the Fantasie- und Nachtstücke and Die Serapionsbrüder. In the case of the latter, I have not devoted much space to an analysis of the relationship between the individual stories and the overall narrative framework in which they are set; this is because all of the novellas that I have analyzed were published independently of one another in various magazines and literary journals, while the narrative framework of Die Serapionsbrüder was added at a much later stage. It is not my intention to suggest that the narrative framework is of no significance for the interpretation of the stories themselves — and where it does play an important role I have alluded to that fact — yet in the context of the present study it seems, for the most part, to be of secondary importance. In the light of the considerations above, I have chosen to focus on the following novellas: Der Sandmann, Das Fräulein von Scuderi, Die Jesuiterkirche in G., Die Fermate, Der Artushof, Don Juan, Das Sanctus, and Rat Krespel. I have approached these writings not in terms of chronology, because they were all written and published over a brief span of five years, but rather in terms of specific common themes, namely madness, love, and death. All three are closely bound up with the artist’s quest for the Ideal. Madness and death represent two potential outcomes should the artist be thwarted in his quest; whereas, love — like art — constitutes a sphere of human experience for the Romantic artist in which it is possible to obtain a glimpse of the Ideal.

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Notes 1

Johann Heinrich Voß, Briefe von Johann Heinrich Voß, 2 vols., ed. Abraham Voß (Halberstadt: Brüggemann, 1834), Vol. 2, 93. 2

In his conversation with Eckermann of 2 April 1829, Goethe comments: “welcher treue, für Nationalbildung besorgte Teilnehmer hat nicht mit Trauer gesehen, daß die krankhaften Werke des leidenden Mannes [Hoffmann] lange Jahre in Deutschland wirksam gewesen und solche Verirrungen als bedeutend-fördernde Neuigkeiten gesunden Gemütern eingeimpft worden.” See GA, XIV, 928. 3 See Georg Ellinger, E. T. A. Hoffmann. Sein Leben und seine Werke (Hamburg and Leipzig: Voß, 1894) and diverse studies by Carl Georg von Maassen, which were published, above all, in Der grundgescheute Antiquarius. Hans von Müller had already begun in 1908 to compile an edition of Hoffmann’s correspondence, diaries, and other biographically related writings. 4

Carl Georg von Maassen, E. T. A. Hoffmanns Sämtliche Werke, (Munich, Leipzig: Müller, 1908–28) and Georg Ellinger, E. T. A. Hoffmanns Werke (Berlin: Bong, 1927) [both unfinished]. 5

Walther Harich, E. T. A. Hoffmann. Das Leben eines Künstlers. 2 vols. (Berlin: Reiss, 1920), vol. 2, 331. 6 Georg Lukács, Skizze einer Geschichte der neueren deutschen Literatur (Berlin: Aufbau, 1953), 57. 7

Hans Mayer, “Die Wirklichkeit E. T. A. Hoffmanns: Ein Versuch,” in E. T. A. Hoffmann: Poetische Werke, 6 vols. (Berlin: Aufbau, 1958), Vol. 1, v–lv, (xxxviii). 8

Hans-Georg Werner, E. T. A. Hoffmann: Darstellung und Deutung der Wirklichkeit im dichterischen Werk (Weimar: Arion, 1962), 184.

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See Franz Fühmann, “Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Amadeus Hoffmann: Ein Vortrag,” Neue Deutsche Literatur 24 (1976): 91–104 (97–98). Fühmann also takes issue with Lukács’s assessment of Hoffmann, but he takes a rather different approach from Werner in so doing. On this see Sigrid Kohlhof, Franz Fühmann und E. T. A. Hoffmann: Romantikrezeption und Kulturkritik in der DDR (Frankfurt, Bern, New York, Paris: Lang, 1988).

10

Wulf Segebrecht, Autobiographie und Dichtung: Eine Studie zum Werk E. T. A. Hoffmanns (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1967). 11

Segebrecht, Autobiographie und Dichtung, 7.

12

Rüdiger Safranski, E. T. A. Hoffmann: Das Leben eines skeptischen Phantasten (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1987), 484. 13 Manfred Momberger, Sonne und Punsch: Die Dissemination des romantischen Kunstbegriffs bei E. T. A. Hoffmann (Munich: Fink, 1986), 159. 14

Sigmund Freud, Das Unheimliche (1919): Studienausgabe, eds. Alexander Mitscherlich et al., vol. 4 (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1970), 241–74. 15

James M. McGlathery, Mysticism and Sexuality: E. T. A. Hoffmann. Part One: Hoffmann and his Sources (Las Vegas: Lang, 1981) and Mysticism and Sexuality:

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E. T. A. Hoffmann. Part Two: Interpretation of the Tales (New York, Bern, Frankfurt: Lang, 1985), 213. 16

See, for example, my discussion of John Ellis’s essays on Der Sandmann, Das Fräulein von Scuderi, and Rat Krespel. John M. Ellis, “Clara, Nathanael, and the Narrator: Interpreting Hoffmann’s Der Sandmann,” GQ 54 (1981): 1–18; “E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Das Fräulein von Scuderi,” MLR 64 (1969): 340–50; and Narration in the German Novelle: Theory and Interpretation (Cambridge: CUP, 1974). 17

Sheila Dickson, The Narrator, Narrative Perspective and Narrative Form in the Short Prose Works of the German Romantics (Stuttgart: Heinz, 1994). 18 19

Dickson, The Narrator, Narrative Perspective and Narrative Form, 44.

Josef Kunz, Die deutsche Novelle zwischen Klassik und Romantik (Berlin: Schmidt, 1971), 162. 20 KA II, 154, §63.

1: Hoffmann and the Romantic Dilemma

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that Hoffmann read widely and was influenced by diverse aesthetic theories (not all of which are compatible with one another), the fact that there are few detailed references in his diaries and correspondence to the works of his contemporaries makes it difficult to identify which of them had any profound influence on his work. It is particularly hard to ascertain how familiar he was with contemporary theoretical discussions and to what extent he accepted or rejected the 1 ideas of his contemporaries. Nonetheless, we can identify a number of key themes that were of particular interest to him and constantly recur in various guises in his individual works, not least the nature of the Ideal and the role of the artist in society. The themes of art and the artist are bound up with a range of other issues, including the relationship of art to love and death, and the concept of Romantic irony. In German Classicist aesthetics that focus extensively on the imitation of ancient models of harmony while striving to re-create the conditions of a Golden Age of the past, a work of art functions essentially as a means to an end. In other words, it is a means of bringing about the aesthetic education of human beings. By contrast, Romantic aesthetics look to a point in the future when all oppositions — between imagination and reality, mind and matter, and the realm of metaphysics and the material world of reality — will have been transcended. Although a work of art also occupies a privileged position for the Romantics and makes a crucial contribution to the aesthetic education of human beings, the central aim of the Romantic project is to capture the Ideal ever more fully and thereby bring the 2 individual into closer contact with the Absolute. The philosophical underpinning for such views is set out in the writings of a number of German Idealist thinkers — notably Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel — who draw on certain concepts put forward by perhaps the most influential philosopher of the Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant. They claim that the groundwork prepared by Kant is then 3 extended and developed to its logical conclusion in their own works. These proponents of transcendental Idealism suggest that the material world of reality is merely a part of a larger whole, beyond which there is another infinite realm not normally accessible to ordinary mortals, but LTHOUGH WE KNOW

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which is, nonetheless, approachable in other ways. This is perhaps the central tenet of Romantic art and philosophy, both of which strive to bring the metaphysical realm within the experience of the individual. To this end, a total, or near total, synthesis of art and philosophy is essential if the oppositions listed above are to be transcended. Most Romantic theoreticians see art as offering the best means of drawing closer to the Ideal. Hegel, despite acknowledging the importance of art, places philosophy above it. In his view art, religion, and philosophy all have essentially the same end, namely the establishment of a harmonious balance between form and content. Since artistic beauty (“das Kunstschöne”) is a result of human creativity, it is of greater intrinsic value than 4 natural beauty (“das Naturschöne”). But unlike most Romantics, Hegel does not see art as the realm where harmony between mind and matter is best achieved; rather it is philosophy that is best suited to this purpose because it is here that the “Weltgeist” is able to reflect on itself. Nevertheless, Hegel devotes much time to the question of aesthetics, noting that 5 “Das Schöne bestimmt sich [. . .] als das sinnliche Scheinen der Idee.” A beautiful work of art is an example of a reconciliation between form and content insofar as the abstract Idea (“Idee”) is embodied in the sensuous appearance of the work and shines through. The more perfect the relationship between form and content, the more perfect the work of art; the more perfect the work of art, the closer it gets to the Absolute and ultimately to that point where the “Weltgeist” is able to contemplate itself. We can infer, therefore, that Hegel believed the work of art to be a means to an end insofar as its function is to point to something beyond itself, namely the Idea (“Idee”). Hegel’s preference for philosophy over art is not shared by Friedrich Schlegel, who saw art not merely as a means to express the Idea (“Idee”), but as an autonomous activity in its own right, not requiring any kind of teleological justification. Art — like beauty — simply exists for its own sake: Eine Philosophie der Poesie überhaupt aber, würde mit der Selbständigkeit des Schönen beginnen, mit dem Satz, daß es vom Wahren und Sittlichen getrennt sei und getrennt sein solle, und daß es mit diesem 6 gleiche Rechte habe. [. . .] Sie [die Schönheit] ist freilich nicht bloß der leere Gedanke von etwas, was hervorgebracht werden soll, sondern zugleich die Sache selbst, eine der ursprünglichen Handlungsweisen des menschlichen Geistes; nicht bloß eine notwendige Fiktion, sondern 7 auch ein Faktum, nämlich ein ewig transzendentales.

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Although Schlegel is at pains to emphasize the autonomy of art, even he concedes that the closest approximation to the Ideal is reached through a synthesis of art and philosophy: “Alle Kunst soll Wissenschaft, und alle Wissenschaft Kunst werden; Poesie und Philosophie sollen vereinigt 8 sein.” Here we can begin to discern the intimate interplay between philosophy and art in Romantic literary theory. The task of philosopher and poet is essentially the same: to bring us ever closer to the Ideal. But whereas Hegel looks first to the philosopher to achieve this, Schlegel places the artist first in his theoretical hierarchy: “Der Dichter kann 9 wenig vom Philosophen, dieser aber viel von ihm lernen.” Moreover, since the rational, mechanistic laws of Nature offer no adequate account of the Ideal, Schlegel believes this can only be found in a transcendent world, which — in his view — is identical with the realm of art. For it is only in this aesthetic realm that we can transcend the restrictions of rational logic and view the world as an organic whole: Wenn rein logisch-philosophisch [. . .] dies Absolute unerkennbar ist und dennoch Wahrheit möglich sein soll, müssen Erkennen und Wollen auf eine unmittelbare und selbstevidente Weise mit dem Absoluten verbunden sein, die “Glauben,” “Gefühl,” “Enthusiasmus,” “Anschauung” 10 (intellektuelle oder ästhetische) oder “Divination” genannt werden.

Thus art, unlike philosophy, can detach itself from the laws of logic and reason, and satisfy the innate human desire to grasp the Ideal by mediating between the constraints of the mechanistic world of Nature and the realm of the Absolute. Schlegel goes on to claim that art cannot capture the Absolute directly, but can express it only through symbol and allegory. That is to say, the Absolute can only be presented via allusion: [. . .] wodurch überall der Schein des Endlichen mit der Wahrheit des Ewigen in Beziehung gesetzt und eben dadurch in sie aufgelöst wird: durch Allegorie, durch Symbole, [. . .]. Mit anderen Worten: Alle Schönheit ist Allegorie. Das Höchste kann man eben, weil es unaus11 sprechlich ist, nur allegorisch sagen.

This explains why symbol and allegory play such an important role in Romantic art. Indeed Schlegel goes even further than this and maintains that the Absolute is best captured by abstract (i.e. nonmimetic) artistic genres. This assertion explains the Romantics’ passion for music, an art form that profoundly interested Hoffmann himself:

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Sie [die Instrumentalmusik] ist die romantischste aller Künste, beinahe möchte man sagen, allein echt romantisch, denn nur das Unendliche ist ihr Vorwurf. [. . .] Wie führt diese wundervolle Komposition [Beethovens Sinfonie in C-moll] in einem fort und fort steigenden Klimax den Zuhörer unwiderstehlich fort in das Geisterreich des Unendlichen. (SW I, 41–44)

The most important aspect of Romantic art, according to Schlegel, is not its capacity to represent the material world, but rather its capacity to represent the world of the imagination. As a result, the role of the individual artist becomes crucial; his enthusiasm for the Ideal leads inevitably to a strong desire for creative self-expression. This sense of enthusiasm is (at least in theory) not predicated on the needs of his public, but is something that defines the nature of the creative artist himself. Indeed as Monroe Beardsley writes, “The Romantic view is that poetry is a katharsis for the 12 poet primarily, and only secondarily for the reader.” Furthermore, the artist’s task is not simply to express his conscious perception of reality, but to bring to light the unconscious promptings of his imagination. In the course of this process, his unconscious transcends the constraints of Nature and embraces the Ideal momentarily, providing a glimpse of it in the work of art. Thus the Romantic artist comes to be seen as a creative genius inspired by the pursuit of the Ideal that is latent within him: Man kann sagen, daß es ein charakteristisches Kennzeichen des dich13 tenden Genies ist, viel mehr zu wissen, als es weiß, daß es weiß.

Although the artist is initially unaware of the Ideal within him (although it is precisely this that eventually shines through in his art), he is influenced by the Ideal, making him and his art a pars pro toto of the underlying principle of unity: “Die Einheit in der Vielfalt.” The individual’s imagination, his subjective view of reality, and its subsequent expression in his art are all manifestations of the essential unity and harmony of the world, all of which explains why the Romantics attributed a cognitive function to the imagination. Just as the totality of the world is made up of different perceptions of reality, so too the disparate creative visions of individual artists make up a totality in their own right. The Romantic world is a world in a constant state of change. By creating works of art that are symbolic reflections of the Ideal, the artist is involved in the process of the “Weltgeist,” arriving at a position of full self-knowledge. Thus not only is the imagination necessary to create art, but conversely, art is necessary to develop the imagination. As we have seen, art offers the individual a means of transcending the incomplete view of the unity of the cosmos that is reflected in his view

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of everyday reality. However, art is only one way of approaching the Ideal. In order to exploit art’s potential fully, it needs to be complemented by other cognitive realms like philosophy or religion. The harmonious unity of art, philosophy, and religion — in particular Catholicism with its symbolic rites — is central to Schlegel’s Romantic vision: “Wer Religion hat, wird Poesie reden. Aber um sie zu suchen und 14 zu entdecken, ist Philosophie das Werkzeug.” At the same time however, identifying Romantic poetry proves to be problematic, as he adds: Die romantische Poesie ist eine progressive Universalpoesie. [. . .] Die romantische Dichtart ist noch im Werden; ja das ist ihr eigentliches We15 sen, daß sie nur ewig werden, nie vollendet sein kann.

Schlegel is aware of the paradoxical character of this statement: since the process of becoming (“Werden”) is dialectical, it is theoretically limitless. Here the notion of Romantic longing, Sehnsucht, plays a crucial role. It can be defined as the desire to grasp the Absolute, a longing for that which, by definition, cannot be fully grasped or represented. Although the attempt to define the indefinable may seem a fruitless activity, Romantic theoreticians firmly believed in the existence of such a transcendent realm and yearned for it continually. As Novalis says, “Wir suchen überall das Unbe16 dingte und finden immer nur Dinge.” And it is this longing for the infinite that he attempted to capture in his novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen and in the portrayal of the protagonist’s quest for the “blaue Blume”: “die blaue Blume sehn’ ich mich zu erblicken. Sie liegt mir unaufhörlich im 17 Sinn, und ich kann nichts anders dichten und denken.” Tempting though it may be to define the Absolute in purely negative terms — as that which can never be fully grasped, the Romantic artist never wholly abandons the possibility of capturing it in artistic form even though this involves him in an obvious paradox — and one which he 18 feels only too keenly. As Schlegel observes: “Hat man nun einmal die Liebhaberei fürs Absolute und kann nicht davon lassen: so bleibt einem kein Ausweg, als sich selbst immer wieder zu widersprechen und entge19 gengesetzte Extreme zu verbinden.” The quest for a synthesis of such extremes to capture the Ideal in material form is the true task of art. When this does occur, the moment is inevitably short-lived, a mere glimpse of the Absolute, after which the individual always lapses back into the material world where he again returns to a condition of longing. How is the artist to come to terms with this paradoxical aspect of Romantic longing without its bringing about his downfall? The answer lies in the concept of Romantic irony.

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In Schlegel’s theory, irony is much more than a rhetorical trope; it is an aesthetic principle — hence the use of the qualifying adjective “Romantic.” The Romantic artist is suspended between two worlds — the material and the metaphysical — two worlds which are, in principle, completely cut off from one another. It is the artist’s fate, as a human being, to remain subject to the constraints of the temporal world while his imagination makes him yearn for the higher realm of the Ideal. This longing is doomed to remain unfulfilled; hence the paradox — and as 20 Schlegel notes, “Ironie ist die Form des Paradoxen” — that has its roots in the “Gefühl von dem unauflöslichen Widerstreit des Unbeding21 ten und des Bedingten.” Although the experience of this paradox may be (and indeed often is) a catastrophic revelation for the individual or artist, it can also provide him with the necessary detachment. By adopting an ironic attitude towards himself and to the Ideal, it becomes easier for him to accept the impasse that confronts him. Accordingly the artist attempts to inhabit a standpoint outside of himself from which the discrepancy between the world of the imagination and the world of reality might be transcended in an aesthetic world of appearance (“Schein”). Such a dialectical synthesis is not, however, a permanent or static solution; it is one that is continually developing and involving the artist in an endless process of reflection. Indeed as Schlegel observes: “Ironie ist 22 klares Bewußtsein der ewigen Agilität, des unendlich vollen Chaos.” Just as Schlegel’s general theory of Transzendentalphilosophie — which forms the basis of his theory of Romantic irony — is characterized by an endless process of poetic reflection, so too Romantic irony is a phenomenon in a state of constant flux. As the artist becomes conscious of this “endless process of reflection,” he succeeds in gaining an essential degree of detachment vis-à-vis himself, the work of art, and the Ideal. The paradox of two irreconcilable worlds is apparent in any attempt to embody the Ideal in a work of art. The Romantic artist, who aspires to synthesize these two worlds in a work of art — to represent the unrepresentable — is doomed to fail on the grounds that here form is being confused with content. The artist risks falling prey to an illusion if he ignores this fact, therefore he must recognize the nature of the dilemma. He who believes that it is possible to bring about a lasting synthesis between the world of the Ideal and the material world, between content and form, has lost touch with the world of reality; he has no way out of the impasse, for not even Romantic irony can soften the blow that will inevitably destroy him. All that Romantic irony can offer the Romantic artist is some degree of protection from insanity by portraying the world as an endless series of dialectical oppositions between form (“Materie”) and content (“Idee”).

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However, Romantic irony should not be seen simply as a mechanism to protect the Romantic artist. It is far more than that: it enables him to transcend his own being and to be resigned to the sobering fact that his work will inevitably fall short of the original idea that inspired its creation. That is to say, the artist must adopt an ironic perspective on his own work if he is to free himself from illusion. Thus in Schlegel’s essay on Wilhelm Meister, we read that: Wir müssen uns über unsre eigne Liebe erheben, und was wir anbeten, in Gedanken vernichten können: sonst fehlt uns, was wir auch für andre Fähigkeiten haben, der Sinn für das Unendliche und mit ihm der Sinn 23 für die Welt.

Those who can maintain a sense of ironic detachment about their situation, accepting their position in a paradoxical world and criticizing their work to the point of destroying it, will break free from the constraints of the temporal world. But it is not easy to attain such a state of mind since the artist is permanently at risk of being overcome by his longing for the Ideal: Es gibt Künstler, welche nicht etwa zu groß von der Kunst denken, denn das ist unmöglich, aber doch nicht frei genug sind, sich selbst 24 über ihr Höchstes zu erheben.

Once an artist has mastered this process of “Selbstschöpfung und 25 Selbstvernichtung,” which requires a supreme effort, he can gradually aspire to a more stable existence. Creation and destruction are part of an on-going cycle offering the possibility of a reconciliation between the two worlds. Thus, Romantic irony assumes a regulatory function, emphasizing the crucial importance of both worlds and particularly the aspect that at any one moment can disappear from view. Not only does Romantic irony enable the Romantic artist to acknowledge the threat posed by a metaphysical world, it also provides a critical perspective on the material, rational world, whose claim to be privileged above all else should be greeted with skepticism. What is true for the artist is no less true for the reader. When Tieck demands that the artist adopt a detached attitude both to himself and to his creation — “Sie [die Ironie] ist die Kraft, die dem Dichter die Herrschaft über den Stoff erhält; er soll sich nicht an denselben verlieren, sondern über ihm stehen. So bewahrt ihn die Ironie vor Einseitigkeit 26 und leerem Idealisieren” — this is not without implications for the reader, who must also bear in mind the irreconcilability of the two worlds so as not to mistake the man-made work of art (i.e. text) for the Ideal itself. The work of art is no more than a medium representing the

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Ideal in symbolic form; it is not the Ideal itself. And thus the reader must remain at a critical distance from it.

Hoffmann’s Narrators Many of Hoffmann’s literary works have a highly complex narrative structure, which often has a crucial bearing on the way that events are presented and interpreted. Apart from those stories that are embedded within an overall narrative framework such as Die Serapionsbrüder, and those that take the form of a story-within-a-story, many of his novellas, especially Don Juan and Das Sanctus, contain so many different narrative levels that it is hard — if not impossible — to distinguish between them. Even in those stories where Hoffmann presents us with a single narrator, often the perspective from which events are recounted is anything but straightforward, with the result that the reader is both confused and provoked. In her detailed study, The Narrator, Narrative Perspective and Narrative Form in the Short Prose Works of the German Romantics, Sheila Dickson has drawn up a typology of narrative devices used in Hoffmann’s works. These include the third-person narrator who, at least at first sight, simply recounts what happens; the first-person narrator who is caught up in the events of the story and provides a commentary on the action as it takes place; and the omniscient narrator who often has access to more information than the fictional characters themselves. All of this is further complicated by the fact that even where one narrative stance can be identified, it is not always consistently maintained throughout the story. Moreover, even in a novella such as Das Fräulein von Scuderi, where the story is recounted by the third-person narrator Sylvester, who is not actually involved in the action, the manner in which it is recited has a bearing on the narrative’s effect on the listeners. The narrator’s bias is discernible to any attentive reader who is bound to wonder why he recounts the events in a particular order, what it is that lies behind the choice of linguistic expressions, emphases, and so on, and whether certain facts have not been omitted, which might affect the way the story is received. Having opted for one version of events over another, the narrator has already subjected them to a process of selection and censorship, with the result that the reader is seduced — perhaps unwittingly — into embracing a perspective on events that may not be altogether accurate. In many of Hoffmann’s stories, however, the reader is faced with many perspectives and must select for himself which of these he regards as the most reliable. The absence of a consistent narrative perspective compels the reader to take an active role in the process of interpretation;

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it is no longer possible to take what is narrated simply at face value, and the reader has no choice but to consider the standpoint from which the events are being narrated, as well as just what is at stake in the particular version with which he is presented. Furthermore, the reader is bound to ask himself which of the various narrators he should believe and whether it is possible to ascertain beyond doubt what really happens in the story. The difficulty of establishing an objective view of events is a common feature of many works of Romantic German fiction. In emphasizing the subjective character of perception, and thereby breaking with the Enlightenment’s faith in the theoretical possibility of establishing an objective view of the external world, the German Romantics embarked on an epistemological project that, in its extreme form, anticipates the solipsistic tendencies of some theories of postmodernism. For contemporary theorists of postmodernist aesthetics, no speaker/writer is capable of offering an objective account of reality since he inevitably views the world from a subjective perspective. Tzvetan Todorov describes this phenomenon as follows: Jede Rede ist zugleich Aussage und Aussagen. Als Aussage bezieht sie sich auf das Subjekt der Aussage, bleibt also objektiv. Als Aussagen bezieht sie sich auf das Subjekt des Aussagens und behält einen subjektiven Aspekt, denn sie stellt in jedem Fall eine durch dieses Subjekt 27 vollendete Tat dar.

Seen in this light, the speaking/writing subject can never — despite his best intentions — act as a neutral agency. If this is indeed the case, what are the implications for the relationship of the writer and the reader to the literary text? In its extreme form, it would seem to rule out the possibility of arriving at a stable reading of the text — and perhaps the possibility of interpretation altogether. Indeed this line of argument is often found in recent critical approaches to Hoffmann’s work, and in the introduction, I have discussed such approaches in more detail. Proponents of this view claim that the complexity of the narrative structures in Hoffmann’s works reflects a typically Romantic concept of the helplessness of the individual when confronted with the chaos of the world; in other words, Hoffmann deliberately sets out to confuse the reader to emphasize the futility of trying to break free from the prison house of his subjectivity. Put another way it is the view that Hoffmann’s texts defy interpretation, and that their significance consists, paradoxically, precisely in the way that they resist interpretation. At first sight this seems a compelling view, not least because it appears to be quite unassailable. Any critic who attempts to identify a clear moral standpoint by the author can be dismissed on the grounds that such inter-

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pretations are nothing more than a reflection of that critic’s own subjective viewpoint. And of course this stance is one that — it is claimed — applies not only to Hoffmann’s works, but to all literary texts. Yet there is something uncomfortably reductive about this approach; it implies that either the real significance of all literary texts consists in reminding us of the futility of the interpretative quest, or it requires us to dismiss the moral standpoint of both the author and the critic as merely a product of ideol28 ogy and individual subjectivity, and as such, without any claim to truth. Many contemporary critics, not least those who regard Hoffmann as a precursor of postmodernist aesthetics, have been tempted to see the author’s works in such terms. Yet there are a number of hints in the texts themselves that suggest that such a view is untenable. In this context it is important to bear in mind the sheer volume of Hoffmann’s oeuvre. Although Hoffmann’s activities as a writer may have been partly motivated by the need to address his often desperate financial circumstances, it seems intrinsically implausible that all of his works (many of which were written under severe time-pressure due to his professional engagements as a judge) could have been written to demonstrate that the quest for meaning and interpretation is illusory. Indeed it is hard to imagine how Hoffmann’s works have attracted — and continue to attract — such an enthusiastic readership if all of them can be reduced to a simple assertion that the world we inhabit is inscrutable. At the same time, when we consider just how often Hoffmann does arrive at judgements of morality and fact, both in his capacity as a literary author and a professional judge — this is evidenced not only by his diaries and private correspondence, but also by the reactions of his contemporaries — it seems highly improbable that it can have been his intention to suggest that this is merely a futile exercise. How could such a view be reconciled with the fact that throughout his life he enjoyed a reputation among his contemporaries as a keen critic of the Prussian civil service and a merciless debunker of bourgeois philistinism? Furthermore, as a judge he felt bound to reach judgements of moral culpability — he was renowned for his just pronouncements — which were to have far reaching consequences for both the defendants and society as a whole. How is this to be reconciled with a view of the world as nothing more than an amalgam of subjective perspectives in which no one point of view is to be preferred over another? Hoffmann is often seen as a deeply divided character who is torn between the claims of the material world of reality and the realm of the imagination. But even if one is inclined to endorse this view of the man, this need not entail that although he was incapable of adopting a clear-

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cut position on matters of art and justice, he was incapable of doing the same in his literary works. To see Hoffmann in such terms is to see him as either a hypocrite or as an incurable cynic, neither of which is borne out by the facts of his life. If we assume that Hoffmann’s works are about more than simply highlighting the impossibility of constructing a coherent vision of the world, we are left with the question of how to interpret the multiplicity of often contradictory narrative standpoints in his works. The answer lies, I believe, in his desire to encourage the reader to adopt an active — and critical — attitude to what has been narrated. Accordingly, the attentive reader will discover many hints in the text that he should not simply take at face value. Stylistically, these hints are presented in a variety of forms, sometimes in the form of a direct appeal to the reader to consider the truth and objectivity of what he has just discovered; sometimes through the inclusion of two mutually incompatible views of the same situation; and sometimes through the presentation of a deliberately exaggerated opinion on a matter of fact. As a result, the reader — like the judge in the court who has to weigh up conflicting pieces of evidence before arriving at a balanced and reasoned judgement of the facts — is forced to consider a variety of different perspectives before constructing his own version of events. Thus the reader of Der Sandmann, for example, has to come to terms with two seemingly contradictory assessments of Clara’s personality: “Clara hatte die lebenskräftige Fantasie des heitern unbefangenen, kindischen Kindes, ein tiefes weiblich zartes Gemüt [. . .]” (SW I, 345) and “Clara wurde deshalb von vielen kalt, gefühllos, prosaisch gescholten” (345). Which of these is correct? Or is it not the case that, as the story suggests, both views have a claim to validity? But even though Hoffmann’s fictions remain complex, multidimensional structures, I do not believe that they resist interpretation altogether. Much is left up to the reader, and it would be foolish to deny the role of ideological factors in the latter’s interpretation of the text. Nonetheless, it is possible to establish a view of the world that is unique to Hoffmann in his fictional and other writings. Of course Hoffmann is too good a writer to be content to present us with a series of dogmatic platitudes in the manner of a didactic moralist. He leaves it up to the reader to question what he has read and draw his own conclusions. It is precisely this ability to provoke his reader into an active involvement with the text, a quality that was not lost on subsequent admirers including Franz Kafka, that has contributed to the enduring appeal of Hoffmann’s fiction well beyond the author’s own lifetime.

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Art and Society The Romantic individual, bound by the contingencies of an earthly existence but filled with a longing to embrace the Ideal, is continually up against an insoluble dilemma. In Hoffmann’s case this was not one that was confined to the realm of philosophical aesthetics. It is clear from what we know of his life how keenly he felt the conflict between duty and inclination, between his professional activities as a member of the judiciary and his desire to follow his artistic calling. He was passionately devoted to art and was active in a wide variety of genres as a composer, musician, caricaturist, author, and literary critic who wrote commentaries and reviews for a number of periodicals and magazines. Although he found his post as a “Kriminalrat” a crushing burden, he never had the courage to abandon it. Even in his youth he comments: “Das Studieren geht langsam und traurig — ich muß mich zwingen ein 29 Jurist zu werden.” Later on in his life he was still complaining about his chosen profession: “O weh! — ich werde zum Regierungs Rath [. . .] — Die Muse entflieht — der Aktenstaub macht die Aussicht fin30 ster und trübe!” And his depiction of the world of bourgeois philistinism — which he knew only too well both as a frustrated artist and a servant of the law — owes much to the tension that he experienced between dry legalistic argument and the fantastical images of his Romantic imagination. Hoffmann’s caricatures, both verbal and visual, of so-called scholars, learned professors, connoisseurs of art, and other members of bourgeois society who are either devoid of all artistic sensibility or who reduce art to 31 the level of the merely decorative are well known. But he reserved his harshest treatment not for those who simply ignore art, but for the pretentious pseudo-experts who regarded themselves as experts and patrons of the arts — witness his diary entry of 14 January 1804 in which he records his impressions of a dinner-table gathering of self-styled connoisseurs: “Das Ideal der Glauheit! — viel gesalbadert über Kunst und Kunstsinn — Gott was für DutzendMenschen! — Könn[en] sie zur Noth Pastell Ge32 mählde von Oelstücken unterscheiden so sind sie Kenner.” The bitterness of these remarks arose from the frustrations he felt at having an audience largely made up of ignorant individuals or, in the worst cases, out-and-out philistines. Nonetheless, it is striking that he never stopped trying to sustain a dialogue with his audience; so conscious was he of the crucial importance of the relationship between artist, audience, and the work of art itself. Not only did he need his (bourgeois) audience for their financial support; he needed an interlocutor in the

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process of artistic communication. Although it might be argued that the aesthetics of Romanticism are such that the artist is involved in what is a solitary quest to imbue his work with meaning, the fact remains that no artist is an island, and the desire to involve others in the artistic process is an intrinsic part of his activity. As Isaiah Berlin puts it, “a work of art is the expression of somebody, it is always a voice speaking. A work of art 33 is the voice of one man addressing himself to other men.” And ideally, these “other men” would be individuals sharing the same degree of aesthetic understanding as the artist himself. Indeed this view is expressed by the narrator in the novella Don Juan (1813): “Nur der Dich34 ter versteht den Dichter” (SW I, 74). Hoffmann believed that if his public could be persuaded to adopt a more open-minded — and less bourgeois — attitude to art, a more productive and beneficial relationship between the artist, the work of art, and its reception would result. He remained convinced that this was not simply a utopian dream, noting on one particular occasion: “Mir schien es als ob [. . .] sich das Ganze, Theater und Publikum, auf höchst vortreffliche Weise zu einer Aktion verband und so das fatale Verhältniß zwischen darstellen und zusehen 35 ganz aufgehoben wurde; mir lachte das Herz im Leibe.” Hoffmann celebrates a moment when the discrepancy between the artist’s activity (“darstellen”) and that of the recipient (“zusehen”) has been transcended, making the artificiality of the work of art disappear and allowing a degree of immediacy which contributes to a perfect unity of subject and object. This is also a moment when the material world and the metaphysical realm of art meet, the mediator between the two being the artist who is himself drawn into this triadic synthesis. This elusive synthesis is the artist’s Holy Grail, and even though it remains mostly a virtual impossibility, the quest for it remains an ever present theme in Hoffmann’s writing. So rarely did he achieve it that Hoffmann was often left doubting his audience’s ability to appreciate the pearls he cast before them — “Kaviar 36 fürs Volk” — and, more seriously, his own artistic talent. However frustrated he may have been when this happened, he rarely resorted to simply glorifying the aspiring artist while condemning the lumpen bour37 geois. It would be unfair to explain his evenhandedness in terms of his financial dependence on his bourgeois public. Even if Hoffmann had not been subject to such a relationship of dependency — a fate that he shared with many other artists — he remained an artist who constantly sought dialogue and an exchange of ideas by provoking and stimulating his audience. Although he may ridicule the bourgeois philistines, he 38 never abandons the attempt to render them more sensitive to art. In-

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deed the musical reviews that he published in the newspapers were written not solely for the benefit of experts and fellow artists, but to arouse 39 the interest of ordinary men and women. All of this helps to explain the narrative strategy Hoffmann adopts in so many of his stories, in which the narrator tries to get the reader to sympathize with the artist, whose lonely struggles with his material take place in a world largely indifferent to and disparaging of his efforts. Nonetheless, it should not be suggested that Hoffmann believes that a radical and unbridgeable gulf yawns between the bourgeois philistine and the artist; indeed the peculiar fascination of his works is due in no small way to the fact that they do not conform to such a crude schema. It would be equally wrong to see his works as a testament to the irreconcilability of the material world and the world of art, and his artist figures as the tragic victims of such an impasse. This view of Hoffmann’s work ignores completely such positive figures as Traugott in Der Artushof, 40 Florentin in Die Jesuiterkirche in G., or Krespel in Rat Krespel. Far from wanting merely to portray the gulf between the two worlds as an inevitable condition of the artist’s existence, Hoffmann is really trying to provoke the reader into reflecting on the reasons why some artist figures fail and some do not. And as we shall see, these explanations are almost always bound up with the kind of society that artists find themselves in, as is the case with Nathanael in Der Sandmann and Cardillac in Das Fräulein von Scuderi. Indeed as Hoffmann points out, “oft, nur zu oft, ist es Künstlers Erdenwallen welches mich niederdrückt, aber nicht erdrückt [my emphasis],” before going on to add “die Kunst noch immer 41 wie eine schützende schirmende Heilige mich durchs Leben geleitet.” The tension between the requirements of bourgeois life and the artist’s calling are reflected both in Hoffmann’s life and, at a more philosophical level, in his literary works. Although his struggle with this dilemma and his perpetual quest to discover a way out of it caused him 42 much agony, they also provided him with his creative impulse. Indeed his career as an “Amtsschimmel” was an important aspect of his life, and to ignore it and focus exclusively on his career as an artist and writer, is to adopt a rather one-sided approach to his life. At times Hoffmann took a despairing view of his professional legal career, at times he viewed it with bitter ironic detachment; but the fact remains that his involvement with the judiciary enabled him to gain considerable insight into the workings of the human psyche. This experience provided him with a wealth of material from which to draw in his more creative moments. Moreover, it is clear that he never allowed his artistic calling to interfere with his professional duties — if anything, the reverse is the case. Documents relating to

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his official function within the judiciary have survived, bearing witness to his integrity and loyalty towards the institution that provided him with his primary source of income. In 1819, for example, von Trützschler, the Vice-president of the Supreme Court, notes: Seine schriftstellerischen Arbeiten [. . .] thun seinem Fleiße keinen Eintrag und die üppige zum Komischen sich hinneigende Phantasie, die in denselben vorherrschend ist, kontrastirt auf eine merkwürdige Art mit der kalten Ruhe, und dem Ernst, womit er als Richter an die 43 Arbeit geht.

Here we see Hoffmann adopting a genuinely Kantian attitude, going out of his way to do his duty no matter how much this may conflict with his inclinations. Throughout his life he put up with a fair degree of personal discomfort, and even some political difficulties, in order to ensure that the legal system functioned in a manner that was both fair and just. Moreover, when he supported the celebrated case of Turnvater Jahn — with whose openly professed nationalistic beliefs he had little sympathy — he demonstrated a commitment to the law that went well beyond the mere fulfillment of his official duties. It can be seen that his conduct as a member of the judiciary was clearly influenced by the rational Enlightenment and especially to Kant’s moral philosophy. This implies that he retained the belief that it was possible to arrive at objective judgements of fact that were both just and correct; if not, it is hard to see how he could, for example, have passed a sentence of capital punishment in the case of a certain Schmolling, who had murdered his mistress for no 44 apparent reason. Despite Hoffmann’s understanding of the inner turmoil and the depths of human despair that can torment the human spirit — and many of the characters he created are deeply tormented — he never, even when in doubt, abandons Kant’s moral theories, which are based on notions of individual free will and responsibility. Although such notions are fraught with contradictions, Hoffmann regards Kant’s theories as the only basis on which a workable form of human society can be developed, always endorsing the concept of justice and the power of reason and logical argument, while retaining a keen interest in the social and psychological factors that led to the committing of crimes. As one might expect, this attitude was bound to bring Hoffmann into conflict with contemporary legal procedure, and throughout his life he took a skeptical view of the much boasted infallibility of the legal system he served. Often Hoffmann saw the cases he presided over as complex socio-psychological situations involving real human beings and

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not as instances of abstract legalistic argument. This was to expose him to the charge of treasonable activities that constituted a threat to others, a charge against which he mounted a spirited defense even though his 46 health was failing him and his days were numbered. His commitment to a Kantian theory of ethics did not blind Hoffmann to the irrational aspects of the human psyche or the wider social and psychological dimension of the legal code. Conversely, in his literary works, where he explores the depths of human psychology, he never totally turns his back on reason and logic. His works may be littered with figures that are bizarre and grotesque in situations that are both uncanny and fantastic, but they never descend to the level of the wholly irrational. It was this that Heinrich Heine — one of the severest critics of unbridled Romanticism — identified as the major difference between Hoffmann’s work and that of Novalis: Hoffmann war als Dichter viel bedeutender als Novalis. Denn letzterer mit seinen idealischen Gebilden schwebt immer in der blauen Luft, während Hoffmann mit all seinen bizarren Fratzen sich doch immer an 47 der irdischen Realität festklammert.

It is precisely the complex inter-relationship among imagination, logic, and reason that Hoffmann finds so fascinating and which he continually explores through his literary characters. There are also links between his activities as a legal practitioner and as an artist. For just as the artist is inspired by his idealized image of perfect beauty, so too the legal theoretician is inspired by a model of perfect justice. In his exploration of the ways in which human beings are inspired by their quest for the Ideal, it is perhaps only natural that Hoffmann should turn his attention to the realm of love. In his treatment of art, justice, and love, he is always asking the same fundamental question: how — and to what extent — can this ideal of perfection be realized in any one area of human activity?

Art and Love Even the most cursory glance at Hoffmann’s life reveals that he was no stranger to love and experienced many different kinds of passion. At the age of seventeen he fell in love, and enjoyed an intimate relationship with Dora Hatt, his Inamorata, who was some nine years older than he and a married woman with several children. At the age of twenty-two, Hoffmann became engaged to his cousin, Wilhelmine Constantine Doerffer (Minna), and began to contemplate the prospect of a conventional married existence with a woman with whom he was not in love; four years

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later he broke off the relationship. During his time as Assessor at the High Court in Posen, he embarked on a life of excess including, as Safranski 48 notes, “Trinken und Frauen,” but four years later, he fell in love with a Pole, Maria Thekla Rorer-Trzcinska (Mischa), and married her soon after. There seems to be a consensus among Hoffmann’s biographers that although their relationship was hardly passionate, the couple enjoyed a relatively harmonious life together until Hoffmann’s death, even though eleven years before he died, he fell hopelessly in love with his fifteen year-old singing pupil, Julia Marc, whom he was to refer to as “Käthchen” [=Ktch], a thinly-veiled allusion to the heroine of Heinrich 49 von Kleist’s play Das Käthchen von Heilbronn. This unrequited and obsessive passion lasted two years and ended only when Julia was married off to a wealthy businessman. Until this took place, Hoffmann suc50 cumbed to a number of almost insane outbursts of jealousy. In his literary works, Hoffmann explores a wide variety of loveaffairs. What we have to remember is the essentially masculine perspective from which these are presented — a point that should also be remembered when considering the work of other writers such as Schlegel, Novalis, Tieck, and Fichte, and their views on the nature of Romantic love. All of them regard woman as primarily an object of love and attribute her, almost a priori, with a specific function. She appears in a variety of roles: as the embodiment of an ideal, as redeemer, as a caricatured representative of bourgeois marriage, or even as femme fatale. But whatever her role, she is providing the man with the kind of love for which he yearns. Whatever role she is cast in, woman has no choice but to assume it for the benefit of the man. She must become the perfect fulfillment of male longing, which means she loses her identity and becomes nothing 51 but a male fantasy. This reveals the celebrated passion of the artist to be nothing more than the passion of a man for a woman, who may be a real-life individual of flesh and blood, or merely the embodiment of an ideal in which unconditional mutual love plays little part. In any case, it hardly seems to matter what form the woman assumes. It is unsurprising, therefore, that Hoffmann — in common with so many of his generation — should choose to explore the multi-faceted nature of love through a variety of different female figures. First, there is the woman involved in a bourgeois marriage of convenience, a social arrangement designed to provide financial security for her and a well-maintained domestic environment for her husband. Hoffmann’s cynical view of such arrangements is evident from his frequent mockery of the industrious bourgeois housewife, whose overriding concern is that her equally bourgeois daughter makes a good match. We

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have only to think of Fräulein Christina in Der Artushof, Albertine in Die Brautwahl, Veronika in Der goldne Topf and, possibly, Clara in Der Sandmann. It is hardly surprising that Hoffmann, from his perspective as a literary artist, should take such a dim view of this type of marriage, which he saw purely as an arrangement devoid of any genuine feelings of love. When the elderly Kommissionsrat Vosswinkel in Die Brautwahl discovers that his daughter wants nothing more to do with a suitor she finds too old, he utters the crushing words, “Was Lieben, was alter Mann, [. . .] von Lieben ist gar nicht die Rede, sondern von Heiraten” (SW III, 571). Even Kater Murr confides to the reader that after his marriage to Miesmies, he finds himself assailed by “die tödlichste Langeweile” (SW II, 471) whenever they are alone together. This is worlds away from the form of marriage Friedrich Schlegel praises so extravagantly in his novel Lucinde and which, in the writings of the early German Romantics, is described as “eine dauernde und unlösbare Ge52 meinschaft” in which “Liebe und Ehe wesenseins seien.” Diametrically opposed to this convenient, but dull bourgeois arrangement is the passion of the artist, a relationship that is capable of satisfying the individual’s longing for genuine love and of bringing about a true unity of minds and hearts. In its ideal form, such a relationship achieves the goal 53 of Romantic philosophy, harmonizing the realms of love and art. In both realms, the Romantic individual is able to draw closer to the Ideal by breaking free from the constraints of his individuality and finding fulfillment in the Other, or in the work of art. That is to say, love, like art, offers a glimpse of a world beyond everyday reality. We return here to the theme of Romantic longing; it is in his insatiable longing that the Romantic artist who is continually striving to capture the Ideal in his work turns his attention to another realm in which, according to Romantic philosophy, the satisfaction of this longing is possible, namely love. The artists in Hoffmann’s novellas rarely make a conscious decision to seek out such a soul mate. Usually it is through his art that the artist 54 makes first contact with the woman in question. As Jean Paul remarks in his preface to Hoffmann’s Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier: “Liebe und Kunst leben gegenseitig ineinander, wie Gehirn und Herz, beide einander zur Wechselstärkung eingeimpft” (SW I, 9). What often happens in Hoffmann’s novellas is that an artist, who is struggling with his art and despairing at the impossibility of capturing the Ideal, encounters a woman who, although not herself being a Romantic artist, is endowed with artistic ability of a more conventional kind — usually a gift for singing. There is Lauretta and Teresina in Die Fermate with their limited vocal talents at one end of the scale, and Antonie in Rat Krespel and

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Donna Anna in Don Juan with their allegedly divine talents at the 55 other. Moreover, these women are not merely blessed with musical talents, they are beautiful as well, making the artist regard them as reflections of the Ideal and of divine beauty. This is how Berthold views Angiola T. in Die Jesuiterkirche in G. and Traugott views Felizitas in Der Artushof. Also, in real life, Julia Marc, with whom Hoffmann was passionately in love, had a beautiful singing voice and great physical beauty as well. It was through her that Hoffmann experienced that synthesis of art and love, for as he comments: “Es ist merkwürdig, daß beständig sich 56 Ktch und Musick im Kopfe dreht.” These women are often already present in the artist’s unconscious, appearing in dreams or in paintings, with the result that when he actually encounters one of them he is convinced he is seeing the incarnation of 57 the Ideal in material form. All of his unfocused longing suddenly becomes channeled: he idolizes the woman, attributes divine qualities to her, and, in so doing, robs her of her own personality and destroys her sense of self. He sees her only in terms of his own longing, not as she is in reality. Friedrich Schlegel recognizes this when he writes: Das Geliebte zu vergöttern, ist die Natur des Liebenden. Aber ein andres ist es, mit gespannter Imagination ein fremdes Bild unterschieben und eine reiche Vollkommenheit anstaunen, die uns nur darum als solche erscheint, weil wir noch nicht gebildet genug sind, um die unendliche Fülle der menschlichen Natur zu begreifen und die Harmonie ihrer Widersprüche zu verstehn. Laura war des Dichters Werk. Dennoch konnte die wirkliche Laura ein Weib sein, aus der ein nicht so einseitiger Schwärmer 58 etwas weniger und etwas mehr als eine Heilige gemacht hätte.

But it is not just abstract philosophical concerns that play a role here; there are two other factors that should not be overlooked. First, there is the Romantics’ belief that woman is somehow closer to Nature than her more rational, male counterpart and that her role is to complete her male partner (and, by implication, the male artist) by supplying that part of 59 Nature he allegedly lacks. In so doing she makes her unique contribution to his development towards a state of perfection and appears to him as both his redeemer and the embodiment of his ideal. However, for all the Romantics’ emphasis on the complementary roles of male and female partners in bringing about a perfect unity of personality, it should not be forgotten that this is an arrangement which, in practice, is heavily biased in favor of the male. Although woman helps man to realize his universal personality, it is far from clear what, if any, contribution the male makes 60 to the development of the woman’s universal personality.

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Second, there is the erotic dimension of the love relationship. Although the artist may believe that he has discovered the embodiment of the Ideal in a particular woman and through her has gained access to the metaphysical realm of the Ideal, it is important not to underestimate the contribution made by latent sexual desire in his idealization of woman. In the final analysis, the artist is not simply a disembodied spirit, but a real human being of flesh and blood. With this in mind, it is striking in Hoffmann’s novellas how often the artists are young men with little experience of sexual relations. Indeed we might ask why the Ideal should not be embodied in a masculine form, a question Thomas Mann explores 61 in Der Tod in Venedig (Death in Venice, 1912). Accordingly, the fact that it is woman — and not man — who is subject to this process of idealization is in no small measure a reflection of her erotic appeal for the 62 male artist. It is only when the erotic dimension is held in check that this process of idealization can take place. Autonomous female sexuality is often associated with evil and regarded as a threat to the male, for example, the figure of Romana in Eichendorff’s Ahnung und Gegenwart and of the statue of Venus in Das Marmorbild. Female sexuality is also associated with death, as is the case with Euphemie in Die Elixiere des Teufels, and Lorelei, who uses her charms to attract the sailors. All of these woman bring about the downfall of men, and as a result, come to be seen not as individuals offering the prospect of unconditional love, but as the root cause of catastrophe. When an artist raises a particular woman to the status of feminine ideal, he is — consciously or unconsciously — channeling his unfocused longing from the Absolute and towards an entity in the real world. This is, of course, only human and quite understandable. Any attempt to turn another (female) human being into an embodiment of the Ideal, however, is doomed to fail because Romantic longing is insatiable by its very nature, being focused on the infinite and, as such, is an end in itself. Its elusiveness may frustrate the artist, but it also provides him with the inspiration for his art and is a source of creative energy. Although there is, at least in theory, no end to such longing, the fact that it is an endless quest need not necessarily be seen as something wholly negative. Indeed, paradoxically, the artist whose longing is satisfied is almost always bitterly disappointed because in finding the Ideal he loses his source of inspiration and is left with nothing more than the mundane reality of the material world. To understand the positive nature of Romantic longing, we must remember that the journey is more important than the goal. Much the same can be said about Romantic love, which by its very nature must remain unrequited. Hoffmann himself experienced this Ro-

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mantic agony in his desperate love for Julia Marc; it is clear that he idealized her and was thrown into despair by her unattainability: “Entweder ich 63 schieße mich tot wie ein[en] Hund oder ich werde toll!” Hoffmann must have seen the hopelessness of the situation from the outset; not only was there a discrepancy in their ages of some twenty years, but he was also married. No matter how obvious he may have made his feelings to Julia, they remained unrequited. Even at the height of his obsession, he never 64 contemplated abandoning his wife Mischa. And just three months after Julia had left town, Hoffmann records in his diary that marital harmony 65 with the long-suffering Mischa had been restored. Hoffmann was able to write about the multifarious forms of love from personal experience, from the hopeless passion of the Romantic artist at one extreme, to bourgeois marriage with its everyday banalities (but also its deep-rooted relationship of mutual trust) at the other. He is also presenting us with an instance of the relationship of the Ideal to reality, a relationship which can only be fully appreciated with the help of Romantic irony. As we saw above, the artist’s longing is, by definition, doomed to remain unfulfilled and thus it is essential for the artist who acknowledges this to find some way of coming to terms with his predicament, or face insanity and perhaps death. Novalis had no doubt about the risks involved in the pursuit of the Ideal: “Das Streben nach dem Unbekannten, Unbestimmten ist äußerst gefährlich und nach66 theilig.” Hoffmann realized, when in the grip of his passion for Julia Marc, that he was on the brink of madness: “Abends förmlich Anfall von 67 Wahnsinn”; some three weeks later he notes: “ganz krank vor Liebe 68 und Wahnsinn.” Fortunately — both for those who appeared before him in court and for his readers — he stepped back from the abyss. That he suffered deeply is undeniable and is borne out by the fact that he even considered the possibility of a Romantic “Liebestod” à la Kleist. Hoffmann survived this particular catastrophe as a result of his ability to take an ironic — and thus detached — view of his own situation. He was sufficiently rational to be able to reflect on his own situation and acknowledge that he was both a thinking subject and the object of that process of reflection. As a result, he was able to confront the hopelessness of his predicament not in purely emotional terms but with a degree of critical detachment. The crucial role of divine irony in this cannot be underestimated, for as he exclaimed: “Göttliche Ironie! — herrliches 69 Mittel Verrücktheiten zu bemänteln und zu vertreiben, steh mir bey!” The bouts of madness (“Verrücktheiten”) which Hoffmann refers to here are feelings of melancholy stemming from the knowledge that his longing was doomed to remain unfulfilled. Irony helped Hoffmann to

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realize — though not without a struggle — that Julia was not the Ideal itself, but was a particular woman on to whom he had projected his image of the Ideal: “die Stimmung ist in ein decrescendo übergegangen 70 und ich sehe ein, daß ein großes Fantasma mich taüschte.” Indeed, looking back at the incident, Hoffmann went so far as to draw a parallel between the essence of art and this idealized image of woman, acknowledging that in loving Julia Marc, he had not fallen in love with an ideal 71 woman but with the ideal of art. In literature as in life, Hoffmann wrestled with the Romantic dilemma, probing and analyzing the nature of the Ideal — the ideal of love, of art, or a synthesis of the two. The Romantic artist longs for a fusion of the realms of art and love, and his unending quest is to bring about such a fusion. Only then does he come close to capturing the Ideal itself. Whatever he was doing in his life — whether working as an artist, practicing as a lawyer, or suffering as a lover, Hoffmann put all of his energies into his quest for the Ideal. And although he lived life to the fullest, it was a lifestyle that could not be sustained indefinitely: wäre nur der zerstörliche Einfluß zu beseitigen gewesen, den das unausgesetzte Nachtschwärmen, verbunden mit geistiger Anstrengung aller Art am Tag — da er mit seinen Dienstarbeiten nie im Rückstande blieb und Bücher über Bücher schrieb — , unausbleiblich auf seine Ge72 sundheit äußern mußte.

Notes 1

Hoffmann, who enjoyed friendships with many of his contemporary writers, and who read widely in literature and books on philosophy, science, and history, is generally considered hard to classify; he does not seem to fit comfortably into any identifiable school of Romantic writing. For a more detailed discussion of the works with which Hoffmann was familiar, see Brigitte Feldges and Ulrich Stadler, eds., E. T. A. Hoffmann: Epoche — Werk — Wirkung (Munich: Beck, 1986). 2

The attempt to define this essentially indefinable entity gave rise to a number of terms which do not seem to differ from one another in any substantial way. Hence I shall regard such terms as “das Absolute,” die “Idee,” “das Transzendentale,” “unendlicher Geist” and “das romantisch-poetische Geisterreich” (the latter being the term that Hoffmann uses most frequently) as roughly equivalent. 3

Thus in the Wissenschaftslehre, Fichte refers explicitly to the influence of Kant, even though his development of Kant’s ideas leads him to postulate theories that often have little in common with those of his mentor. See Johann Gottlieb Fichte, “Wissenschaftslehre,” FW I, 158–59.

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4

Hegel, “Ästhetik,” HSV Xa, 156. This statement underlines Hegel’s opposition to Kant who prefers beauty in Nature to beauty in art. 5 Hegel, “Ästhetik,” 163. 6

KA II, 207, §252.

7

KA II, 209, §256. Schlegel’s notion of art is bound up with beauty, and as an example he often refers to “Poesie.” Consequently, he uses these terms interchangeably or treats them as synonyms. 8

KA II, 161, §115.

9

KA II, 186, §131.

10

Hans Dierkes, “Philosophie der Romantik,” in Romantik-Handbuch, ed. Helmut Schanze (Stuttgart: Kröner, 1994), 427–76 (427–28).

11

KA II, 324, §364.

12

Monroe C. Beardsley, Aesthetics from Classical Greece to the Present (London, New York: McMillan, 1966), 249.

13

KA II, 192, §172.

14

KA II, 259, §34.

15

KA II, 182–83, §116.

16

NS II, 413. NS I, 195.

17 18

In the modern era, Georg Wellenberger has attempted to define this notion of the “infinite” in negative terms, as something that “an und für sich keine positive Qualität und Identität [hat],” a view that leads him to conclude that “Als das bloß Andere alles Bestimmten und Endlichen ist das Unendliche das negativ unbestimmte Andere und damit in sich das absolut Indifferente.” See Georg Wellenberger, Der Unernst des Unendlichen: Die Poetologie der Romantik und ihre Umsetzung durch E. T. A. Hoffmann (Marburg: Hitzeroth, 1986), 39–40.

19

KA II, 164, §26. Hoffmann’s letters and diaries suggest that he was well acquainted with both Schlegel’s and Novalis’s work. See Tagebücher, 113 (12 January 1811) and 150 (17 April 1812). 20 KA II, 153, §48. 21

KA II, 160, §108.

22

KA II, 263, §69.

23

KA II, 131, §169.

24

KA II, 157, §87.

25

KA II, 151, §37. Ludwig Tieck, Nachgelassene Schriften, 2 vols., ed. by Rudolph Köpke (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1970), vol. 2, 239. 26

27

Tzvetan Todorov, “Die Kategorien des literarischen Erzählens” in Zur Struktur des Romans, ed. Bruno Hillebrand (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1978), 351–82 (358).

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28

It is not my intention to deny that there is a wide range of texts dealing explicitly with this problem, many of which aim to demonstrate the illusory nature of the quest for interpretative coherence, but rather to question the notion that this can be the case in all texts. 29 In a letter to Hippel of 1 May 1795. See Briefwechsel I, 62. 30

Tagebücher, 60 (17 October 1803).

31

A more detailed critique of the bourgeois philistines and their limited viewpoint is articulated by the Kapellmeister in the “Kreisleriana,” and especially in the highly ironic essay “Gedanken über den hohen Wert der Musik” (SW I, 36–41).

32

Tagebücher, 68.

33

See Isaiah Berlin, The Roots of Romanticism (London: Chatto & Windus 1999), 59. 34

Equally important for Hoffmann was an interaction with other artists, as can be seen from the value he placed upon his meetings and correspondence with the writers Motte Fouqué, Chamisso, Tieck, Bernhardi, or the painter Philipp Veit — who, thinly disguised, can be recognized as the circle of “Serapionsbrüder.” 35 Briefwechsel I, 257 (1 January 1809). 36

This Biblical allusion (“Perlen vor die Säue”) was made on the occasion when one of his compositions (“Die lustigen Musikanten,” libretto by Clemens Brentano) was poorly received by the public. See Briefwechsel I, 193 (26 September 1805).

37

As Wulf Segebrecht notes: “Diese Vorstellung verharmlost das Werk Hoffmanns, das sich keineswegs nur darin erschöpft, den Bürger zu verlästern und den Künstler zu verherrlichen.” Wulf Segebrecht, “Beamte, Künstler, Außenseiter,” Imprimatur 11 (1984), 295–307 (304). Rüdiger Safranski sees a link here between Hoffmann’s views and the circumstances in which he lived: “Seine Spießer-Kritik hat [. . .] etwas Versöhnliches, und wo sie radikal ist, da ist sie doch auch zerknirscht.” Rüdiger Safranski, E. T. A. Hoffmann: Das Leben eines skeptischen Phantasten (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1987), 29. 38 Hans Georg Werner regards Hoffmann as one of the authors “der am meisten darauf bedacht war, den durchschnittlichen Leser geistig zu erreichen.” See HansGeorg Werner, Text und Dichtung (Berlin, Weimar: Aufbau, 1984), 212. 39

As Gerhard Kaiser notes: “H. hat in seinen Musikschriften außer dem Fachmann den ernsthaft interessierten Laien ansprechen wollen.” See Gerhard R. Kaiser, E. T. A. Hoffmann (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1988), 111. 40

See, for example, Sergio Givone, “Hoffmanns moderne Ästhetik,” MHG 30 (1984): 59–68 (59).

41

Briefwechsel I, 194 (26 September 1805).

42

Safranksi too recognizes how important a part this played in Hoffmann’s art when he remarks that “die Doppelexistenz als Amtsschimmel und Pegasus sich nicht ungünstig auf seine [Hoffmanns] künstlerische Arbeit ausgewirkt haben.” See Safranski, 28. 43

See Friedrich Schnapp, ed., E. T. A. Hoffmann in Aufzeichnungen seiner Freunde und Bekannten. Eine Sammlung von Friedrich Schnapp (Munich: Winkler, 1974), 459.

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Schmolling was the model for Büchner’s Woyzeck in the play of the same name. In order to understand Hoffmann’s verdict, the case must be seen in its wider context. According to Steinecke, the verdict is not so much indicative of Hoffmann’s conservative cast of mind as of his view that “die Grenzen der ‘Normalität’ sind weiter gespannt, als das verbreitete Bewußtsein das wahrhaben will, ein nicht erkennbares Motiv verweist nicht schon auf Krankheit, ein Verbrechen, dessen Motive unklar sind, nicht schon auf Wahnsinn” (Steinecke, 208). This judgement was to prove fatal in Schmolling’s case, but it did broaden the scope of what could be regarded as normal. For a detailed analysis of the Schmolling case and Hoffmann’s views on it, see Theodore Ziolkowski, German Romanticism and Its Institutions (Princeton, New Jersey, Oxford: Princeton UP, 1990), 210–17. 45

The fact that there are very many characters in the novellas who seem to act in ways that are inexplicable — one thinks above all of Medardus in Die Elixiere des Teufels — seems to indicate that Hoffmann was highly preoccupied by the question of determinism and irrational behavior. 46

On 23 January 1822, the Prussian authorities confiscated proof copies of Meister Floh, together with the manuscript, with a view to using it as evidence in disciplinary procedures against the author. In the censor’s opinion, Hoffmann had gone too far in his criticism of certain members of officialdom, in particular of one Karl Albrecht von Kamptz, and of the police authorities generally. Hoffmann was interrogated as he lay sick in bed; proceedings were terminated only by Hoffmann’s death on 25 June 1822. 47

Heinrich Heine, Sämtliche Werke, 7 vols., ed. Ernst Elster (Leipzig and Vienna: Bibliographisches Institut, 1896), vol. 5, 301. 48 Safranski, 138. 49

Although Mischa was not an intellectual women — any more than Julia Marc was — I do not think that one can go as far as Walter Harich, who refers to her as a “Haustier.” See Harich, vol. 1, 119. Indeed in Peter Härtling’s recent novel Hoffmann oder die vielfältige Liebe, Mischa is presented as a very strong and reliable character. See Peter Härtling, Hoffmann oder die vielfältige Liebe (Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2001). 50

Hoffmann himself describes how, once he had recovered his reason, he felt ashamed of this lapse in his behavior: “Ich fühle mich Kindisch und eselhaft und das von Rechts wegen.” See Tagebücher, 152 (27 April 1812). 51

On this, see Birgit Wägenbaur, Die Pathologie der Liebe: Literarische Weiblichkeitsentwürfe um 1800 (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1996).

52

See Paul Kluckhohn, Das Ideengut der deutschen Romantik (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1966), 71. 53

Schlegel continually makes the point that the ultimate goal of art is to enable the artist (and reader) to draw closer to the Ideal; he also emphasizes the role of love as a means of transcending the constraints of the material world, referring to it as “das Unum des Universums.” See KA III, 430. 54

See, for instance, Donna Anna in Don Juan, Angiola T. in Die Jesuiterkirche in G., Felizitas and Dorina in Der Artushof, Lauretta and Teresina in Die Fermate, Zulema/Julia in Das Sanctus, as well as Signora Angela in Rat Krespel.

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55

It is important here to distinguish between the artist who possesses technical competence and the Romantic artist, whose very essence consists in his pursuit of a metaphysical ideal. As Schlegel observes: “Nicht die Kunst und die Werke machen den Künstler, sondern der Sinn und die Begeisterung und der Trieb” (KA II, 154, §63). The various female artists who appear in the novellas may be accomplished in a particular sphere of artistic activity, but they are not full-blooded Romantic artists in the above sense. 56

Tagebücher, 153 (30 April 1812).

57

The early German Romantics believed that the boundaries of time and space could be transcended and that love could continue beyond the grave. This idea is most clearly stated in Novalis’s Hymnen an die Nacht, in which he invokes a reunion with his late bride, Sophie von Kühn: “Liebe existiert vor aller Zeit und ist auf diese Weise absolut und unendlich.” See Gerhard Schulz, Romantik: Geschichte und Begriff (Munich: Beck, 1996), 116. 58

KA II, 231, §363.

59

Paul Kluckhohn summarizes this view, noting that “Je mehr die Frau ganz Frau ist, desto mehr vermag sie dem Manne zu geben. Ist doch ihr in ihrem Geschlecht bedingtes Wesen Liebe und Mütterlichkeit und gewinnt sie dadurch eine Einheit und eine Nähe zu allem organischen Leben, wie sie dem Manne nicht so ursprünglich gegeben sind, vielmehr erst durch die Frau erschlossen werden. So sind es höchste Werte, die sich in dieser verkörpern, und es geht eine Kraft der Erlösung von ihr aus.” Kluckhohn, 68. 60

For a detailed examination of woman and her role as redeemer, see Barbara BeckerCantarino, “Priesterin und Lichtbringerin: Zur Ideologie des weiblichen Charakters in der Frühromantik,” in Die Frau als Heldin und Autorin. Neue kritische Ansätze zur deutschen Literatur, ed. Wolfgang Paulsen (Bern, Munich: Franke, 1979), 111– 25. 61

In Der Artushof there is indeed a homo-erotic component, although as the story unfolds it emerges that the idealized youth is in fact a girl in disguise. 62

Hoffmann too suggests this in connection with his passion for Julia when he writes in his diary: “(wollüstige Empfind[ung] zum 1t mal Rücksichts Ktch),” Tagebücher, 168, (5 August 1812). 63

Tagebücher, 122 (28 February 1811).

64

Although Mischa did discover the diaries in which Hoffmann describes his feelings for “Käthchen” — a discovery which led to a forthright exchange of views — there seems no reason to doubt Eberhard Roters’s words when he suggests that “Micha weiß instinktiv, das die anderen Frauen keine wirklichen Rivalinnen für sie sind, da es nicht das Fleisch ist, was Hoffmann in ihnen anbetet, sondern die Spiegelbilder seines nichtirdischen Ideals, der himmlischen Liebe.” Eberhard Roters, E. T. A. Hoffmann (Berlin: Stapp, 1984), 31. Whether Hoffmann is quite as free from the “lusts of the flesh” as Roters suggests is questionable; at any rate, he notes in his diary that he has committed “geistigen Ehebruch,” Tagebücher, 124 (18 March 1811). 65

Tagebücher, 205 (11 May 1813), 209 (30 May 1813), 210 (31 May 1813), and 211 (8 June 1813).

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66

NS III, 601.

67

Tagebücher, 159 (4 May 1812).

68

Tagebücher, 162 (29 June 1812).

69

Tagebücher, 152 (29 April 1812). Tagebücher, 170 (13 August 1812). Hoffmann himself provides proof of just how irreconcilable theory and practice were; he recognized the impasse he was in with Julia, yet could not prevent himself from idealizing her. 70

71

Tagebücher, 121. There Hoffmann notes on 18 February 1811: “Ktch — in ihr leben und sind wir!” Subsequently he changed the abbreviated “Ktch” to “Kunst.” See also Friedrich Schnapp’s remarks on page 121. 72

See Julius Eduard Hitzig in E. T. A. Hoffmann in Aufzeichnungen seiner Freunde und Bekannten: Eine Sammlung von Friedrich Schnapp, ed. Friedrich Schnapp (Munich: Winkler, 1974), 371.

I. Madness

2: Das Fräulein von Scuderi

D

FRÄULEIN VON SCUDERI (1819) is one of Hoffmann’s best known works; it has always attracted an enthusiastic readership, and the large number of critical works written about it continues to grow. Considerable disagreement remains, however, as to how the novella is to be interpreted. Very soon after its publication, two quite distinct readings had emerged. In February 1820, Rahel Varnhagen wrote: “Da blühen die Unwahrscheinlichkeiten und Widersprüche nur so [. . .] Und vive l’auteur! 1 schreit das deutsche Publikum. Nicht zum Verstehen.” In the same year a reviewer writing in the Jenaische Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung noted: “Der charakteristische Werth dieser Darstellung scheint uns in der genialen Leichtigkeit zu liegen, mit der der [Verfasser] nicht geringe Unwahrschein2 lichkeiten beseitigt.” Such differences of opinion, which still persist, revolve around two key 3 4 issues. First, who is the main character? Is it Cardillac or Scuderi? And second, how does the story end? Does it end on a positive note insofar as 5 the central protagonists bring the matter to a satisfactory conclusion, or 6 are we invited to take a more skeptical view of the denouement? Given the number of diametrically opposed interpretations of the story, it is hardly surprising that some critics have turned their attention to the formal qualities of the novella instead and viewed it as an early example of a detective 7 novel. Fascinating though such discussions of genre are, they tend to be 8 of little help in resolving differences of interpretation. AS

The Court of Louis XIV The novella is set in France during the absolutist reign of Louis XIV. The decisions of the Sun King and his ministers — which inevitably have profound and far-reaching consequences — are made at court; yet the atmosphere of this rococo court is one of superficial frivolity that is quite incompatible with deciding weighty matters of state. The courtiers are primarily concerned with composing amusing ditties so that the king and his immediate circle (who appear to have no particularly pressing tasks) can wile away their time and stave off boredom. Here art is something purely decorative — all form and no content. This leads to everyday reality being concealed behind a façade of “anmutige Verse” (SW III, 648), “Schau-

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spiele und Anekdoten” (672), “Galanterien” (660), “geistreich-witzige Wendungen” (660) and “ellenlange Tiraden” (661). More often than not, these take the form of a “hochtrabenden Panegrykus auf Ludwig den XIV” (660) and are acknowledged by the king “mit sichtlichem Wohlgefallen” (660). Public intercourse is conducted in the form of witty verbal compositions, whether it be a request that the king establish a new branch of the judiciary — a request that is delivered in verse form and submitted on behalf of all the imperiled lovers — or the unexpected appearance of Cardillac at Scuderi’s house, an event that she transforms into “anmutige Verse, die sie den folgenden Abend in den Gemächern der Maintenon dem König vorlas” (670). Apart from satisfying the personal vanity of their authors, such bon mots are designed to entertain the king and win his support in the hope that this will secure an advantage for their author. In this process of aesthetic manipulation, the truth is distorted, if not obscured altogether. Even the king’s current paramour, Mlle Maintenon, does not dare confront him with the facts, and when her friend Scuderi explicitly asks her for help, she refuses on the grounds that she is unwilling to be the bearer of bad tidings: “Die Maintenon, ihrem Grundsatz, dem König nie von unangenehmen Dingen zu reden, getreu, verwarf jede Vermittlung” (704). But it is not just public life that is distorted by being packaged into such empty aesthetic forms. Almost all the courtiers themselves lead double lives, prompting us to speculate just what lies behind the masks of respectability they don: “Wer war an dem üppigen Hofe Ludwig des XIV, der nicht in einen geheimen Liebeshandel verstrickt?” (SW III, 657). Mme de Brinvillier, for example, who is subsequently exposed as a poisoner, tries to conceal her evil activities behind a façade of hypocritical piety and arranges for bread to be distributed to the poor each week “um als Muster der Frömmigkeit und des Wohltuns zu gelten” (654). Nor is it only the members of secular society whose deeds are shown to be questionable; even the monks — who have supposedly cast off worldly considerations — seem to behave in a dubious manner: “Du magst einmal das Kunststück [die Öffnung in der Mauer] sehen [. . .], das wahrscheinlich schlaue Mönche des Klosters [. . .] fertigen ließen, um heimlich aus- und einschlüpfen zu können” (693).

The Organs of Justice It is not just those at court who try to blot out the truth by aestheticizing human experience and excluding its more unpleasant aspects. La Regnie, albeit for his own reasons has a severely distorted picture of

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social reality; in his determination to achieve quick and often politically expedient results in his investigations for the Chambre ardente, he is all too inclined to ignore the complexity of human behavior. Unlike the courtiers, who seize upon every quirk of character, adapting and shaping it for inclusion in their trivial verses, La Regnie deliberately closes his eyes to anything which seems to require a more differentiated view of the 9 case on hand, thereby complicating its investigation. More eager to secure a conviction than to uncover the truth, he oversteps his powers on more than one occasion: “Gewiß ist es, daß blinder Eifer den Präsidenten la Regnie zu Gewaltstreichen und Grausamkeiten verleitete. Das Tribunal nahm ganz den Charakter einer Inquisition an” (SW III, 659). La Regnie’s colleague, Desgrais, is little better. When investigating the murder of Cardillac, he not only disregards the complexities of the case but shows himself to be unscrupulous. When he arrests Olivier, he treats Madelon most cruelly and insinuates that she is the young man’s accomplice without any evidence: “Nun weint und heult sie, [. . .] daß Olivier unschuldig sei. [. . .] Degrais warf, als er dies sprach, einen tückischen, schadenfrohen Blick auf das Mädchen” (673). Those responsible for maintaining law and order need to be seen by the king — and by the general public — to be getting results. It is enough for them to give an appearance of having the situation under control to justify both their position in society and their methods. The fact is, however, that when La Regnie exercises the draconian powers at his disposal, not only do the innocent suffer, but further obstacles are placed in the way of arriving at the truth. Thus Miossens may be quite willing to confess to Fräulein Scuderi that it was he who accidentally killed Cardillac, but he balks at telling La Regnie for fear of the consequences: “Nein . . . nicht eine Stunde Freiheit, nicht meinen Ohrzipfel gebe ich dem rasenden la Regnie preis, der sein Messer gern an unserer aller Kehlen setzte” (SW III, 702). In this way, Hoffmann’s novella warns those in favor of unrestricted powers for the police that, more often than not, this will obstruct rather 10 than facilitate the course of justice.

The “Volk” The crucial role of the “Volk” should not be overlooked in this novella. They clamor for an arrest and regard the police as having failed in their duties when they take too long to find a culprit. The atmosphere of fear and uncertainty in which they live makes them want any results, regardless of how unreliable these may be. They would even prefer to believe that the devil is at work, rather than accept that the culprit has not yet

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been discovered: “und wie es denn in unserer ewigen Natur liegt, daß der Hang zum Übernatürlichen, zum Wunderbaren alle Vernunft überbietet, so glaubte man nichts Geringeres, als daß [. . .] wirklich der Teufel selbst die Verruchten schütze” (SW III, 659). In this way, the novella criticizes not only the brutal methods of the state, but also the hysterical behavior of the “Volk,” which, without any regard for the processes of reason, lurches from one extreme to the other. To begin with, the people demand vengeance, which, it is convinced, can only be satisfied through the death of Olivier regardless of whether he is in fact culpable: “dorthin, wo Cardillac wohnte, strömte das Volk, [. . .] schrie, lärmte, tobte [. . .]: ‘Zerreißt, zermalmt den verfluchten Mörder!’” (SW III, 672). Later, with no real knowledge of the complex issues surrounding the case, the crowd demands his release for wholly sentimental reasons: “Ganze Züge des Volkes erschienen oft auf bedrohliche Weise vor la Regnies Palast und schrien: ‘Gib uns Olivier Brusson heraus, er ist unschuldig’” (706).

The King The fickleness of the crowd is matched only by the impulsiveness of the king, the monarch in whose hands Olivier’s fate ultimately lies: “kein [. . .] Rechtsspruch, aber des Königs Entscheidung [. . .] kann das alles begründen” (SW III, 703). Here the novella exposes the glaring discrepancy between truth and justice on the one hand, and the arbitrary decisions of the judiciary on the other. Initially, the king is moved less by the facts of the case than by the skillful rhetoric of Scuderi and the innocent charms of Madelon. Yet, a ruler who is all too eager to ignore the facts almost certainly bodes disaster for his subjects. In Olivier’s particular case, the fact that he is fortunate enough to have such a skillful rhetorician as Scuderi as his protector means that it may be possible to exploit the king’s weakness to his advantage. But Scuderi herself knows just how risky her rhetorical strategy is; when she is summoned before the king to receive his verdict, we are told that “das Herz schlug der Scuderi hochauf” (707). Although the king claims that virtue will always come to the aid of those who entrust their fate to her this is manifestly not the case here: “wen die Tugend selbst in Schutz nimmt, mag der nicht sicher sein vor jeder bösen Anklage, vor der Chambre ardente und allen Gerichtshöfen der Welt!” (708). Under La Regnie’s brutal regime, the Chambre ardente has been responsible for the deaths of many innocent individuals as it tried to uncover those responsible for the spate of poisonings: “während nun auf dem Greveplatz das Blut Schuldiger und Verdächtiger in Strömen

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floß” (SW III, 656). Even the king — who is “erschüttert von dem Greuel der Hinrichtungen, die der blutgierige la Regnie veranlaßt” (SW III, 659) — cannot quite reconcile himself to the methods espoused by the Chambre ardente. On a number of occasions he even expresses his concern about the excessive zeal with which La Regnie and Desgrais go about their business, as well as the inevitable spread of fear and terror through the execution of perfectly innocent citizens. There is, of course, a distinction to be drawn between the judgements of the judiciary and justice itself. Hoffmann, who was actively involved in the Prussian legal administration, naturally understood that a state cannot function without a judiciary. At the same time, he recognized that human beings are not infallible, and consequently any judicial system is likely to have its defects. In Das Fräulein von Scuderi, however, Hoffmann underlines two points: first, we should not lose sight of the shortcomings that are present in a given judicial system; and second, we should not imagine that these shortcomings will simply disappear if the state is allowed to pursue the criminal elements of society with a blind, fanatical zeal.

Cardillac and the Poisoners When the novella opens, we learn that a series of mysterious murders has been taking place, and all the evidence appears to point to one particular band of criminals. After a long investigation the authorities identify those responsible and bring them to justice. But the sense of relief experienced by both the police and the public is short-lived. It is not long before a new series of murders — this time committed in conjunction with a string of robberies — plunge the city into a state of anxiety. The “Volk” never finds out who is responsible because only a few select individuals (including the reader) learn that the man responsible is René Cardillac. Although the two sets of murders appear to be similar, they represent two quite different types of crime, carried out by individuals who have little in common with one another. The band of poisoners — especially Sainte Croix and the Marquise de Brinvillier — select their victims arbitrarily and are motivated simply by the desire to assert their power over others: “Ohne weitern Zweck, aus reiner Lust [. . .] haben oft Giftmörder Personen gemordet, deren Leben oder Tod ihnen völlig gleich sein konnte” (SW III, 654). The power they wield is purely a destructive power. Cardillac, on the other 11 hand, murders and robs for much more complex motives. He is driven by a desperate need to reclaim the fruits of his artistic creativity from the hands of his philistine clients who lack any true understanding of genuine

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art. By reappropriating the jewelry he has designed and sold, Cardillac hopes to prevent these works of art from being used by their bourgeois owners as a means of obtaining, or indeed even buying, the favors of the lady destined to receive them: “Ich seh im Geist den Menschen zu der Tänzerin schleichen [. . .] von hinten fest gepackt stoße ich ihm den Dolch ins Herz — der Schmuck ist mein! Dies getan fühle ich eine Ruhe, eine Zufriedenheit in meiner Seele” (694). Although Cardillac may appear to be “das Vorbild eines guten, frommen Bürgers” (SW III, 670), he is essentially an outsider in this society. This is not simply on account of his murderous tendencies, but also because his conception of art is the very opposite of the prevailing rococo aesthetic. He has no time for such superficial frivolity; his artistic striving is directed solely towards penetrating the mysteries of art itself. His artistic integrity and his tireless quest to make the perfect work of art lead him to despise any notion of functional art. Although he is prone to vanity — he boasts “man muß René Cardillacs Arbeit schlecht kennen, um nur einen Augenblick zu glauben, daß irgendein anderer Goldschmied in der Welt solchen Schmuck fassen könne. Freilich ist das meine Arbeit” (667) — he is, nonetheless, willing to acknowledge the artistic talents of others: “als ich [Olivier] ihm die Arbeit brachte, sah er mich starr an mit seinen funkelnden Augen, als wollt er hineinschauen in mein Innerstes. [. . .] Du bist ein tüchtiger, wackerer Geselle, du kannst zu mir ziehen und mir helfen in der Werkstatt” (686). What matters for Cardillac is an intense practical involvement with art without regard for financial or other incentives: “Bloß der schönen Arbeit willen suchte ich meine besten Steine zusammen, und arbeitete aus Freude daran fleißiger und sorgfältiger als jemals” (667). It is this attitude that sets Cardillac apart from other members of his society and in the end brings about his downfall. On the surface there may seem to be little to distinguish the crimes of the poisoners from those committed by Cardillac in that both result in sudden death. But, as we shall see, there is a rationale behind the murders Cardillac commits. The jeweler has, as Olivier points out to Scuderi, a tragic flaw: “Doch laßt mich fortfahren, der Verfolg wird Euch die Geheimnisse des verruchtesten und zugleich unglücklichsten aller Menschen aufklären” (SW III, 690). Hoffmann’s novella is quite unstinting in its criticism of the courtiers who regard art as nothing more than a commodity to be bought and sold. Although Cardillac’s view of art as an activity practiced for its own sake comes far closer to Hoffmann’s own, he makes it clear that the jeweler is guilty of a serious error of judgement. Cardillac, who cannot bear the idea that his artistic creations will be used by bourgeois philistines, convinces himself that right-

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fully they belong to him, the artist, and to him alone. Of course, the wider issue of the ownership of a work of art — does it belongs to the creator or the patron for whom it was made — is notoriously difficult to answer. In passing, we might note that Novalis claims: “Der Künstler 12 gehört dem Wercke und nicht das Werck dem Künstler.” The fact that the novella is critical of both the ignorant philistines and the fanatical — and indeed criminal — artist suggests that Hoffmann believed that neither party could stake an exclusive claim to the art because art is not simply a commodity that can be possessed. According to Romantic theories of art, it is something that enables human beings to make contact with a higher realm of transcendent forms. At the same time, Hoffmann is aware that works of art are not simply abstract entities suspended in an aesthetic realm, but have a concrete, material aspect, and are closely bound up with social reality. Accordingly, neither the philistine public who inhabit the world of social and financial power, nor the artist who inhabits the sphere of aesthetics, can lay exclusive claim to the ownership of a work of art. Cardillac mistakenly believes that he can, and must, assert his claim to the sole ownership of his masterpieces and tries to steal them back from his philistine patrons. Nonetheless, what is true for the lover is no less true for the artist; to modify Scuderi’s witty couplet “Un amant qui craint les voleurs n’est point digne d’amour” (SW III, 661), we might say of Cardillac that 13 “Un artiste qui craint les voleurs n’est point digne de l’art.” A work of art can only be fully appreciated by those willing to open themselves to the work and actively engage with it. Such people recognize that art is an activity pursued for its own sake and is not a means to an end. Thus the mysterious voice that Cardillac claims to hear taunting him with the words “Es [das Geschmeide] ist ja dein — es ist ja dein — nimm es doch — was sollen die Diamanten dem Toten” (693) has a double significance. In a literal sense the owners of the jewels are already “dead,” since they are destined to perish on the point of Cardillac’s dagger, but they are also “dead” in a metaphorical sense, insofar as they have no real understanding of the true (aesthetic) value of the works of art in their possession. Hoffmann’s juxtaposition of the poisoners’ murders with those committed by Cardillac forces the reader to reflect on the differences between these crimes and those who commit them. The poisoners are driven by the basest of motives, being concerned solely with destruction and the assertion of power over others. Their cruelty knows no limits, and they embark upon an orgy of killings which demands an ever increasing supply of innocent victims. Cardillac’s situation is quite different since the cause of his murderous tendencies can be traced back to an irrational phenomenon, namely his mother’s terrible experience when she was pregnant with him, an experi-

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ence which was triggered by greed but which was no less traumatic for 14 that. This raises the question of how far Cardillac can be seen as morally culpable since his fate seems to be determined from birth; he believes that he is powerless to resist the promptings of his “bösen Stern” (SW III, 15 691). But unlike the poisoners who simply indulge their arbitrary lust for killing, Cardillac tries to break free from the deterministic force he has had to live with since birth by making a gift of a beautiful piece of jewelry to Scuderi. Moreover, plagued by his guilty conscience — for he is quite capable of making a distinction between good and evil — he declines certain commissions and thus attempts to prevent himself from succumbing to his murderous tendencies: “[. . .] daß Cardillac oft [. . .] den Bittsteller mit allen Zeichen des im Innersten aufgeregten Gemüts, mit den erschütterndsten Beteuerungen, ja unter Schluchzen und Tränen, bei der Jungfrau und allen Heiligen beschwor, ihm das unternommene Werk zu unterlassen” (666). We should also note that he is well aware of the nature of his crimes, and therefore cannot bear to see Madelon handling the jewels that are the sole “witnesses” of his violent deeds: “an deinem Hochzeitstage, Olivier, wirst du mir [. . .] einen heiligen Eid schwören, sowie ich gestorben bin, alle diese Reichtümer in Staub zu vernichten [. . .] Ich will nicht, daß irgendein menschlich Wesen, und am allerwenigsten Madelon und du, in den Besitz des mit Blut erkauften Horts komme” (694). His request that Olivier destroy the jewels after his death does not reflect his fear that his masterpieces might fall into the wrong hands; rather he wants them destroyed in order to break the cycle of violence and prevent the “curse” from being handed down to the next generation. In this way, Hoffmann underlines the fact that Cardillac does suffer as a result of his conscience, and even if he is powerless to control his criminal tendencies, he tries at least to keep them in check. Cardillac has the psychological make-up of the artist; he is obsessively attached to the artifacts he has created and is constantly striving to create new works that surpass his previous best attempts. The novella offers an explanation for Cardillac’s fanatical interest in jewelry, suggesting that it was triggered by the traumatic experiences of his mother, experiences which were communicated to the child in her womb. Some critics have suggested that this admittedly mysterious set of circumstances entails that Cardillac is not in control of his actions and therefore cannot be held responsible for these. But there is no need to jump to this conclusion. Although the “böser Stern” may explain why Cardillac is predisposed to work with jewels, there is no reason why it should have predisposed him to commit murder. In a narrowly moral sense, Cardillac is guilty. However, his pathological development underlines the kind of extremes to

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which the artist may be driven when he finds himself in a society where art and literature are so chronically undervalued and misunderstood.

Olivier and Madelon As we have seen, appearance and reality play a crucial role in this novella. The courtiers, as might be expected, often prefer to gloss over the truth, but even Scuderi and Olivier, both of whom appear to be of impeccable character and caught up in events through no fault of their own, show that they too prefer an edited version of the truth occasionally. In order to stop Madelon from succumbing to the “gräßlichste Verzweiflung” (SW III, 692), which she might do were she to learn the truth about her father, they decide to conceal the facts from her. Olivier’s apparently well-intentioned attempt to protect Madelon from the truth — he is even prepared to sacrifice his own life to this end — does not, however, spring from wholly altruistic motives. He knows that if he manages to do this he is bound to appear to his beloved in a much better light. Olivier realizes the extent of his own guilt, knowing that he was responsible, albeit indirectly, for a series of murders by not turning Cardillac in to the police. He may seek to justify his actions by claiming that he was motivated by his love for Madelon, but in his heart he knows that he acted against the dictates of his conscience: “Ich bin nicht vorwurfsfrei, die Chambre ardente kann mich mit Recht eines Verbrechens zeihen” (SW III, 684). Had Olivier told the police about Cardillac’s crimes, his own involvement in the murders would also have come to light. He would have had to confess his guilt to Madelon, also revealing that he was not an innocent victim of circumstances, but a fallible individual quite capable of carrying out ignoble deeds, all of which would have meant the collapse of his vision of an idealistic love affair. What Olivier loves about Madelon is her naïve innocence; he also knows that she idolizes him and loves him unconditionally. He is not willing to risk jeopardizing this, nor is he prepared to run the risk that, rather than her forgiving him, accepting his faults, and thereby growing into a mature adult human being capable of love in the true sense of the word, she might simply reject him out of hand. He would rather die than allow her illusions (and his!) to be shattered: “Nein! — mich wird die Geliebte meiner Seele beweinen als den unschuldig Gefallenen” (SW III, 698). It might be said in mitigation that Olivier’s failure to tell Madelon the whole truth is the result of his youth, inexperience, and the depth of his feelings for her. And although it would be going too far

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to claim that Olivier distorts the truth out of purely selfish motives, he is, nonetheless, not a straightforwardly exemplary figure. Cardillac, no less than Olivier, is anxious to conceal the truth from Madelon, but his reasons differ. The more guilt-laden he becomes about his crimes, the more he values the virginal purity of his daughter and takes every care to preserve this innocence. First he throws Olivier out of his house, only to accept him back later because he has become privy to his murderous secret. Olivier and Cardillac are both guilty — to differing degrees — and both regard Madelon’s innocence as an inviolable ideal of goodness. But this condition of innocence is, of course, an artificial state of affairs. For as Friedrich Schlegel says: “Die Frauen müssen wohl prüde bleiben, solange die Männer sentimental, dumm und schlecht genug sind, ewige Unschuld und Mangel an Bildung von ihnen zu for16 dern.” Unlike Cardillac and Olivier, Schlegel recognizes that this “innocence” depends upon a deliberate withholding of knowledge and that throughout history men have repeatedly succumbed to the temptation to preserve this illusion of innocence by turning their lovers, wives, or daughters into icons of purity. That is to say, if there can be no paradise 17 on earth, at least there should be a virginal Madonna. In this instance, Olivier’s attempt to preserve the integrity of the fictional world in which his particular icon of innocence lives nearly leads to disaster.

Scuderi Olivier succeeds in winning Scuderi’s support for two reasons: first, she regards herself as inextricably linked to his fate on account of being a quasi-relation of his; second, she admires the depth and sincerity of his feelings for Madelon. In her eyes he is the model of a virtuous hero: “Sie [Scuderi] ehrte des Jünglings Heldensinn, der lieber schuldbeladen sterben, als ein Geheimnis verraten, das seiner Madelon den Tod bringen mußte” (SW III, 699). Although it would be traumatic for Madelon to discover that her father was a murderer, this experience is unlikely to have caused her death. In deciding to keep the truth concealed, Scuderi and Olivier simply assume it would have killed her. In so doing, they act in accordance with a model of education in which young girls are deliberately shielded from reality, a model of education that neither criticizes and both encourage. At this point however, we cannot help asking how Scuderi has managed to make the transition from naïve young girl to clever and resourceful woman with a considerable understanding of how human beings behave in desperate situations without first-hand experience of the real world with all its positive and negative aspects.

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Scuderi has turned into a mature woman, respected by all who know her, because she has not taken refuge in a world of illusion, but has had more experience of the realities of human behavior than many of her contemporaries. As an unmarried woman in an essentially male-dominated 18 society, she enjoys considerable independence, as a member of the court, she has had ample opportunity to observe the course of political and romantic intrigue at close quarters, and as an elderly lady she is of little interest to potential admirers. All of the above enable her to view the world from a more objective perspective than most. Why then does this intelligent and resourceful woman appear to disregard the experience she has gathered over the course of a lifetime by agreeing with Olivier that it would be better for Madelon to be kept in the dark about her father? Her motives are well-intentioned — she acts more from a sense of motherly protection than anything else — but she fails to see that if she helps Olivier to conceal the truth from Madelon, she will put his life at risk and compromise Madelon’s happiness. The girl has already lost her father and were 19 Olivier to be executed, she would have had a double loss to bear. However, it is not simply in respect of the education of young women that Scuderi is misguided. Her lack of understanding of the Romantic concept of art deprives her of any real understanding of Cardillac’s predicament. She may be the author of “Romane” (SW III, 650), “mittelmäßige Verse” (662) and “anmutige, [. . .] witzige Gedichte” (670), but she cannot be regarded as someone with a serious commitment to art — at least not in the Romantic sense. Scuderi’s attitude toward art makes her a typical product of her society. She sees art as principally concerned with form, not content. She composes witty rhyming couplets, uses extravagant rhetoric, and can always turn a bon mot. But what is this when compared with the work of the Romantic artist, who wrestles with those art forms that elude the constraints of form (such as the novel) and seeks a greater emphasis on content: “Die Romane sind die sokratischen Dialoge unserer Zeit. In diese liberale 20 Form hat sich Lebensweisheit vor der Schulweisheit geflüchtet.” Scuderi regards art not as an activity carried out for its own sake, but rather as an activity directed towards a more mundane goal. She sees it essentially as bound up with the business of escaping the prosaic and unpleasant aspects of everyday life, which makes her no different from the other artists at court, except that she uses her art to try and gain an advantage for Olivier rather than for herself. This decent, dignified, humane woman who champions Olivier’s cause — even trying to win the king’s support by staging a specially contrived charade — cannot be said to possess a deep understanding of art. Even when Olivier has explained Cardil-

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lac’s tragic predicament to her, she cannot show sympathy for she has failed to grasp its nature; she even goes as far as to dissociate herself from him publicly — “ich habe mich ganz losgesagt von diesem Goldschmied” (SW III, 704) — a remark that shows that she sees Cardillac not as a tragically flawed artist, but merely as a violent murderer. The naïve and youthful Olivier, who has every reason to bear a grudge against Cardillac, recognizes his master’s tragic predicament for what it is, whereas Scuderi, whose humanity is evident in all other respects, cannot do so, even though Cardillac respected her and posed no physical threat to her: “Nun ist es gewiß, [. . .] daß, mag der geheimnisvolle Mensch auch wirklich zu der Bande verruchter Diebe und Mörder gehören, er doch gegen mich nichts Böses im Schilde führt” (671). Cardillac himself is drawn to Scuderi by her uncompromising morality, and because he recognizes that although she may share much the same view of art as all the members of the king’s entourage, her integrity — unlike theirs — is not a mere façade. His evaluation of Scuderi is correct; it is in her personal courage, together with her refusal to compromise, that her strength lies. Whether it is a question of making sure that true love will end in fulfillment or simply of seeing to it that truth and justice are not lost amidst the general corruption of society, she will always do her utmost. Hoffmann presents the two extremes of love in this novella: the trivial, sensual passion and the grand emotion that prompts human beings to pursue the Ideal. At the court of Louis XIV, what passes for love is little more than a desire for sensual pleasure: “Liebeslust,” and “Abenteuer der Galanterie” (SW III, 660); this is contrasted with the unconditional love of Olivier and Madelon, which, far from diminishing in times of personal distress, becomes ever stronger: “Madelon [. . .] schloß damit, daß, wenn Olivier in ihrem Beisein dem Vater den Dolch in die Brust gestoßen hätte, sie dies eher für ein Blendwerk des Satans halten [. . .] würde” (675). For his part, Olivier is willing to sacrifice his own life in order to spare Madelon the pain of discovering the truth, though his motive for so doing is somewhat questionable. The love that binds the two young people together so tragically could not be more different from the shallow affairs of the courtiers, none of whom would be willing to risk much — let alone his life — for the sake of his beloved: “Ehre und Lust sei es, im ritterlichen Kampf sein Blut für die Geliebte zu verspritzen; anders verhalte es sich aber mit dem heimtückischen Anfall des Mörders, wider den man sich nicht wappnen könne” (660). Scuderi singles herself out from the other courtiers when she makes her celebrated pronouncement in support of unconditional love: “Un amant qui craint les voleurs n’est point digne d’amour” (SW III, 661).

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She may lack an understanding of Romantic art, but she is prepared to go to great lengths to defend Romantic love. As soon as she sees that Olivier and Madelon are in danger, Scuderi’s sympathies are awakened, and she embarks on her plan of action. As a result of the distorted view of reality endorsed by this society, both Olivier and Madelon are placed in danger since all the relevant agencies, such as the king, the police, the courtiers, and “Volk,” are desperate to find a guilty party and believe that in Olivier they have identified the culprit. This overhasty, erroneous conclusion has the advantage that it is far simpler than embarking upon a systematic investigation of human motives and complex pieces of evidence. When circumstances force Scuderi to recognize the dangers inherent in a world from which truth has been excluded, her motherly sensibilities are aroused, and she proves both willing and able to confront reality, especially when, as in this case, the lives and future happiness of two innocent human beings are at stake. This makes her an exceptional figure in her society. Cardillac also recognizes the power of love: although he had been opposed to a liaison between Olivier and Madelon, when he is on the point of death we are told how he “Olivier mit seelenvollem Blick angeschaut, ihre [Madelons] Hand ergriffen, sie in Oliviers Hand gelegt und beide heftig gedrückt [hatte]” (674).

The Denouement The fate of the young lovers is in the hands of the king, and Scuderi, a shrewd judge of how his mind works, contrives an elaborate charade, which has to accomplish two aims: convince Louis of Olivier’s innocence while sparing Madelon’s feelings by keeping her in ignorance. The whole thing is pure theater. Dressed in black and dripping with Cardillac’s jewelry, she recounts the whole story to the king in a highly melodramatic fashion. From the start, he is totally captivated: “Der König, hingerissen von der Gewalt des lebendigsten Lebens, das in der Scuderi Rede glühte, gewahrte nicht, daß von einem gehässigen Prozeß des ihm abscheulichen Brusson die Rede war, vermochte nicht ein Wort hervorzubringen” (SW III, 704–5). Scuderi’s trump card is Madelon herself, who appears on stage in her allotted role as the tragic, innocent victim. In staging such a charade, Scuderi genuinely believes that there is no other course of action open to her; having given up on any hope of convincing the king of Olivier’s innocence by rational means, she has to resort to drama to appeal to his emotions. But as it happens, her plan goes horribly wrong. A misplaced remark from Maintenon reminds the king of his former mistress, la Vallière, and, shaken out of his sentimental reverie, he realizes that he was on the point of being swayed not

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by the force of reason but by an appeal to his emotions. Suddenly his mood changes as he recognizes “daß er im Begriff stehe, das strenge Recht der Schönheit aufzuopfern” (706). All is not lost though; the king postpones passing judgement, and he decides to embark himself upon an investigation of Olivier’s case in order to arrive at his own conclusions: “So viel war gewiß, daß der König selbst dem wahren Zusammenhange der Sache nachforschen ließ . . .” (707). And of course, this ultimately leads to Olivier being acquitted of murder. Scuderi’s charade may not have quite the result she intends, but it does play an important role in securing justice for Olivier. It prompts the king to take an interest in the case and become personally involved in it. Here we might recall that Scuderi’s interest in the whole affair was also triggered by an emotional — rather than rational — reaction, whether we see this as having its origins in her initial sense of outrage that the thieves suspected of the crime should have sent her the jewels: “der Zettel [. . .] entfiel ihren [Scuderis] zitternden Händen [. . . sie] sank dann wie halb ohnmächtig in den Lehnsessel zurück” (SW III, 662), or in the fact she listens to Olivier primarily because he reminds her of a person she was fond of: “daß er [Olivier] nur dieser Ähnlichkeit es verdanke, wenn sie den tiefen Abscheu vor dem Mörder überwinde und ihn ruhig anhöre” (683), or in her recognizing in him the son of her foster daughter, Anne Guiot: “‘O um aller Heiligen willen!’ rief die Scuderi, indem sie mit beiden Händen das Gesicht bedeckend in die Polster zurücksank” (683). Her attempt to discover the truth and secure justice is driven primarily by emotion rather than by a sober, rational assessment of the facts: “nicht erwehren kann ich mir einer dunklen Ahnung, daß hinter diesem allem irgendein grauenvolles, entsetzliches Geheimnis verborgen” (669) and “sie gab Raum dem entsetzlichen Verdacht, daß Madelon mitverschworen sein und teilhaben könnte an der gräßlichen Blutschuld” (680). 21 As Aristotle says, “Reason of herself moves nothing,” and Hoffmann’s novella underlines the importance of an emotional component in matters of human morality and justice. Nonetheless, we should not imagine that justice can be secured solely through an emotional commitment, as Scuderi initially appears to believe; justice also requires the use of reason and a detailed examination of the available facts. Like art, justice 22 requires the application of reason and emotion in equal measure. This is what the king acknowledges when he realizes that he was close to allowing himself to be swayed solely by his emotions and, just in time, instigates a fresh investigation into the (rational) facts relating to Olivier’s case, drawing his conclusion from the results of the new investigation.

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By contrast, Cardillac is not able to subject the emotional component of his psychological make-up to such tight control. He lacks the delicate balance between reason and emotion, and it is this imbalance that eventually brings about his downfall. He bears the dual burden of being a full-blooded Romantic artist and having an inborn obsession for jewelry, making him doubly likely to transgress conventional boundaries in his quest for the Ideal. Although he inevitably goes down paths the ordinary members of society dare not tread, he cannot ignore the norms of society and basic human morality altogether without running the risk of becoming a figure even more inhuman than the unscrupulous La Regnie, who maintains defiantly: “ich tue meine Pflicht, was kümmert mich das Urteil der Welt” (SW III, 676). Art requires the passion (“Leidenschaft”) of the artist, but it must not be allowed to bring about human suffering (“Leiden”) by becoming wholly detached from morality. The artist who becomes a fanatic like Cardillac and regards art as simply a quest for the Absolute has failed to appreciate art’s true essence. In the case of the poisoners, we are told that poisoning can become an irresistible passion — “Verbrechen [. . .] zur unwiderstehlichen Leidenschaft werden” (SW III, 654); art is Cardillac’s all-consuming passion, and it is this that leads him to turn to crime. But the latter, Hoffmann makes quite clear, is contrary to the true purpose of art. Neither Cardillac, the artist who does not feel himself bound by moral codes, nor Scuderi, who has moral principles but only a slender understanding of art, perceives how intimately art and morality are bound up together. The society that Hoffmann depicts is one in which violence and terror are widespread. The novella as a whole suggests that any society that neglects either art or morality will fail its citizens and that if it runs its civic affairs on purely pragmatic lines, it is doomed to decay. The story is not, as some critics would have it, open-ended. It may be left to us to draw our own conclusions, but that does not mean that the ending can be interpreted arbitrarily. Hoffmann subtly nudges us towards a particular interpretation by presenting us with a series of oppositions: appearance versus reality; man-made judgements versus justice; “Giftmorde” versus “Kunstmorde”; free will versus determinism; the superficial world of the court versus the Romantic world; eros versus agape, and lastly, reason versus emotion. This series of oppositions is one with which all human beings must come to terms — whether as lovers, artists, or judges. It is not sufficient to favor one term over the other, and the consequences of doing so are clearly spelled out in the novella. Nor is the solution to be found in a banal position of compromise mid-way between these two poles. A genuine artist cannot pursue his art half-heartedly any

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more than a true lover can love half-heartedly. What matters is that society can accommodate a variety of opposing tendencies and that a man like Cardillac has the right to exist and to pursue his artistic endeavors without feeling driven to resort to the extreme behavior depicted in the story. Accordingly, we must not lose sight of either art or morality; if truth, which is never simple, is to emerge, a case must be considered from a variety of often diametrically opposed perspectives. Nonetheless, a productive synthesis of art/imagination on the one hand and life/reality on the other is not to be understood as a position of stasis, as the last word of a contrived happy end. Rather, it is a continually evolving state of consciousness that can never come to rest without running the risk of ossifying into a fixed position. This continual process of calling ideas into question and adopting a critical attitude is essential if human beings are to make progress in grasping reality and discovering truth.

Notes 1

Rahel von Varnhagen, Rahel: Ein Buch des Andenkens für ihre Freunde (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1834), vol. 3, 13–15. 2

Jenaische Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung (1820), Sp. 43 f. [R. R. = Cramer].

3

Despite the story’s title, a number of critics regard Cardillac (albeit for different reasons) as the central figure. Marianne Thalmann, for instance, sees him as the supreme embodiment of an ideal of “anti-philistinism” and, in almost Nietzschean tones, claims that: “Cardillacs Untergang ist der Untergang Serapions, der Übergang zum höheren Menschen.” See Marianne Thalmann, “E. T. A. Hoffmanns Fräulein von Scuderi,” Monatshefte 41 (1949): 107–16 (114). Although her essay highlights the crucial issue of the relationship between the artist and his public, she totally ignores the equally important issue of Cardillac’s moral culpability. Hellmuth Himmel draws a number of parallels between Cardillac and Scuderi, claiming that both are artists, albeit very different kinds of artists, and makes the point that “Ihre [Scuderis] Kunst ist von keiner besonderen Problematik belastet.” See Hellmuth Himmel, “Schuld und Sühne der Scuderi,” in E. T. A. Hoffmann, ed. Helmut Prang (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1976), 215–36 (226). At the same time, he sees Scuderi as an embodiment of virtue and thus as someone who offers Cardillac the possibility of redemption. Critics of a psychoanalytic persuasion are convinced that the key to the story lies, above all, in the “confusion of diamonds and sex.” Ellis, for example, sees Cardillac as a pathological figure, and attempts to account for his murderous tendencies on the grounds that “Cardillac [. . .] spends his nights punishing his mother’s lover.” See John M. Ellis, “E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Das Fräulein von Scuderi,” MLR 64 (1969): 340–50 (344).

4

See, for example, Yvonne Holbeche, “The Relationship of the Artist to Power: E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Das Fräulein von Scuderi,” Seminar 16 (1980): 1–11; R. G.

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Whitinger and M. Herzog, “Hoffmann’s Das Fräulein von Scuderi and Süskind’s Das Parfum: Elements of Homage in a Postmodernist Parody of a Romantic Artist Story,” GQ 67 (1994): 222–34. 5

This view is put forward by Klaus D. Post in his essay, “Kriminalgeschichte als Heilsgeschichte. Zu E. T. A. Hoffmanns Erzählung Das Fräulein von Scuderi,” ZfdPh 96 (1976): 132–56 (156). 6

Critics have always been uncomfortable with the ending of the story, and those writing from the mid-1970s onward have taken an increasingly ambivalent view of the denouement. Perhaps the first hint of this ambivalence is discernible in the closing remarks of Hermann Weiss’s essay when he notes that: “the reader is left with an uneasy awareness of the frailty of the individual as well as of man’s social institutions.” See Hermann F. Weiss, “‘The Labyrinth of Crime’: A Reinterpretation of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Das Fräulein von Scuderi,” GR 51 (1976): 181–89 (189). Even Holbeche’s apparently positive view of the denouement — “The work thus ends not only on a positive individual note but with a strong hint of general and lasting social and political healing” (9) — is heavily qualified when she adds that this all takes place in an “almost fairytale atmosphere,” with the result that the story’s conclusion is “no more than wish-fulfillment” (10). Whitinger and Herzog also have their reservations about the apparent “happy end”; they note that “[Hoffmann] evokes a dark background of historical reality that subverts his apparently happy ending” (224). Sheila Dickson has even gone so far as to claim that the ending is “riddled with ambiguities and unanswered questions” that leave the reader with “a lingering sense of unease.” See Sheila Dickson, “Black, White and Shades of Grey: A Reassessment of Narrative Ambiguity in E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Das Fräulein von Scuderi,” NGS 17 (1992/93): 133–57 (148). In a later essay, she goes on to claim that the denouement forces the reader to question the kind of black and white judgments to which the characters themselves are all too prone. Although this may be true, it is far from clear why it should leave us with “no clear cut interpretative basis . . . to direct our verdict” and with no alternative but to find the case against Cardillac — and others — as “not proven.” See Sheila Dickson, “Devil’s Advocate? The Artistic Detective in E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Das Fräulein von Scuderi,” FMLS 29 (1993): 246–56 (255). 7

See for example, Klaus Kanzog, “E. T. A. Hoffmanns Erzählung Das Fräulein von Scuderi als Kriminalgeschichte,” in E. T. A. Hoffmann, ed. Helmut Prang (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1976), 307–21; and Lothar Pikulik, “Das Verbrechen aus Obsession. E. T. A. Hoffmanns Das Fräulein von Scuderi” in Deutsche Novellen: Von der Klassik bis zur Gegenwart, ed. Winfried Freund (Munich: Fink, 1993), 47–57.

8

In recent years, literary critics have focused on other aspects of the story. Holbeche, for example, concentrates on the relationship of Scuderi and the king, and claims that by the end of the story, the king has “undergone a significant change” (9), having developed from an ignorant and despotic ruler to an enlightened monarch. Weiss, on the other hand, takes a negative view of the king, accusing him of a “failure of political and cultural leadership” (185), and drawing attention to what he terms “the climate of violence” (182) in which the story is set. 9

I disagree with Dickson’s claim that “it is [. . .] generally accepted that they [Desgrais and La Regnie] are carrying out their work in the way that could and should be expected of them.” See Dickson, “Black, White and Shades of Grey,” 137.

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10

Notwithstanding the oppressive atmosphere spread by the unscrupulous methods of the Chambre ardente, there is a moment of comedy when Desgrais hits upon the idea of sending out a number of officers disguised as himself: “Desgrais besann sich auf das Kunststück, mehrere Degrais zu schaffen, sich untereinander so ähnlich an Gang, Stellung, Sprache, Figur, Gesicht, daß selbst die Häscher nicht wußten, wo der rechte Degrais stecke” (SW III, 658) This motif of “Verdoppelung” is a recurrent theme in Hoffmann’s works. 11

Paradoxically, there is a psychological parallel between Cardillac’s motivation and the poisoners’ sheer lust for power. Cardillac’s obsessional behavior takes the form of a continual quest to produce new and better works of art, whereas the poisoners are obsessed with devising new and even better ways of killing their victims. The difference between the two lies in the original moral impulse behind their actions. 12

NS III, 411, §737.

13

Hoffmann’s sympathies clearly lie with Cardillac. His eccentric behavior makes him reminiscent of Krespel in Rat Krespel; in his burning desire to defend the value of art, he is similar to Berthold in Die Jesuiterkirche in G., who, although he is not a criminal, can be seen as a tragic figure whose love of perfect beauty makes him an outsider in his own society. Like both of the above, Cardillac is also described as “einer der sonderbarsten Menschen seiner Zeit” (SW III, 664). 14

There is an obvious reference here to the Fall of Man brought about by the temptation of Eve. This is reflected in Cardillac’s belief that in inheriting his mother’s desire to possess jewels, his destiny has been already been shaped. Of course, unlike his mother, Cardillac attaches no significance to the material value of the jewelry. 15 There is a clear parallel here to the situation of Medardus in Die Elixiere des Teufels, whose destiny is also predetermined to a large extent by the actions of his forebears. 16

KA II, 170, §31.

17

This can be taken to the extreme where woman emerges as man’s redeemer by paying the penalty for his wrong-doing. As an example we might take Aurelie/Rosalie in Die Elixiere des Teufels, who, through her death, restores Medardus’s inner peace and helps him to repent of and atone for his sins. 18 I cannot agree with Post’s curious assertion that the fact that Scuderi is an unmarried woman is to be taken as evidence of a pathological condition on her part: “Ihr [Scuderis] eheloser Zustand ist ein weiteres Symptom für die physische und geistige Isolation, in der sie sich befindet. Eine Brautschaft hat es für sie anscheinend nie gegeben, genausowenig eine Mutterschaft” (137). 19 Of course, the decision to conceal the truth from Madelon is also necessary from the point of view of the novella’s structure: without it, the story would make little sense. 20 21

KA II, 149, §26.

Aristotle, Nicomachaean Ethics, VI, ii, 5. We must also remember that for Hoffmann this is not simply a theoretical view of legal or aesthetic matters; in his capacity as both judge and writer, he had to effect a synthesis of reason and emotion. 22

3: Der Sandmann

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(1816) is Hoffmann’s best known novella for a variety of reasons. Nathanael’s teetering on the edge of madness, Clara’s sober rationality, the terrible secret of Olimpia, and Coppelius’s mysterious machinations have all fascinated readers, critics, and psychologists. It is hardly surprising that the volume of secondary literature on the story has now reached such proportions that it is difficult to present a concise overview of all that has been written. Some critics have even gone so far as to claim that the story resists interpretation altogether: Allerdings zeigt bereits eine Dichtergestalt wie Nathanael im Sandmann, wohin ein solcher Weg führen kann — in die Abwendung von jedem Hörer und Leser; das Werk ist nur noch dem Autor selbst zu1 gänglich und verständlich.

Despite this claim, it is possible to discern a number of distinct critical trends. First, there are those who have isolated particular motifs in the story: the symbolism of the eye; the opposition between madness and 2 sickness, between hot and cold; and the idea of the human robot. Second, there are those critics who concentrate on the story’s formal struc3 ture, focusing on the narrator and the different levels of narration. But for all their diversity, most of these approaches can be categorized by the way that they deal with two key questions: (a) is Nathanael driven mad by his own unfettered imagination, or are there other mysterious forces at work? And (b), is Clara to be seen as a positive or a negative figure in 4 the story? If we consider that Nathanael is a creative artist of a sort, Der Sandmann can be fitted into the series of novellas in which one of the main characters is an artist. Of course, he is not a professional artist like Berthold in Die Jesuiterkirche in G., but, as with the Councilor in Rat Krespel, art comes to play an ever more important role in his life. Haunted by the figure of the Sandman and under the influence of Clara and Olimpia, he spends more and more time composing “Gedichte, Fantasien, Visionen, Romane, Erzählungen [. . .] Sonette, Stanzen, Kanzonen” (SW I, 357). Strictly speaking this may not make him an artist, but it is clear that Nathanael sees himself as one because he refers to his “Dichtergabe” (357). The narrator tells us how he “sich in Wissenschaft und Kunst

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kräftig und heiter bewegte” (SW I, 345, my emphasis), but Nathanael is not the only figure involved in artistic endeavors. His father’s creative activities, although not of an unambiguously artistic nature, can be said to take place on the margins between art and science. It can even be argued that Olimpia’s creators, Spalanzani and Coppelius, display a degree of artistry in their attempt to imbue an artificial, mechanical construction with human qualities. Clara is convinced that Coppelius and 5 her father have been involved in “alchimistische Versuche,” and there is plenty of evidence in the text to support this: the “seltsam riechender Dampf” (334), the men’s “schwarze Kittel” (336), the fact that “eine blaue Flamme knisterte auf dem Herde” (336) and that “allerlei seltsame Geräte standen umher” (336), and the report of Coppelius who “schwang die glutrote Zange und holte damit hellblinkende Massen aus dem dicken Qualm” (336). In short, art — and creative activity in gen6 eral — are at the heart of this novella. The point Hoffmann makes most emphatically in the novella is the inter-relationship of art and reality. Although he is involved in a continual struggle to discover new artistic forms, the artist is driven by the desire to communicate these artistic creations to an audience. Furthermore, there is no reason why this audience should be confined only to professional critics and experts. When Spalanzani and Coppelius hold a party to exhibit their new creation, Olimpia, they invite their friends and acquaintances with a view to noting their (and especially Nathanael’s) reaction to her/it. Nathanael also needs an audience of people prepared to listen to and appreciate his artistic creations, and he believes that the people best suited to this are the members of his family, especially Clara, who, as his fiancée, must be interested — he thinks — in all the heart-felt concerns of her future husband. To begin with, Clara seems willing to take on the role of sounding-board, although she soon comes to the conclusion that Nathanael’s stories stem from a phobia, which has its origins in childhood fantasies and in an overactive imagination. She regards the dark forces, against which Nathanael feels quite powerless, as no more than a figment of his imagination: “gibt es eine solche Macht, so muß sie in uns sich, wie wir selbst gestalten, ja unser Selbst werden; denn nur so glauben wir an sie und räumen ihr den Platz ein, dessen sie bedarf” (SW I, 340). Unwilling to follow him down the path that his madness leads him and reluctant to listen to the “düsteren, unverständlichen Dichtungen” (SW I, 347) engendered by his fevered imagination, Clara repeatedly begs her fiancé to pull himself together and see reason. As Nathanael’s moods become ever more extreme, she even goes as far as to demand: “wirf das

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tolle — unsinnige — wahnsinnige Märchen ins Feuer” (348). This moment marks a turning point in the story since Nathanael interprets this rejection as her refusal to get involved and show an interest in the feelings and experiences that he has worked up into an artistic form. He experiences the crushing disappointment of the artist whose audience walks out in the middle of his performance. There he is alone, with no one to whom he can communicate the products of his artistic imagination and no one from whom he can expect any kind of response, let alone understanding. It is the fate with which the Romantic artist is all too familiar. Reasonable or unreasonable, Clara’s refusal to listen to Nathanael’s work deprives him of an essential component in the artistic process: the active cooperation of an audience. For from the artist’s point of view, all criticism, even the harshest, is preferable to being ignored. So when Clara refuses to become involved in his artistic attempts, Nathanael is plunged into a state of crisis and, disgusted by the unfeeling and philistine world, a world that seems to be embodied in the figure of Clara, he curses her: “Du lebloses, verdammtes Automat!” (SW I, 348). But just as she repudiates him and his fantasy world, he turns his back on her and the reality of her world, but this is hardly a solution. His desire to articulate his feelings and the products of his imagination is so strong that he is unable to check his creative instincts and stop himself from seeking out a new audience. Rejected by the world of sober rationality and seized by despair, it is in this state of mind that he turns to Spalanzani’s creation, Olimpia.

Olimpia Unlike his bourgeois friends who have no interest in art and who are not seeking a soul mate, Nathanael is predisposed to fall in love with her and find in her a substitute for all that Clara and the other members of the rational bourgeois world have denied him. Significantly, Nathanael showed no interest in Olimpia whilst he still had Clara as fiancée and audience. At this point he even said of Olimpia: “sie ist vielleicht blödsinnig oder sonst” (SW I, 342). It is not until he desperately needs an audience for his poetry that she springs to mind again. But even Olimpia will disappoint him, and it is this discovery that precipitates Nathanael’s final break down. To begin with he believes that in her he has found a soul mate and willing audience, someone who admires him and to whom he feels increasingly close. Olimpia will provide him with that which, qua human being and artist, is so essential to his creativity: total attention and critical affirmation — “welches alles Olimpia mit großer Andacht anhörte” (357). This is merely an illusion since she is, of course, a robot.

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Those around him, especially Siegmund, waste no time in trying to point out to him that all is not what it appears to be. But love is indeed blind, for Nathanael rejects Siegmund’s well-meant advice and leaps to the defense of his Olimpia whenever the others criticize her: “Euch mag es nicht recht sein, daß sie nicht in platter Konversation faselt, wie die anderen flachen Gemüter. Sie spricht wenig Worte [. . .], aber diese wenigen Worte erscheinen als echte Hieroglyphe der innerern Welt voll Liebe [. . .] Doch für alles das habt ihr keinen Sinn und alles sind verlorne Worte.” (SW I, 357)

Since we already suspect that Olimpia is an artificial marionette rather than a real woman of flesh and blood, Nathanael’s defense of her strikes us as irrational, comic, and even grotesque, with the result that the reader is tempted to side with Siegmund and turn his back on the Romantic, Nathanael. Nathanael’s outburst in defense of his beloved is not as foolish as it first seems. Unable to recognize her for the robot she is, he attributes qualities to her to which his fellow students are oblivious. But do we not all see more in the object of our affections than the rest of the world does? Is it not the case that the lover, and also the artist, sees more in his beloved than the rational world, which approaches such things with only instrumental reason at its disposal? Love may render the lover blind, but it also opens up to him perspectives on the world denied to others: “Nur mir ging ihr Liebesblick auf und durchstrahlte Sinn und Gedanken” (SW I, 356). The discovery that Olimpia is a mechanical doll is a traumatic event for Nathanael, but in pledging himself to her, Nathanael sets himself apart from the philistines who lack imagination, and whose view of art and of the world around them is wholly superficial. The Romantic artist is in a similar situation to the lover in that both are distanced from the world of instrumental reason. Although this might appear to be a shortcoming, it does entail a broadening of perspective and a recognition of those qualities that remain concealed from those of a non-Romantic disposition. We may laugh at Nathanael when he insists that Olimpia possesses unique qualities, but as a lover and an artist, he is privy to a world that eludes many others. If he had never discovered that Olimpia was an automaton, it is possible that he might have remained happy and contented with her, although to the rational mind, this would be an unthinkable situation. The philistines’ fear of falling prey to the power of the imagination and of the breakdown of reason is revealed in the deep unease of many esteemed gentlemen when it becomes known that Olimpia is simply a mechanical doll. Suddenly

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they start to doubt the certainty that reason appears to offer and adopt a skeptical attitude towards everything that they had believed hitherto: Um nun ganz überzeugt zu werden, daß man keine Holzpuppe liebe, wurde von mehreren Liebhabern verlangt, daß die Geliebte etwas taktlos singe und tanze, daß sie beim Vorlesen sticke, stricke, mit dem Möpschen spiele u.s.w. vor allen Dingen aber, daß sie nicht bloß höre, sondern auch manchmal in der Art spreche, daß dieses Sprechen wirklich ein Denken und Empfinden voraussetze. (SW I, 360)

The irony of the above passage underlines the point that for the philistines “Denken und Empfinden” have no intrinsic value, but are simply signs that the person in question is indeed a real, live human being. It even implies that, prior to the “scandal” of Olimpia, “Denken und Empfinden” were not even regarded as desirable. Furthermore, the hysterical reaction of the philistines shows that they cannot even make use of the opportunity Olimpia, in her capacity as a “work of art,” provides them with. They cannot enjoy this temporary liberation of the imagination (and with it the provocatively amusing aspect of the whole business) for what it is. In their eyes, such deception is a threat, a criminal offense: “Juristen nannten es sogar einen feinen und um so härter zu bestrafenden Betrug” (SW I, 360), and constitutes an attack on bourgeois society insofar as it questions that society’s view of reality. That is the reason why they are unable to laugh at themselves; far from inspiring them to see the world from a different perspective, Olimpia — Spalanzani and 7 Coppelius’s work of art — merely outrages them. The philistines’ cold, rational attitude to art is very similar to their attitude to love. So it is hardly surprising that they cannot see that Nathanael’s being in love with a mechanical doll bears more than a passing resemblance to their relationships with their wives and fiancées. For how do these latter differ from Olimpia when all they have to do to be regarded as real human beings is to demonstrate a rudimentary capacity for “Denken und Empfinden?” Where any resemblance ends is in Nathanael’s feelings for Olimpia, which — unlike those in bourgeois relationships — are whole-hearted and unconditional. It should be added, however, that while his failure to perceive that Olimpia was nothing but a marionette may be excusable, he is guilty of contributing to the artificiality of her being by projecting the categories of his imagination on to her. As a lover and artist, Nathanael needs an Other, someone to respond to his expressions of love and art. Failing to find such a person, Nathanael creates one, rather like a present-day Pygmalion. Whereas Spalanzani and Coppelius construct Olimpia’s body, Nathanael constructs her personality.

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Everything she thinks and feels is simply a reflection of his own thoughts and feelings; his idealization of his beloved is nothing more than the nar8 cissistic projection of his own ego on to another “person.” But it is not simply his own thoughts that he projects onto her; he even breathes life into her: “in dem Kuß schienen die Lippen zum Leben zu erwarmen” (SW I, 355). Here we see Olimpia’s nullity; she has no identity of her own not because she is made of wood and metal, but because she is nothing but a 9 mirror on to which Nathanael has projected his own ego. How ironic it is that Nathanael should summarize the situation so aptly, without even realizing the significance of his words, when he says: “nur in Olimpias Liebe finde ich mein Selbst wieder” (356). Olimpia is doubly artificial; her physical body has been assembled by Spalanzani and Coppelius, and her identity has been constructed by 10 Nathanael. Her destruction is doubly shattering for Nathanael, who loses his lover’s illusions and — for the second time — his audience. This tragic event shows how fatal it is for the artist or lover to cling to an illusion of his own making. No lover can create the perfect bride, nor can the Romantic artist create the perfect audience. The fact remains that the perfect woman does not exist; the perfect audience — which for the Romantic artist would be made up of like-minded artists — when taken to its logical conclusion would be nothing less than a mirror image of the artist himself. Too late to save himself, Nathanael realizes that Olimpia is not — any more than Clara was — the Ideal for which he longs.

Clara We are told that from their youth Nathanael and Clara “eine heftige Zuneigung zueinander faßten” (SW I, 344) and became engaged at an early age; however their relationship fails as a result of the different expectations each has of the other. The more Romantic Nathanael grows, the more rational Clara becomes. The descriptions of Clara are conflicting: we learn that “Clara hatte die lebenskräftige Fantasie des heitern unbefangenen, kindischen Kindes, ein tiefes weiblich zartes Gemüt, einen gar hellen scharf sichtenden Verstand” (345), and only a few lines later we are told: “Clara wurde deshalb von vielen kalt, gefühllos, prosaisch gescholten” (345). This is a personality manifesting a number of opposing traits: the typically “feminine” ones of feeling and empathy, and the typically “masculine” ones of reason and understanding. The question is, which will turn out to be dominant. There are plenty of examples of Clara’s capacity to show emotion and feel for others. When she reads Nathanael’s letter to Lothar, she

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cannot sleep for worrying about him (“daß er [Coppelius] selbst meinen gesunden, sonst so ruhigen Schlaf in allerlei wunderlichen Traumbildern zerstören konnte,” SW I, 339); she feels for Nathanael’s pain (“schmerzte mich nicht Dein Zustand recht in innerster Seele,” 341). She is deeply in love with him, and when he leaves to embark on his studies, she “hing an dem Geliebten mit ganzer Seele; die ersten Wolkenschatten zogen durch ihr Leben, als er sich von ihr trennte” (345). When Nathanael has a breakdown following the Olimpia episode, it is Clara who tries to save him with her love — (“Endlich, endlich, o mein herzlieber Nathanael — nun bist du genesen von schwerer Krankheit — nun bist du wieder mein,” 361) — and agrees to become his wife. And finally, we must not forget that it is Clara who prevents Nathanael and Lothar from fighting a senseless duel: Ihr wilden entsetzlichen Menschen! — stoßt mich nur gleich nieder, ehe ihr euch anfallt; denn wie soll ich denn länger leben auf der Welt, wenn der Geliebte den Bruder, oder wenn der Bruder den Geliebten 11 ermordet hat! (SW I, 349)

So much for the warm, caring side of her personality. There are an equal number of pointers to Clara’s shortcomings, which largely reflect her overrationalistic and unimaginative side. She is worried about Nathanael’s tortured state, so she tries — quite understandably — to find a rational explanation for his fits of madness; she believes she can explain away the haunting image of the Sandman/Coppelius figure as nothing more than a figment of his overheated imagination: “Sei überzeugt, daß die fremden Gestalten nichts über Dich vermögen; nur der Glaube an ihre feindliche 12 Gewalt kann sie Dir in der Tat feindlich machen” (SW I, 341). Though she finds Nathanael’s account of the Sandmann/Coppelius horrible and disturbing, she refuses to allow it to disrupt her usual state of mind, and the very next day she is, once again — as she tells him straight to his face — “ganz heitern unbefangenen Sinnes [. . .], wie immer” (339) and determined to banish, “den häßlichen Coppola [. . .] mit lautem Lachen” (341). Her fatal mistake is not so much her (understandable) reluctance to take seriously the figures Nathanael refers to in his writings and conversations, rather it is her refusal to take seriously his fears and anxieties, which are only too real to Nathanael. Clara lacks a degree of imagination and psychological insight in failing to realize that conceding to Nathanael’s “übermäßige Phantasie,” the term she uses to describe the figments of his imagination, and engaging with his thoughts, hopes, and fears would almost certainly have had a positive effect on him. In the

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early part of the novella, Nathanael’s mother tried in vain to help her young son overcome his fear of the Sandman by telling him that: “Es gibt keinen Sandmann, mein liebes Kind” (SW I, 332). Clara’s attempt to save Nathanael here by dismissing his fear as “mystische Schwärmereien” (346) is equally futile, and her playful reasoning has the additional effect of making him appear ridiculous: “Aber lieber Nathanael, wenn ich dich nun das böse Prinzip schelten wollte, das feindlich auf meinen Kaffee wirkt?” (347). At the same time, it seems to him that she is ignoring him altogether: “Clara brach aber verdrüßlich ab, indem sie irgend etwas Gleichgültiges dazwischen schob, zu Nathanaels nicht geringem Ärger” (346). Clara may try to get Nathanael to view the world from her perspective, but he tries to do exactly the same to her in a forlorn attempt to make her more receptive to his world. Accordingly, when Lothar enlightens his sister “über die Materie von dunklen Mächten und Gewalten” (SW I, 341), Nathanael reacts angrily and writes to Lothar, complaining that: “Du liesest ihr wohl logische Kollegia, damit sie alles fein sichten und sondern lerne. — Laß das bleiben!” (342). Here Nathanael betrays his anxiety that his fiancée might be tempted to view the world from an even more rational perspective, when his only wish is that she should adopt a deeper, more imaginative, indeed more Romantic, attitude to the world. Ultimately it is her reluctance — or inability — to derive pleasure from the world of fantasy that drives him, quite literally, mad. She lacks precisely those qualities of the imagination that the narrator hopes to arouse in the reader: Vielleicht wirst du, o mein Leser! dann glauben, daß nichts wunderlicher und toller sei, als das wirkliche Leben und daß dieses der Dichter doch nur, wie in eines matt geschliffnen Spiegels dunklem Widerschein, auffassen könne. (SW I, 344)

The rational Clara cannot do this, and her prosaic and bourgeois view of the world appalls Nathanael, who feels misunderstood and humiliated both in his capacity as a lover and artist. It may well be that his “Phantasie mit ihm durchgeht,” which in any case is a vital part of the process of artistic creation. However, that which in his case is taken to excess, is clearly lacking in Clara’s case. He wants to plunge into the Romantic world of the imagination, whereas Clara clings to the rules and paradigms of her rationalistic world. Of course, both are guilty of exaggeration when they claim that happiness is only to be found in their world, the only one which is real.

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It is important to note that both are well aware of the impression each is making upon the other. Clara understands that Nathanael finds her bourgeois and lacking in imagination: “hast Du mir auch sonst manchmal [. . .] vorgeworfen, ich hätte solch ruhiges, weiblich besonnenes Gemüt, daß ich wie jene Frau, drohe das Haus den Einsturz, noch vor schneller Flucht ganz geschwinde einen falschen Kniff in der Fenstergardine glattstreichen würde.”(SW I, 339)

And as she continues: Nun wirst Du wohl unwillig werden über Deine Clara, Du wirst sagen: “In dies kalte Gemüt dringt kein Strahl des Geheimnisvollen, das den Menschen oft mit unsichtbaren Armen umfasst; sie erschaut nur die bunte Oberfläche der Welt [. . .].” (SW I, 340)

For his part, Nathanael is aware that Clara is disturbed and even annoyed by his seemingly boundless imagination and wild dreams, and that she regards his outpourings as the symptoms of a diseased mind, as she tells him: “Solange du an ihn [Coppelius] glaubst, ist er auch und wirkt, nur dein Glaube ist seine Macht.” — Nathanael, ganz erzürnt, daß Clara die Existenz des Dämons nur in seinem Innern statuierte, wollte dann hervorrücken mit der ganzen mystischen Lehre von Teufeln und grausen 13 Mächten [. . .]. (SW I, 346)

Each turns a deaf ear to the other’s criticisms and takes up an increasingly entrenched position, refusing to compromise or view the world from a different perspective for the sake of the other. As a result their respective positions become increasingly polarized: “so entfernten beide im Innern sich immer mehr voneinander, ohne es selbst zu bemerken” (SW I, 347). At the end of the novella after Clara has nursed Nathanael back to health, it seems as though he has adopted a more rational view of the world; however, it is clear that the term rational here is to be understood in Clara’s sense with all its bourgeois ramifications, and thus there is a final twist to the novella. Nathanael believes that Clara has now led him back into the real world: “ich war auf schlimmen Wege, aber zu rechter Zeit leitete mich ein Engel auf den lichten Pfad! — Ach, es war ja Clara!” (SW I, 361), but appearances prove deceptive. When they both climb the tower to enjoy the view, catastrophe strikes. Seized by a fit, Nathanael attempts to hurl Clara down from the tower, before throwing himself off the top. Why does the novella end on this tragic note, and how are we to interpret it? In order to answer these questions we must turn to the beginning of the story — to Nathanael’s childhood — and consider the figure(s) of the

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Sandmann, Coppelius, and Coppola, and their relationship to the glasses and the telescope that play so important a role in the novella.

Nathanael’s Childhood At some point in Nathanael’s childhood, the Sandman takes hold of his imagination. It is important to note that he first learns about the Sandman from the stories told by his mother and his sister’s nurse and that “jahrelang” (!) Nathanael never actually encounters the mysterious figure face to face. His mother may pack him off to bed (“zu Bette! zu Bette! der Sandmann kommt,” SW I, 332), but subsequently she explains to him that this is just a figure of speech and that there is no such person in real life (“es gibt keinen Sandmann, mein liebes Kind,” 332) — a contradiction that Nathanael’s young mind is unable to grasp. Convinced that something is being concealed from him, he asks the elderly nurse, who recounts a much more terrifying version of the myth: “Das ist ein böser Mann, der kommt zu den Kindern, wenn sie nicht zu Bett gehen wollen und wirft ihnen Händevoll Sand in die Augen, daß sie blutig zum Kopf herausspringen” (332–33). What she tells Nathanael is, of course, typical of many a fairy-tale in which other equally terrifying figures play a prominent role. However, unlike her account of the Sandman, these tales usually have a happy ending in which good triumphs over evil. By projecting his atavistic fears on to a particular figure and by overcoming this figure in his mind, a child can often overcome his fears and thereby experience a catharsis. In Nathanael’s case, this does not happen, and he seeks a substitute figure on to whom he can project such anxieties, namely the lawyer Coppelius. For no matter how terrible he may appear, any flesh and blood enemy is preferable to the unknown enemy lurking under the cover of darkness with which Nathanael has had to put up for years (“jahrelang dauerte das,” 333). Although the Sandman may have been a figure of terror for Nathanael, we should not overlook the fact that it is the Sandman who also stimulates the child to make use of his imagination and develop his enthusiasm for a world of fantasy: Der Sandmann hatte mich auf die Bahn des Wunderbaren, Abenteuerlichen gebracht, das so schon leicht im kindlichen Gemüt sich einnistet. Nichts war mir lieber, als schauerliche Geschichten von Kobolten, Hexen, Däumlingen u.s.w. zu hören oder zu lesen; aber obenan stand immer der Sandmann. (SW I, 333)

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The problems arise when this cultivation of the imagination is taken to excess. The mysterious atmosphere that pervades the house seems to be the very antithesis of a rationalistic attitude to the world. Nobody seems to know — or at least nobody seems willing to explain — just what is going on there: Die Mutter schien ebenso, wie wir, den widerwärtigen Coppelius zu hassen; denn sowie er sich zeigte, war ihr Frohsinn, ihr heiteres unbefangenes Wesen umgewandelt in traurigen, düstern Ernst. Der Vater betrug sich gegen ihn, als sei er ein höheres Wesen, dessen Unarten man dulden und das man auf jede Weise bei guter Laune halten müsse. (SW I, 335)

Just as Nathanael’s mother misguidedly withholds certain pieces of crucial information from her son, forcing him to invent his own “Feindbild,” so too certain events later on in the novella are withheld from her in an equally misguided attempt to spare her nerves. Although the mother might have been able to throw some light on the matter on at least two separate occasions, she is not consulted, and the true state of affairs is concealed from her: “der Mutter erzähle nichts von dem Erscheinen des gräßlichen Unholds” (SW I, 338), and “der Mutter war alles, was sich auf Coppelius bezog, verschwiegen worden” (350). It is precisely this reluctance to offer a rational explanation, this tendency to leave matters unresolved, that is one of the defining elements of transcendent Romanticism. Nathanael’s imagination, unchecked by reason, is allowed free rein to develop; similarly, his artistic side becomes increasingly caught up in the wilder aspects of unrestrained Romantic fantasizing. The Sandman is the extreme fantasy image of the child’s imagination, whilst Coppelius/Copolla is the ultimate embodiment of 14 the adult Romantic imagination. Both of these fantasies pose a serious threat to Nathanael since each in its own way drives him to an extreme. It is not his Romantic imagination that is responsible for Nathanael’s demise, it is the driving force behind his creative activities; indeed the novella makes clear that the figure(s) of Coppelius/Coppola are the very inspiration for his poetry: Es kam ihm endlich ein, jene düstre Ahnung, daß Coppelius sein Liebesglück stören werde, zum Gegenstande eines Gedichts zu machen [. . .] Während Nathanael dies dichtete, war er sehr ruhig und besonnen, er feilte und besserte an jeder Zeile und da er sich dem metrischen Zwang unterworfen, ruhte er nicht, bis alles rein und wohlklingend sich fügte. (SW I, 347–48)

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However, as soon as Nathanael is exposed to the influence of the more prosaic and rational — perhaps overrational — Clara for any length of time, the figure(s) of Coppelius/Coppola fade from his mind: “in dem Augenblick, als er Clara wiedersah, dachte er weder an den Advokaten Coppelius, noch [. . .]” (SW I, 345); “die Gestalt des häßlichen Coppelius war, wie Nathanael selbst es sich gestehen mußte, in seiner Fantasie erbleicht” (347). But an artist cut off from the well-spring of his imagination cannot function, and it is only a matter of time before Nathanael succumbs once more to the influence of Coppelius/Coppola. The latter — in his persona as barometer salesman — sets out to involve Nathanael completely while trying to sell him some optical instruments.

Optical Instruments and Nathanael’s Demise When Coppelius/Coppola turns up at his lodgings, he is described as 15 trying to “dazzle” Nathanael, to distort his perception of reality. In this he is successful, even though Nathanael appears — at least on the surface — to be filled with fear and disgust for him (“halt ein! halt ein, fürchterlicher Mensch,” SW I, 351); he is, nonetheless, fascinated by the man and lets himself be persuaded into making a purchase, all of which prompts Coppola/Coppelius to gloat with malicious pleasure: “Er [Nathanael] hörte ihn auf der Treppe laut lachen” (352). It is significant that Nathanael does not choose to buy any of the spectacles Coppola shows him — spectacles, we should note, are designed to correct human vision and to give a clearer view of reality — but opts instead for a telescope, an instrument which distorts reality in that it enlarges objects and makes them appear closer than they are. It is no coincidence then that it is through the distorted reality of this telescope that he repeatedly observes Olimpia: “ergriff Coppolas Perspektiv und konnte nicht los von Olimpias verführerischem Anblick” (352), “ganz unvermerkt nahm er deshalb Coppolas Glas hervor und schaute hin nach der schönen Olimpia” (353). Through the telescope she appears more intense, more beautiful and more sublime — “noch im Leben war ihm kein Glas vorgekommen, das die Gegenstände so rein, scharf, deutlich dicht vor Augen rückte” (351) — far more so than she could possibly be in real life, all of which leads him to become more closely involved with her. But even after he has been cured — which in the context of the novella means nothing more than having been temporarily removed from the world of his Romantic imagination — he still has the telescope in his pocket when he climbs the tower just prior to the catastrophic denouement. Nathanael and Clara climb the church tower, they escape the

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confines of the bourgeois world for a few moments and contemplate nature from on high. The vision they see is one of “delicate woodlands” and “blue mountains,” and although symbolic of an idyllic harmony, it is one that has not been artificially embellished by the intervention of an artist. Nathanael inevitably plunges into a state of introspection, but the real moment of crisis occurs when he looks through Coppola’s telescope and sees Clara. Just as he previously saw an unreal vision of Olimpia, now he sees an unreal image of Clara. Just as Olimpia, had seemed almost divine through the telescope, with the result that Nathanael believed he was looking at the Ideal itself, Clara appears with all her negative qualities magnified into a hellish image of all that is rational and philistine. Nathanael sees in a flash that marriage to Clara will not bring happiness into his life but will bring about his “death,” in the sense that he would be compelled to live in a bourgeois world where art and the imagination have no role. Just as the Romantic imagination — symbolized by the telescope, itself an extension of Coppola’s influence — is capable of exaggerating the qualities of objects and persons so that they appear ideal, so it can also exaggerate them to make them appear grotesque and terrifying. Both are distortions of perception, however, and Nathanael’s demise is brought about by his experiences at both ends of the spectrum, first with Olimpia and then with Clara. The former was not the angel he believed her to be, nor was Clara the grotesque figure he saw through the telescope. Although the rational component is clearly dominant in Clara’s case (and her fatal error is to deny the imagination enough room in either of their lives), no one would call her an out-and-out philistine, any more than they would call Olimpia the perfect embodiment of the Romantic Ideal. By the end of the novella it has become all too obvious that neither Clara nor Nathanael has succeeded in developing a balanced relationship with the Romantic imagination. Nathanael is either completely carried away by it (and although this inspires his art, it ends by destroying him) or he turns his back on it altogether, thereby eliciting Clara’s approval and opening up the possibility of a contented bourgeois existence, albeit one in which art plays no meaningful role. Both extremes prove to be the undoing of this hyper-sensitive artist and, ultimately, he is defeated by the impossibility of reconciling his ideal with reality. Clara survives him and discovers domestic bliss: “nach mehreren Jahren will man in einer entfernten Gegend Clara gesehen haben, wie sie mit einem freundlichen Mann, Hand in Hand vor der Türe eines schönen Landhauses saß und vor ihr zwei muntre Knaben spielten” (SW I, 363). But can her life really

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be described as fulfilled when it is essentially a superficial, bourgeois existence devoid of imagination? It is tempting to suggest that the real import of the story is to show that a productive synthesis of the Romantic world and the world of reality is not possible and that Clara and Nathanael, each in their own 16 way, are doomed to fail in this. It might be said, that the reader has no choice other than to accept or to reject this state of affairs, but that would be to fail to appreciate the complexity of Hoffmann’s story; nor would it be in keeping with his views on art generally had he merely presented the reader with a bald statement of fact to be accepted at face value. Given that he believed in the vital importance of provoking the reader and entering into a dialogue with him, it seems more likely that he intended the novella to be seen as an open-ended work, in which the reader is invited to seek out his or her own solution to the central di17 lemma. On closer analysis, the text reveals a number of subtle hints as in which a more positive solution might be found, while avoiding an uncritical identification with either Nathanael or Clara. We should remember that Clara and Nathanael sincerely love each other, strive to make something of their love (rather than going their separate ways on account of their incompatible views of the world), and each is willing to put up with difficulties for the sake of the other. Nathanael always returns to Clara, and she is willing to make a new start after his infatuation with Olimpia. The problem, however, is that there is no genuine dialogue between them because both have already made up their minds and neither will abandon an entrenched position. Indeed, it seems they deliberately avoid a frank exchange of views: “deshalb schreibe ich auch heute nicht an sie” (SW I, 343), “niemand erinnerte ihn auch nur durch den leisesten Anklang an die Vergangenheit” (361), “Siegmund ließ ihn nicht weiterreden, aus Besorgnis, tief verletzende Erinnerungen möchten ihm zu hell und flammend aufgehen” (361). Such an exchange of views, after the Olimpia episode, could have been very fruitful. Clara’s and Nathanael’s points of view are both defensible, and each could learn from the other, a process that might have led to a productive synthesis of their respective positions. The blame for this not happening must be apportioned equally, and a unique opportunity to bring about a rapprochement between the traditionally opposed worlds of reason and the imagination is missed. The troubled relationship between the two lovers is very like the relationship between the Romantic artist and his audience. When Romantic artists like Nathanael subject their audience to the wholly irrational products of the Romantic imagination they take a big risk; the general public, on the other hand, if it takes an

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essentially utilitarian view of art such as Clara does, cuts itself off from a vital source of human creativity. If there is to be a process of communication between these two groups — and this is an essential prerequisite not only for the development of art but also for the development of rational enterprises — both sides must modify their extreme attitudes. This means that the artist, whilst not allowing his art to become mundane or trivial, must recognize that if he lets his artistic visions become completely detached from the world, he risks ending up like Nathanael, condemned to 18 live in a solipsistic fantasy world of his own making. By the same token, if the audience takes a lethargic or ignorant attitude towards art, it risks depriving itself of a vital means of broadening and deepening its understanding of the world. He who assumes that reason can survive without imagination or vice-versa is bound to be disappointed. Furthermore, if and when a synthesis occurs, it is crucial not to fall into the trap of believing that the task has been completed since the dialogue between reason and imagination is a never-ending story.

Notes 1

See Hartmut Steinecke, E. T. A. Hoffmann (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1997), 220. It is not clear why this story should resist interpretation in the way that Steinecke claims. This view of art and literature seems to run counter to Hoffmann’s views generally; what is more, the vast quantity of secondary literature that the novella has provoked belies his assertion.

2

The motif of the eye plays a prominent role in Freud’s classic interpretation of the novella. See Sigmund Freud, Das Unheimliche (1919). In his study, the symbol of the eye comes to stand as a symbol of castration, an idiosyncratic reading that ignores many of the other elements of the story. Other studies which approach the story in terms of psychoanalysis include Ursula Mahlendorf, “E. T. A. Hoffmann’s The Sandman. The Fictional Psycho-Biography of a Romantic Poet,” American Imago: A Psychoanalytical Journal for the Arts and Science, 32 (1975): 301–23; and James M. McGlathery, Mysticism and Sexuality, E. T. A. Hoffmann. Part Two: Interpretation of the Tales. (New York, Bern, Frankfurt: Lang, 1985), 57–59. Siegbert Prawer adopts a Jungian perspective in his analysis of the story. See Siegbert Prawer, “Hoffmann’s Uncanny Guest: A Reading of Der Sandmann,” GLL, 18 (1965): 297–308. In recent years, a number of critics have turned once again to psychoanalysis in an attempt to analyze the story. See Gail M. Newman, “Narrating the Asymbolic Subject in E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Der Sandmann,” Seminar 33 (1997): 119–33; David Wagenknecht, “Reading Organ Speech in The Sandman, Hamlet and Freud’s Theoretical Language,” Colloquium Helveticum 25 (1997): 145–70; and Helmut Merkl, “Der paralysierte Engel. Zur Automatenliebe in E. T. A. Hoffmanns ‘Sandmann,’” Wirkendes Wort 38 (1988): 187–99. Peter von Matt and Detlef Kremer also put forward a new interpretation of the motif of the eye in their studies,

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Peter von Matt, Die Augen der Automaten: E. T. A. Hoffmanns Imaginationslehre als Prinzip seiner Erzählkunst (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1971); and Detlef Kremer, Romantische Metamorphosen: E. T. A. Hoffmanns Erzählungen (Stuttgart, Weimar: Metzler, 1993), 143–209. A number of authors have dealt with the theme of madness itself as an illness from the perspective of contemporary medicine, as a “Phantasie des Grauens,” or as merely one possible shade of reality: Günter Hartung, “Anatomie des Sandmanns,” WB 23 (1977): 45–65; Ernst Fedor Hoffmann, “Zu E. T. A. Hoffmanns ‘Sandmann,’” Monatshefte 54 (1962): 244–52; James M. McGlathery, Mysticism and Sexuality, E. T. A. Hoffmann. Part Two, 57–59; Lee B. Jennings, “Hoffmann’s Hauntings: Notes toward a Parapsychological Approach to Literature,” JEPG 75 (1976): 559– 67; and Friedhelm Auhuber, In einem fernen dunklen Spiegel: E. T. A. Hoffmanns Poetisierung der Medizin (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1986). Susan Brantly explores the opposition of hot and cold in her essay, “A Thermographic Reading of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Der Sandmann,” GQ 55 (1982): 324–35. Among the interpretations of the story that focus on questions of linguistic symbolism are those by Elizabeth Wright and Ursula Orlowsky. See Elizabeth Wright, E. T. A. Hoffmann and the Rhetoric of Terror: Aspects of Language Used for the Evocation of Fear (London: University of London, Institute of Germanic Studies, 1978); and Ursula Orlowsky, Literarische Subversion bei E. T. A. Hoffmann: Nouvelles vom “Sandmann” (Heidelberg: Winter, 1988). 3

The following studies approach the story in terms of the aesthetics of reception: Raimund Belgardt, “Der Künstler und die Puppe: Zur Interpretation von Hoffmanns Sandmann,” GQ 42 (1969): 686–700; Helmut Motekat, “Vom Sehen und Erkennen bei E. T. A. Hoffmann,” MHG 19 (1973): 17–27; Wolfgang Preisendanz, “Eines matt geschliffnen Spiegels dunkler Widerschein,” in E. T. A. Hoffmann, ed. Helmut Prang (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1976), 270–91; Maria Tatar, “E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Der Sandmann: Reflection and Romantic Irony,” MLN 95 (1980): 585–608; Claus Sommerhage, “Hoffmanns Erzähler,” ZfdPh 106 (1987): 515–34; Jürgen Walter, “Das Unheimliche der Wirkungsfunktion: Eine rezeptions-ästhetische Analyse von E. T. A. Hoffmanns Erzählung Der Sandmann,” MHG 30 (1984): 26–31; and Hans-Thies Lehmann, “Exkurs über E. T. A. Hoffmanns Sandmann: Eine texttheoretische Lektüre,” in Romantische Utopie — Utopische Romantik, ed. Gisela Dischner and Richard Faber (Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 1979), 301–23. In his deconstructive reading of the text, Nikolai Vogel claims that, “Der Sandmann als ihre eigene Interpretation zu lesen lehrt” and highlights the “Fragwürdigkeit und die Paradoxien des Verstehens.” See Nicolai Vogel, E. T. A. Hoffmanns Erzählung “Der Sandmann” als Interpretation der Interpretation (Frankfurt, Berlin, Bern, New York, Paris, Vienna: Lang, 1998), 8. 4

Unsurprisingly, it is the figure of Nathanael that has caused the most critical controversy. Although some view him as a figure who is destroyed by the contradiction between reality and the “Romantische Idealvorstellung” (Peter von Matt, Jochen Schmidt, and Alan Menhennet), John Ellis sees him as the victim of a conspiracy on the part of Coppelius and Spalanzani. Silvio Vietta also takes a similar view to Ellis. See Jochen Schmidt, “Die Krise der Romantischen Subjektivität: E. T. A. Hoffmanns Künstlernovelle Der Sandmann in historischer Perspektivität,” in Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte: Festschrift für Richard Brinkmann, ed. Jürgen Brummack

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et al. (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1982), 348–70; Alan Menhennet, The Romantic Movement (New Jersey: Barnes & Noble, 1981); John M. Ellis, “Clara, Nathanael and the Narrator: Interpreting Hoffmann’s Der Sandmann,” GQ 54 (1981): 1–18; and Silvio Vietta, “Romantikparodie und Realitätsbegriff im Erzählwerk E. T. A. Hoffmanns,” ZfdPh 100 (1981): 575–91. Critics appear to be just as divided about how Clara should be interpreted. Vietta, Menhennet, Ernst F. Hoffmann, and Auhuber see her as a wholly rational being. Ellis regards her as a wholly negative figure, a human robot who is in fact the real Olimpia of the story, and emphasizes the elements of contemporary social criticism in the novella. While Thomas Koebner, Charles Hayes, and Peter Gendolla link the story to the criticism of bourgeois and patriarchal society, Eberhard Hilscher and Christopher Cherry see it as an exploration of the problematic boundary between human beings and technology. See Thomas Koebner’s section on “E. T. A. Hoffmann: Der Sandmann (1816),” in Interpretationen. Erzählungen und Novellen des 19. Jahrhunderts, vol. 1, (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1988), 257–307; Charles Hayes, “Phantasie und Wirklichkeit im Werke E. T. A. Hoffmanns: Mit einer Interpretation der Erzählung Der Sandmann,” in Ideologiekritische Studien zur Literatur, ed. Peter Klaus (Frankfurt: Athenäum, 1972), 169– 214; Peter Gendolla, Die lebenden Maschinen: Zur Geschichte der Maschinenmenschen bei Jean Paul, E. T. A. Hoffmann und Villiers de l’Isle-Adam (Marburg: Guttandin und Hoppe, 1980); Eberhard Hilscher, “Hoffmanns poetische Puppenspiele und Menschmaschinen,” in Text und Kritik, Sonderband E. T. A. Hoffmann, ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Munich: Ed. Text und Kritik, 1992), 20–31; and Christopher Cherry, “Machines as Persons?” in Human Beings, ed. David Cockburn (Cambridge: CUP, 1991), 11–24. A recent article explores the presentation of the novella, and especially the mechanical doll, in contemporary film and music. See Hanne Castein, “‘Zerrbilder des Lebens’: E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Der Sandmann and the Robot Heritage,” PEGS 67 (1997): 43–54. 5

The alchemical experiments suggest a parallel with the activities of the creative artist, who also experiments with various materials in the attempt to create his own philosopher’s stone (the Absolute). 6 Jochen Schmidt, Wolfgang Nehring, and Ulrich Stadler also approach the novella as a “Künstlernovelle.” See Wolfgang Nehring, “E. T. A. Hoffmanns Erzählwerk: Ein Modell und seine Variationen,” in Zu E. T. A. Hoffmann, ed. Steven Paul Scher (Stuttgart: Klett, 1981), 55–73; Jochen Schmidt, Die Geschichte des Genie-Gedankens in der deutschen Literatur von 1750–1945, 2 vols. (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1988); and Ulrich Stadler, “Der Sandmann,” in E. T. A. Hoffmann, Epoche — Werk — Wirkung, ed. Brigitte Feldges and Ulrich Stadler (Munich: Beck, 1986), 135–52. Lothar Köhn takes a much more negative view of Nathanael, claiming that: “Hier handelt es sich nicht um einen großen Dichter, sondern um einen Dichterling.” See Lothar Köhn, Vieldeutige Welt: Studien zur Struktur der Erzählungen E. T. A. Hoffmanns und zur Entwicklung seines Werkes (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1966), 106. Rainer Pabst, on the other hand, sees the story in terms of individual determinism and arrives at the following conclusion: “Künstlertum und Kunstausübung stehen für Hoffmann offenbar in einer besonderen Affinität zum Schicksalsgedanken.” See Rainer Pabst, Schicksal bei E. T. A. Hoffmann: Zur Erscheinungsform, Funktion und Entwicklung eines Interpretationsmusters (Cologne, Vienna: Böhlau, 1989), 165.

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Even though Nathanael’s obsessive interest in Olimpia ends tragically, it is important not to overlook the satirical elements in Hoffmann’s presentation of this relationship. It is not only the philistines who are made fun of in the story, but Nathanael too, and there are moments when his ironic treatment of his protagonist borders on the satire. 8 On the narcissistic motive see Thomas A. Kamla, “E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Der Sandmann: The Narcissistic Poet as Romantic Solipsist,” GR 63 (1988): 94–102 (95). In this very perceptive essay, Kamla explores Nathanael’s relationship to Olimpia and links it to Nathanael’s narcissistic tendencies, which he sees as responsible for his “solipsistic despair” and tragic death. Although this essay explores the relationship of Nathanael and Olimpia in great detail — Kamla too speaks of the relationship between “poet” and “listener” — it also ignores a number of important points in the story. Nathanael’s narcissistic tendency is also explored in the following essays: Hartmut Böhme, “Romantische Adoleszenzkrisen: Zur Psychodynamik der VenuskultNovellen von Tieck, Eichendorff und E. T. A. Hoffmann,” in Literatur und Psychoanalyse: Vorträge des Kolloquiums am 6. und 7. Oktober 1980, ed. Klaus Bohnen, Swen Aage Jørgensen, and Friedrich Schmöe (Munich: Fink, 1981), 133–76; Wolfgang Nehring, “E. T. A. Hoffmanns Erzählwerk: Ein Modell und seine Variationen,” in Zu E. T. A. Hoffmann, ed. Steven Paul Scher (Stuttgart: Klett, 1981), 55–73; and Susan Brantly, “A Thermographic Reading.” 9

Berthold in Die Jesuiterkirche in G. and Don Juan in Don Juan make essentially the same error. Both seek out what they consider to be an idealized woman, and both are frustrated in their efforts, albeit in different ways. Berthold’s demise is caused by the fact that his ideal is revealed to be an illusion. Don Juan’s demise is caused by his inability to come to terms with the fact that he cannot find his ideal, and thus he carries on “von Weib zu Weib” until divine justice catches up with him. 10

Margarete Kohlenbach suggests that Hoffmann is displaying a proto-feminist cast of mind by using the figures of Olimpia and Clara to criticize the Early German Romantics’ idealization of woman: “It [the story] shows that an idealisation of the Feminine can coincide with denying to women a life of their own even when the quality of ‘independence’ is built into the ideal.” See Margarete Kohlenbach, “Women and Artists: E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Implicit Critique of Early Romanticism,” MLR 89 (1994): 659–73, (673). Evelyn Annuß draws on the feminist approach outlined in Silvia Bovenschen’s book, Die imaginierte Weiblichkeit: Exemplarische Untersuchungen zu kulturgeschichtlichen und literarischen Präsentationsformen des Weiblichen (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1979) and concludes that: “Hoffmann verunsichert eindeutige Interpretationen generell.” See Evelyn Annuß, “Maske und Maschine: Künstliche Frauen in den Texten von Hoffmann, Villiers und Lem,” Literatur für Leser, 4 (1997): 95–107 (100). For her part, Ricarda Schmidt analyzes Hélène Cixous’s interpretation of Der Sandmann and questions the latter’s claim that Hoffmann’s novella should be read as an early example of “Écriture Féminine.” In addition, she warns against the misappropriation of such theoretical models of feminist literary theory: “Feminist research should not neglect the historical perspective, and should be wary of the search for past models for a contemporary theory.” See Ricarda Schmidt, “E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Der Sandmann: An Early Example of Écriture Féminine? A Critique of Trends in Feminist Literary Criticism,” Women in German Yearbook 4 (1988): 21–45, (41).

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11

By contrast, Ellis claims Clara has no understanding of Nathanael and that she acts from purely selfish motives. This makes her like a machine and so Ellis finds Nathanael’s description as an “Automat” quite fitting: “Whether or not Clara has deserved this abuse up to this point, she seems increasingly to deserve it as the story proceeds” (9). In taking such a view of Clara, Ellis falls into the trap of viewing her solely from Nathanael’s (hardly unbiased) perspective. 12 In explaining Nathanael’s phobia in this way, Clara is a typical product of her time. For an attempt to link her view of Nathanael with contemporary philosophical ideas of the Enlightenment, see Werner Obermeit, Das unsichtbare Ding, das Seele heißt: Die Entdeckung der Psyche im bürgerlichen Zeitalter (Frankfurt: Syndikat, 1980). 13

Here again we must question the narrator’s impartiality. It is clear that he knows both Nathanael and Clara well, but it often appears that he takes a much more critical view of Nathanael. 14

Ellis is surely correct when he claims that Coppelius and Coppola are one and the same person: “But there follows clear confirmation that Coppelius and Coppola are one [. . .] Spalanzani confirms that Coppola is indeed Coppelius” (15). 15 He has already made one attempt to do this when, as the Sandman, he had demanded the child’s eyes: “Augen her, Augen her! [. . .] nun haben wir Augen — Augen — ein schön Paar Kinderaugen” (SW I, 336). 16

Given the extent to which the Romantic artist unites the realms of love and art, this would mean that love as well as art would be impossible. 17

See Preisendanz: “Der Erzähler Hoffmann nimmt keinen Standpunkt, er bietet nur Standpunkte [. . .] das Erzählen legt keine gewisse Perspektive fest, sondern das Erzählte gewährt Perspektiven und überläßt dem Leser das Problem, für welche er sich entscheiden solle” (287). 18

In Das Fräulein von Scuderi, Cardillac’s quest for the Ideal is also frustrated — albeit for different reasons — when he approaches art as though it were a sphere of activity wholly detached from bourgeois morality and society.

II. Love

4: Die Jesuiterkirche in G.

A

LTHOUGH DIE JESUITERKIRCHE IN G.

(1816) is often referred to in the secondary literature on Hoffmann, no one critic has thought it worthwhile to offer an all-embracing interpretation of this fascinating Künstlernovelle. Although a number of critics — mostly French — have turned their attention to the novella, they have done little more than 1 compare it to other stories by Hoffmann. Lack of critical attention may be due to the fact that the story’s plot and meaning appear, at first sight, to be straightforward. Nonetheless, the story offers the reader a number of insights into the problems confronting the Romantic artist, not least his relationship to the Ideal, to love, and to his public. Hoffmann explores these problems through the central figure in the story, Berthold, as well as through more marginal figures — such as the narrator or Professor Walther — who, though largely ignored in the secondary literature, do in fact make an important contribution to the novella’s theme by virtue of the positions they adopt and the opinions they hold. For this reason alone it is worth subjecting the novella to closer analysis, since here, as in all of Hoffmann’s works, the formal dimension plays an important role. The narrative structure of Die Jesuiterkirche in G., like that of many of Hoffmann’s novellas, is highly complex. The narrator, “der reisende Enthusiast,” as the reader finds out only later, who is a fictional character situated within the overall framework of the Nachtstücke, tells a story in which he has played only a minor role. Most of the time he relates what others have told him or what he has read in a manuscript that has not been written by Berthold, the central figure of the story. However, this manuscript reveals to the narrator and the reader secrets that they would 2 never otherwise have learned. Other typically Hoffmannesque elements include the presence of dark forebodings by the characters, unsolved enigmas, and a shifting of narrative tense. In addition, large sections of Die Jesuiterkirche in G. are set in Italy, a country often thought of by Hoffmann and his fellow Romantics as the incarnation of art and as 3 standing for a mysterious, fascinating, and intense modus vivendi.

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The Narrator and Professor Walther Hoffmann uses two characters, the narrator and Professor Walther, to explore two contrasting views on art. The first of these, the narrator, plays only a small part in the development of the story, and his chief function is that of an inquisitive observer. Sensing that an unusual story lies behind the painter Berthold, he does everything he can to get to the bottom of his secret. Both the Professor and Berthold are reluctant to satisfy his curiosity, but the narrator is not put off and remains determined to find out more. In this respect, his position reflects that of the reader, who, like the narrator, is drawn to the sensational and the spectacular. The reader may even be tempted to align himself with the voyeuristic narrator, but he does so at his own peril since the narrator reveals himself to be a mediocre judge of art and of people. Moreover, he cannot, or will not, defend his own position, preferring, when the Professor says something he disagrees with, to keep his opinion to himself: “Ich sagte aber das, was ich dachte, keineswegs dem Professor” (SW I, 414). Berthold does not even take him seriously, for after he has accepted his practical help, the narrator tells us that: “indem er [Berthold] rasch fortmalte, und mich ganz wie seinen Handlanger brauchte” (420). He claims to be a “Kenner und Ausüber der edlen Malerkunst” (417); however what he has to say on art amounts to little more than a reiteration of the orthodox opinion that historical subjects (“Historienmalerei”) are superior to landscapes (“Landschaftsmalerei,” 418). What really interests him is Berthold’s secret; he is fascinated by the painter’s physical appearance, his cynical and dark comments on art and life, and his claim to be implicated in a horrible, unpardonable crime. Like the reader of a Gothic novel, he is irresistibly drawn to the figure of Berthold by the desire to experience the delightful frisson of terror, but on learning that Berthold has — as he assumes — murdered his wife and child, he is appalled. His interest in, and sympathy for, Berthold vanishes; he sees him not as a painter struggling to capture the Ideal, but as “den ruchlosen Mörder seines unschuldigen Weibes und seines Kindes” (SW I, 437), and as the very incarnation of evil: “Ich meinte, er könnte mitunter was weniges der Teufel sein, trotz seiner Gutmütigkeit und seines treuherzigen Wesens” (437). And even though the Professor, who knows Berthold far better than the narrator, thinks that this is most unlikely, the narrator’s curiosity is still not satisfied; he asks the painter directly whether he has killed his wife and child with the result that he ends up making himself appear ridiculous.

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Unlike the narrator, Professor Aloysius Walther has no taste for murder mysteries. We see from the outset that he takes a rational, demystifying approach to art and his fellow human beings: [. . .] wir haben jenen düstern Ernst, jene sonderbare Majestät des niederschmetternden Tyrannen, die im gotischen Bau unsere Brust beklemmt, ja wohl ein unheimliches Grauen erregt, aus unseren Gebäuden verbannt, und es ist wohl verdienstlich, unsern Werken die regsame Heiterkeit der Alten anzueignen. (SW I, 414)

The Professor, an enlightened skeptic, is aware of the dangers of abandoning reason for the sake of metaphysical tendencies that — in his opinion — lead nowhere. Fearful of the distortions that arise when human beings try to grasp reality solely via the emotions, he opts for pure rationality. He also rejects any notion of a transcendent world, and when asked for his opinion on the function of the Ideal, his answer is quite straightforward: [. . .] das höhere Reich soll man erkennen in dieser Welt und diese Erkenntnis darf geweckt werden durch heitere Symbole, wie sie das Leben, ja der aus jenem Reich ins irdische herabgekommene Geist, darbietet. Unsere Heimat ist wohl dort droben; aber solange wir hier hausen, ist unser Reich auch von dieser Welt. (SW I, 414)

Here is a man content with his lot in this world. He does not deny the existence of an Ideal, but sees no problem in distinguishing clearly between this earthly world and a higher transcendent one. In his view, the Ideal is not part of the world of Nature, and Man should not attempt to leave this world behind him and gain access to another realm. Art, he believes, is simply a matter of “Annehmlichkeit der Form” (SW I, 414) and “Dekoration” (415). It has nothing to do with the struggle to recognize and express the Ideal. The Professor is matter-of-fact — not to say dismissive — about Berthold. He does not admire his extraordinary artistic talent, nor does he judge him to be a murderer. He is even unwilling to discuss his case: “Verderben wir uns den Tag nicht mit diesem trüben Zeuge [Berthold’s Lebensgeschichte]” (SW I, 423). However, his utterly rational outlook makes him disregard Man’s struggle to overcome his inherent imperfections. The Professor, it can be said, represents the antithesis of the Romantic artist. In a negative way, he represents the typically dry-as-dust scientist of the radical Enlightenment, who treats humans as mere raw data. Even the manuscript, so fascinating for the narrator on account of the insights it provides about Berthold’s mysterious secrets and his past, is dismissed by the professor as a “Studenten-Machwerk” (SW I, 424) and a “Stilübung” (SW I, 423). Although we have already seen that we

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cannot entirely trust the narrator’s judgement, we can agree with his conclusion regarding the professor: [. . .] daß, trotz aller Gelehrsamkeit, aller Weltgewandtheit, sein Sinn fürs Höhere gänzlich verschlossen, und er der krasseste Materialist war, den es geben konnte. [. . .] Alles geistige Streben, Erfindungs-, Schöpfungskraft leitete er aus gewissen Konjunkturen der Eingeweide und des Magens her [. . .]. (SW I, 424)

Being a character who lives by reason alone, the Professor is unlikely to be sensitive to any Romantic theories of art.

Berthold in G. The central figure, the painter Berthold, is a fascinating and extraordinary character, whose appearance makes an immediate and profound impact on the narrator, who describes him thus: der Ausdruck des Gesichts, der Blick [. . .], brachten mir das ganze zerrissene Leben eines unglücklichen Künstlers vor Augen. [. . .] seine Gestalt [. . .] hatte was unbeschreiblich Edles, und der tiefe Gram konnte nur das Gesicht entfärben, das Feuer, was in den schwarzen Augen strahlte, aber nicht auslöschen. (SW I, 415)

Berthold’s state of mind, which oscillates between grief and noble composure, is evident even in his outward appearance, and these conflicting emotions become increasingly evident as the story unfolds. The narrator and Berthold soon embark on a discussion about art since the narrator cannot understand why the painter wastes his talent concentrating on a supposedly inferior genre of painting: Architektur-Malerei bleibt doch immer etwas Untergeordnetes; der Historien-Maler, der Landschafter steht unbedingt höher. Geist und Fantasie, nicht in die engen Schranken geometrischer Linien gebannt, erheben sich in freiem Flug. [. . .] so ist die Wirkung das Erzeugnis, nicht des genialen Gedankens, sondern nur mathematischer Spekulation. (SW I, 418)

This view, which ranks the different genres of painting in a hierarchical system, is also endorsed by other figures in the story and is based on the assumption that work produced by an artist who has the technical skill to copy Nature and reproduce form with the help of mathematical calculations is somehow inferior to that produced by an artist who is inspired by his imagination and creativity — his genius. This theory is flatly rejected by Berthold:

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[. . .] du frevelst, wenn du die verschiedenen Zweige der Kunst in Rangordnung stellen willst, wie die Vasallen eines stolzen Königs. Und noch größerer Frevel ist es, wenn du nur die Verwegenen achtest, welche [. . .] sich frei, ja selbst sich Gott wähnen und schaffen und herrschen wollen über Gott und Leben. (SW I, 418)

Berthold warns the narrator that the artist’s attempt to create, that is, to try to catch a glimpse of the Ideal and embody it in a work of art rather than simply copying Nature, is a dangerous and self-destructive venture. He compares the artist who strives for the Ideal to the mythological figure of Prometheus, whose hubris was punished by the gods: “Die Brust, die das Göttliche geahnt, in der die Sehnsucht nach dem Überirdischen aufgegangen, zerfleischte der Geier, den die Rache geboren” (SW I, 148). Like Prometheus, the presumptuous artist is punished for his audacity in attempting to surmount his human limitations and for his refusal to accept that he will never reach the Ideal, in short, for his trying to become a godlike creator. The punishment inflicted upon him is one of an increased awareness of his restricted Nature: “Der das Himmlische gewollt, fühlt ewig den irdischen Schmerz” (419). Not only is the artist to suffer knowing that he will never reach the Ideal, however hard he tries, he is also compelled to recognize that this longing for the Ideal leads to destruction. [. . .] wenn man nach dem Höchsten strebt, [. . .] das Höchste der göttlichen Natur, der Prometheusfunken im Menschen [. . .] — es ist eine Klippe — ein schmaler Strich, auf dem man steht — der Abgrund ist offen! — über ihm schwebt der kühne Segler und ein teuflischer Trug läßt ihn unten das erblicken, was er oben über den Sternen erschauen wollte! (SW I, 419)

Overweening ambition and the desire to transcend the human condition challenge God’s authority since it is he who has given man his destiny. It is not for man to question God’s will and dispute what he in his wisdom has decided — not even in the field of art. To disobey God’s will in this is to repeat the original sin of Adam and Eve, to be dissatisfied with being merely human and attempting to become like God. Like Adam and Eve (and the ambitious figure of Faust), the presumptuous artist who strives for the Ideal gets very close to the abyss of evil. In order to avoid this danger in the future, Berthold, who has already experienced it, (as the narrator finds out later) sticks to simple, mathematical rules: “Wie herrlich ist die Regel! — alle Linien einen sich zum bestimmten Zweck, zu bestimmter deutlich gedachter Wirkung. Nur das Gemessene ist rein menschlich; was drüber geht, vom Übel” (SW I, 419). These words

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reflect Berthold’s unwillingness to acknowledge the individual’s innate desire to rise above human imperfection. In order to avoid the conflict between the longing for the Ideal and the inability ever to reach it, Berthold not only regards the pursuit of the Ideal as contrary to God’s will; he even goes so far as to deny that there is any such Ideal at all: “Ach, was ist all unser Ringen und Streben nach dem Höheren anderes, als das unbeholfene bewußtlose Hantieren des Säuglings, [. . .] — das Ideal ist ein schnöder lügnerischer Traum vom gärenden Blute erzeugt” (420). Berthold has convinced himself that the Ideal is just an illusion, created by man’s inability to accept life as it is. He suggests cynically that the Ideal is just a dream, designed to satisfy man’s vanity, and that it is useless putting effort into art that aims to capture the Ideal. Thus it becomes clear why Berthold disagrees with the narrator that “der Historienmaler steht unbedingt höher” (418). For Berthold this is just wishful thinking, since the proper way to produce art lies in copying Nature with a high degree of technical accuracy. Nevertheless, when the narrator chides him for working too hard and exhausting himself — thus indicating that even in Berthold there is ambition — Berthold replies: “Und doch, [. . .] sind das meine glücklichsten Stunden. — Vielleicht schwatze ich zuviel, aber es sind ja nur Worte, in die sich der das Innere zerreißende Schmerz auflöst” (421). These words betray the fact that Berthold is far from being the cynical character he pretends to be. He appeals to reason in order to deny that there is any point in pursuing the Ideal, which is simply an illusion, but his inner pain comes from his soul’s desire to overcome its limitations and get closer to the Ideal. Although the irreconcilability of reason and feeling causes him great pain, his happiest hours are those spent absorbed in art, for that is when imagination and creativity are directly involved. He cannot help the fact that he is a human being with the urge to transcend the material world. This explains the contradictions in his character, which have become etched into his features, and which made such an impression on the narrator the moment he set eyes on him.

The Young Berthold Having met the painter, the narrator comes across the manuscript written by a friend of Berthold’s, containing the story of his life. As a young artist, Berthold is sent to Italy to develop his artistic skills further, since “Das Kopieren allein hilft ihm nun nichts mehr” (SW I, 421). This view of the important but limited benefits of copying the works of great artists stands in sharp contrast to Berthold’s subsequent opinion when the narrator first meets him.

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Although sometimes overcome by doubts about his talent during his stay in Italy, Berthold manages to develop his technical skills with the 4 help of a new teacher who is devoted to landscape painting. He adopts this genre, earning the praise of teachers and fellow students alike. One of his pictures is exhibited and, as a result, he meets a strange man (a Maltese artist, as he finds out later), who criticizes his style, telling him: Du bist in großem Irrtum befangen, [. . .] aus dir hätte viel werden können; denn sichtlich zeugen deine Werke von dem Bestreben nach dem Höheren, aber nimmer wirst du dein Ziel erreichen, denn der Weg, den du eingeschlagen, führt nicht dahin. (SW I, 429)

Suddenly Berthold realizes that he has only been copying things rather than creating anything original and becomes possessed by the desire to express the contents of his own imagination, to catch a glimpse of the 5 Ideal, and to transcend the material world. The stranger has opened his eyes to the fact that he has been wasting his time producing empty reflections of the external world. [. . .] studiere die Natur zwar auch im Mechanischen fleißig und sorgfältig, damit du die Praktik des Darstellens erlangen mögest, aber halte die Praktik nicht [sic] für die Kunst selbst. Bist du eingedrungen in den tieferen Sinn der Natur, so werden selbst in deinem Inneren ihre Bilder in hoher glänzender Pracht aufgehen. (SW I, 429)

It comes as a terrible shock to Berthold to realize that, far from being a creative artist with a personal style and ideas, he is nothing more than a reasonably competent painter who can handle a brush with a certain amount of skill. He decides to abandon his former teacher and devote himself to what he regards as true art: “Nein! All dieses Streben — dieses Mühen ist das ungewisse, trügerische Umhertappen des Blinden, weg — weg mit allem, was mich geblendet bis jetzt!” (SW I, 430). However, he lands himself in a new predicament; he may now know in theory what he wants, but he is unsure how to achieve this in practice. Friedrich Schlegel describes this state of yearning for something to which one cannot give a name, as follows: “Wer etwas Unendliches will, der 6 weiß nicht, was er will.” He searches for the Ideal, for inspiration, and for the power to express his inner potential, but they elude him. Berthold’s struggle threatens to overwhelm him, and he soon finds himself possessed by a sense of nihilism. Only in his dreams can he express himself and create. His life becomes wretched and in his state of semimadness, he even begins to fear Nature — the one realm where he had always felt secure and at home.

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Schritt er durch den dunklen Wald, so überfiel ihn ein unheimliches Grauen; trat er heraus [. . .], so griff es wie mit eiskalten Krallen in seine Brust — sein Atem stockte — er wollte vergehen vor innerer Angst. Die ganze Natur, ihm sonst freundlich lächelnd, ward ihm zum be7 drohlichen Ungeheuer [. . .]. (SW I, 430)

Since reality has become an insurmountable obstacle, blocking all his activities and making him ever more miserable, Berthold escapes into a world of dreams, the only place where he can visualize images of grandeur, light, and transcendence. However, whenever he tries to capture these images on canvas he fails: “Ich mühte mich das, was nur wie dunkle Ahnung tief in meinem Inneren lag [. . .] darzustellen. [. . .] Jeder Versuch sie [die Träume] darzustellen, mißlang auf schmähliche Weise, und ich verging in heißer Sehnsucht” (SW I, 432). In this confused state of mind he finds himself in a grotto one day where he is once more lamenting his fate, when he suddenly catches sight of a woman, who, he believes, is a perfect embodiment of the Ideal he has been searching for: “mein Ideal, mein Ideal war es! — Wahnsinnig vor Entzücken stürzte ich 8 nieder [. . .]. — Erhört war mein heißestes Gebet!” (432). This experience changes Berthold’s attitude completely. He finds he is able to draw marvelous pictures of her, with a quality that astonishes even the experts. The creative energy that had been blocked is now released, and he paints the most splendid pictures. His despair is replaced by joy and enthusiasm; she (the Ideal) has raised his life, and her image is to be found in everything he creates. However, when people start to comment that she bears a striking resemblance to Princess Angiola T., Berthold is outraged: Berthold war hoch erzürnt über das alberne Gewäsch der Leute, die das Himmlische in das Gemeinirdische hinabziehen wollten. “Glaubt ihr denn [. . .], daß solch ein Wesen wandeln könne hier auf Erden? In einer wunderbaren Vision wurde mir das Höchste erschlossen; es war der Moment der Künstlerweihe.” (SW I, 433)

This is one of the most crucial points in the story, anticipating both the collapse of Berthold’s Ideal and his own downfall. When his Ideal turns out to be a women of flesh and blood, his initial reaction — curiously enough — is one of delight: “Oh, kein Trugbild des Traumes — nein! es ist mein Weib, das ich umfange, es nie zu lassen — das meine glühende dürstende Sehnsucht stillt!” (SW I, 435). However, it is not long before he realizes that his creative powers have deserted him, that he lacks inspiration, and that in the place of his sublime Ideal, he is now confronted with a wife and mother: “Mein Weib gebar mir einen Sohn, das vollendete mein Elend und der lang verhaltene Groll brach aus in

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hell aufflammendem Haß. Sie sie allein schuf mein Unglück. [. . .] Gedanken der Hölle stiegen in mir auf” (SW I, 436). Once Berthold realizes that what he believed to be the Ideal is an illusion, and in its place, he is left with a flesh-and-blood woman with human rather than angelic qualities, he blames her — and not himself — for his error. That is, he refuses to acknowledge that it is he alone who is the author of his own delusions. Having previously realized that a living incarnation of the Ideal is not to be found in the world of reality — “solch ein Wesen wandeln könne hier auf Erden” (SW I, 433) — he has been seduced into thinking the opposite. Unable to reconcile himself to the paradoxical nature of the Romantic artist’s quest for the Ideal, he finds he can no longer tolerate a life that must fall short of embracing its ultimate goal. As a result he convinces himself that his Romantic quest is complete, and that — in the form of Angiola T. — he has in fact found the Ideal here on earth. This, of course, is a contradictio in adiecto because woman, so often glorified as Man’s savior, cannot fulfil this purpose. As Berthold discovers, any attempt to capture the Ideal completely in this world is bound to end in disappointment. This is the dilemma that lies at the heart of Romantic irony. On one hand, the artist longs for the Ideal and tries to capture and embody it in his work; on the other, he will never succeed in doing this. Although the artist may strive to catch a glimpse of the Ideal — and thus make visible the Hegelian “Scheinen der Ideen” in his work — he can only protect himself from the inevitable disappointment that ensues by maintaining a degree of critical detachment from his creation. It is this (ironic) distance that saves him from tragedy. If, like Berthold, he loses sight of the paradoxical nature of his quest, he is doomed. Berthold is guilty of elevating a particular woman to the status of the Ideal, and the refusal to acknowledge this fundamental error leads to his destruction. The extent to which Berthold has turned his back on reality and immersed himself in a world of illusion can be seen later, when he is working in the Jesuit church painting trompe-l’œil scenes. Again he is doing something that at first sight seems to be real, but upon closer inspection turns out to be faked. After Berthold has fallen back into despair, a rumor circulates that he has murdered his wife and son. What actually happened is never made clear, and narrator and reader are left wondering exactly what is meant by the sentence: “Berthold [. . .] hatte sich seines Weibes und Kindes entledigt” (SW I, 436). However, this is not really important as far as Berthold’s further development, although the notions of violence and murder do emphasize the dangerous proximity of evil 9 and the pursuit of the Ideal. Berthold’s hopes end with the shattering

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of his illusions, and his existence becomes meaningless to him. From that point on, he descends to begging and ekes out a miserable existence painting cathedral walls, before withdrawing to the Jesuit college, where the narrator becomes acquainted with him. But this is not the end of the story. Six months after his short stay in the Jesuit college, the narrator receives a letter telling him of Berthold’s death — a death that appears to be the result of suicide. Before his death, however, he had managed to complete his unfinished altar-piece, which for a long time he had refused to touch or even so much as look at. Death is all that remains for the Romantic artist who is unable to control his feeling of longing (i.e. to sustain an attitude of ironic detachment) and who cannot resist the temptation of trying to get closer to the Ideal, thus leaving the world of reality farther and farther behind. In Berthold’s case, death represents an act of completion. For just prior to his death he finishes the picture that had caused him so much pain, representing as it did, his lost illusions. Despite his attempts to deny the existence of the Ideal, he was never able to overcome his innate longing for it. When he realizes that his struggle has been in vain, he is ready to pay the ultimate price — death — for the ultimate encounter with the Ideal, a glimpse of which he catches in his completed painting. He is now ready to accept that he must leave the material world behind him and cross the threshold to a metaphysical world to get close to the 10 Ideal. This crossing of the border can therefore be described as a process of dissolution, making death not a tragic end, but rather a process of transcendence. Thus Berthold welcomes his approaching death with equanimity: “Er wurde plötzlich ganz heiter [. . .]” (SW I, 438). Beyond the reach of fear, and in a state of sublime tranquility, Berthold arrives at a state of absolute freedom that not even the prospect of death can threaten. Although as an artist he experienced the deepest despair, he finally attains grandeur; in bringing both his painting and his life to a conclusion, he finally succeeds in embracing the elusive Ideal.

Florentine, the Maltese, and Other Painters Berthold’s friend Florentin, a successful and happy artist, is a far less dramatic character. He combines “heitern Lebensgenuß” and a “leichte Hand” with the ability to create beautiful and magnificent drawings. He seems to be a jovial person who enjoys the lighter side of life, but one whose pictures offer nonetheless a glimpse of the Ideal. Unlike Berthold, Florentin is not tormented by an inner struggle to express his ideas and a longing to get closer to the Ideal.

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Dabei war Florentins Sinn keineswegs für das Höhere verschlossen; im Gegenteil drang er mehr, als je ein moderner Maler, tief ein in den frommen Sinn der Gemälde alter Meister. [. . .] Man konnte nichts Herrlicheres, reiner Aufgefaßtes sehen, als jene Umrisse [. . .] (SW I, 431)

When Berthold sees the sketches Florentin has made of the frescoes, they have a powerful effect on him. Brilliant shafts of light suddenly light up the dark gloom that had surrounded him and enable him to share Florentin’s manner of seeing and his technique. Berthold cannot comprehend how Florentin seems to toss off such accomplished work with such enviably little effort. But there is nothing mysterious about Florentin’s success. His approach is not to go to a metaphysical world to seek the Ideal; he believes that the right approach is to concentrate on the world of the here and now and to seek a glimpse of the Ideal that God affords us from time to time in his divine creation, Nature: [. . .] dieser [Florentin] zwar den Reiz der Natur, in ihr aber beständig mehr das menschliche Prinzip mit reger Lebendigkeit auffasste, eben dieses Prinzip für den Stützpunkt erkannte, an den er sich halten müsse, um nicht im leeren Raum zu verschwimmen. (SW I, 431)

Florentin searches for symbols of the Ideal in the material world, realizing that anything else must lead inevitably to a chimeric world and mere speculation. He does not deny the existence of the Ideal, but he believes that it can only be approached indirectly, by trying to find images of it in this world: “Ja, ich halte sogar dafür, daß man erst durch das Darstellen der uns näher liegenden organischen Natur sich stärkern müsse, um Licht zu finden in ihrem nächtlichen Reich” (SW I, 431). Berthold has been struggling to grasp the Ideal by turning his back on the material world, in the belief that the Ideal has to be approached first, before the wonders of Nature can be understood. Florentin, on the other hand, standing on surer ground and avoiding the danger of striving for the impossible, takes the wonders of Nature as a reflection of the 11 Ideal. So, unlike Berthold, he manages to keep a critical distance between himself and the Ideal, thus protecting himself from the tragic aspects of the Romantic artist’s quest. This sensible approach, operating as it does within the limits of human potential, rewards him with a life of contentment and a successful artistic career. Florentin’s success is essentially bound up with his concern with the practical side of painting, whereas the Maltese painter represents its theoretical side. He is described as a “wunderlicher Kauz” (SW I, 428), and his views on art differ radically from orthodox opinion: “er über jede Darstellung durch die Kunst ganz tolle absurde Meinungen und sich ein

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künstlerisches System gebaut hat, was den Teufel nichts taugt” (428). Most of the established artists and connoisseurs believe that he is an outsider and not worth listening to; however, it is he who shows a very fine understanding of the nature of art and who refuses to rank one genre of painting above another since, in his opinion, all genres struggle towards the same fundamental aim: Hälst du mich denn für so töricht, daß ich die Landschaft dem historischen Gemälde unterordne, daß ich nicht das gleiche Ziel, nach dem beide [. . .] streben sollen, erkenne? — Auffassung der Natur in tiefsten Bedeutung des höheren Sinns, der alle Wesen zum höheren Leben entzündet, das ist der heilige Zweck aller Kunst. (SW I, 420)

When he criticizes Berthold’s painting, it is not out of malice, but rather to awaken in him a longing for the Ideal and to dissuade him from reproducing trivial, insubstantial works. He tries to make him receptive to the true meaning of art, pointing out how ridiculous it is to become bogged down in debates about the merits of different genres, which only obscure the true aim of art. Berthold recognizes that the Maltese is indeed right to challenge his attitude: “Dem Berthold war es [. . .], als habe der Malteser irgend einen wunden Fleck seines Innersten schmerzhaft berührt, aber so, wie der wohltätige Wundarzt, um zu forschen und zu heilen” (SW I, 428). Berthold accepts the accuracy of the Maltese’s remarks whilst misinterpreting the main thrust of his criticism; far from trying to convince him to pursue a remote Ideal, what the Maltese wanted was to help him realize his inner potential. His aim was to motivate him and make him more sensitive to the need to develop his individual artistic appreciation, rather than simply quoting and copying the ideas of others: “ich weiß, daß ein hoher Geist in dir schlummert: ich rief ihn an mit starken Worten, damit er erwache und frisch und frei seine Fittige rege” (SW I, 430). Berthold, who lacks the capacity for introspection, fails to see that all he is looking for lies within himself. He longs for a sign — or rather for a miracle — from the transcendent world to inspire him. Thus, he falls victim to self-delusion. But Berthold is not the only character in the novella whose attitude towards the Ideal — and thus towards art in general — turns out to be misguided, although in his particular case it has fatal consequences. Throughout the story we are presented with a series of hints that challenge the orthodox view of art. First we are told that of the paintings in the Jesuit college those by unknown artists are the most remarkable: “Es war seltsam, daß das einzige Original gerade zu den schwächern Stücken gehörte, war

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es nicht wirklich das schwächste, und daß dagegen die Schönheit mancher Gemälde ohne Namen mich unwiderstehlich hinriß” (SW I, 416). The narrative suggests that every picture — or work of art — has its own aesthetic value independent of the mainstream criticism. The absurdity of some of the views of well-known art critics, who are all too familiar with the tradition, is exemplified in such orthodox judgements that historical subjects are superior to landscapes. All of those characters in the story who reflect critically on art and who are also practicing artists — Florentin, the Maltese painter, and Berthold (after the failures of his life have given him greater maturity) — come to the following conclusion, here expressed by Florentin: “ich stelle die wahre Landschaft den tief bedeutsamen heiligen Historien, wie sie die alten Maler darstellen, völlig gleich” (SW I, 431). The important thing about a work of art, whatever its subject, genre, or the medium in which it is executed, is the idea behind it. Furthermore, great art is not necessarily produced by a great name. In order to demonstrate this, the novella questions even the 13 standing of the renowned painter, Philipp Hackert. The young Berthold, of course, cannot believe that his doubts about his master are quite justifiable, and therefore suppresses all such criticism. Es erhoben sich allerlei Zweifel gegen den Lehrer in ihm, und er wurde vorzüglich ganz unmutig, wenn Hackert mit angestrengter Mühe totes Wild malte [. . .]. Doch überwand er bald dergleichen, wie er glaubte, frevliche Gedanken [. . .]. (SW I, 427)

In typical fashion, Berthold ignores his inner voice and clings to the orthodox view of a famous name, even though this means giving up his own ideas. Of course, the reader is aware of his error of judgement, an error that consists of the fear of “frevliche Gedanken” and the desire 14 merely to imitate a master and his chosen genre. Thus in Die Jesuiterkirche in G. Hoffmann challenges prevailing theories of art of his day and emphasizes the need to preserve a degree of critical distance. Berthold is doomed because he is torn between uncritical conformism on the one hand and an illusionary idealism on the other. Neither position grasps the true nature of art. Hoffmann does not deny the existence of an Ideal, but he points out the danger of denying the reality of this world in order to get closer to the Ideal.

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Notes 1

In a brief article, Michel Cadot examines the relationship between art and artificiality in the Nachtstücke and draws attention to the role of Berthold’s muse, Angiola T., whom he regards ultimately as “une figure de cire morte, qui le regarde avec des yeux de verre,” and who is therefore similar to the lifeless Olimpia in Der Sandmann. See Michel Cadot, “Art et artifice dans les Nachtstücke,” in E. T. A. Hoffmann et le Fantastique, ed. Jean-Marie Paul (Nancy: Centre de Recherches Germaniques et Scandinaves de l’Université de Nancy, 1992), 193–204 (196). Jules Keller also refers briefly to Die Jesuiterkirche in G., and notes, quite correctly, that Berthold “oubliant ou négligeant la nature profonde de l’Idéal, expression du divin, au lieu de le retenir dans son cœur, il va vouloir [. . .] l’attirer sur terre, en prendre possession charnellement.” However, his article has little to say regarding the significance of the text as a whole, since it is concerned with quite different issues. See Jules Keller, “Anges et bêtes, ou la confrontation du bien et du mal dans les Nachtstücke d’E. T. A. Hoffmann,” in E. T. A. Hoffmann et le Fantastique, ed. Jean-Marie Paul (Nancy: Centre de Recherches Germaniques et Scandinaves de l’Université de Nancy, 1992), 179–93 (187). 2

The “manuscript” is another typical device in Hoffmann’s stories. In Die Elixiere des Teufels, the culprit uses it as a form of penance and catharsis. In that story, the “manuscript” that falls into the hands of the narrator is a means of uncovering the truth even after the death of the hero and of presenting the reader indirectly with the plot. Written confessions preserve the authenticity of what has happened far better than narrated prose, and both the narrator and reader are far more inclined to believe the story. 3

See also Friedmar Apel, “Italien mit Hoffmanns Augen,” HoffmannJb 1 (1992/ 93): 145–58; and Hans-Georg Werner, “Hoffmanns Phantasie-Italien,” HoffmannJb 1 (1992/93): 133–42.

4

Berthold’s doubts about his artistic vocation cause him much pain, but his teacher judges his doubts positively since they indicate a true longing for the Ideal: “Deine Zweifel sind es gerade, die für Dich, für Deinen Künstlerberuf sprechen” (SW I, 426). Berthold’s doubts express the Romantic concept of aiming for the higher world and not being satisfied with mediocrity. His teacher even advises him “[. . .] den Weg fortzuwandeln, den Dir Deines Ichs eigne Natur vorgeschrieben” (SW I, 426). This again is the essentially Romantic idea that the secrets of the world lie within one’s soul. So far Berthold has taken the first important steps to become a proper artist in the Romantic sense of the term. 5

There is a striking similarity between Berthold’s dilemma here and problems of artistic creativity touched upon in Heinrich von Kleist’s essay “Brief eines jungen Dichters an einen jungen Maler.” 6

KA II, 153, §47. Berthold’s failure to find what he is looking for, despite knowing exactly what it is, bears out the Romantic notion that reason represents only one side of human nature. What Berthold is seeking cannot be discovered by rational means alone. Reason has to be amplified by the imagination and only there can he find what he is looking for.

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7

Berthold’s fear reflects a serious state of self-alienation, since the Romantic idea of Nature is that it is a place where the unity of man’s soul and the external world can be achieved best. 8

There are a number of parallels here to artist-figures in the other stories who also believe that they have discovered their ideal in a real woman. See for example, Traugott and Felizitas in Der Artushof; Theodor and the two Italian opera-singers in Die Fermate; and Nathanael and Olimpia in Der Sandmann. 9

This is another typically Hoffmannesque theme. In Das Fräulein von Scuderi, Meister René Cardillac is obsessed with creating the most beautiful and perfect work of art — in this case jewelry — and to this end he is willing to commit even murder. 10

This idea is also to be found in Rat Krespel, where Antonia cannot live without her music and finally dies. She is not willing to sing in any but the most perfect way, although she knows that the price for this is death. 11

This opposition calls to mind Schiller’s observations on the contrast between “naive” and “sentimentalische Dichtung,” where he comments on the different ways the artist approaches Nature and the Ideal. 12

Hoffmann’s depiction of the Maltese painter shows, once again, how his sympathies lie with those figures who, at first glance, appear to be eccentric and bizarre. Note the similarity here with his presentation of the Old Painter Berklinger, in Der Artushof and Councilor Krespel in Rat Krespel. 13

The painter Phillip Hackert is, of course, not a fictional character but a famous contemporary of Hoffmann. 14 The fact that Hackert paints “totes Wild” highlights the absurdity of the situation, since Berthold is secretly longing to express life, esprit and emotion.

5: Die Fermate

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Die Fermate (1816), Hoffmann offers a number of important insights into his views on art and the artist. The narration is shot through with ironic asides not unlike those in Der Artushof. Theodor, who presents the story to the circle of “Serapionsbrüder” in the form of a first-person narrative, begins with a plea for a tolerant attitude from his listeners, since, as he puts it, “mein Werklein nur auf die Bedingnisse eines leichten, luftigen, scherzhaften Gebildes basiert ist und keine höheren Ansprüche macht als für den Moment zu belustigen” (SW III, 57). We would, however, be wrong to imagine that Die Fermate is a straightforward narrative, for, as we shall see, not only does it have a complex structure of multiple levels of narration (like some of Hoffmann’s other novellas, such as Der Sandmann, Das Fräulein von Scuderi, and Don Juan), but it also probes more deeply into questions of art and aesthetics than Theodor would have his friends and the reader believe. In Die Fermate we come across a variety of artists, all of whom have one thing in common, their profound passion for music. As in a number of Hoffmann’s stories, it is a painting that plays a key 1 role in the story (cf. Die Jesuiterkirche in G. and Der Artushof). In this instance it is a real painting by the contemporary artist Johann Erdmann Hummel that provides the inspiration for the narrative, a painting that, as the narrator explains, became known as a result of being exhibited in 2 Berlin during an exhibition of autumn 1814 (cf. SW III, 57). Theodor begins by describing the picture, “eine Szene aus meinem Leben mit völliger Porträtähnlichkeit der handelnden Personen” (SW III, 58), before going on to explain his connection with it. The background for Theodor’s tale is mostly the provincial petitbourgeois community in which the uncle in whose home Theodor grew up, lives. That is not to say that the story lacks those Italian elements so typical of Hoffmann’s Künstlernovelle. Die Fermate may not be set in the home of art, but the ambience of Italy and the South pervade the story. The painting is of an Italian scene in which all the elements that make up the stereotypical image of Italy even today: “eine üppig verwachsene Laube — ein mit Wein und Früchten besetzter Tisch — an demselben zwei italienische Frauenzimmer einander gegenübersitzend — die eine singt,

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die andere spielt Chitarra” (SW III, 57). The painting also contains a hint of Catholicism: “zwischen beiden hintenwärts stehend ein Abbate” (57). Inspired by the painting, Theodor and Eduard decide to visit the tavern of one Sala Tarone, an innkeeper whose Italian origins are obvious from his name, where they order a bottle of Italian wine, which prompts Theodor to exclaim: “Wie wehen doch aus diesem Wein die holden Düfte Italiens mich an — wie glüht mir doch frisches Leben durch Nerv und Adern!” (71). Moreover, when Theodor starts to tell his story, in an Italian atmosphere that has been artificially enhanced through art and wine, it soon becomes clear that its subject matter is Italian too, for it is the tale of two temperamental Italian vocalists.

The Provincial “Artists” Theodor opens his story with a description of the various artists and musicians who live in the small town and through whom he first discovers music. In this town, which is “recht schlecht bestellt um die Musik” (SW III, 59), Theodor has his first music lessons from an “alten eigensinnigen Organisten, der war aber ein toter Rechenmeister und quälte mich sehr mit finstern übelklingenden Tokkaten und Fugen” (59). This organist may perform amateurishly on Theodor’s uncle’s grand-piano, but we should not forget that it is he who introduces Theodor to music. We learn that the concerts given by “der Stadtpfeifer mit seinen Gesellen, unterstützt von ein paar Dilettanten” (59) were the high points of Theodor’s musical awakening — even though he now looks back at them with disdain and describes them as “lächerlich” and “toll.” The concerts include no vocal music because his uncle, who is a great devotee of the musical arts, has no time for it, but this does not prevent his going to some trouble on account of the two Italian singers. Not only does he try to spare them the embarrassment of seeing him in his voluminous nightshirt, which he is still wearing when they first arrive, but he bothers to read up on musical matters so as to appear more learned when talking to the two ladies over their afternoon chocolate: “nachdem der Onkel gehörig dazu vorbereitet,” he spoke “über die Kunst viel Schönes [. . .], welches niemand verstand, weder er noch wir anderen” (62). Foolish and dilettante though Theodor’s uncle may appear, we do him an injustice if we dismiss him as an incorrigible philistine. If anything, his bizarre behavior and desperate efforts to make an impression on the ladies render him pathetic and deserving of some sympathy, for he makes a serious effort to encourage music and art in the town. The resulting performances may be somewhat amateurish, but they are genuine attempts at self-improvement on the part

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of ordinary people, rather than pretentious attempts to convey an aura of sophistication on the part of an arrogant bourgeoisie. One of the members of the town’s circle of amateur artists is the elderly Demoiselle Meibel, a woman who — in Theodor’s opinion — has a “garstige, quäkende Stimme” (SW III, 60). She behaves like a “jubilierte Hofsängerin” (60) and cultivates an eccentric image based on an extravagant dress sense: “sie tat vornehm [. . .], trug einen ganz sonderbaren Kopfputz” (60) and carries a porcelain snuff-box in the form of a pug dog. And here, in an ironic aside, the narrator alludes to the essential accessory for bourgeois female provincials — a lap dog. The Demoiselle is a provincial caricature of a genuine prima donna and her “natural” home is the town’s amateur music society. This is the world in which Theodor becomes acquainted with art and music for the first time.

The Italian Vocalists It is hardly surprising that Theodor, an impressionable young man, who though poorly tutored is passionately interested in music, should be swept off his feet by the two Italian singers who arrive so unexpectedly. Initially, however, it is not the musical talents of the two women that he finds so irresistible, for he is on the threshold of adulthood; indeed they arrive on the very day he is celebrating his nineteenth birthday. The young man, who is just waking up to the charms of the opposite sex, is struck by a yearning for love. He sees the two “hochgewachsene Italienerinnen, nach der letzten Mode fantastisch bunt gekleidet, recht virtuosisch keck und doch gar anmutig” (SW III, 61) and falls passionately for Lauretta, who is blessed with the more obvious feminine charms of the two: “nicht eben zu groß, war sie üppig gebaut und mein Auge verlor sich in manchen mir noch fernen Reizen” (61). He is not completely indifferent to the taller, slenderer, quieter Teresina and notes that though she speaks “nur wenig,” she speaks “verständlicher” (61) for all that. His first assessment of the two women occurs before either has sung a note, and his rising sense of excitement is heightened by the knowledge that they possess talents in the art that is his first great passion. Here, as in other novellas, the reader is made aware of the close relationship between love and art. Despite the absence of an appropriate mentor, Theodor’s passion for art and music is almost instinctive, and he has grown up with an unfulfilled yearning of which he is only vaguely aware and that has remained stifled in the provincial milieu he lives in. When the exotic and mysterious Italian singers arrive in the town, they act as a catalyst for his musical longings (themselves symptomatic of a

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longing for the Romantic Ideal) and for his awakening sexuality. And, like Berthold in Die Jesuiterkirche in G. and Traugott in Der Artushof, Theodor expresses his quest for the Ideal in terms of his devotion to a particular woman, even though he is not fully aware of what is happening. This is a quite natural state of affairs for the artist — at least at the time in which Hoffmann is writing — since the artist is a male figure and, as such, thinks and acts from an essentially male perspective. As we have seen, theories of Romanticism suggest that love as well as art can provide access to a metaphysical realm. Since both art and love allow the nearest approximation to the Ideal in the material world, it is hardly surprising that the artist who is in love should strive for a synthesis of both realms in his pursuit of the Ideal. When the young Theodor, whose creative longing is still unfocused, hears the two Italians perform, he is quite enraptured: “mir schnürte es die Brust zusammen, nie hatte ich das geahnet” (SW III, 62). It is the intimate connection between Lauretta’s femininity and her singing that affects him so deeply: “da ward meine innere Musik [. . .] entzündet und schlug empor in mächtigen Flammen. [. . .] Nicht zurückhalten konnte ich meine innere Bewegung, mir stürzten die Tränen aus den Augen” (62). He believes that, for the first time in his life he has heard real music, and, in his state of intense excitement, rushes home and consigns all the organ music 3 he has composed into the fire, deeming it to be flawed. His newfound fervor gives Theodor the resolve to put up with the moods, affectations, and torments of the two vocalists whom he idolizes one after the other. First it is the highly volatile Lauretta who is the object of his adoration: “Lauretta war mein Ideal, alle bösen Launen, die entsetzlich aufbrausende Heftigkeit — die virtuosische Quälerei am Flügel — alles ertrug ich mit Geduld!” (SW III, 64). In his first rush of ecstasy, he believes that it is the impetuous Lauretta — whose behavior swings violently from kindness to wickedness — who is the one for him. Bewitched by Lauretta despite her capriciousness, Theodor is not the only one to fall under her spells, and when she performs we learn that: “die Bewunderung des Publikums ging über in eine Art Wahnsinn” (64). Lauretta has become Theodor’s ideal, and unable to contemplate life without her, he follows the two sisters back to the Residenz, but is brought literally crashing down to earth when he falls ignominiously from his horse. The irony of this episode assumes an even greater significance when we recall that in the original Hummel painting, a very different kind of rider is depicted next to the Abbot and the two singers: “Dort hält ein Reiter, aus der Lokanda wird ihm ein frischer Trunk aufs Pferd gereicht” (SW III, 58). Instead of the Romantic hero riding high

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in the saddle that is depicted in the painting, we are left with an image of a foolish youth who ends up “unsanft hinabgeschleudert auf dem 4 Boden” (66). It is not only Theodor’s fall from his horse that makes the reader laugh. When he has to clamber into a coach that is far to small, his heroic attempt — “recht romantisch wollte ich die Damen wie ein beschützender Paladin zu Pferde begleiten” (SW III, 65) — ends in chaos: “denk dir Laurettas Jammern über den unbequemen Sitz — das Heulen der Möpse — das Geschnatter der Neapolitanerin — Teresinas Schmollen” (66). The fact that the singers — like Demoiselle Meibel — have pugdogs should alert the reader to a number of similarities between them and the elderly prima donna, for the only real difference between Frau Meibel and the two sisters is their age. When Theodor is still besotted with the two Italians, it is, above all, their youth that imbues their escapades with a certain glamour; when the elderly Demoiselle — whose advanced years mean that she is no longer an object of male desire — embarks on similarly amorous escapades, Theodor, like the organist, finds her behavior ridiculous. However, after his infatuation has passed, and he meets the two sisters again fourteen years later, he finds their eccentric behavior just as tiresome as Demoiselle Meibel’s. What was once amusing he now finds merely irritating. Now that they are no longer young, Theodor seems to think the two sisters have lost their right to be eccentric, and he views them in much the same way as he had Demoiselle Meibel in his youth, as mutton dressed as lamb: “beide gingen ziemlich bunt gekleidet, und ihr ganzer Anstand war wie sonst, also vierzehn Jahre jünger als sie selbst” (73). When age has robbed them of their bloom, the two sisters seem to Theodor to be scarcely distinguishable from Demoiselle Meibel, and in their youth he found Lauretta and Teresina scarcely distinguishable from one another. Initially he regards Lauretta as the embodiment of his Ideal, but as he begins to lose interest in her “zierlichen Kanzonetten und Arien” (SW III, 68) and starts to develop “mehr Sinn für deutschen Ernst” (69), he turns to Teresina and starts to see her as an idealized embodiment of his artistic and masculine passion: Die Töne drangen mit wunderbarer Gewalt in mich hinein, die Tränen standen mir in den Augen vor Lust und Entzücken, ich griff Teresinas Hand, ich drückte sie tausendmal an den Mund, ich schwur mich niemals von ihr zu trennen. (SW III, 68)

And he goes on to add: “Teresina kam mir in der Tat wie ein höheres Wesen vor” (SW III, 70). At first it may seem strange that in his pursuit

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of the Ideal, Theodor could abandon the one sister for the other so quickly, but the fact is that the two women are interchangeable in his eyes. He may have changed the particular form (woman) in which his Ideal is embodied, but the content (Ideal) remains the same. Thus it becomes clear that his inner Romantic longing, awakened as it has been by music, is expressing itself through the love for a woman, although, paradoxically the identity of the woman in question is almost immaterial. This is what renders the two sisters interchangeable; he loves neither for her own sake, but purely for their symbolic function as an embodiment of the Romantic Ideal. All the while Theodor is acting against his better judgement, indeed he deliberately blinds himself to the reality of the situation. Not only does he suffer their torments and insults: “Mir aus den Augen, verruchter Sohn der Hölle” (SW III, 67), but he deliberately ignores the warning voice within himself: “zuweilen war es mir sogar, als lache sie [Teresina] mich hinterrücks aus” (64). And although Lauretta repeatedly encourages him to work on new compositions, he keeps coming back to the same question: “Warum will sie nie etwas von mir im Konzert singen?” (67). He leaves these disturbing questions unanswered, just as he ignores his growing feelings of disquiet. The fact that Theodor is a naïve young man who has relatively little experience of music, and even less of women and love, may allow us to excuse his passionate flights of fantasy; but can we do so when he deceives himself quite deliberately and, turning his back on reality, sacrifices everything for the sake of his ideal? Theodor’s disillusion with his first ideal, Lauretta should have alerted him to take a more critical view of the situation, but without even pausing for a moment to reflect, he plunges headlong into a new illusion. Not surprisingly, therefore, the shock Theodor receives when he learns how the sisters have despised and exploited him is devastating, and it is compounded by having to listen while “beide [ihn] parodierten in Stimme und Vortrag [. . .] auf das Grausamste” (SW III, 71). Stunned and humiliated, his faith destroyed, he leaves the town without even calling the women to account.

Theodor Theodor is the principal character as well as the narrator of the story. What he recounts for the most part, is a series of reminiscences. We should bear in mind that his two encounters with the women are separated by some fourteen years. Theodor, now completely devoted to music, starts off by talking about his youth, the environment in which he grew up, and the impression made upon him by the two sisters. It is

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striking, however, that although he is highly critical of others, he is largely uncritical of his own behavior. He describes the inhabitants of the provincial community, including his uncle and the organist, as a bunch of dilettante fools and philistines and makes fun of Demoiselle Meibel. Although he concedes that at one point in his youth he had idolized the two sisters, the reader — who cannot overlook the warning signs that Theodor is so determined to ignore — is made aware that both have at some later date been knocked off their pedestals. In the final analysis, the two sisters are shown to be no less dilettante than the other members of this provincial community, the main difference being that, in addition, they have been cruel to Theodor. But is this an accurate representation of the facts? It is certainly true that the sisters are disloyal, pretending to be his friends whilst exploiting him. But who knows whether Teresina is not in fact telling the truth when she complains: “Er ist mit seinem Liebeln und Schmachten sehr langweilig, auch quält er mich zu sehr mit seinen leidigen Kompositionen, die zur Zeit ganz erbärmlich sind” (SW III, 69–70)! Her evaluation of him as a mediocre composer seems to be borne out when one of the circle of Serapionsbrüder comments: So wie die Sachen nun einmal stehen, möchte doch wohl die ernste tragische Oper die höchste Stufe sein, die zu ersteigen der Komponist streben muß, und es ist mir unbegreiflich, daß du nicht schon längst ein solches 5 Werk unternommen und etwas Tüchtiges geleistet hast. (SW III, 75)

However, Teresina obviously does not take a wholly negative view of Theodor, as she says: “Er ist ein gutes Kind.[. . .] Einiges Talent ist in ihm” (SW III, 69). Although the sisters are not exactly fair in their treatment of Theodor, it must be said that he is far from being the innocent victim. He deliberately lets fall that despite suffering the humiliation inflicted upon him by the two women, he still paid “großmütig . . . die ganze Rechnung” (70) in the inn to gain the approval of Eduard (and the reader). But what Theodor calls generosity is little more than a crude attempt to make the behavior of the sisters, who are hardly blameless, appear worse than it was and thereby portray himself as their victim. This ploy becomes even more apparent later in the story when he tells of his second encounter with the women. We see at once that the two women have hardly changed, and the second encounter is like a case of déjà vu. Lauretta, as is her wont, is in a rage because someone has ruined her performance by cutting short her trill (cf. SW III, 72), an “outrageous” act and one which Theodor himself had been guilty of some fourteen years earlier. Lauretta has remained the “satanische Göttin” (72) of old, and Teresina still strikes him as the

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more restrained and sensible of the two: “noch schrie und tobte Lauretta, noch sprach Teresina heftig in sie hinein” (72), all of which makes the innkeeper, who knows the sisters only too well, chuckle. As soon as the two sisters recognize Theodor, they rush to embrace him, and “aller Streit war vergessen” (72). Lauretta and Teresina are genuinely pleased to see Theodor again, and “erzählten nun von den glücklichen Tagen unsers Beisammenseins” (72). And although Theodor goes out of his way to let Eduard and the reader know that “längst war aller Groll aus meiner Seele gewichen und mein Abenteuer mit den Schwestern mir spaßhaft geworden” (72), he concedes that he had been unable to suppress a certain disquiet: “Du kannst denken, mit welchen besonderen Gefühlen ich zwischen beiden stand” (72). Fourteen years later, the circumstances in which Theodor broke with the two sisters still rankle, and so he tries to take his revenge: “kräftige Seitenhiebe austeilend die Schwestern das Übergewicht fühlen [ließ], das die an mancher Lebensund Kunsterfahrung reichen Jahre mir über sie gegeben hatten” (73). It is arguable whether he is superior to them in artistic terms, for if that were so, would he have needed to make the point so emphatically to them, to Eduard, and to the reader? Moreover, we learn that Teresina has been engaged “von einem Impresario zum nächsten Karneval als erste tragische Sängerin” (72), and even Lauretta has become the leading soloist in the “Opera buffa,” all of which suggests that they are not as devoid of talent as Theodor would have us believe. What Theodor cannot come to terms with is the fact that the two women have enjoyed some success, whereas he has not managed to compose a major work, which makes him try to justify his cutting short Lauretta’s big performance all those years ago by saying that: “ließ ich die Sängerin gewähren, so säß ich noch am Flügel” (SW III, 73) — another malicious aside. As the story continues, he has little to say about them that is positive; both sing for him, and he merely notes that their voices are different from how he remembers, while conceding that Lauretta’s voice “weder an Stärke und Höhe zu merklich verloren” (73). He still sees in them traces of his lost ideal, and he blames them for “their failure” to live up to his ideal. He betrays his obtuseness by going so far as to express this in words: “Schon dieses Aufdringen der Vergleichung einer inneren Idee mit der nicht eben erfreulichen Wirklichkeit mußte mich noch mehr verstimmen” (SW III, 73). He cannot get over his disappointment that the sisters, who no longer correspond to his Ideal, have made quite successful careers and would once again like to use him for their purposes. Their motives may not be laudable, though they are human and understandable.

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Instead of facing up to reality and taking a critical view of his own behavior, Theodor prefers to lament what he believes is the demise of his ideal, although, strictly speaking, this is a further act of self-deception, since this ideal does not, and did not, exist in the real world. And even though he is prepared to recognize this — “Es ist aber das Erbteil von uns Schwachen, daß wir an der Erdscholle klebend so gern das Überirdische hinabziehen wollen in die irdische ärmliche Beengtheit” (SW III, 74) — he is far more inclined to turn his back on reality: “Glücklich ist der Komponist zu preisen, der niemals mehr im irdischen Leben die wiederschaut, die mit geheimnisvoller Kraft seine innere Musik zu entzünden wußte” (74). He would rather ignore the truth and blame the two singers for failing to live up to his expectations than criticize his own distorted imagination. By saying how he wished he had never met them again, he makes it plain that he prefers to indulge his own unrealistic fantasies rather than accept the women as flesh-and-blood individuals in their own right with positive and negative qualities. That is to say, he commits the error of the male artist who seeks love and redemption from a woman and who ends up despising her when she is unable to live up to his unrealistic expectations. Theodor is not even capable of recognizing the benefits that he derived from his first encounter with the women. Almost grudgingly he concedes that their time together has had a lasting effect on him, as he remarks “der im Ton lebende Geist sprach, und das war das Schöpfungswort, welches urplötzlich den ihm verwandten, im Innern ruhenden Geist weckte; mächtig strahlte er hervor und konnte nie mehr untergehen” (74). Even so, he remains unsatisfied, preferring to regret his unrealized aspirations. Theodor reacts very differently to Traugott in Der Artushof, who — as we shall see — comes to terms with the shattering of his temporal ideal by viewing it in abstract terms and re-establishing it in a metaphysical world. Moreover, he knows that he can always gain access to this metaphysical realm via his imagination, which gives him a sense of tranquility and inspires his art at the same time. Theodor, on the other hand, laments the transitory nature of all physical manifestations of the Ideal, without pausing to reflect on the possible enjoyment that might be derived from the “Scheinen der Idee” in a transitory physical realization of the Ideal. He bemoans the irreconcilability of Ideal and reality, and in typically masculine fashion, castigates the woman: “Der Zauber ist vernichtet, und die innere Melodie, sonst Herrliches verkündend, wird zur Klage über eine zerbrochene Suppenschüssel oder einen Tintenfleck in neuer Wäsche” (SW III, 74). He is, in effect, questioning whether it is possible for a man and a woman to have a lasting relationship in which

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art does not become consigned to the realm of the mundane and everyday. That is to say, he lacks both the strength and understanding to seek the Ideal in the only realm where it is to be found, namely in a transcendent realm. Traugott, on the other hand, understands that giving up searching for a fantasy figure does not imply that the Ideal is of no use to the artist as a source of inspiration, for it is through the imagination that Man (and the artist) can gain access to this transcendent world. And if it is destiny never to succeed in embodying the Ideal in the material world of reality, his awareness that the Ideal exists can still serve as a source of happiness and can constitute the inspiration behind a magnificent work of art. That Theodor ends up disappointed as an individual person and unfulfilled as an artist is a result of his own failings because he refuses to accept reality, especially the fact that a real woman can never embody the Ideal, blaming her for this. He does not seek inspiration for his art where it might be found in a metaphysical realm. For Theodor, it is a question of all or nothing. He cannot envisage any possibility of a compromise between Ideal and reality, and as we shall see, such a compromise need not imply a static state of affairs but rather a dynamic process. Unlike Traugott who comes to understand the true role of Romantic irony, Theodor remains trapped in his cynicism, lamenting: “ich [hätte] sie nie wiedersehen sollen” (74). He fails to see that love and art are continually changing, and tries unsuccessfully to fix both permanently in a specific female form. Fatally, he ignores the Romantic postulate that it is better to become (“werden”) than to be (“sein”).

Notes 1

For a further discussion of this aspect of Hoffmann’s work see Hyun-Sook Lee, Die Bedeutung von Zeichnen und Malerei für die Erzählkunst E. T. A. Hoffmanns (Frankfurt, Bern, New York: Lang, 1985). 2

Ernst Scheyer discusses the influence of contemporary techniques of art and painting on the narrative structure of Hoffmann’s story in his essay, “Johann Erdmann Hummel und die deutsche Dichtung. Joseph von Eichendorff — E. T. A. Hoffmann — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,” Aurora 33 (1973): 43–62. Scheyer does not, however, go as far as to interpret the story itself. Christoph E. Schweitzer offers a detailed description and analysis of the painting in order to support a reading of the story in which he claims that the narrator, Theodor, has gained a number of insights and recognized “das Prinzip, demzufolge es der Reifeprozeß des Künstlers mit sich bringt, daß er sich von der Verkörperung seines Ideals losreißen muß.” See Christoph E. Schweitzer, “Bild, Struktur und Bedeutung: E. T. A. Hoffmanns Die Fermate,” MHG 19 (1973): 49–52 (50–51). Scheyer views this in a positive light, however, and fails to see that Theodor’s error consists in blaming the Ideal rather than his own

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illusions for the disappointments he suffers. Stefan Diebitz is equally reluctant to criticize Theodor and chooses to pin the blame on the two singers in his study, “Zweimal Aurelie. Die Gegenwart E. T. A. Hoffmanns in Eichendorffs Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts,” MHG 37 (1991): 36–52. In contrast, Lothar Pikulik concludes that “Künstlerliebe und Ehe sind unvereinbar” in his brief treatment of the story. See Lothar Pikulik, E. T. A. Hoffmann als Erzähler: Ein Kommentar zu den “Serapionsbrüdern” (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987). All of the studies above accept Theodor’s description of events at face value and never pause to consider whether his view may not be distorted. 3

The burning of apparently flawed works of art is a motif that we encounter in Der Sandmann when Clara demands that Nathanael consign his writings, which she regards as insane and of no artistic merit at all, to the fire. 4 The painting may well represent Theodor’s encounter with the sisters after a fourteen-year interval, when he was able to remain in the saddle — but the contrast between the initial impact that the description of the picture makes on the reader and Theodor’s initial fall from his horse is indicative of the ironic light in which Theodor appears generally in the story. 5

It is particularly important to note that at this point, Theodor (just as he does in Rat Krespel) describes events from his own distorted perspective. As a result, his account becomes biased and unreliable. This is a key point and one that has been ignored in the secondary literature to date.

6: Der Artushof

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that focus on the artist figure, Der Artushof (1816) is perhaps the most neglected. Critics, if they do not ignore it altogether, usually dismiss it as a peripheral work. Its apparent simplicity, together with what appears to be a conventional happy ending, may make it appear untypical of Hoffmann’s oeuvre. The fact is, however, that Der Artushof raises many of the same fundamental aesthetic questions to be found in the other novellas: the motivation of the artist, his relationship to a metaphysical realm of transcendent ideas, and his role in society. In the mid-1950s Joachim Rosteutscher wrote a biographicallyoriented interpretation of Hoffmann’s work, emphasizing what he saw as the crucial importance of the so-called “Julia-episode” for Hoffmann’s work as a whole, suggesting that just as Hoffmann could not believe that his beloved idol Julia could marry Herr Graepel, so too Traugott cannot 1 believe that Felizitas will marry a local civil servant from the court. The “Julia-Episode” also plays a central role in Fritz J. Raddatz’s book Männerängste in der Literatur. However, as might be expected of a study of such breadth, Raddatz’s treatment of Hoffmann’s oeuvre is inevitably very general, and his conclusions are, at best, highly speculative, not least when he suggests that Hoffmann’s belief in the irreconcilability of art and femi2 ninity can be traced back to his deep-rooted fear of women. In the 1990s Marianne Kesting and Bernhard Dieterle have attempted to decipher the significance of the paintings in the novella. Whereas Kesting arrives at the rather dubious conclusion that “Es besteht, jeder Art Feminismus zum Trotz, eine Solidarität der beiden Männer [E. T. A. Hoffmann und Edgar Allan Poe] in ihrer Auffassung der 3 Frau als vollendete Dienerin und Puppe,” Dieterle concentrates on the formal dimension of the novella and concludes: “Überhaupt erweisen sich die Bilder des Artushofes als bestimmend für Traugotts Berufung 4 zum Künstler,” a conclusion which, although undoubtedly correct, resolves few of the interpretive puzzles posed by the work. Gunther Pix presents a more detailed analysis of the novella and is especially concerned with demonstrating the parallels with certain other stories, notably Der goldne Topf and Die Fermate. In spite of his insightful com-

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ments on the relationship of this story to Hoffmann’s work as a whole, certain key issues — notably the relationship between woman and the 5 Ideal — are only touched upon. Claudia Liebrand, Lothar Pikulik, and Peter von Matt devote a great deal of attention to the ending of the 6 story. But whereas Lothar Pikulik regards the end of the story as embodying a “happy end,” Claudia Liebrand sees it as a “Taschenspielertrick” (139), as an unsatisfactory compromise since Traugott does not marry his ideal but rather a “Verdopplung” (148). For his part, Peter von Matt draws attention to Hoffmann’s narrative technique in transforming the Ideal that is embodied in the female figure into a “glückliche Philisterin” (404).

Narrative Structure and Setting In Der Artushof, the narrator speaks more directly to the reader than in any other comparable story such as Der Sandmann and Die Jesuiterkirche in G. The novella opens with a typical captatio benevolentiae: “Gewiß hast du, günstiger Leser! schon recht viel von der alten merkwürdigen Handelsstadt Danzig gehört”(SW III, 145). This is followed by over a page of detailed description of the city, in the course of which the narrator, assuming the reader to be familiar with it, reminds him of its main attraction, the Artushof: “dann besuchtest du, günstiger Leser, der du in Danzig warst, den Artushof wohl am liebsten” (145). In this opening passage, the narrator does essentially two things: first, he arouses the reader’s support for the well-educated and enthusiastic artist, Traugott; second, he tries to seduce the reader into believing that his own opinions do not differ fundamentally from those of the narrator. The description of the setting gives way almost imperceptibly to a description of the action: “Dir, günstiger Leser! war so etwas erlaubt, aber nicht dem jungen Kaufherrn Traugott” (146). Far from prompting the reader to adopt a position of critical detachment, the captatio benevolentiae appeals to him for his sympathetic understanding and plunges him into the discussion about art. 7 The story is set partly in the well-known Artushof of Danzig, and partly in Italy, two centers of artistic excellence. The Artushof may be a building in which business and trade are conducted, but the narrator goes to great lengths to emphasize its artistic merits, describing in detail the murals, the ornamental stucco, and right in the middle, the awesome marble relief depicting the king, a relief that, carved in the style of the Northern School, includes images of “Miliz aus alter reichsstädtischer Zeit,” “Ehrsame Bürgermeister,” “Hellebardierer,” and “lustige Solda-

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tenmusik” (cf. SW III, 145). The traders from all over the world, who meet to do business in this magnificent chamber, have scant regard for the masterpieces which surround them. In the story, strong contrasts are drawn between the mercantile city of Danzig, and the cities of Rome and Naples, which are set in a land where art and beauty are revered. It comes, therefore, as no surprise to discover that it is in Italy, among a group of like-minded artists, that Traugott feels most at home. And it is to this country — a country to which Hoffmann was strongly attracted — that he returns at the end of the novella. Italien hatte im Weltbild dieses Dichters [Hoffmann] einen priviligierten Platz. Kein anderes europäisches Land außerhalb Deutschlands ist so oft Lebenshintergrund seiner Erzählfiguren [. . .] Seine [PhantasieItaliens] Funktion in der dichterischen Welt Hoffmanns wurde durch Bedürfnisse und Erfahrungen, die der unmittelbaren nord-, mittel- und 8 ostdeutschen Lebenswelt Hoffmanns zugehörten, strukturiert.

But it is not only geographical location that is highly significant in this story. Hoffmann also makes a point with at least two of the names he uses: Traugott, with its obvious religious connotations, anticipates a positive ending to the story, and the name Felizitas makes an ironic reference to the domestic happiness of marriage to a bourgeois philistine.

The Philistines In his description of Traugott’s employer and would-be father-in-law Herr Elias Roos, the narrator caricatures a typical member of this philistine society. Herr Roos’s business is the be-all and end-all of his life; he is continually anxious that a missed opportunity or a financial miscalculation could place him at a disadvantage. He is particularly worried by his prospective son-in-law’s apparent lack of maturity and business acumen, and his hysterical outburst when Traugott forgets to send the letter of advice is so exaggerated as to be comic: da schlug Herr Elias Roos die Fäuste über den Kopf zusammen, stampfte [. . .] mit dem rechten Fuße und schrie, daß es im Saale schallte: “Herr Gott! [. . .] Dumme Kinderstreiche! — Verehrter Traugott — korrupter Schwiegersohn — unkluger Associé. (SW III, 147)

Moreover, his absurd fits of despair — “Zehntausend Mark, [. . .] Zehntausend Mark” (SW III, 147), he wails, — calls to mind other well known misers such as Ben Jonson’s Volpone or Molière’s Harpagon. Likewise, when the threat of imminent disaster is averted by the simplest means — it turns out that a courier will take the letter of advice to its

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destination — his sense of relief and his effusive expressions of gratitude are no less ridiculous: “‘Unvergleichlichster Mann!’ rief Herr Elias mit vollem Sonnenschein im Blick” (147). Thus the reader is left with a wonderfully vivid impression of this ludicrous, diminutive, though immaculately dressed man in “leberfarbenen Rocke, Weste und Hose mit goldbesponnenen Knöpfen” (148), who tugs at his wig in moments of extreme agitation (148, 160) and who lives in a world where all that matters are shares, profit-margins, and interest rates. Herr Roos despises those who cannot manage their money. He cannot understand why the Old Painter, who appears at the beginning of the novella, has no sense of the fluctuations of the stock-market and little interest in increasing his personal capital: “Wissen Sie denn, ob mir in diesem Augenblick solch einfältig Papier nicht ganz unnütz, bares Geld aber höchst nötig ist?” (SW III, 154). He takes a contemptuous view of the elderly man’s management of his financial affairs, exclaiming: “Dumme Bestie, verkauft jetzt das Papier, und bekommt in acht Tagen wenigstens 10 Prozent mehr” (155), for in his view the only sign of respectability and resourcefulness is the ability to increase one’s wealth. When confronted with the ups and downs of life, Herr Roos is far from helpless; he has an infallible remedy for the anguish and frustration the artist feels when he fails to capture the Ideal (a state of mind that, in Traugott’s case, he completely misdiagnoses as an attack of jealousy): “Herr Elias Roos riet dem Traugott eine Brunnen- oder Molkenkur an” (160). This comic little incident highlights Herr Roos’s lack of imagination, as well as the extent to which he is trapped within the confines of his bourgeois existence, an existence in which the only reality is that of material objects. His treatment of his daughter is no less grotesque than his treatment of Traugott, for example, when he scolds her — quite unreasonably — for what is nothing more than a simple misunderstanding: “Christina — abscheuliche Person, mißratene Tochter” (161). Poor Herr Roos is easily thrown, and it is typical of his approach to life that he always seeks the simplest — and usually most inappropriate — explanations to problems: “Der Schwiegersohn ist ein melancholischer Mensch und in der Eifersucht türkisch gesinnt. [. . .] Man gehe hinein und tröste den Bräutigam” (161). When Traugott announces that his on-off wedding to Christina will never take place and departs for Italy, the ever opportunistic Elias Roos is mightily relieved to see the back of him, and welcomes his new putative son-in-law (and heir to the family firm), the bookkeeper. As far as Roos is concerned, what might have been seen as a calamitous turn of events is simply a non-event: one man has simply been replaced by an-

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other: “Herr Elias fügte sich in alles und versicherte herzlich froh im Comptoir einmal übers andere, daß er Gott danke, den aberwitzigen Traugott los zu sein” (SW III, 164). Since he lacks any appreciation of an individual’s uniqueness, he believes that given sufficient financial resources, it is always possible to find a replacement. Herr Roos is not the only philistine Traugott comes across; Hoffmann’s cutting irony also exposes Herr Roos’s dinner-guests for the philistines they are. When they are introduced as “Herrn Elias Roos’ Freunde, d. h. mit ihm in starkem Geldverkehr” (SW III, 149), we are left in no doubt as to the nature of this friendship. Herr Roos can be such a buffoon that there are moments when he seems almost endearing, unlike the pseudo-connoisseurs, the uncle and his nephew, who, outwardly more fashionable, have apparently cultivated an appreciation of artistic matters: “Sie [. . .] tragen sich ganz englisch, führen einen Mahagoni-Stiefelknecht aus London mit sich, haben viel Kunstsinn und sind überhaupt feine, ganz gebildete Leute” (149). Furthermore, the uncle has a sizeable art collection of his own, but it is not just as a connoisseur of art that he wants to cut a dash. Even the complexities of contemporary philosophy seem to pose him few problems, and in his capacity as “Professor physices” (150), he avails himself of his own jargon to offer an absurd parody of Hegelian metaphysics, claiming that: “der Weltgeist habe als wackrer Experimentalist irgendwo eine tüchtige Elektrisiermaschine gebaut, und von ihr aus liefen gar geheimnisvolle Drähte durchs Leben” (150). Here Hoffmann pokes fun at this Professor who owns a considerable quantity of paintings, and has the requisite “good taste” to go with them, but who clearly lacks any genuine appreciation or understanding of art. Although he would like to give the appearance of being a well-educated man with an informed interest in the arts and humanities, he is little more than a complacent philistine with an overinflated ego. Not only does he lack any understanding of what is involved in a genuine commitment to art, but he treats Traugott with utter contempt when he defends the paintings and carvings that the Uncle has dismissed as tasteless and grotesque: aber der Onkel sagte mit recht hämischer Miene: “Ich behaupte es noch einmal, daß ich nicht begreife, wie Sie Kaufmann sein wollen, und sich nicht lieber der Kunst ganz zugewandt haben.” (SW III, 150)

Filled with disgust for the older man, Traugott continues the discussion about art with the nephew, who seems, at first, to be more sympathetic to the artistic life and to acknowledge Traugott’s ability: “wie beneide ich Sie um Ihr schönes Talent” (SW III, 151), he says to him.

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When Traugott questions him further, the nephew explains that he has delved “tiefer in das eigentliche Wesen der Sache” (151) and as a result has become, as he likes to think, “gelehrt und tiefsinnig” (151). This prompts him to put forward his own insights into the nature of art: “Sie werden mir recht geben, daß die Kunst Blumen in unser Leben flicht — Erheiterung, Erholung vom ernsten Geschäft, das ist der schöne Zweck alles Strebens in der Kunst” (151). Like his uncle, the nephew is also exposed as a philistine; he regards art simply as something decorative and relaxing. But that is as far as he goes because he recognizes that a whole-hearted commitment to art involves risk and can result in discomfort and even disaster, which he sees in purely financial terms. As an out-and-out materialist he maintains: “Sie werden mir doch zugeben, daß man im Leben leben muß, wozu es der bedrängte Künstler von Profession beinahe niemals bringt” (151). Recognizing that genuine artists constantly have to live with artistic and philosophical dilemmas, he opts for art that is essentially pleasant and anodyne. Carried away by the sound of his own voice, the nephew babbles on, making it obvious to both Traugott and the reader that by “living,” the nephew means nothing more than “keine Schulden, sondern viel Geld haben, gut Essen und Trinken, eine schöne Frau und auch wohl artige Kinder, die nie einen Talgfleck ins Sonntagsröckchen bringen” (152). Thus even though the uncle thinks artistic connoisseurship will bring him status, his nephew, still regarding himself as an art lover, avoids all works of art that are personally challenging, an attitude that attributes a purely decorative and trivial function to art. Like the anonymous nephew and uncle, the bookkeeper, who shares their philistine outlook, is also never referred to by name. He offers no opinions on art or philosophy since, like Herr Roos, he is interested only in the firm and in Christina (which in effect amounts to the same thing). He cannot be described as an unscrupulous character, however, for his total passivity together with the almost automatic manner in which he steps into the role vacated by Traugott, suggests a man whose personality is far too limited for him to contemplate anything as demanding as a disreputable deed.

The Women Just as the male philistines, of whom Hoffmann is so bitingly critical, are typical of certain sections of nineteenth-century bourgeois society, so too Christina typifies bourgeois, feminine domesticity. She is her father’s daughter in every way, especially in her rigidly utilitarian outlook on life. She has but one aim, the domestic bliss of bourgeois marriage. Her attractive demeanor is not the outward sign of an inner happiness but

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rather the certain knowledge that a marriage contract is not far off; she possesses “Augen, aus denen es recht hübsch jedermann anlächelt: Nun heirate ich bald” (SW III, 149). Nor does she love Traugott for any personal qualities, but simply on account of his eligibility: “[. . .] daß Christinchen den Traugott deshalb ungemein lieb hat, weil er sie heiratet” (149). She is prepared to play her part in the business of finding a husband, and she has the one attribute that potential suitors in her society value above all else: she is the only child of a wealthy businessman. In addition, she is a thrifty house-keeper and an excellent cook: “niemals ist ihr eine Mandeltorte mißraten, und die Buttersauce verdickt sich jedesmal gehörig, weil sie niemals links, sondern immer rechts im Kreise mit dem Löffel rührt” (149). Furthermore, there is nothing, it seems, that can disrupt her pedestrian daily routine: “sollten etwa aus des Nachbars brennenden Hause die Flammen in ihr Zimmer schlagen, so wird sie nur noch geschwinde den Kanarienvogel füttern und die neue 9 Wäsche verschließen” (149). With no little irony, the narrator describes her as the very embodiment of a perfect wife, a domestic robot devoid of imagination and initiative. Christina is not simply of limited intelligence; she is also heartless, as we see when her father sends her to console her fiancé: [sie] begab sich auf ihr Zimmer, um sich nur ein wenig umzukleiden, die Wäsche herauszugeben, mit der Köchin das Nötige wegen des Sonntagsbraten zu verabreden und sich nebenher einige Stadtneuigkeiten erzählen zu lassen, dann wollte sie gleich sehen, was dem Bräutigam denn eigentlich fehle. (SW III, 162)

She is equally unfeeling when Traugott tells her that nothing will come of their proposed marriage: “Es ist auch gar nicht vonnöten,” sagte Christina sehr ruhig, “Sie gefallen mir so nicht sonderlich seit einiger Zeit, und gewisse Leute werden es ganz anders zu schätzen wissen, wenn sie mich, die hübsche, reiche Mamsell Christina Roos, heimführen können als Braut.” (SW III, 163–64)

This is not the cry of a rejected lover, but the cold and calculated response of a woman who knows that, in the bookkeeper, she has a readymade replacement for her fiancé waiting in the wings. In this way, Hoffmann’s irony leaves us in doubt about the hollowness of a conventional relationship that defines a couple as a social unit of husband and wife and in which neither is considered as an individual. Traugott, who is not prepared to enter into such a relationship is soon replaced, and as a result Christina, her father, and of course, the bookkeeper get what they have always wanted: an uncomplicated life of bourgeois bliss.

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Just as the uncle and his nephew fail to grasp the true essence of art because they approach it in terms of convenient pre-packaged categories, so too Herr Roos, Christina, and the accountant betray the notion of Romantic love by attempting to construct a relationship that fits in with the prevailing values of their bourgeois world. The fact that both groups are unambiguously aligned with the philistines can be explained by their inability to regard any sphere of human activity as an end in itself and their reluctance to empathize with anything or anybody that threatens to disrupt the order and simplicity of their world. The reader may smile at these bourgeois clowns, but should not lose sight of the fact that their ignorance and philistinism cause Traugott considerable suffering. In the attempt to escape his uncomfortable predicament, Traugott repeatedly seeks refuge in the world of art, and it is there that he discovers love not once, but twice: first, in the person of Felizitas, and then, in the person of Dorina. But before he can arrive at true personal fulfillment, he has to undergo a long and painful process of self-discovery because his first feelings of love cause him considerable problems. As is so often the case in a Hoffmann novella, the portrait of a female figure prompts the male artist to equate the real woman depicted in the paint10 ing with the Ideal itself. What is distinctive about this particular novella is its undercurrent of homo-eroticism. Already thrown into turmoil by the image of the young man “der in seiner Lockenfülle und zierlich bunter Tracht beinahe weiblich anzusehen war” (SW III, 146), Traugott feels he has been struck by lightning when the young man in question stands before him: “dieser war [. . .] der zarte wunderschöne Jüngling und lächelte ihn an wie mit unbeschreiblicher Liebe” (146). When we are told how this “young man” looked at Traugott “wie bittend, mit Tränen im Auge” (154), casting his eyes downward in embarrassment as he does so, the reader can be in little doubt that this “young man” is in fact a young girl — even though Traugott, naïve and innocent as he is, appears to be incapable of recognizing this. Even when he/she leads him into a neighboring room and he gazes at a painting in which “eine wunderliebliche Jungfrau in altdeutscher Tracht, aber ganz das Gesicht des Jünglings” (158) is portrayed whose “dunkle Augen voll Sehnsucht auf Traugott herabblickten” (158), and whose “süße Lippen halb geöffnet liebliche Worte zu flüstern schienen” (158), Traugott still does not suspect anything, but accepts the “youth’s” explanation that this is a portrait of his unhappy sister Felizitas and reflects that he would have liked to have embraced the “boy” “als sei er die geliebte Felizitas” (160). Traugott falls prey to the illusion that the girl in the picture represents the ideal for which he strives and is the very embodiment of his

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artistic and love-crazed yearning: “Ach sie ist es ja, die Geliebte meiner Seele, die ich so lange im Herzen trug, die ich nur in Ahnungen erkannte! — wo — wo ist sie!” (SW III, 158). Although the “young man” tells Traugott that his “sister” is gone and that he will never see her again, after months of deepest longing, he does in fact succeed in catching a glimpse of her when he turns up unexpectedly at the house of the Old Painter, Berklinger: “Sie war es, sie selbst! — “Felizitas!” schrie Traugott voll Entzücken auf, niederstürzen wollte er vor dem geliebten Himmels11 bilde” (160). Of course, there is no time for explanations; a knifewielding Berklinger throws Traugott out of the house, and by the following day, the artist and his “son” have left the house and disappeared without trace. Traugott never pauses to consider whether this woman with whom he is so in love actually loves him! Confident that she does love him, he throws himself down on his bed and groans: “‘Du liebst mich, ach, ich weiß es ja! — In dem Schmerz, der so tötend meine Brust durchbohrt, fühle ich es, daß du mich liebst’” (160). Here the way in which Traugott, the male artist (and lover), projects his idealized vision onto a particular woman and simply assumes that she cannot but return his feelings of love and admiration proves to be particularly problematic. For by putting himself in thrall to her apparent perfection, he raises her to a metaphorical level, which in turn robs her of her personality. What seems at first sight to be a manifestation of the divine is in fact nothing more than a woman stripped of everything that 12 makes her a unique individual in her own right. That is to say, the male artist is concerned not with a real woman, but rather with the possibility 13 of embodying his artistic striving in objective form. Inevitably, Traugott’s idealized image of Felizitas collapses, though through the use of irony, Hoffmann presents this traumatic event in a manner that avoids tragedy. After considerable anguish, Traugott succeeds in finding Felizitas once again, although by searching for her, he risks jeopardizing his love for a real woman — Dorina — in Italy. But just as the “young boy” ceases to be, once “transformed” into Felizitas, so too Felizitas has ceased to be, as it were, in her new capacity as the wife of Hofrat Mathesius — “Frau Kriminalrätin” (SW III, 168) — and prolific producer of children; as we are told, “sie hat diverse Kinder in Kurs gesetzt” (168) There are obvious parallels with Christine and Felizitas: like Christine, Felizitas simply exchanges one fiancé (Brandstetter) for another (Mathesius), embarking on an existence of pure bourgeois domesticity. Both Christine and Felizitas end up with an utterly utilitarian outlook on life that excludes any continuing involvement with art. With Christine this is not surprising as she is the daughter

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of a merchant and businessman, but Felizitas is the daughter of an artist and herself interested in painting and drawing, thus her transformation is all the more shocking. Both are referred to as “Mamsell” by the local citizens; again Hoffmann’s use of irony prevents Felizitas’s transformation into the Frau Kriminalrätin from being regarded in a tragic light. Thus the story ends on a happy note. Although Traugott’s idealized image of Felizitas is indeed shattered, this is a necessary precondition if he is to free himself from illusion and develop as an individual. Felizitas is not the only female who attracts Traugott’s interest: Dorina too exercises a profound influence on him. Needless to say, when they first meet, Traugott hopes and believes that the woman before him is Felizitas: “‘Sie ist es!’ rief Traugott” (SW III, 165). However, he soon realizes this mistake, even though Dorina does bear a remarkable resemblance to his ideal Felizitas: “Sie hatte die Züge der Felizitas, sie war es aber nicht” (165). And although he is bitterly disappointed for a few moments: “Wie mit tausend Dolchen durchbohrte die bittre Täuschung des armen Traugotts wunde Brust” (165), he recognizes that “außer Felizitas kein Mädchen so ihn im Innersten aufgeregt hatte als Dorina” (165). It is not long before a close relationship develops between the two of them: “Dorina [. . .] ließ deutlich ihre Neigung zu dem jungen deutschen Maler merken. Traugott erwiderte das herzlich” (165). Unaware of how used he has become to seeing her on a regular basis, he is quite vexed when her father insists that if there is to be no prospect of marriage, then for the sake of his daughter’s reputation, he will not permit the two to have any further contact. Traugott’s heart is torn in two, and he is unable to choose between the fantasy figure, with whom he believes himself to be in love, and the real and wholly admirable Dorina: “Felizitas stand ihm wieder lebhaft vor Augen, und doch war es ihm, als könne er von Dorina nicht lassen” (SW III, 166). Although he already senses that his quest for Felizitas will be in vain, he finds it impossible to shake off her image: “Felizitas stellte sich ihm dar als ein geistig Bild, das er nie verlieren, nie gewinnen könne” (166). At the same time, he cherishes a vision of Dorina as “sein liebes Weib,” a vision that fills him with both “süße Schauer” (166) and guilt at the thought of this act of “Verrat an seiner ersten Liebe” (166). He seeks a way out of this impasse by taking flight, and for the second time, he is run out of town by a furious father. When he walks out on Christina to pursue Felizitas, he turns his back on the mundane reality of Herr Roos’s household in his quest for the Ideal; when he abandons Dorina, he flees from reality and from the real love of a real woman, which, when contrasted with his metaphysical notion of love, strikes him as profane.

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He maintains that he must be true to his “first love,” Felizitas, but she is in fact no more his “first love” than Christina was. He never felt any genuine love for Christina, but merely believed that he must conform to the expectations of bourgeois society. In Felizitas’s case, he never acknowledged her as an individual in her own right, but saw her only as an allegorical embodiment of love and art; in short, he was not in love with her, but with his own idealized notion of love itself. Up to this point Traugottt has never loved a woman for her own qualities, and when he tears himself away from Dorina, he is not aware of how genuinely in love with her he is: “Der Abschied von Dorina zerriß ihm das Herz, aber er wand sich gewaltsam los aus den süßen Banden” (SW III, 166). Only when he can free himself from his vision of Felizitas does he recognize that he has awoken “aus einem Traum” (169) and that he must hurry back to Dorina, his true love. But it appears that Dorina has been informed about the existence of Felizitas and her influence on Traugott: “Matuszewski erklärte in wenigen Worten dem Mädchen alles” (165). She recognizes that she must give her beloved free rein, so that having overcome his illusory feelings for Felizitas, he can devote himself to her and her alone: “Sie [Dorina] erwartet Dich stündlich, denn fest steht es in ihrer Seele, daß Du sie nimmer lassen könntest” (169).

The Artists Master Berklinger and the “young boy” remain mysterious figures throughout the novella. Traugott first notices them in a painting in the Artushof, where he is working on Herr Roos’s business affairs; when his gaze comes to rest on the two figures, he is suddenly filled with a feeling of “seltsamer unbegreiflicher Wehmut” (SW III, 146). The “wundersame Jüngling” awakens “süße Ahnungen” in him — he turns out, of course, to be both a girl and the embodiment of his Ideal — but the old man, “ein ernster beinahe düsterer Mann mit schwarzem krausen Barte” — fills him with an “inneren Schauer” (146). Although Traugott and the reader eventually discover the true nature of the “young boy,” the Old Painter remains shrouded in mystery to the end of the story. Like a character in a Gothic Novel, he appears as a relic from a past age. He claims to be the German painter Godofredus Berklinger (cf. 155) — a man who died more than 200 years before the painting in the Artushof was completed — which would mean that he had been born sometime in the seventeenth century. The paintings he shows Traugott are indeed painted in the style of the best known Dutch artists (cf. SW III, 158), all of which would fit with the alleged chronology of his life were it not for

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the fact that the old man claims to have known King Arthur! The bookkeeper says that he reminds him of a figure in a painting in St. Johannis church that dates back to about fourteen hundred (cf. 155), which again would fit in with the kind of clothing — the “altteutsche Tracht” — that the old man and the “young boy” wear. We never learn the truth about the old man’s real origins; Traugott believes that he must be “von einem besonderen Wahnwitz befangen” (156), but the matter is never explained. It is equally impossible for Traugott and the reader to get to the bottom of the curious relationship between the Old Painter and his “young boy” or, more correctly, his daughter. We are bound to ask why Berklinger should go to such lengths to ensure that no one comes near her, or why he disappears with her once Traugott has confessed his feelings of love. Is it simply paternal jealousy? His reaction when he discovers her with Traugott suggests that his own existence is in some way dependent upon her: “Verruchter! — Bösewicht ohnegleichen! [. . .] das war deine Liebe 14 zur Kunst? — Morden willst du mich!” (SW III, 160). And of course he does die when Felizitas agrees to marry; it has been foretold that “sowie seine Tochter einen Liebesbund schlösse, er eines schmählichen Todes sterben müsse” (163), but we never learn anything more about this prophecy. In his dying moments, the mysterious and gloomy artist who has devoted himself almost exclusively to art and painting is presented in a completely different and ironic light. Initially he had struck Traugott as a terrifying and sublime figure, but in his death he is undignified and almost comic: “er fiel mit einem dumpfen Schrei nieder und war mausetot [sic]. Er soll sehr häßlich ausgesehen haben — ganz blau und blutig, weil ihm, man weiß nicht wie, eine Pulsader gesprungen war” (168). By the end of the novella, two transformations have taken place: Felizitas, the beautiful and artistic virgin, who needs to be rescued from the clutches of her father, ends up as a fecund bourgeois wife, and the Old Painter, once so powerful, talented, and mysterious, simply shrivels away once his daughter breaks free of him. Thus the couple who enter the story with such mystery, leave it as farcical figures. We should not forget, however, that it was Berklinger who influenced Traugott’s development as an artist and who prompted him to cultivate this side of his personality. Felizitas may have been Traugott’s muse, but it was the Old Painter who recognized his passion for art and gave him the courage to abandon the world of business and commerce for a life of personal fulfillment as an artist. When Traugott draws some figures, the old man walks up behind him and encourages him: “Gut — recht gut! — so lieb ich’s, das kann was werden!” (SW III, 146). This

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leads Traugott, who never felt committed to a life of commerce, to give some serious thought to becoming a painter: “Kann ich denn nicht, statt meines unseligen Treibens, ein tüchtiger Maler werden?” (152). And when he shows his interest in the Berklinger’s pictures, the latter invites him to his house, saying: Ihr seid in der Tat etwas verwegen, daß Ihr schon jetzt darnach trachtet, in das innerste Heiligtum einzutreten, ehe noch Eure Lehrjahre begonnen haben. [. . .] Mag es sein! Ist Euer Blick noch zu blöde zum Schauen, so werdet Ihr wenigsten ahnen! (SW III, 156)

He recognizes Traugott’s potential and is prepared to help him, explaining 15 that: “Meine Bilder sollen nicht bedeuten, sie sollen sein” (156). And although Traugott is taken aback by the ecstatic manner in which the old man interprets his pictures, he recognizes the inner passion of an artist wholly committed to his work and says: “Ich spüre großen unwiderstehlichen Trieb zur Kunst in mir, und bitte Euch gar dringend [. . .] mich zu Eurem fleißigen Schüler anzunehmen” (SW III, 158–59). Berklinger takes him on, with the result that Traugott “in der Kunst gar große Fortschritte machte” (159): a vital contribution to the young man’s artistic development and one that should not be overlooked. The other artist figures in the novella belong to the group in Rome, which Traugott comes across when searching for Felizitas. For the first time in his life he feels accepted by a group of like-minded people, so much so in fact that he stays longer in Rome than he had originally planned: In Rom nahmen ihn die deutschen Künstler auf in den Kreis ihrer Studien, und so geschah es, daß er dort länger verweilte, als es die Sehnsucht, Felizitas wiederzufinden [. . .] zuzulassen schien. (SW III, 164)

There Matuszewski — another figure who has been converted to the world of art and painting — takes an interest in Traugott’s case and turns out to be a true friend. He tells him that the girl whose portrait he continually paints has been seen in Rome, and he initiates some inquiries that lead to Traugott and Dorina, who of course closely resembles Felizitas, making each other’s acquaintance. Although it is not long before Traugott takes off once again in search of his fantasy image of Felizitas, Matuszewski is intelligent enough to realize that it is Dorina who is destined to be Traugott’s eventual partner, and he tries to help the two of them find happiness by reminding Traugott of her — “Dorina ist hübscher und anmutiger als je, nur bleich vor Sehnsucht nach Dir [. . .] wann sehen wir Dich wieder?” (SW III, 169) — all of which helps bring about the happy ending.

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In the end Traugott returns both to the land of art and to his beloved Dorina, but he does so via a long and circuitous route. When we first meet him, he is a melancholic young man, who would rather paint and draw than dedicate himself to his career in commerce, but who accepts his fate even if it causes him “Not und Verdruß” (SW III, 146). On more than one occasion, the narrator refers to him using the epithet “gedankenlos” (146, 147), and his insecurity and lack of self-confidence are emphasized when the narrator refer to his “Bestürzung” and “Beschämung.” Despite these failings, the introverted young man grows in confidence as the novella unfolds and develops a great passion for art: “da stand es ganz fest in Traugotts Seele, daß er etwas viel Herrlicheres gemacht habe als einen Avisobrief” (148). It soon becomes clear that his sometimes wayward behavior is due to the fact that he feels ill at ease in the world of business and finance, a world with which his fiancée is inextricably bound up, and is convinced that no one really understands him. When Herr Roos looks at Traugott’s drawing and makes a snide comment about the bleak prospects for the majority of artists, Traugott rebels for the first time and defends what he is doing: “Gebärden sich Ew. Edlen nur nicht so absonderlich, sonst schreib ich Ihnen in meinem ganzen Leben keinen Avisobrief mehr” (148). However, at this stage of his development, he does not persist with this first attempt to take on the world of bourgeois philistinism. Only when he comes up against Herr Roos’s friends — the uncle and the nephew who pretend to be connoisseurs of art but who are in fact pseudo-intellectual philistines — does he feel moved to mount a more sustained defense, and, in so doing, discovers that “die Schüchternheit, die sonst seine Zunge band [. . .] war verschwunden” (SW III, 150). He defends art as an activity practiced purely for its own sake and attacks their view that the function of artistic works is to provide human beings with a sense of “Behaglichkeit” (151). Although he finds the views of both “unbeschreiblich albern” (151), they do force him to think more deeply about the nature of art and its purpose. Their superficial conversation prompts Traugott to reflect upon the role of art in his own life, and he embarks on a process of critical reflection that in the first instance prompts him to exclaim: “Was führe ich doch [. . .] für ein erbärmlich schlechtes Leben! [. . .] Wozu alles Sinnen, alles Schreiben? [. . .] Damit sich nur die Goldstücke im Kasten mehren” (152). This bleak appraisal of his own life contrasts unfavorably with his vision of a fulfilled life as an artist, a vision which is, however, both naïve and illusory:

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Wie mag doch solch ein Künstler und Bildner fröhlich hinausziehn und hoch emporgerichteten Hauptes all die erquicklichen Frühlingsstrahlen einatmen, die die innere Welt voll herrlicher Bilder entzündet, so daß sie aufgeht im regen lustigen Leben. (SW III, 152)

In his frustration with his unsatisfying life, Traugott imagines the life of an artist to be all happiness and success. In this he is sadly mistaken for as his own experiences and those of the artists he meets will confirm, this is anything but the case. Indeed, the higher the artist aims, the more crushing his disappointment is likely to be. In his youthful naïveté, Traugott fails to take account of that aspect of artistic creativity that is bound up with danger and disappointment, and he has little or no idea of the destructive power of art. Although he is, to begin with, overcome by the “tiefsten wehmütigsten Sehnsucht” (SW III, 153), feelings which strike him as sweet and enticing, it is only a matter of time before these change into agony and pain. It is with this in mind that the narrator addresses the reader directly, warning him of the pitfalls of the Romantic artist’s desire to capture the Ideal: Glaubst du nicht, lieber Leser! daß das was aus dem höheren Reich der Liebe in unsre Brust hinabgekommen, sich uns zuerst offenbaren müsse in hoffnungslosem Schmerz? — Das sind die Zweifel, die in des Künstlers Gemüt stürmen. — Er schaut das Ideal und fühlt die Ohnmacht es zu erfassen, es entflieht, meint er, unwiederbringlich. — Aber dann kommt ihm wieder ein göttlicher Mut, er kämpft und ringt, und die Verzweiflung löst sich auf in süßes Sehnen, das ihn stärkt und antreibt, immer nachzustreben der Geliebten, die er immer näher und näher erblickt, ohne sie jemals zu erreichen. (SW III, 153)

At this point, we are reminded of the eternal cycle of blazing hope followed by unremitting despair that is the lot of all who dedicate themselves to art, but we are also alerted to the close connection between love and art, whereby the beloved comes to stand for the Ideal that the artist so longs to capture in his work. It is, of course, only a small step from here to the cult of the earthly muse and to the idealization of femininity, and it is not long before Traugott takes this step. Almost immediately he is overcome by melancholy and hopelessness when he realizes that his fiancée, Christina, is the woman apparently destined to satisfy his artistic yearning, and he views his prospective marriage to her as “der traurige Abschied von allen schönen Hoffnungen und Träumen” (SW III, 154). This is Traugott’s frame of mind when he again meets Berklinger, who addresses him as an artist, rekindles his enthusiasm for a “herrliche,

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grünende, blühende Künstlerzeit” (SW III, 156), shows him his own paintings, and in a state of ecstatic rapture, interprets them for him. The naïve Traugott fails to see that there is something almost tragic about the way the Old Painter implores his pictures to reveal their secret to him: “wirf ab den Isisschleier [. . .] Ich will dein Herz schauen — das ist der Stein der Weisen, vor dem sich das Geheimnis offenbart [. . .] tritt heraus! — tritt her!” (157). In his exalted condition, the Old Painter attempts to discover the essential nature of art and longing, “the artist’s stone,” but this proves to be beyond him, and he collapses “wie vom Blitze getroffen” (157). Traugott does not recognize this as the climax of a life that has been devoted to art for many years and that has always striven to get ever closer to the Ideal, but believes that the old man has simply suffered an attack of madness. As a result of his exposure to the pictures and the ecstatic performance of the Old Painter, he rediscovers his enthusiasm for art. This prompts him to ask the “young man” to show him some other paintings and explain them to him, all of which results in his developing a “tiefer Sinn” and being filled with an “ergreifende Lebenskraft” (158). In this heightened mood, Traugott catches sight of the portrait of Felizitas. Suddenly the contemplation of this hybrid object that is part art, part woman, renders him conscious of his own desire to capture the Ideal. We should, of course, remember that it is not a real woman, but an image of a woman that prompts him to channel his creative energy towards a concrete — although as yet imprecisely defined — goal; as the “young man” explains, his sister is dead, and Traugott will never set eyes upon her: “Traugott hätte nun in der Kunst ein wahres helles Sonnenleben geführt, wenn die glühende Liebe zur schönen Felizitas, die er oft in wunderbaren Träumen sah, ihm nicht die Brust zerrissen hätte” (SW III, 159). But as chance would have it, a little later Traugott does see her, and it is at this point that the real, living woman is subjected to a process of artistic idealization. That is to say, his concept of the Ideal — the idealized image of Felizitas he cherishes in his imagination — becomes detached from the painted image and is now projected on a real woman in the real world. However, the Old Painter suddenly departs with his daughter, and Traugott cannot discover their whereabouts; so distraught that he is on the point of abandoning his artistic calling, a reaction that underlines once again the intimate connection between art and love, since in his eyes being abandoned by Felizitas is tantamount to being abandoned by art:

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Ach [. . .] bittre, bittre Täuschung war mein Beruf zur Kunst; Felizitas war das Trugbild, das mich verlockte zu glauben an dem, das nirgends lebte als in der wahnwitzigen Fantasie eines Fieberkranken. (SW III, 162)

Although Traugott is correct, at least as far as Felizitas is concerned, he is wrong to conclude that just because he no longer has his idealized image of her before him his artistic striving has been rendered meaningless. Traugott returns to work for Herr Roos — a move that flies in the face of his true calling — and for a while seems to have settled his differences with Christina. It is only a matter of time, however, before he learns that Berk16 linger and his daughter are to be found in Sorrento. With rekindled hopes, he sets off once more in search of Felizitas: “Ihr nach in das Land der Kunst” (SW III, 163). His idealized image of her returns immediately and, with it, his enthusiasm for art. But there is an obvious ambiguity in his ecstatic exclamation; the expression “Land der Kunst” does not simply refer to Italy, but at the same time tells the reader that Traugott’s ultimate destination is the metaphysical realm of the Ideal. It is not long before Traugott’s initial sense of despair at the apparent impossibility of ever capturing the Ideal in art manifests itself as a state of wistful, but positive, longing. Once in Rome, Traugott stays there longer than originally planned and does not rush off at the first possible opportunity to Sorrento. The nature of his artistic striving has changed: “milder war diese Sehnsucht geworden, sie gestaltete sich im Innern, wie ein wonnevoller Traum, dessen duftiger Schimmer sein ganzes Leben umfloß” (SW III, 164). As the narrator has already hinted, the pendulum of artistic striving oscillates between the poles of “wehmütiger Schmerz” and “selige Ahnung.” This wistful longing is an unending source of artistic inspiration, since “jede weibliche Gestalt, die er mit wackrer Kunstfertigkeit zu schaffen wußte, hatte die Züge der holden Felizitas” (164). Even after he has abandoned Dorina to go off in search of Felizitas, it is his quest for the Ideal, his recognition that what really matters is not reaching the goal but the striving towards it that inspires his art once again. His enquiries in Naples and Sorrento may be fruitless, but he retains his positive state of mind, and his art benefits as a result; as we are told, Traugott remains “endlich in Neapel, und so wie er wieder die Kunst fleißiger trieb, ging auch die Sehnsucht nach Felizitas linder und milder in seiner Brust auf” (SW III, 166). He regrets leaving Dorina, but it is always the idealized — though distant — Felizitas who inspires him to create: “Beim Malen dachte er niemals an Dorina, wohl aber an Felizitas, die blieb stets sein Ideal” (167). Here the text underlines two points: it is important for the artist to distance himself to a

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degree from the Ideal, and it is the striving for the Ideal — rather than the realization of the Ideal — that is the driving force behind artistic creativity. Thus Traugott is an exemplar of the Romantics’ emphasis on “Werden” rather than “Sein.” Herr Roos’s death calls Traugott back to Danzig and the Artushof, and it is here, where his adventure started, that he discovers the true significance of Felizitas and Sorrento. In a matter of seconds the Ideal with which he had been preoccupied for years is not only destroyed but rendered comic and grotesque — and he reacts accordingly: “Dieser Ausgang seines Abenteuers erfüllte ihn mit Grauen und Entsetzen” (SW III, 168). He runs to the Karlsberg and sees for himself what has become of his Ideal Felizitas, now the wife of Kriminalrat Mathesius: “Er schaute hinein in den Sorrent, die Tränen stürtzen ihm aus den Augen” (168). Both horrified and filled with despair, Traugott can, nevertheless, recognize that the demise of his Ideal can be blamed neither on Felizitas nor on a cruel twist 17 of fate. He recognizes that what has happened is a direct consequence of his tendency to cherish an illusion: “vermessen wähnte ich das, was vom alten Meister geschaffen, wunderbar zum Leben erwacht, auf mich zutrat, sei meinesgleichen und ich könne es herabziehen in die klägliche Existenz des irdischen Augenblicks” (169). He now sees that by its very nature, the Ideal cannot exist outside the transcendent metaphysical world wherein its origins lie. As Friedrich Schlegel notes: “Ironie ist klares Bewußtsein der 18 ewigen Agilität, des unendlich vollen Chaos.” Traugott recognizes that the artist’s longing is never static but always dynamic, and that art is not a fixed state but rather a process of development; it is a process of gradual approximation to an Ideal, but one which can never actually be completed. This newfound insight into the nature of artistic creativity transforms Traugott from a naïve, wistful young man into a mature, wise artist. Far from making him distraught, it prompts him to recognize the endless possibilities that have now opened up before him. Felizitas — “Frau Kriminalrätin” — may no longer be the embodiment of his ideal, but was she ever such, and does this matter any more? Although he must not abandon his quest for the Ideal, he must accept that the Ideal can only exists in the realm of ideas and not in this world. He does not abandon Felizitas as his ideal, but comes to see that she has a purely symbolic function: “Nein, nein, Felizitas, nie habe ich dich verloren, du bleibst mein immerdar, denn du selbst bist ja die schaffende Kunst, die in mir lebt” (SW III, 169). That is to say, Felizitas symbolizes the very essence of art itself; she remains the Ideal that every artist must pursue. This unfulfilled striving can cause much pain and tragedy, but without it the artist lacks the driving force that is essential if he is to create a work of

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art: “Glaubt er [der Mensch] aber sein Ziel erreicht zu haben, dann 19 erlahmt auch die Schöpfungskraft.” Traugott shows that he too recognizes that there is a positive side to this endless process of artistic striving when he remarks, “was klagt das Kind über heillosen Schmerz, das in die Flamme greift, statt sich zu laben an Licht und Wärme” (SW III, 168– 69). Artists, and human beings generally, are trapped within the constraints of their temporal existence and must expire (“verbrennen”) when they attempt to go beyond the limits of that existence. Yet as tragic as this insight may seem, it does not mean that it is impossible to get closer to the Ideal (“Flamme”). Although it is a dangerous undertaking, it is one that is beneficial for humanity and that spreads “Licht und Wärme.” In short, the fact that it is not possible ever to capture the Ideal perfectly in this world does not mean — as Traugott now recognizes — that the artist’s quest is pointless. Accordingly, when Traugott returns to Dorina, he does not compromise his artistic integrity; by not idealizing her, he allows her to develop a personality of her own, with the result that she can become a suitable, equal partner for him: “morgen reise ich nach Rom, wo mich eine geliebte Braut sehnlichst erwartet” (SW III, 168–69). This “geliebte Braut” will be an altogether different kind of wife from Christina and Felizitas, both of whom, once married, turn out to be bourgeois housewives. We may assume that Traugott continues as an artist since he never suggests that he will abandon his calling. He is a figure whose journey towards self-development ends in fulfillment. Never losing sight of the Romantic Ideal, he recognizes that the pursuit of the unattainable Ideal — and a gradual approximation to it — lie at the very heart the artistic process. By the end of the novella, we see Traugott as an artist who has triumphed and who has discovered his own way: “Verbindet die 20 Extreme, so habt ihr die wahre Mitte.” But far from being static, this middle path, as Traugott has grasped, is dynamic and ever-changing, and will provide him with the impetus vital to his future life as an artist and lover.

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Notes 1

Joachim Rosteutscher, Das ästhetische Idol im Werke von Winckelmann, Novalis, Hoffmann, Goethe, George und Rilke (Bern: Francke, 1956), 136. 2

Although the novella Der Artushof is not referred to explicitly, the author claims that whenever Hoffman discusses “das Unerreichbare” and “das Unerfüllbare,” what is at stake is always his relationship with Julia. See Fritz J. Raddatz, Männerängste in der Literatur: Frau oder Kunst (Hamburg: Carlsen, 1993), 109–11. 3

Marianne Kesting, “Das lebendige Portrait,” Athenäum 3 (1993): 27–54 (54).

4

Bernard Dieterle, Erzählte Bilder: Zum narrativen Umgang mit Gemälden (Marburg: Hitzeroth, 1988), 62. 5

Gunther Pix, “Der Variationskünstler E. T. A. Hoffmann und seine Erzählung Der Artushof,” MHG 35 (1989): 4–20. 6 See Claudia Liebrand, Aporie des Kunstmythos: Die Texte E. T. A. Hoffmanns (Freiburg: Rombach, 1996); Lothar Pikulik, E. T. A. Hoffmann als Erzähler: Ein Kommentar zu den “Serapionsbrüdern” (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987); and Peter von Matt, “Die gemalte Geliebte: Zur Problematik von Einbildungskraft und Selbsterkenntnis im erzählenden Werk E. T. A. Hoffmanns,” GRM 21 (1971): 395–412. 7

Hoffmann’s letters show that he was very familiar with the Artushof. Commenting on the story, he notes that “Das Ganze dreht sich um ein wunderbares Bild im Artushoff.” See Briefwechsel II, 45 (12 March 1815). 8

See Hans-Georg Werner, “Hoffmanns Phantasie-Italien,” HoffmannJb 1 (1992/93): 133–42 (142). 9

There is a parallel here with the figure of Clara in Der Sandmann, who, we are told, “drohe das Haus den Einsturz, noch vor schneller Flucht ganz geschwind einen falschen Kniff in der Fenstergardine glattstreichen würde” (SW I, 339). However, it is clear that Clara is considerably more intelligent than Christina. 10 Cf. the picture of Rosalie in Die Elixiere des Teufels and the unfinished picture that Berthold completes shortly before his death in Die Jesuiterkirche in G. 11

The name of the painter, Berklinger, in Hoffmann’s story calls to mind another artist figure, the composer Berglinger in Wackenroder and Tieck’s Herzensergießungen eines kunstliebenden Klosterbruders. 12

Hoffmann repeatedly reminds the reader of the catastrophic consequences of such a commodification or categorization of a feminine ideal. In Rat Krespel the Councilor’s disappointment drives him to throw his wife out of the window, then leave her altogether, whilst in Die Jesuiterkirche in G., Berthold’s wife, Angiola T., disappears in mysterious circumstances, and we are led to believe that she may even have been murdered. Both men have shaped these women into an idealized image in accordance with their personal wishes and have to pay the price — or rather the women pay the price for their “failure” to live up to the unrealistic ideals of their husbands. 13

Commenting on the scene in which Traugott encounters Felizitas for the first time, Peter von Matt notes: “Die Reduktion der entscheidenen Begegnung auf einen

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einzigen jähen Moment ist nicht zuletzt deshalb von Bedeutung, weil sie zeigt, wie sehr es hier um einen reinen Erkenntnisakt des Helden und nicht um personales Zusammenfinden geht.” See Peter von Matt, “Die gemalte Geliebte,” 399. 14

Just as Rat Krespel seeks to prolong his daughter’s life by shielding her from any contact with the outside world, so too the life of the Old Painter seems to depend on his daughter not becoming involved with any male admirer. 15

The Old Painter’s attempt to go beyond the search for meaning in his paintings shows that he is not content to embrace the Romantics’ theories of allegory and symbol, but that he is striving instead for a new concept of art in which art simply is, that is to say, a form of art in which signifier and signified coincide, i.e. coincidence of Ideal and real. 16

Ironically, it turns out that the place that they have gone to is the Brandstetter’s country cottage at the foot of the Karlsberg — a secret location that is apparently known to all and sundry, just as everyone knows that the mysterious “young boy” is in fact Felizitas in disguise. In his naïveté, Traugott failed to notice any of this, a fact that makes his desperate efforts to discover Felizitas’s whereabouts all the more ridiculous. 17

In this respect he is quite different from Berthold in Die Jesuiterkirche in G., since the latter blames his ideal — his wife, Angiola T. — for having disappointed him when, after their marriage, she turns out to be nothing more than a real woman, an obvious truth that Berthold has deliberately ignored. 18

KA II, 263, §69.

19

See Pix, 17.

20

KA II, 263, §74.

III. Death

7: Don Juan

H

OFFMANN’S NOVELLA

Don Juan (1813) draws on a well-known tradition, and one to which Tirso de Molina, Molière, Mozart, and Byron — to name but a few — have made important contributions. Hoffmann’s version, however, stands out from these other treatments of the legend in that the novella itself is embedded in the overall narrative structure of Die Serapionsbrüder (the narrator is recounting his experiences to Theodor) and is played out on a number of different levels of reality, not all of which are clearly distinguishable from one another. In the secondary literature, literary critics have approached the text from a variety of perspectives, but few have attempted to offer an allembracing interpretation of the story, concentrating instead on certain aspects of it. Many have examined the novella’s unusual narrative structure, and almost all of these have felt the need to unravel these different 1 narrative levels in order to interpret the story. Then there have been those who have approached Hoffmann’s novella in biographical terms, seeing in it the collapse of the author’s tragic relationship with his pupil, 2 Julia Marc. Finally, there are those who compare Hoffmann’s novella with Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni. Here the main emphasis has been on the similarities and differences between the two, and on the reasons why 3 Hoffmann adapted the legend in the way that he did. Almost all critics agree, however, that the story is played out on two 4 diametrically opposed planes. But there is an additional third level of narration, namely the narrative frame of Die Serapionsbrüder. On a number of occasions the narrator breaks off to speak directly to his friend Theodor and thereby the reader. In this chapter I shall emphasize the importance of this third level of narration to an overall interpretation of the story.

Reality and Illusion Throughout the novella there is a blurring of the boundaries between the world of reality and the world of dreams to the extent that even the narrator himself is disoriented. At first he is bewildered, wondering whether he can trust the voices and images that surround him and whether they are to be regarded as part of the real world: “Ich reibe mir die Augen. Sollte der allezeit geschäftige Satan mich im Rausche — ? Nein! Ich

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befinde mich in dem Zimmer des Hotels” (SW I, 67). The narrator’s belief that he is in the real world is short-lived however, for the servant he summons ushers him through a door concealed behind a wall-covering and down a small corridor into a theater box adjoining the inn where he is staying. This mysterious and disorienting labyrinth of doors, corridors, rooms, and boxes has an almost Kafkaesque quality. The intimate connection between the world of the hotel and the world of the theater is suggested in their physical proximity and in the bewildering manner one leads into the other. This twilight realm that, as we learn later, represents a kind of locus amoenus for the narrator, is always unsettling and compels us to question where the world of reality (the hotel) ends, and the world of imagination (the theater) begins; we are taken aback to discover that “Donna Anna” — or rather the actress playing the part of Donna Anna — is on stage singing and at the same time in the narrator’s box, an occurrence for which there appears to be no rational explanation. The narrator, however, far from being disconcerted by this, is fascinated, and only later does he reflect on how this could have been possible: Die Möglichkeit abzuwägen, wie sie auf dem Theater und in meiner Loge habe zugleich sein können, fiel mir nicht ein. So wie der glücklichste Traum das Seltsamste verbindet, und dann ein frommer Glaube das Übersinnliche versteht, und es den sogenannten natürlichen Erscheinungen des Lebens zwanglos anreiht: so geriet auch ich in der Nähe des wunderbaren Weibes in eine Art Somnambulism [. . .]. (SW I, 70)

Moreover, the movements of this remarkable woman do not appear to be restricted to solely one plane of reality. Just as the narrator sees her from the beginning not simply as an actress playing the part of Donna Anna, but as Donna Anna herself, so too the actress identifies so completely with her role that actress and role become indistinguishable. Thus when the stagemanager’s bell rings to summon her back for her next entrance on stage, we are told how Donna Anna: “fuhr mit der Hand nach dem Herzen, als empfände sie einen plötzlichen Schmerz, und [sagte leise]: ‘Unglückliche Anna, jetzt kommen deine fürchterlichsten Momente’” (SW I, 72). Our bewilderment increases when we learn that Donna Anna died — or departed the world of temporal reality — at 2 o’clock in the morning, the very moment the narrator expresses his wish to transcend the real world and enter a higher, metaphysical realm: Schließe dich auf, du fernes, unbekanntes Geisterreich — du Dschinnistan voller Herrlichkeit [. . .]. Laß mich eintreten in den Kreis deiner holdseligen Erscheinungen, [. . .] mag [der Traum] meinen Geist,

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wenn der Schlaf den Körper in bleiernen Banden festhält, den ätherischen Gefilden zuführen! (SW I, 78).

The Reversal of Roles The initial series of oppositions that the reader is confronted with is not confined solely to that between the worlds of reality and imagination, but reappears in a series of other forms throughout the novella. Here it is important to note that such oppositions are rarely static but can be dynamic and are capable of being inverted. Thus we learn, for example, that the narrator is himself an artist, a composer who specializes in opera. While the narrator is enjoying the performance of Don Juan, he assumes the role of the spectator with the result that the roles of the creator of a 5 work of art and its recipient are combined in one and the same person. Later on we encounter a further conflation of roles. When Donna Anna appears beside the narrator, the boundaries of the imaginary world of the theater are extended beyond the stage itself and come to embrace the box in the auditorium. Now the artist — who has simultaneously assumed the role of the spectator/recipient — finds himself implicated in the dramatic action itself. In this way, the subject-object relation is itself reversed. Not only does the narrator reflect on the dramatic action before him, but he has himself become part of it. The same conflation of roles can be seen in Donna Anna’s case. As we have already seen, the actress playing this part is so closely associated with her role that she is never actually referred to by her real name — occasionally she is called the “Italienerin” (SW I, 73) or the “Signora” (78) — but is always referred to using the name of her stage persona, Donna Anna. Although the artist and the character she plays are, for her at least, one and the same, this itself leads to a further reversal of roles. Even though Donna Anna leaves the imaginary world of the theater behind her when she visits the narrator in his box, this does not mean that she enters the world of reality. The spectator’s box is, no less for her than it is for the enthusiastic narrator, a utopian twilight realm. Accordingly, it is hardly surprising that the narrator, not even aware who she is to begin with, regards her entrance into his box as an unwelcome intrusion: Ich war so glücklich, mich allein in der Loge zu befinden, um ganz ungestört das so vollkommen dargestellte Meisterwerk mit allen Empfindungsfasern, wie mit Polypenarmen, zu umklammern, und in mein Selbst hineinzuziehen! ein einziges Wort, das obendrein albern sein konnte, hätte mich auf schmerzliche Weise herausgerissen aus dem herrlichen Moment der poetisch-musikalischen Begeisterung! (SW I, 69)

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So strong is his desire for this intense experience that he ignores the “stranger” and makes a deliberate attempt to shut out the real world altogether: “Ich beschloß, von meinem Nachbar gar keine Notiz zu nehmen” (SW I, 69–70). Thus he is quite astonished when, expecting to have to come down to earth at the end of the scene, he turns round only to discover that he is in the presence of art itself, Donna Anna. When they begin to talk, the conversation that ensues is more like a message of salvation than a discussion, and it assumes a fundamental significance for the narrator. Just as a female figure offers the despairing Boethius in his dungeon a glimpse of philosophy and the consolation it offers, so Donna Anna reveals to the narrator the secrets of the opera and her role in it, secrets of which he had been only dimly aware up until now; for the first time, he is able to appreciate the work in its entirety: Indem sie über den Don Juan, über ihre Rolle sprach, war es, als eröffneten sich mir nun erst die Tiefen des Meisterwerks, und ich konnte hell hineinblicken und in einer fremden Welt fantastische Erscheinungen deutlich erkennen. (SW I, 71)

Here too we encounter another reversal of roles. Initially it was the narrator who interpreted the text of Donna Anna’s libretto and her role in the dramatic action, but now it is she who explains the opera to him. When she points out to him that each recognizes in the other a certain depth of feeling and artistic sensibility, she assumes the role of his spiritual lover and the two become united in a unio mystica: “Aber du — du verstehst mich: denn ich weiß, daß auch dir das wunderbare, romantische Reich aufgegangen, wo die himmlischen Zauber der Töne wohnen!” “Wie, du herrliche, wundervolle Frau — du — du solltest mich kennen?” “[. . .] Ich habe dich verstanden: dein Gemüt hat sich im Gesange mir aufgeschlossen!” (SW I, 71)

For the Romantic artist, including the narrator, the discovery of a true soul mate is an almost overwhelming experience. It is at this moment that the artist who has been shunned by the bourgeois philistines and condemned to live a life of solitary yearning feels recognized and understood. As the narrator puts it: “Nur der Dichter versteht den Dichter” (SW I, 74). Donna Anna is doubly important: she is a living embodiment of the world of art, and, as a woman, she reveals to him the realm of love: “Es gibt hier auf Erden wohl nichts, was den Menschen in seiner innigsten Natur so hinaufsteigert, als die Liebe” (75). Only in these two realms of experience — love and art — can the Romantic artist transcend the temporal world and draw closer to the Ideal. Also in Donna Anna, the narrator finds the fulfillment of his Romantic longings. Once again, the

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reader is confronted with the complex web of different perspectives; in the opera, paradoxically, Donna Anna is not presented as Don Juan’s inspirational muse. Just as the narrator comes to love and admire her, for his part Don Juan comes to mistreat and despise her because he realizes that she is not the fulfillment of his longing but merely one of a series of women he has seduced, and as such, is infinitely replaceable. This, of course, is the reason for her becoming one of his victims. However, there are others besides Don Juan who do not share the narrator’s view of Donna Anna. During a discussion that develops whilst supper is being served in the inn, a group of bourgeois philistines make a number of disparaging remarks about the performance of the opera and, in particular, about Donna Anna. Unable to bear it any longer, the narrator flees their company, preferring the solitude of his room to their company at table: “Des Gewäsches satt eilte ich in mein Zimmer” (SW I, 73). But even when alone he finds no peace of mind and feels driven to return to the place where Donna Anna had inspired him to experience such profound insights into the nature of art and love. When he returns to the box in the deserted theater, he is followed by the waiter who is baffled by his behavior: [. . .] er [der Kellner] folgt mir in die Loge und sieht mich mit zweifelndem Blick an. Auf meinen Wink setzt er das Getränk auf den Tisch und entfernt sich, mit einer Frage auf der Zunge noch einmal sich nach mir umschauend. (SW I, 74)

The morose, uncomprehending figure of the servant is just another member of the pedestrian, unimaginative bourgeois world, a world where the Romantic vision of art as something uplifting that can transcend all boundaries will never be realized. It is also clear that in this novella Hoffmann is contrasting this dull bourgeois world with the dazzling world of the Romantic opera, Don Juan. This “herrliche Werk des göttlichen Meisters” (SW I, 74) contains many Romantic elements not to be found in the world of the philistines. First, there is the motif of longing embodied in the libertine Don Juan, hurrying from one beautiful woman to another: “immer hoffend, das Ideal endlicher Befriedigung zu finden, mußte doch Don Juan zuletzt alles irdische Leben matt und flach finden” (75). Second, there is the constant struggle of divine and demonic powers for the heart of fallen Man: “Aber das ist die entsetzliche Folge des Sündenfalls, daß der Feind die Macht behielt, dem Menschen aufzulauern, und ihm selbst in dem Streben nach dem Höchsten, worin er seine göttliche Natur ausspricht, böse Fallstricke zu legen” (SW I, 75). Third, there is the damsel in distress motif so clear in the description of Donna Anna: “des dunklen

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Haares aufgelöste Flechten wallen in Wellenringeln den Nacken hinab. Das weiße Nachtkleid enthüllt verräterisch nie gefahrlos belauschte Reize. Von der entsetzlichen Tat umkrallt, zuckt das Herz in gewaltsamen Schlägen” (68). Fourth, there is the theme of revenge: “Sie [Donna Anna] fühlt, nur Don Juans Untergang kann der, von tödlichen Martern beängsteten Seele Ruhe verschaffen [. . .]” (77). And finally, there is the setting of the work itself that, in geographical terms, is described as a southern land of passion and, in linguistic terms, as a melodious Italian with a hint of Tuscan dialect. But even in this Romantic operatic world, traces of bourgeois philistinism are to be found, not least in the figure of Don Ottavio. Described as “zierlich,” “geputzt,” “geleckt” (SW I, 69), and as “kalt,” “unmännlich,” and “ordinär” (77), we have the very antithesis of the Romantic mentality in one individual. Nonetheless, if the arm of reality — or rather, the arm of philistinism — can penetrate even this world, the converse is equally true. The world of art is no less capable of intruding into the bourgeois world of the philistines: the Romantic narrator is staying in the same hotel as they are, and next door a Romantic opera is being performed. Just as the philistines can stray into the Romantic world, so too their world is not proof against the world of the imagination, even if their reaction to art is usually one of bewilderment and incomprehension. The Romantic world contains elements that appear to be incongruous, but that can be seen to be related upon closer inspection. It is this that lies behind the narrator’s remarks, when he draws his friend’s attention to the contrast between the opera’s relatively trivial plot and the deeper meaning of the work as a whole: “Betrachtet man das Gedicht (den Don Juan), ohne ihm eine tiefere Bedeutung zu geben [. . .], wahrlich, hierin liegt nicht viel Poetisches” (SW I, 74). To perceive the work’s deeper meaning, one must look for the concealed truths that lie hidden beneath a somewhat banal plot, such as the individual’s struggle with powers of a demonic nature: “Der Konflikt der menschlichen Natur mit den unbekannten, gräßlichen Mächten, die ihn, sein Verderben erlauernd, umfangen, trat klar vor meines [des Erzählers] Geistes Augen” (68). It is Don Juan who is engaged in this particular struggle and is defeated in the end. This ruthless seducer, this man who assaults his fellow human beings and reduces them to the level of helpless victims, becomes a victim of his own excesses when, in his hubris, he challenges the “Stone Guest” and is condemned to spend the rest of his days in hell. But what makes Don Juan act as he does? The narrator’s answer is that he is a Romantic individual who is trapped within the world of reality but experiences a deep longing for a transcendent metaphysical realm. His reali-

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zation of the irreconcilability of these two worlds — and hence of the hopelessness of the human condition — drives him to despair. In his desperation he embarks upon a cynical course of destruction — the narrator refers to his “bitterer Spott über Menschen” (SW I, 76) — that ends in a dramatic and blasphemous finale with his losing body and soul: the victimizer becomes the victim. Donna Anna also undergoes a role reversal. Seduced and abandoned by Don Juan, she appears to us as a victim; the narrator is particularly moved by her plight, and in her state of desperation, confusion, and fear, finds her especially impressive and desirable (!). He longs for her to appear: “Wie wenn er [der Vorhang] hinaufwallte? wenn Donna Anna, geängstigt von gräßlichen Larven, erschiene?” (SW I, 74). But Donna Anna is not content to remain in the role of the frightened, injured victim. It soon becomes clear that she thirsts with her whole being for revenge and for the destruction of her seducer, and is prepared to use any means to gain her ends: “Sie fordert daher unablässig ihren eiskalten Bräutigam zur Rache auf, sie verfolgt selbst den Verräter, und erst als ihn die unterirdischen Mächte in den Orkus hinabgezogen haben, wird sie ruhiger” (77). So Donna Anna, who starts out as a passive victim, transforms herself into an avenging fury and — understandable though this is — turns her back on humanity. But in choosing this path, she is no less frustrated than her enemy, Don Juan: “Aber diese Ruhe [ihrer Seele] ist ihr eigner irdischer Untergang. [. . .] Sie wird dieses Jahr nicht überstehen” (77). The narrator’s interpretation turns out to be prophetic, for the actress/singer, the “Signora,” who identifies so closely with her role, dies the following night. And as if this total identification with her role were not enough, she goes so far as to regard herself as the very embodiment of music: “Ja, [. . .] ich habe dich gesungen, so wie deine Melodien ich sind” (SW I, 71–72). It is this identification with music itself that makes it possible for her to penetrate into the deepest secrets of the ineffable: “Sie sagte, ihr ganzes Leben sei Musik, und oft glaube sie manches im Inneren geheimnisvoll Verschlossene, was keine Worte aussprächen, singend zu begreifen” (71). Indeed, it seems that the “Signora” has all but cut herself off from the material world and lives almost exclusively in the transcendent realm of art, for which reason all that is left for her is death, and in this respect her situation is similar to that of Antonie in Rat Krespel. What the narrator so longs for during the night, namely to be caught up in a dionysian-like state of ecstasy and transported to the metaphysical world of the Ideal, becomes in her case reality. She leaves the temporal world and becomes pure disembodied music. The Romantic image of the moth that cannot resist the fatal attraction of the flame

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captures Donna Anna perfectly: she turns her back on the world of reality and strives to get closer to the flame (art) that will ultimately consume her. She is an example of the extreme Romantic individual who can find fulfillment only in death and who is not destroyed by art but who perishes together with art. Whether this is a desirable outcome for the artist or for those who survive is, of course, very much open to question.

The “kluge Mann” Hoffmann is not content simply to leave the reader with the suggestion that adopting such an extreme Romantic position must necessarily lead to death, for he ends his story with a conversation around the dinner table during which a “kluger Mann” offers the following comments on the death of the actress who has played the part of Donna Anna: “Es ist doch fatal, daß wir nun so bald keine ordentliche Oper mehr hören werden! aber das kommt vom häßlichen Übertreiben!” (SW I, 78). The heavily ironized “kluger Mann” articulates here the perspective of the ignorant philistine who has little or no understanding of the tragic predicament of the Romantic artist and who is quite incapable of even imagining the heights to which art can aspire, not to mention the dangers which this can entail. The philistine remains trapped within his narrow-minded and essentially utilitarian way of looking at things. He refers to the singer’s total artistic commitment — a commitment that can lead to a complete loss of self in the most literal sense of the term (i.e. death) — as “häßliches Übertreiben.” Simplistic though these comments are, they do sum up in two short sentences the complex triangular relationship of the artist, work of art, and spectator/audience. Art, and in particular Romantic art that strives to embody the Ideal, becomes increasingly detached from temporal reality the closer it approximates to the Ideal. At the same time, art is always something concrete, material — more obviously so in the case of the plastic arts, less so in the case of “die romantischste aller Künste” (SW I, 41), namely music — and as such rooted in the real world. It may well be that the artist who is freed from the constraints of the temporal world and who experiences a feeling of transcendence regards art as an end in itself. However, the fact is that art has a social dimension, for it always requires exposure to an audience of real, flesh and blood human beings. It is the artist’s delicate task to steer a course between these two extremes. If he lets himself be wholly consumed by his art — as the “Signora” does — and fails to maintain any degree of detachment vis-à-vis the work of art (which may entail its being less than perfect), the inevitable result is

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death, which puts an end to any relationship between the work of art and the recipient/audience. That is to say, art brings about its own negation, even if, in Romantic terminology, this is sometimes euphemistically referred to as “Entrückung,” or “Entwerdung.” When this happens, art ceases to be recognizable as such and loses all relation to real, finite human beings. This, of course, is not the true aim of art, not even Romantic art. The Romantic artist sets out to combine the Ideal with the real, to bring about a synthesis of freedom and necessity, of what is individual and what is universal, and thereby to capture simultaneously the distance and proximity of the absolute. The result of the Romantic “Signora’s” exaggerated behavior — she embraces the one extreme so completely that her death is inevitable — is that her art ceases to exist in the real world, which in turn entails that there can no longer be any possibility of a “Scheinen der Idee.” When seen in this light, the commentary of the “kluger Mann” no longer seems quite so absurd. Although it is true that the conclusions at which he arrives are based on ignorance and a lack of artistic sensitivity, his remarks do represent a view of art that is the very opposite of that represented by the Signora. That is to say, although she represents one extreme, a position of total Romantic withdrawal from the concerns of the temporal world, the “kluger Mann” represents the opposite extreme, the philistine view that is incapable of looking beyond the immediate reality of the material world. Both of these extreme views have one thing in common, namely that they form a considerable obstacle to a proper 6 appreciation of the crucial importance of art in human affairs. It is central to Hoffmann’s thinking that art should be closely linked to the real world and that it must have the chance to develop within this world. He was not content to devote himself to just one artistic genre, but was active in a number of highly diverse spheres of artistic activity, including drawing, painting, writing fiction, composing music, and acting as the director of a theater. When he was working in the theater, he gained practical experience of the difficulties involved in producing works of art, having to contend not only with constructing scenery, but also casting, rehearsing, and even organizing the lighting. These concerns are, of course, far removed from the Romantic artist’s task of im7 buing his work with a metaphysical significance. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Hoffmann knew exactly what was involved in the production of a work of art; much of it is un-Romantic and down-to-earth, and he never lost sight of this fact. This brings us back again to the “kluger Mann” in Don Juan. It is quite clear that he is a philistine; nevertheless his somewhat overstated,

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narrow-minded comments highlight an important dilemma for the Romantic artist. It would be depressing if the production of works of art in the temporal world were to be impossible because the artist (here represented by the actress/singer playing the part of Donna Anna) was concerned solely with the metaphysical realm to the neglect of the more down-to-earth aspects of art. The narrator in Don Juan is himself living proof that art can function at many levels. Although he knows Mozart’s opera very well, and no longer expects anything new — in the philistine sense of the term — from it, the music and the whole performance do, nevertheless, transport him repeatedly into “die Tiefen des Geisterreichs” (SW I, 42) — and all this before the appearance of Donna Anna throws him into raptures. For a brief moment, we witness a harmonious synthesis of art (the Ideal), artist (Donna Anna), and audience (narrator): “es war, als ginge eine lang verheißene Erfüllung der schönsten Träume aus einer anderen Welt wirklich in das Leben ein” (72). As Hoffmann knows only too well, such moments are short-lived. Precisely because he is aware that — as Donna Anna’s case shows — it is dangerous to succumb to the illusion that a lasting, joyous identification with art is possible, he resorts to a well-known literary device to bring the reader back down to earth and prevent his becoming too immersed in the story and losing sight of the real world. Time and again the narrator interrupts his story to address his friend Theodor directly: “Wie gern setzte ich Dir, mein Theodor, jedes Wort des merkwürdigen Gespräches her” (SW I, 71), “Um Mitternacht glaubte ich Deine Stimme zu hören, mein Theodor!” (73), “Du kannst es mir glauben, Theodor!” (75), “Gewiß ist es Dir, mein Theodor, aufgefallen” (76). The narrator continually brings the reader down from the Romantic heights at which the story is played out, forcing him to take a more detached view of events, and reminding him that what he is reading is an artificial construct, something fashioned by an artist in an artificial medium in which the Ideal cannot be permanently captured, but can only appear intermittently. But this should not prompt us to turn our backs on art out of a sense of frustration, and abandon any attempt to capture the Ideal; nor should it prompt us to resort to “häßliches Übertreiben.” There is a middle way and in the story it is represented by the box from which the narrator observes the spectacle, a location that is linked both to the real and to the Romantic world: “Wenn man sich den ganzen Prozeß graphisch vorstellt, so läßt sich sagen, daß die Fremdenloge der Schnittpunkt von Realität 8 und Irrealität ist.” Thus Don Juan reflects Hoffmann’s belief that the dilemma of the Romantic artist, and indeed of Man, was not a cause for

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despair, as well as his belief in the crucial importance of creating a role for art in the everyday world of reality.

Notes 1

David E. Wellbery views the story as an exploration of how far art (i.e. text) can be communicated and sets up a communicative model as follows: Mozart (sender) — Don Giovanni (message) — narrator (receiver/sender) — “Don Juan” (message) — Theodor (receiver). See David E. Wellbery, “E. T. A. Hoffmann and the Romantic Hermeneutics: An interpretation of Hoffmann’s Don Juan,” SiR 19 (1980): 455–73. Albert Meier adopts a similar approach as can be seen from his basic assertion that “Eine primär inhaltsbezogene Ausdeutung der ‘Don-Juan’-Erzählung und anderer Fantasiestücke muß deren poetische Konzeption daher verfehlen” (519). However, his conclusion that “Hoffmanns Don-Juan-Erzählung auf den Leser hin konzipiert ist” (524) offers the reader little guidance as to how the text might be approached. See Albert Meier, “Fremdenloge und Wirtstafel,” ZfdPh 111 (1992): 516–31. Klaus Deterding’s chapter on Don Juan in his full-length study of Hoffmann’s works, on the other hand, is rather more illuminating. Here Deterding highlights the different juxtaposed levels of reality: “Die Realität tritt den Gang nach innen an — die Irrealität den Gang nach außen” (157). Despite offering a very detailed and suggestive interpretation of the figure of Donna Anna, Deterding fails to follow up the implications of his own insights. See Klaus Deterding, Die Poetik der inneren und äußeren Welt bei E. T. A. Hoffmann (Frankfurt: Lang, 1991). Martin Swales suggests that “to enter interpretatively a work of art [. . .] is to enter a fictive world: but the fiction is one that can and does mingle with and modify our everyday consciousness. This mingling is the subject of Don Juan, and it is central to its all-important narrative perspective” (12). See Martin Swales, “Narrative Sleight-of-Hand: Some Notes on Two German Romantic Tales,” NGS 6 (1978): 1–13. 2

See Johanna Patzelt, “Erfüllte und verfehlte Künstlerliebe,” JWGV 80 (1976): 118– 48. Patzelt attempts to link various aspects of the narrative with details from Hoffmann’s biography and explores, in particular, the relationship between “Künstler” and “Bürger.” However, she concludes eventually that a fruitful dialogue between the two polarities is not possible: “Abgründe von Nicht-Verstehen trennen Künstler und Bürger” (35). In his (brief) interpretation of the novella, Bernhard von Arx also approaches the text in biographical terms, focusing on Hoffmann’s relationship with Julia Marc. See Bernhard von Arx, Novellistisches Dasein (Zurich: Fluntern, 1953). Wulf Segebrecht and Gerhard Wandel also place the Julia Marc episode at the center of their interpretations. Segebrecht concludes that: “Der Konflikt ist eine Bedingung des Lebens — das ist die autobiographische “Lehre” der Erzählung; die Lösung des Konfliktes bleibt der Kunst vorbehalten”; whilst Wandel claims that the “JuliaErlebnis nur eine unverwischbar im Unterbewußtsein des Dichters latente Krise ausgelöst hat.” See Wulf Segebrecht, Autobiographie und Dichtung: Eine Studie zum Werk E. T. A. Hoffmanns (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1967), 100; and Gerhard Wandel,

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“Mutmassungen über das Urbild der Donna Anna in E. T. A. Hoffmanns Don Juan,” MHG 22 (1976): 25–26 (26). 3

See Hans Joachim Kreutzer, “Proteus Mozart: Die Opern Mozarts in der Auffassung des 19. Jahrhunderts,” DVjs 60 (1986): 1–13; Klaus-Dieter Dobat, Musik als romantische Illusion: Eine Untersuchung zur Bedeutung der Musikvorstellung E. T. A. Hoffmanns für sein literarisches Werk (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1984); Wolfgang Nehring, “E. T. A. Hoffmanns Erzählwerk: Ein Modell und seine Variationen,” in Zu E. T. A. Hoffmann, ed. Steven Paul Scher (Stuttgart: Klett, 1981), 55–73; Hartmut Kaiser, “Mozarts Don Giovanni und E. T. A. Hoffmanns Don Juan: Ein Beitrag zum Verständnis des ‘Fantasiestücks,’” MHG 21 (1975): 6–26; Josef Kunz, Die deutsche Novelle im 19. Jahrhundert (Berlin: Schmidt, 1971); and Friedrich Dieckmann, Die Geschichte Don Giovannis: Werdegang eines erotischen Anarchisten (Frankfurt: Insel, 1991). Wolfgang Wittkowski’s study of the story is too brief to probe beyond the surface structure of the novella. See Wolfgang Wittkowski, “E. T. A. Hoffmanns musikalische Musikerdichtungen Ritter Gluck, Don Juan, Rat Krespel,” Aurora 38 (1978): 54–74. Gabriele Althoff focuses on Donna Anna and concludes that Hoffmann’s version of the Don Juan legend “wirkte darum normativ, weil sie die Bereitschaft zur Aufnahme fand, weil in der endgültig zur Herrschaft gelangten bürgerlichen Klasse aufgenommen und durchgesetzt wurde, was auf Kosten der Frauen funktionale Daseinsentlastung garantieren konnte”; see Gabriele Althoff, Weiblichkeit als Kunst: Die Geschichte eines kulturellen Deutungsmusters (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1991), 160. Dieter Bremer, by contrast, focuses on the figure of Don Juan and regards him as having affinities with Faust and Nietzsche’s “Übermenschen” insofar as all of them are caught up “im Spannungsfeld des Nihilismus”; see Dieter Bremer, “Don Juan und Faust: Mythische Figurationen neuzeitlichen Bewußtseins im Licht der Heroischen Leidenschaften von Giordano Bruno,” Arcadia 28 (1993): 1–23 (23). Hildegard Gnüg also approaches the story primarily in terms of an analysis of the presentation of Don Juan and suggests that: “Hoffmann kritisiert durch seine Deutung der Don-Juan-Figur einen Idealismus, der das Unendliche im Endlichen zu fassen sucht.” See Hildegard Gnüg, Kult der Kälte: Der klassische Dandy im Spiegel der Weltliteratur (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1988), 186. 4 Thus Klaus Deterding refers to the novella’s inner and outer narrative shells as “das Innen” and “das Außen” (148), whilst David E. Wellbery uses the terms “cognitive plane” and “physical plane” to refer to essentially the same narrative structure (458). 5

Of course, it is important to note that being a composer of opera gives him a deep understanding of opera in general and of the performance he is watching; he will bring his own expectations to the work and the expertise to judge its technical merits: “Die ersten Akkorde der Ouvertüre überzeugten mich, daß ein ganz vortreffliches Orchester, sollten die Sänger auch nur im mindesten etwas leisten, mir den herrlichsten Genuß eines Meisterwerks verschaffen würden” (SW I, 67). 6

For this reason I cannot agree with Gerhard Weinholz when he claims that the discussion that takes place over dinner in the inn is merely there to confuse the reader: “Er [Hoffmann] entläßt [. . .] den ernsthaften Leser, den er voraussetzt, mit einer nicht zu unterschätzenden Unsicherheit der Interpretation hinsichtlich gerade der ‘tieferen Bedeutung’ seines Don Juan.” See Gerhard Weinholz, E. T. A. Hoffmann: Dichter — Psychologe — Jurist (Essen: Die blaue Eule, 1991), 185.

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In this context see “Der vollkommene Maschinist” in Hoffmann’s “Kreisleriana,” which immediately precedes Don Juan. The struggle between the artist, setdesigner/technician, and audience is portrayed in a highly ironic light, nevertheless the detailed descriptions of backstage matters make it clear that Hoffmann had considerable experience of the practicalities of staging dramatic works. 8

Deterding, 158.

8: Das Sanctus

I

Das Sanctus (1817), it is particularly striking that the role of the Kapellmeister has received little attention, a fact that is perhaps all the more remarkable when we consider the critical attention paid to similar figures in Hoffmann’s oeuvre generally because of their relation to the author’s life and the frequency with which they appear in his work: Johannes Kreisler in the “Kreisleriana,” the composer Gluck in Ritter Gluck, or the figure of the Komponist in Der Dichter und der Komponist, to name but three. Franz Loquai, Friedhelm Auhuber, and Ulrich Schönherr hardly refer to the Kapellmeister at all, and where they do, they regard him as being little more than the 1 apparent recipient of the story told by the Enthusiast. Sabine Laußmann takes a negative view of the Kapellmeister in her brief analysis of the character, and suggests that he ignores the real meaning of the Enthusiast’s story from purely selfish motives, and is interested only in the possibility of adapting the material for an opera: “Die literarische Kunst seiner 2 Zeitgenossen ist also dem Kapellmeister nur ein Mittel zum Zweck.” As we shall see, however, the Kapellmeister plays a much more important role in the novella than critics have been willing to acknowledge hitherto. N THE STUDIES DEALING WITH

Zulema/Julia and Bettina In Das Sanctus we are again confronted with a number of different levels of plot and narration. In this novella, Hoffmann uses the well-known device of a story-within-a-story, having the Enthusiast tell his story about the war between the Spaniards and the Moors to his audience, which, it should be remembered, includes Bettina, who is listening behind the door. The two levels of narration do not simply run parallel to one another but are, in typically Hoffmannesque manner, intertwined. The Doctor, the Kapellmeister, and even the Enthusiast continually interrupt 3 the story of Zulema/Julia with observations, theories, and questions. At the end of the novella, the two levels of narration are brought together in the figure of Bettina, who interprets the story of Zulema/Julia — quite correctly — as the description of a situation analogous to her own. As the Enthusiast explains to the other characters in the novella and to

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the reader, Bettina has lost the ability to sing because she has come to believe that she has committed an act of blasphemy. During the narration of the story of Zulema/Julia, she conceals herself behind the door to eavesdrop on what the men are saying. What she does not know, however, is that the Enthusiast knows she is there, and tells his story not for the amusement of his male audience, but rather to cure Bettina (since 4 he blames himself for having landed her in her current predicament). The Enthusiast’s story is about another young female singer, the Moorish girl Zulema, whose art is adversely affected by the situation in which she finds herself. After her capture by Queen Isabella’s Christian forces, Zulema sings of her sorrow “als hätte ihr Schmerz keine andere Sprache als Gesang” (SW I, 447), and that she began to perform “eine Romanze . . ., die in tiefaufseufzenden herzzerschneidenden Lauten die Trennung von ihrem Geliebten, von aller Lebensfreude klagte” (447). As she mourns the loss of her Moorish culture and, especially her Moorish lover, her singing — “bald waren es wild und schauerlich tönende, bald tiefklagende Romanzen” (447), — takes on the quality of an elegiac longing for her homeland. As time passes, she becomes increasingly immersed in the traditions and values of Christian culture, though not as a result of pressure on the part of any one individual, but rather as a result of the music and especially the choral works that she listens to in rapture. At first she listens in total silence so as to be able to imitate all the more accurately what she has heard: “und dann fing sie an leise leise zu singen, ja selbst die Worte unseres Gesanges zu versuchen” (448). In the Spanish camp this is interpreted as an act of divine grace, a sign that Zulema is to be welcomed into the bosom of the true Christian church; she is baptized immediately and given the Christian name Julia. It soon becomes clear, however, that neither baptism nor a change of name has turned the Moorish girl into a devout Catholic because on several occasions her singing lapses back into the musical idiom of her Moorish origins — “indessen bemerkte Emanuela bald, daß Julia oft auf seltsame Weise von dem Choral abwich, fremdartige Töne einmischend” (SW I, 448) — to such an extent that she is described as singing “tändelnde mohrische Liebeslieder zur Zither” (448). On one occasion her behavior is so extreme, an obvious parallel with Bettina’s situation, that Zulema/Julia wants to leave the church during an act of worship and is rebuked by Sister Emanuela with the words: “Sünderin, [. . .] gebrochen ist die Kraft des Gesanges in Dir, verstummt sind die wunderbaren Laute in deiner Brust, die der Geist des Herrn entzündete!” (449–50). There is an obvious similarity between the sister’s words here and those of the narrator when he chides Bettina in a parallel situation: “Wissen Sie denn

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nicht [. . .], daß es sündlich ist, daß es nicht straflos bleibt, wenn man während des Sanctus die Kirche verläßt? — Sie werden so bald nicht mehr singen!” (SW I, 444). These two violent outbursts — though the narrator does claim his was made in jest — make it plain that song, like other art forms, is closely bound up with the conventions of particular institutions and, in this particular context, with religious belief. Up until this point each young singer had regarded her gift as her own, as something autonomous to use as she thought fit, and neither had attached to it any institutionalized significance. Both are appalled by the revelation that their “sacrilegious” behavior has deprived them of God’s favor: “Von Emanuelas Worten wie vom Blitz getroffen, schwankte Julia fort” (450); and “Bettina erblaßte und verließ schweigend die Kirche” (444). These traumatic experiences have a lasting effect on both women. From that point on, neither is able to sing: “Wisse, daß Ton und Gesang in ihrer [Zulemas] Brust [. . .] erstorben ist” (452), and “höchstwahrscheinlich wird sie [Bettina] in ihrem ganzen Leben keine Note mehr singen” (439). Finally, what the narrator says of Bettina’s predicament can be applied equally to Zulema/Julia’s, namely that her illness is “mehr psychisch als physisch” (441). Bettina has one great advantage over Zulema/Julia: she hears the Enthusiast’s tale, grasps its significance, and so overcomes her singer’s block. After hearing, as it were, a fictionalized version of her own story, Bettina can consider her own predicament with some detachment and apply the insights she gains. Among these insights is an acknowledgement that religious or conventional yardsticks cannot provide a secure basis for setting up artistic categories and arriving at proper judgements of quality. Zulema/Julia’s predicament is of an entirely different nature. She is in a state of inner conflict, emphasized by her dual names, which in the end brings about her death. The Moors and the Christians are each determined to exploit her voice for their own purposes. The victorious Christians see it as part of their religious-imperialist mission to get Zulema into the fold of the one true faith, and to do this, they are prepared to sever her from her social and cultural roots, and take away her past identity by giving her a new name. Worse is to follow: the Christians insist that Zulema’s supreme talents should be exploited for the propagation of Christian ideology, a demand that, quite literally, has fatal consequences. On the one hand, they are quite fascinated by the “wunderbaren Tönen” (SW I, 447) that holds them spell-bound (“In jeder Nacht schallen die üppigen Gesänge der Heiden in unser Lager herüber wie Sirenenstimmen,” 446–47); but at the same time, they cannot accept the benign effect that this strange,

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curiously uplifting music has on them. They reject it as something threatening, since in their opinion, everything that cannot be assimilated to their Christian-Catholic ideology is a “Nest der Sünde” (SW I, 447) and must be suppressed. But art and, above all, music cannot be reduced to such profane and simplistic categories; it transcends questions of convention and dogma. As Schelling says: “Die Musik ist [. . .] diejenige 5 Kunst, die am meisten das Körperliche abstreift.” Zulema/Julia’s death is a direct consequence of the Spaniards’ misguided and arrogant belief that art can only be regarded as genuine if it is used for the purpose of religious propaganda and especially for promoting the interests of the Catholic church. Zulema/Julia discovers that she cannot commit herself wholly to one side or the other, and her dilemma is articulated in the mixed mode of her song, which is described as “ein seltsamer Gesang, halb mohrisches Lied, halb christlicher Kirchengesang” (451). Although Zulema/Julia eventually dies in a state of (Christian-Catholic) ecstasy, softly intoning the words “Dona nobis pacem,” and the Moors are converted to Christianity, this should not be interpreted as confirmation of the Christians’ claim that theirs is the one true religion or, as some critics would have it, as Hoffmann’s celebration of the superiority of Catholicism. Given the superiority of the Spanish forces, the Moors have little choice but to acknowledge the alleged superiority of the Catholic faith if they are to save their lives; their conversion — if it can be called such — seems to be based less upon an acceptance of a new creed than upon a willingness to open their hearts and minds to the wonderful 6 music they hear, which transcends both Moorish and Christian ideology. It is not just the different faiths that have a vested interest in Zulema/Julia’s voice. Just as the Christians are locked in a struggle with the so-called heathens, representatives of a highly developed and flourishing Islamic culture, in order to enlist art in support of their cause, so also, two men fight to assert their claim to Zulema/Julia, the woman who embodies “das Licht des Gesanges” (SW I, 447). Although Aguillar, the commander of the Spanish forces, claims that his decision to keep Zulema within the Christian camp is prompted by his desire to save her soul, to lead her to the true faith, the attentive reader can see that the real reason has more to do with motives of a personal kind than with religion. Aguillar feels drawn to her not in his capacity as a representative of the Catholic faith but above all as a man. He sees her as the embodiment of the Romantic feminine Ideal, an idealized synthesis of art and femininity. Queen Isabella “wußte nun wohl, was in Aguillars Innerem vorgegangen, als er auf Agostinos Einrede Zulema nicht zurücksandte nach Granada” (SW I, 448). She sees that Aguillar’s raising of Zulema/Julia to the status of an

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object of desire is motivated by personal concerns rather than any real desire to convert her to Catholicism. The feelings of the Moorish noble Hichem, however, are every bit as strong as Aguillar’s. He risks what he claims is now a meaningless life to rescue her from the Spaniards. But even when she is back amongst her own people, Zulema/Julia cannot recover her voice; she is deeply traumatized, and at the same time cannot get rid of the suspicion that here too her art is being exploited for ideological ends. She fears that the Christian music she has learned to value is being seen as something sacrilegious and taboo by her co-religionists. Instead of trying to discover the real reason behind Zulema/Julia’s inability to sing any longer, the two men compete for her, with Aguillar exclaiming: “Nennst du Zulema deine Geliebte, so sei Julia, die zum Glauben bekehrte, die Dame meiner Gedanken, und sie im Herzen, [. . .] will ich gegen dich bestehen im wackeren Kampf” (SW I, 452). Both Aguilar and Hichem want to possess Zulema/Julia, yet in their struggle for her soul, they destroy her; Aguilar wants to keep her a newly-converted Catholic, and Hichem wants to restore her to the religion she was born into. However, in the course of the story, Zulema/Julia’s personality has developed. She can no longer be categorized in terms of mutually exclusive labels such as Christian or Muslim because she has opened herself up to pure music, and thus embodies art in its most universal sense. Aguilar and Hichem, both passionate music lovers, lose sight of the fact that music — or any art form for that matter — must be detached from institutional concerns, and they persist in trying to get Zulema/Julia to commit herself exclusively to one creed. So bound up is she with her art that if she were to make an exclusive commitment, she would betray her art and herself. As neither of the two men — whose attitudes towards the girl are hardly disinterested — will countenance her refusal, her fate is all but sealed. We have already seen how closely art, love, and death are associated in Hoffmann’s work, and this particular constellation occurs more than once in Das Sanctus. The narrator’s brief description of a butterfly producing a series of notes and chords whilst fluttering between the strings of a clavichord and perishing in the process, mirrors the fate of Zulema/Julia, who, when singing, might be said to get caught between the two strings that bring about her demise. A further example is to be found in the figure of Hichem, who as he struggles with the physically stronger Aguillar, calls out to his enemy: “darum töte mich — töte mich, da ich nicht Rache zu nehmen vermag an dir, der du mir schon mehr als mein Leben entrissest” (SW I, 452). Of course, what Hichem really means when he accuses Aguillar of having taken away his life is that he

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has taken away Zulema. His words bear witness to his belief that Zulema’s voice had meant more to him than anything else he can imagine. We must remember, of course, that Zulema is not dead but has merely lost her singing voice. Nonetheless, for Hichem at least, the loss of her song amounts to death. His love for Zulema is rooted in his love of her voice for he is in love with the Romantic Ideal rather than a real person. The woman Aguillar is in love with is equally illusory; for he loves only the “Julia” part of her identity, deliberately ignoring, or even suppressing, everything else about her.

The Kapellmeister Once a muse has become a fallen muse — when she no longer provides the male (artist) with an embodiment of an Ideal — it seems to be a typically masculine response to suggests that she has served her purpose and might as well be dead, and this applies no less to Bettina than to Zulema/Julia. Even the Kapellmeister would prefer Bettina dead than alive but incapable of singing. However, there is an important difference between him and Zulema/Julia’s admirers and one that marks him out as a key figure in the story. Hoffmann’s characterization of the Kapellmeister is so ironic that when the latter articulates his grotesquely exaggerated demands for Bettina’s death, it is impossible to take them seriously. Even his initial, wildly exaggerated reaction to the Doctor’s diagnosis that Bettina “höchstwahrscheinlich in ihrem Leben keine einzige Note mehr singen wird” (SW I, 439) suggests a degree of eccentricity that cannot be taken at face value: “Da fuhr der Kapellmeister mit beiden Fäusten sich in die Haare, daß der Puder weit umherstäubte und rannte im Zimmer auf und ab, und schrie wie besessen” (439). His uncontrolled gestures — “er schlug auf die rechte Rocktasche, so daß es gewaltig darin klatschte” (440) — make him appear deranged, and he is prey to abrupt mood swings, one moment ranting and yelling, the next cowering and whining. But there is worse to come from this comic diminutive figure who swings from the depths of self-pity to the heights of righteous anger: in his egocentricity he sees not the suffering of Bettina, but merely a lost opportunity for himself. He imagines he is the victim of a plot hatched by the organist with the collusion of the doctor: “Der Dom-Organist, der mich mit schändlichem Neide verfolgt [. . .], der hat dich bestochen!” (439). When the doctor has succeeded in convincing him that this is not the case and that Bettina really has lost the power to sing, all the Kapellmeister thinks about is the opportunity he has lost, and says: “singt Bettina nicht mehr, so darf sie auch nicht leben, denn sie lebt nur, wenn sie

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singt — sie existiert nur im Gesange” (SW I, 440). The irony turns into grotesque comedy when the now hysterical Kapellmeister even offers to protect the doctor from the law: himmlischer Doktor, tu mir den Gefallen, vergifte sie je eher desto lieber. Ich habe Konnexionen im Kriminal-Kollegio [. . .] sie sollen dir nichts tun des ehrlichen Mordes wegen. — Aber vergifte sie — vergifte sie! (SW I, 440)

The eccentric behavior of the Kapellmeister, who in his blind egocentricity would even be willing to conceal what he terms an “ehrlichen 7 Mord,” highlights the sheer absurdity of his position. At the same time, the ironic undertone adopted by the narrator acts as a reminder to the reader to take a skeptical view of anything the Kapellmeister says. Nonetheless, we should remind ourselves that for all the irony Hoffmann employs when depicting the Kapellmeister’s absurd side, here is a highly emotional figure, capable of expressing extremes of sorrow and joy, and one who is blessed with considerable powers of imagination. This aspect of his personality emerges most clearly at that point in the story when he — unlike the more prosaic Doctor, who is interested solely in scientific facts — is quite carried away by the Enthusiast’s explanation and impatient to know more: “‘was wollen wir damit sagen,’ frug der Kapellmeister” (SW I, 442), and “wunderbar in der Tat, sehr wunderbar” (444). The Kapellmeister, though, is not content simply to indulge his curiosity. His psychological make-up is such that he has the ability to forget himself and the world around him, and immerse himself completely in the story. He allows himself to be transported by the Enthusiast into the fantastical realm of the story’s Reconquista setting and is fascinated not only by the seemingly mysterious events that occur (especially the sudden loss of Zulema/Julia’s singing voice), but also the parallels with Bettina’s predicament. The Doctor reacts to the story in quite a different way, interrupting the Enthusiast after just a couple of sentences with a disparaging remark: “Ich schere mich den Teufel um Eure maurischen Geschichten, den Gonzalvo von Cordova habe ich gelesen, und Bettinas Seguidillas gehört, aber damit basta” (SW I, 445). In fact he even leaves the room whilst the story is being told, but the Kapellmeister is captured right from the start: “Es wird eine Geschichte aus den Kriegen der Mauren mit den Spaniern, wie ich merke, sowas hätt ich längst gar zu gern komponiert. — Gefechte — Tumult — Romanzen — Aufzüge — Zimbeln — Choräle — Trommeln und Pauken — ach Pauken!” (SW I, 445)

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The longer he listens, the more his enthusiasm grows (although paradoxically it is not the Kapellmeister but the more sober narrator who is referred to as “the Enthusiast”). With almost childlike enthusiasm, the Kapellmeister begins to contemplate a musical adaptation of the story even though he is still hoping that some particular element will emerge, which will inspire him to compose a full-scale opera: “Flauti picolli — Oktavflötchen. Aber mein Bester, noch bis jetzt nichts, gar nichts für die Oper” (SW I, 449). Patiently — but no less caught up in his imagination for that — he starts to reflect on a potential synthesis of narrative and opera “mit der tiefen und hohen Stimmung der Zither, das hat mich angeregt” (449), and continues to seek — and find — inspiration in the story: “Denkt Euch den doppelten Stil, in welchem sie [Zulema/Julia] glänzen kann, erst die Romanzen, dann die Kirchengesänge” (450). Observing the Kapellmeister’s rising enthusiasm, the narrator is far from surprised since he understands the reason for it only too well and gently pulls the latter’s leg: Euch wird nun Kapellmeister! alles einmal gleich zur Oper und daher kommt es denn auch, daß die vernünftigen Leute, die die Musik behandeln wie einen starken Schnaps, den man nur dann und wann in kleinen Portionen genießt zur Magenstärkung, Euch manchmal für toll 8 halten. (SW I, 445)

Through his own love of the arts, the Enthusiast understands — and perhaps even admires — the Kapellmeister’s burning desire to create and his need to practice his art; accordingly he is quite prepared to indulge the latter’s musical passion and suggests: “Ich wollte, Ihr spieltet eins von Palestrinas Responsorien, die dort auf dem Pult des Fortepianos aufgeschlagen liegen” (SW I, 451) — a request that the Kapellmeister is all too happy to accede. Throughout the novella the flow of the narrative is punctuated by musical interludes, a stylistic device, demonstrating that there is no clearcut distinction between different forms of art, here music and literature, and suggesting that, ideally, they should exist symbiotically; music and poetry should inspire each other so that both may aspire to new heights 9 of excellence. And even though the Kapellmeister ultimately abandons his plan to turn the whole thing into an opera, he declares: “Ich denke an keine Oper mehr, aber das Gefecht zwischen dem Mohrem Hichem im Schuppenharnisch und dem Feldherrn Aguillar ging mir auf in Mu10 sik” (SW I, 453). His words remind us that regardless of the particular art form to which the artist has chosen to devote himself, he can draw inspiration for his chosen genre from the work of artists working in fields 11 quite different from his own.

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The Denouement Although for the Kapellmeister, the narrative has a musical significance, for Bettina it has a psychological significance, as she recognizes a parallel between Zulema/Julia’s story and her own. The only figure who gets nothing out of the story is the Doktor; he refuses to listen to the Moorish tale and takes a disparaging attitude towards the Enthusiast and the Kapellmeister: “da sitzen sie noch und erzählen sich tolle fantastische Geschichten ohne Rücksicht auf Nachbarschaft und machen die Leute kränker” (SW I, 454). Ironically, it is the Doktor who is incapable of curing Bettina, as he admits early in the novella: “sie [ist] von einer solch [. . .] Stimmlosigkeit befallen, die meiner Kunst trotzt” (SW I, 440); yet she owes her recovery precisely to the “tollen, fantastischen Geschichten” that the Doktor rejects as fantastical nonsense. In this way, Hoffmann’s novella suggests that art and literature can have a therapeutic effect upon certain conditions that conventional medicine can do nothing for. As Franz Loquai has quite correctly noted, the Enthusiast assumes the role of a healer: “Die Erzählung ist ein poetischer Beweis für die medizinische Souveränität des Enthusiasten und die künstleri12 sche Unzulänglichkeit des Arztes.” It is hard to disagree with this view of the Enthusiast; however it is debatable whether this is the real import of the story, as Loquai and Auhuber claim. Hoffmann’s novella is not simply about the curing of Bettina’s affliction; it also explores a number of complex issues, not least the autonomy of art. As we have already seen, Zulema/Julia dies because Catholics and Muslims attempt to institutionalize her art by enlisting it in the service of their own religions. Bettina, however, is saved, because the tale of Zulema/Julia makes her realize the dangers of such a simplistic attitude to art; this enables her to confront — and overcome — the psychological conflict within herself. In light of this, Ulrich Schönherr concludes that: The search for an institutional locus for romantic art ends where differentiated modernity solely concedes autonomy: in the realm of the aesthetic. [. . .] With regard to the question of social responsibility of art, 13 Hoffmann finally seems to have decided in favor of aesthetic autonomy.

Taken to its logical conclusion, Schönherr’s concept of a “realm of the aesthetic” suggests an aesthetic theory in which art is suspended in an autonomous realm that is quite detached from the material world. Schönherr suggests that this view — which he claims is upheld in Das Sanctus — is indicative of the way in which Hoffmann’s oeuvre generally anticipates the concerns of modernism. Yet, it seems questionable whether Hoffmann does in fact endorse an aesthetic that is so wholly

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detached from the material world; the real thrust of the narrative seems to suggest the opposite, namely that the artist does not have to turn his back on the material world in order to create a genuine work of art. Of course, Hoffmann objects to both the manipulation of art for ideological purposes and to the philistine view of art as a purely utilitarian activity. As the traveling Enthusiast observes, “die herrlichsten Talente werden herabgezogen in das gemeine dürftige Leben” (SW I, 443) and “als ich voriges Jahr hieher kam, war die arme Bettina gerade recht in Mode [. . .] ich fürchtete in der Tat, daß das gute Kind mit samt ihrem herrlichen Talent untergehen würde in dem Meer von Teewasser, das man über sie ausschüttete” (443). It is impossible to overlook Hoffmann’s critique of a society that tries to appropriate art for its own ideological or social purposes. He condemns Aguillar and Hichem, both of whom wish to use Zulema/Julia for their own ideological ends. He makes it clear that the consequence of such an abuse of art can be catastrophic: Bettina loses her singing voice, and Zulema/Julia dies. Hoffmann is not suggesting in Das Sanctus — or in any other of his novellas — that the aesthetic is a wholly autonomous realm; on the contrary he demonstrates just how inextricably bound up with each other art and the material world are. Indeed it is precisely because they are so closely linked that art can make a real impact on flesh and blood human beings. It cures and liberates Bettina, it inspires the Kapellmeister to produce his own artistic creations, and it empowers the Enthusiast to bring about Bettina’s cure. Although Hoffmann may argue that art should not be appropriated by competing ideologies, this is not the same as saying that artists should turn their backs on social reality.

Notes 1

Franz Loquai and Friedhelm Auhuber concentrate above all on the therapeutic function of the artist. See Franz Loquai, Künstler und Melancholie in der Romantik (Frankfurt, Bern, New York, Nancy: Lang, 1984); Friedhelm Auhuber, In einem fernen dunklen Spiegel: E. T. A. Hoffmanns Poetisierung der Musik (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1986). In his illuminating study of the role of art in the story, Ulrich Schönherr concludes: “[. . .] the narrative has left behind any romantic longing for transcendence and taken the modern road into an uncertain aesthetic future.” See Ulrich Schönherr, “Social Differentiation and Romantic Art: E. T. A. Hoffmann’s The Sanctus and the Problem of Aesthetic Positioning in Modernity,” NGC 66 (1995): 3–16 (16). 2

Sabine Laußmann, Das Gespräch der Zeichen: Studien zur Intertextualität im Werk E. T. A. Hoffmanns (Munich: tuduv, 1992), 116.

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3

In the story the same woman is referred to as Julia (by the Christians) and as Zulema (by the Moors). For the sake of simplicity I will refer to her as Zulema/Julia throughout. 4

Hoffmann’s fascination with the causes of such physical and psychological disturbances or phobias is evident in a number of his other stories. Bettina believes she is being punished by a benevolent God for having committed a wicked act, whereas, conversely, Nathanael in Der Sandmann believes that he is being punished by a malevolent figure, the Sandman, on account of his desire to do good. 5

SSW III (supplementary volume), 153.

6

This scene is reminiscent of Kleist’s Die Heilige Cäcilie oder die Gewalt der Musik, where it is suggested that the apparent conversion of the four iconoclasts is due not to the workings of a divine miracle, the intervention of St. Cecilia, but rather to the sublime quality of the nuns’ musical performance.

7

Aguillar and Hichem’s view that Zulema/Julia might as well be dead if her art cannot be exploited for their own purposes is exaggerated to the point of absurdity in the figure the Kapellmeister. Whereas their belief that Zulema/Julia’s very existence is inextricably bound up with her singing appears to be coloured by an almost tragic, Romantic element, this same element is heavily ironized by the Kapellmeister’s grotesque demand that she be put to death. Hoffmann underlines the absurdity of this male view that, having lost her voice, the woman’s life is now of no significance by positing a clear link between Aguillar and Hichem’s demands for Zulema/Julia’s death and those of the Kapellmeister. 8

The narrator’s observation also implies a sharp critique of those “sensible” people who do not allow themselves to be swallowed up by art, but attempt to categorize art so as to exert a degree of control over it. 9

It is precisely this — the value of art — that is discussed in the novella Der Dichter und der Komponist, as both parties present their arguments and try to reach an agreement: “da sind Dichter und Musiker die innigst verwandten Glieder einer Kirche: denn das Geheimnis des Worts und des Tons ist ein und dasselbe” (SW III, 83). 10 Laußmann concludes from this that the Kapellmeister “interessiert lediglich die Verwertbarkeit des Stoffes für eine Oper; er hofft auf die Geburt einer Oper aus der Erzählung” (116) and suggests that he “durch den Operndiskurs [das] kommentierte Erzählwerk dekonstruiert” (117). However, such a view fails to do justice to the creative process of the Romantic artist. Hoffmann’s ideal is to bring about a productive synthesis of all artistic genres in an all-embracing “Sym-Kunst.” 11

A perfect example of this practice is provided by Hoffmann himself, a multitalented artist who was active in a number of different artistic spheres. 12

See Loquai, 251. Auhuber too emphasizes the therapeutic aspect of the novella: “Der professionelle Arzt kennt die Mittel der Therapie nicht, wenn es um das Erkennen der psychischen Ursachen eines physischen Leidens geht.” See Auhuber, 99. 13

See Schönherr, 16.

9: Rat Krespel

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(1818) provoked considerable controversy when it was first published, and even today critics are divided over how to view the central character. By and large, these disagreements relate to the reliability of Krespel’s account of Antonie’s mysterious death. Critics of a psychoanalytical persuasion take a skeptical view, dismissing it as either a lie or, at best, a distortion of the truth, and the explanation they seek goes well beyond that suggested by the councilor 1 himself. Other critics are more concerned with the question of whether Krespel should be regarded as an individual suffering from existential 2 guilt. The question of guilt is, of course, closely bound up with the question of whether Krespel — either as an artist or simply as a human 3 being — is to be regarded as a tragic figure. In my interpretation I shall argue that there are no obvious reasons for assuming Krespel’s explanation of Antonie’s death is not accurate and that he tries — either deliberately or unwittingly — to deceive the narrator and the reader. All those interpretations that maintain that Krespel deliberately lies or, at the very least, distorts the truth, assume that the narrator is essentially unreliable because of his youth and lack of experience and that he simply accepts Krespel’s version of events at face value. It is true that he has a limited understanding of the situation and is, from the outset, prejudiced against Krespel, assuming — in the absence of any evidence to support his wild assumptions — that he is guilty of foul play and seeing it as his duty to rescue Antonie from her father’s clutches. Although the fact that the narrator displays a somewhat overheated imagination should prompt us to question what he says and question his reliability as a witness, this need not imply that everything Krespel tells him is untrue. If Krespel’s version of events were indeed false, as readers, we would have no choice but to prefer the hysterical fantasies of an immature young man over the considered — and utterly credible — opinion of the more experienced Krespel.

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Krespel In my analysis of the story, Krespel emerges as an artist locked in a continual struggle with his own creativity and with his relationship to the public in their capacity as the recipients of his art. The relationship of father to daughter mirrors at a personal level the artistic process itself and its inherent problems. The decision to regard Krespel as an artist, however, requires some explanation. He is not an artist in the conventional sense of the word; he does not earn his living as an artist and is not really regarded as an artist per se in his society. He is, however, a creative individual; not only does art play a central role in his life, but his preoccupation with artistic dilemmas suggests that, far from being a mere passive recipient of art, he is an artist in his own right. As far as his daughter Antonie, is concerned, I shall concentrate not on her psychological role in the story, but rather on her function as a symbol of the dilemma of artistic creativity. Although by the end of the story Krespel emerges as a positive figure, at the beginning he appears to the narrator and to the reader as a curious outsider who deliberately cultivates an image of eccentricity. When he builds a house for himself, he does so in a highly unconventional manner with the result that the builders are quite bemused — “der Baumeister [. . .] erstaunte nicht wenig” (SW III, 31) — and the townsfolk are provided with a spectacle the like of which they have never seen, for we are told “wie Hunderte von Menschen um den Garten herumstanden, und allemal laut aufjubelten, wenn die Steine herausflogen, und wieder ein neues Fenster entstand, da wo man es gar nicht vermutet hatte” (32). As unorthodox as Krespel’s approach to constructing a house may be, it is merely the first clear indication of his unwillingness to conform to convention and of his reluctance to draw a fundamental distinction between works of art and functional, utilitarian objects. He rejects the notion of art as something remote from everyday life, and this is highlighted in the way he sets about building his house. Whereas the bulk of the population think of a house as simply a functional entity — and thus regard his behavior as “verwunderlich” (33) — he sees the construction of a house as an opportunity to exploit his artistic talents. Furthermore, as a genuinely creative individual, he not only has a clear mental image of how the house should look — original, to say the least — but he also takes an active part in the construction of the building, mixing cement, sieving sand, and transporting stones. This seemingly trivial detail underlines the importance Krespel attaches to skillful craftsmanship, and as we learn, his practical skills are not confined to the business of brick-laying; he manufactures his own clothing

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and produces children’s toys on a miniature lathe, making all kinds of diminutive boxes, and pots and balls out of rabbit bones (cf. SW III, 34). These practical skills are perhaps even more remarkable given the cerebral nature of his chosen profession as a diplomat and member of the judiciary. Krespel’s idiosyncratic involvement with ordinary and everyday objects marks him out as an individual with a well-developed sense of play. It is hardly surprising, then, that the children in the story are so fascinated by him; here is a member of sober, adult society with a bizarre imagination, who has managed to retain his curiosity and openness, and who views the world as an unending source of possibility and adventure. If he appears to those around him as an eccentric figure, this is because they are quite incapable of recognizing, let alone understanding, his creative streak, and regard both his ideas and his attempts to put these ideas into practice as “allernärrischste Streiche” (SW III, 31). But even the narrator, a typical representative of this bourgeois society, has to admit that Krespel’s house “eine ganz eigene Wohlbehaglichkeit erregte” (33). Krespel’s eccentric approach to the business of building a house is matched by his equally idiosyncratic management of his social life. When he throws a house-warming party, he flouts the prevailing social conventions; instead of inviting his friends and relatives, he entertains the builders and laborers: “Alle Freunde und Bekannte verspitzten sich auf ein großes Mahl, Krespel hatte aber niemanden gebeten, als sämtliche Meister, Gesellen, Burschen und Handlanger, die sein Haus erbaut” (33). Indeed, whatever Krespel does, he does it in his own inimitable way: “sprang er schnell von einer Sache auf die andere, bald konnte er von einer Idee gar nicht loskommen, immer sie wieder ergreifend, geriet er in allerlei wunderliche Irrgänge, und konnte sich nicht wieder finden, bis ihn etwas anderes erfasste” (33). The sheer speed with which his mind works, and his determination to get to the heart of a subject make it almost impossible for the ordinary members of mainstream society to keep up with him, with the result that they end up viewing him with mistrust and dismissing what he says as nonsense. We should also remember that Krespel is a man who is well acquainted with the extremes of emotion. When discussing art, he draws on the whole range of emotions and is not afraid to vent his feelings by drawing comparisons with “Satan,” “Hölle,” “Engeln,” and “Himmel” (36). The forces of conventional bourgeois society have not yet managed to tame this man, who is in touch with his feelings and not afraid to display them in public. In some quarters he is considered — if not actually mad — decidedly strange, but for the most part he is seen as a harmless oddity. However, this attitude of quasi-tolerance soon evaporates when his behavior conflicts with the personal interests of others. As soon as Theo-

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dor starts to express an interest in Antonie and Krespel blocks any such approach, the young man takes an altogether different view of him, describing him as a “Bösewicht” (SW III, 43). Later, Theodor even goes so far as to accuse him of having murdered Antonie (cf. 44) before eventually having to listen, rather shame-facedly, to Krespel’s explanation. By and large however, most of Krespel’s fellow citizens see him as a well-meaning individual, who shows kindness and consideration for his social inferiors and is loved by children. Even some of those from the higher echelons are kindly disposed towards him: the prince makes him a present of the house in gratitude for his services, and the Professor defends him against the jibes of the more philistine elements of society by emphasizing the “im tiefsten Grunde bis zur Weichlichkeit gutmütigen Charakter des Rates” (35). Generally speaking, only those who are entirely confined within the narrow horizons of their bourgeois world regard Krespel with mistrust and suspicion. Krespel’s good nature is evident in the way he deals with the ignorant and narrow-minded Theodor, whose initial obtuseness soon develops into a profound feeling of mistrust that in turn leads him to make the most outrageous accusations, even though he has no first-hand information about Krespel. Nevertheless, Krespel is favorably disposed towards him and remains so even when the young man’s behavior, motivated as it is purely by considerations of self-interest, poses a genuine threat to Antonie’s life. Although he (quite understandably) throws him out of his house, he has considerable sympathy for the foolish young man, embraces him, and gives him a farewell present, the true value of which Theodor is quite incapable of recognizing and simply dismisses as a “schnöde Abfertigung” (SW III, 38). Moreover, Krespel invites him to his house on a further occasion and never actually rules out any contact with Antonie completely. After Antonie’s death Krespel is quite prepared to explain the circumstances surrounding it to Theodor, motivated purely by kindness and sympathy since he is under no obligation to enlighten this wild young man who cuts a quite ignorant and ridiculous figure. Krespel’s willingness to talk to Theodor and to explain the riddle of Antonie’s death is not an act of self-justification; it is simply evidence of his benevolent wisdom. When Theodor accuses Krespel of being responsible for his daughter’s death and exclaims: “Wie kann nur auf einen Augenblick Frieden in Ihre Seele kommen, da der Gedanke an die gräßliche Tat Sie mit Schlangenbissen peinigen muß?” (SW III, 43–44), the councilor’s reaction is merely one of surprise, for he is not plagued by a guilty conscience: “dann wurde er aber sehr ernst und sprach mit feierlichem Tone” (44). He could only behave in this way if he were a wholly un-

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scrupulous individual concerned only to preserve his social standing. But the facts of the story make such an interpretation highly unlikely. The way he treats both the children and the builders, together with his (admittedly idiosyncratic) displays of emotion, — he is often to be seen with tears in his eyes (cf. 34 and 35) — all bear witness to the fact that he is anything but cold and calculating. It is precisely the calm manner in which he deals with Theodor’s accusations that gives us grounds to take issue with those interpretations of the story that maintain that he mur4 ders his daughter out of jealousy. It is not only Krespel’s personality that baffles his fellow townsfolk; they also have no idea what to make of the extraordinary way he treats his violins: Ist nur irgendeine Violine von einem alten vorzüglichen Meister aufzutreiben, so kauft sie der Rat um jeden Preis, den man ihm stellt. Ebenso wie seine Geigen spielt er sie aber nur ein einziges Mal, dann nimmt er sie auseinander, um ihre innere Struktur genau zu untersuchen. (SW III, 35)

It matters little to him who made the violin, for he wastes no time in 5 dismantling even an Amati. This behavior may at first sight seem “mad,” as the Professor puts it, but it reflects an approach to art that is concerned with the artistic process rather than with the end-product, an approach that sees art as an empirical process of trial and error. Krespel is interested in the precise manner that a particular violin has been put together and especially in how its maker set about making a work of art, the violin, from the raw material at his disposal. He wants to retrace the original creative impulses that led to the instrument’s construction, and for that reason, he has little or no interest in the finished product and turns his attention to other violins as soon as he thinks that he has discovered the secret of a particular instrument. Nonetheless, he goes even further than this, and — in keeping with his status as a genuine artist — he does not confine himself to destroying the creations of others, but his own creations as well: Hat Krespel eine Violine gemacht, so spielt er selbst eine oder zwei Stunden darauf, und zwar mit höchster Kraft, mit hinreißendem Ausdruck, dann hängt er sie aber zu den übrigen, ohne sie jemals wieder zu berühren oder von einem anderen berühren zu lassen. (SW III, 35)

He adopts an equally rigorous attitude towards his own creations as he does towards the creations of others. His critical attitude makes him question everything he comes into contact with because he understands that the process of artistic creation is, by its very nature, endless and that

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it is never possible to reach perfection or the Ideal. Therefore, whenever a work of art is displayed before an audience — and this public display 6 is essential — it can only last for a finite amount of time. Sooner or later, the never-ending process of creation and improvement will be resumed, and the work will die and be replaced by one that is new and better. It is this insight that prompts Krespel to destroy his own works of art, his violins, since, as a critical artist, he is the first to recognize their defects and to see that they can be improved. The fact that as an artist he feels bound to continue his never-ending quest for the Ideal is also the reason he soon loses all interest in the violins he has completed and turns his attention instead to the manufacture of a new — and, possibly better — instrument. What the townsfolk of H . . . regard as sheer folly is, in fact, the expression of the artist’s modesty and critical judgement: he would rather destroy his own work than bask in the approving gaze of an admiring public. Krespel sees art not as an activity directed towards the creation of a particular end product, but as one that is carried out purely for its own sake. For this reason, it is a fundamental human drive and derives its significance from the sense of self-development experienced by those who engage in it. At the same time, Krespel regards art as a quest to capture the Ideal and thereby allow human beings to gain a glimpse of a perfect, transcendent world. It is for all these reasons that Krespel is never simply content to rest on his laurels, but is always on the look-out for new artistic challenges. The other representatives of the bourgeois milieu in which the story is set have little understanding for Krespel’s paradoxical behavior since they subscribe to a quite different view of art. For them, art is essentially some7 thing decorative and relaxing. What matters is the finished product, preferably a pleasing work of art produced by a well-known artist who can be fêted. In the text we are furnished with an example of just such an artist in the vain Italian opera-singer Angela, who wishes to keep her marriage to Krespel a secret in order not to jeopardize her position as an outstanding singer. She deliberately cultivates an artificial image of herself as a distant and semi-divine artiste by refusing to recognize her husband in public. If word got out about the existence of a real husband and, even worse, one with such an ordinary name as Krespel, she would soon be brought crashing down from the dizzy Olympian heights of her self-styled diva existence: Das engste Verhältnis führte in wenigen Wochen zur Heirat, die deshalb verborgen blieb, weil Angela sich weder vom Theater, noch von dem Namen, der die berühmte Sängerin bezeichnete, trennen oder ihm auch nur das übeltönende “Krespel” hinzufügen wollte. (SW III, 45)

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Although Angela truly values her artistic end product — her wonderfully trained voice — for Krespel what matters is his commitment to the perpetual struggle to the process of creating works of art, a process that involves him in the search for answers to the fundamental questions of human existence. Although some critics have argued that Krespel is cast into despair by the notion that no artistic form is adequate to express the Ideal, this does not appear to be the case; Krespel understands that it is this very irreconcilability that compels artists, and human beings generally, to revise their ideas continually and enables them to seek out — and find — new artistic forms in which to express these ideas. At the same time, Romantic irony offers him a means of protecting himself against the possible feelings of despair caused by the realization that the artist’s desire for perfection will — inevitably — be thwarted. He recognizes that, if the artist is not to give in to this despair, he must maintain a degree of ironic distance from his own work. Krespel may be able to accept the fact that as an artist he is doomed to disappointment, but he finds it far harder to come to terms with the knowledge that his daughter will die if she continues to practice her chosen art form, singing. His first reaction — one of panic — is to isolate her from the world to prolong her life, a response that, in my view, is prompted by genuine feelings of paternal affection and not the suppressed sexual desire to possess and dominate her. Krespel’s error is his reluctance to acknowledge that, as an artist in her own right, his daughter must be allowed to express herself creatively, and that her voice must be heard in public even if this brings about her demise. In other words, he refuses to recognize that there is any similarity between his own artistic drive and Antonie’s. It is understandable that he should try to protect her life (and with it her art) by preventing her from singing, but in trying to put off the moment of her death by not allowing her to live, he brings about her premature end — even before the moment of her physical death — and with it, the premature end of her art. Just as he dismantles the wooden violins to discover their essential qualities, so he turns Antonie into a wooden doll in the attempt to preserve her essential qualities. Krespel’s plan is doomed to fail because it involves a flagrant contradiction, and ultimately he is forced to acknowledge that he cannot — and should not — prevent her from living life to the fullest. He must give her free rein to express her creative urges because it is precisely this expression that makes her a human being in the truest sense of the word. The artistic impulse, the individual’s need to express himself creatively, can, as this story illustrates, be activated in two contrasting ways: either

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one accepts that if art is to be directed towards the realization of a particular goal then it is bound to fail, or one accepts that art is an activity practiced for its own sake, an activity that consists of a never-ending process of new attempts following each successive failure, a process guided by the Romantic longing to transcend the temporal world through art. Krespel loves his daughter too deeply to allow her to sacrifice herself on the altar of art by letting her sing. Antonie, on the other hand, sees the situation rather differently. She is already a promising young singer and engaged to be married when she first meets her unknown father, but instinctively she understands the strange man’s nature: “Antonie mit zartem Sinn den wunderlichen Vater im tiefsten Inneren richtig auffassend” (SW III, 47). When he orders her to sing no more and lead an artless — i.e. lifeless — existence in an attempt to cheat death, she is at first willing to comply, recognizing that he is motivated by paternal love. But it is not long before her passion for her lover and her desire to sing — both of which reflect the intensity with which she experiences life itself — are so great that she cries: “Nur einmal ihn sehen und dann sterben” (49). She would prefer a brief life lived to the full — one complete with the experience of love and art — rather than a lengthy but essentially empty life. Krespel’s immediate reaction shows that in his heart he knows that she is right, and he cannot force her to lead a meaningless existence: Die Tochter, das einzige Wesen auf der weiten Welt, das nie gekannte Lust in ihm entzündet, das allein ihn mit dem Leben versöhnte, riß sich gewaltsam von seinem Herzen, und er wollte, daß das Entsetzliche geschehe. (SW III, 49)

At this point in the narrative Krespel is prepared to grant his beloved daughter her freedom and place her needs and desires before his own. Like the biblical Abraham, he overcomes his earthly fear and is willing to allow the sacrifice of his child in the name of the higher Ideal that is art. It is here too that he shows his true stature, for not only does he accept that Antonie must be allowed the freedom to determine the course of her own life, but he also succeeds in overcoming his own fear of death: “und blieb, da ich einmal mich selbst auf die höchste Spitze gestellt hatte, sehr gelassen und mit mir einig” (SW III, 49). It is here that Krespel truly acknowledges that it is man’s fate — or rather the artist’s fate — to fall short of his chosen goal; the composure he feels comes from the realization that Antonie died as an autonomous individual, expressing her creative impulse. However, the story does not end here; Antonie is not dead, she has merely fainted. She will live on, but will be in mortal danger if she makes any further attempt to sing. The all-too-human Krespel reverts to his

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former position. Indeed, he is quite unable to do otherwise. Having summoned up all his mental courage, he was, for a brief period, prepared to allow the sacrifice of his daughter, however it is a mark of his basic humanity that his resolve is finite. No human being — not even Krespel — is capable of remaining at such a peak (“der höchsten Spitze”; SW III, 49) of superhuman behavior indefinitely, thus it is quite understandable that he lapses back into the realm of mere mortals and seeks, once again, to protect his daughter from the fate that hangs over her by isolating her from the outside world. Having summoned up all his courage, Krespel demonstrated that he is capable of overcoming his fear once, but no human being could be expected to do this on a daily basis. Accordingly, when he reverts to the strategy of protecting his daughter from the outside world, he resorts to what is essentially a strategy of self-defense, but one that is no less understandable, for all that. Krespel acts quite correctly, however, when he tries to protect Antonie from both her fiancé and the narrator Theodor. Even though he is prepared to make some concessions to their youth and lack of experience, the fact is that both of them act primarily out of self-interest: Er sprach mit dem Bräutigam, aber unerachtet dieser versicherte, daß nie ein Ton über Antoniens Lippen gehen solle, so wußte der Rat doch wohl, daß selbst B . . . nicht der Versuchung würde widerstehen können, Antonien singen zu hören, wenigstens von ihm selbst komponierte Arien. (SW III, 48)

Indeed, the narrator himself admits that: Natürlicherweise hörte ich auch sogleich in der folgenden Nacht Antoniens wunderbaren Gesang, und da sie mich in einem herrlichen Adagio (lächerlicherweise kam es mir vor, als hätte ich es selbst komponiert) auf das rührendste beschwor, sie zu retten, so war ich bald entschlossen, [. . .] die Königin des Gesanges aus schmachvollen Banden zu befreien. (SW III, 37)

He goes on to add: “Mit den Hindernissen, die der Rat mir entgegenstellte, wuchs mein Mut sie zu übersteigen, ich mußte Antoniens Gesang hören, um nicht in Träumen und Ahnungen dieses Gesanges zu verschwimmen” (SW III, 39). What both her young admirers want is to satisfy their own desires; neither shows the slightest concern for Antonie’s well-being. They are two typical products of their bourgeois upbringing, interested only in the completed work of art, the finished product that is Antonie’s voice; neither has any real appreciation of the subtleties of either art or human psychology for which reason alone they 8 have little or nothing in common with Krespel.

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Unlike Antonie’s fiancé and the narrator — neither of whom really changes during the course of the novella — Krespel does develop as a result of his experiences. At the end of the novella, Krespel regains a sense of peace: he can now accept Antonie’s death because he knows that her brief life was lived to the fullest. Although he is grief-stricken and mourns her in his own peculiar manner — “Da sang der Rat nach einer schauerlich lustigen Melodie, indem er wieder auf einem Fuße herumsprang” (SW III, 42) — her death brings home to him the realization that all human endeavor is finite. It is this that the artist experiences both in his inability to capture the Ideal perfectly in his art and in his inability to conquer death. Accordingly, he comes to accept the inescapable fact of human existence. It is for this reason that he exclaims: “nun bin ich frei — frei — frei!” (42). He is free because, having accepted the predicament of mankind and that 9 of the artist, he can accept his daughter’s death. Krespel’s sense of release comes from the knowledge that he had no choice but to give his child the freedom to determine her own life. This is what the Professor recognizes when he tells the narrator: “Was aus der Erde steigt, gibt er [Krespel] wieder der Erde, aber das Göttliche weiß er zu bewahren; und so steht es mit seinem inneren Bewußtsein recht gut, glaub ich, unerachtet der scheinbaren nach außen herausspringenden Tollheit” (43). Krespel’s sense of the divine, “das Göttliche,” comes from the inner conviction and tranquility with which he contemplates human existence once he has recognized the true significance of his daughter’s death, a death that is symbolic of the transitory nature of all acts of human and artistic creation. He acknowledges that the appropriate response is not resignation in the face of the inevitability of death, but rather the recognition of the importance of leading a creative and fulfilled life, and of the need to regard each successive defeat as an opportunity to make a fresh start in every sense. It is this insight that prompts him to stop making violins from this point on: “Heisa frei! — nun bau ich keine Geigen mehr — keine Geigen mehr — heisa keine Geigen mehr” (SW III, 42). It is no gesture of resignation, nor is it evidence that he believes his efforts as an artist/violin-maker have been in vain; rather, it is part of a process of development spanning his active existence as a creative artist continually on the look-out for new artistic challenges and which comes to a natural end when he abandons this in favor of a life of artistic contemplation. The lesson that Krespel learns from Antonie’s death releases him from his hitherto insatiable compulsion to produce new works of art and allows him to embark upon a contemplative life. He exchanges his former life of art and eros for an ascetic life of the word and intellect. The state of self-knowledge that comes with Antonie’s death transforms his approach

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to life. Interestingly, most of the critics who refer to the transformation 10 that takes place in Krespel view it wholly negatively. But this view can only be supported if Krespel is deemed responsible, either directly or indirectly, for his daughter’s death, a reading of the story that assumes that Hoffmann’s novella is indeed a tragedy.

Antonie The truth is, however, that far from being responsible for her death, Krespel did all he could to prolong her life, albeit against his better judgement. In fact Antonie, as a symbol of aesthetic perfection, is doomed from the outset. Indeed the reader cannot fail to notice that Hoffmann emphasizes her symbolic attributes over her feminine qualities. In this respect, there is a marked contrast between her and her mother: “Alle Liebenswürdigkeit, alle Anmut Angelas wurde Antonien zuteil, der aber die häßliche Kehrseite ganz fehlte. Es gab kein zweideutig Pferdefüßchen, das hin und wieder hervorgucken konnte” (SW III, 47). There are constant references throughout the story to the beauty of Antonie’s voice, a matter on which, for once, Krespel and the narrator agree together with all who hear her sing: “Nachtigallwirbel” (36), “die ganz wunderherrliche Stimme” (36), “der süßeste Zauber” (36), “den ganz eigenen tief in das Innerste dringenden Vortrag” (36), “Königin des Gesanges” (37), “Schmettern der Nachtigall” (48), “Die Töne schienen nicht Raum haben zu können in der menschlichen Brust” (48). But the perfection of Antonie’s artistry, which enthralls all who hear it, has another dimension to it: according to the Romantic notion of art, 11 where there is perfection, death cannot be far off. Antonie embodies the perfect synthesis of the Ideal and material world and for this reason her death is not only inevitable, but to be expected. Of her it can truly be said: “Wen die Götter lieben, der stirbt jung.” Significantly, Krespel recognizes this proximity of beauty and death even before he receives the doctor’s diagnosis; although Antonie’s singing fills him with “wonnetrunkene Begeisterung” (48), he is sure that so much perfect beauty must inevitably herald disaster: Krespel schwamm erst in Entzücken, dann wurde er nachdenklich — still — in sich gekehrt. Endlich sprang er auf, drückte Antonien an seine Brust, und bat leise und stumpf: “Nicht mehr singen, wenn du mich liebst — es drückt mir das Herz ab — die Angst — die Angst — nicht mehr singen.” (48)

As the story shows, his premonition of an impending catastrophe is quite justified.

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Antonie’s death, which Krespel experiences in the form of a vision, also has a special symbolic character. This death is full of Romantic symbolism: the realms of art and love are fused as, released from the bonds of her earthly existence, Antonie crosses the threshold into eternity: “In der Begeisterung des Vernichtens offenbart sich zuerst der Sinn göttlicher Schöpfung. Nur in der Mitte des Todes entzündet sich der Blitz des 12 ewigen Lebens.” Hoffmann portrays Antonie’s rapturous entry into the transcendent world as an eagerly awaited act of redemption: “Sie lag mit geschlossenen Augen, mit holdselig lächelndem Blick, die Hände fromm gefaltet, auf dem Sofa, als schliefe sie, und träume von Himmelswonne und Freudigkeit. Sie war aber tot” (SW III, 51). Moreover, the fact that Krespel’s daughter is so tranquil and composed in death is further evidence against those who would hold him responsible for her demise. For his part, Krespel does not experience her death simply as a catastrophe; in his vision he senses that what has happened is something more than just the abrupt end of a young life. He observes: “unbegreiflich sei der Zustand gewesen, in dem er sich befunden, denn eine entsetzliche Angst habe sich gepaart mit nie gefühlter Wonne” (SW III, 50). It is not possible to interpret these words as a sign that Krespel is secretly relieved — or even pleased — that Antonie is dead, especially when we recall that, in the case of Angela, he was quite willing to admit that he felt a sense of relief at the news of her death. There his reaction was described by the narrator as follows: “war es ihm [Krespel] doch bald, als sei ein störendes unheimliches Prinzip aus seinem Leben gewichen, und er könne nun erst recht frei atmen” (47). His open admission of relief at the death of the more earthly Angela — a sentiment that is perhaps out of place, but no less honest for that — has nothing in common with the feelings of fear (“Angst”) and ecstasy (“Wonne”) that he experiences when Antonie dies. These two contradictory emotions show Krespel the father overwhelmed with anxiety at the prospect of losing his child, and Krespel the artist/philosopher who knows that Antonie, the very embodiment of artistic perfection, must perish. It is for this reason that Antonie’s death is more than just a tragic occurrence, but has a symbolic value too. As Wulf Segebrecht observes: Der Tod behält nicht das letzte Wort, nicht in Hoffmanns Geschichtsauffassung und noch weniger in seiner Dichtung; denn die Darstellungen der Todessehnsucht selbst richten sich, weil sie sich der Kunst verpflichtet wissen, auf das Leben. Der Tod ist bei Hoffmann Thema, 13 nicht Ziel der Dichtung.

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It is a mark of Krespel’s wisdom and far-sightedness that he recognizes the necessity of his daughter’s death, and far from succumbing to grief, he carries on living, even if he has exchanged his former life of artistic creativity for a new life of contemplation. There is further evidence that Antonie is first and foremost a symbolic figure in the way she identifies herself with the violin: “Ach, das bin ja ich — ich singe ja wieder” (SW III, 50). The fusion of woman and instrument, of artist and Ideal, symbolizes the synthesis of the metaphysical and earthly worlds. Krespel too senses the special significance of the bond between Antonie and that “wunderbare Geige” (50) before actually acknowledging this to himself. Although he normally has no qualms about dismantling any instrument, in this particular instance he feels inhibited and cannot bring himself to set to work on this particular violin: Als der Rat jene wunderbare Geige [. . .] gekauft hatte und zerlegen wollte, blickte ihn Antonie wehmütig an, und sprach leise bittend: “Auch diese?” — Der Rat wußte selbst nicht, welche unbekannte Macht ihn nötigte, die Geige unzerschnitten zu lassen. (50)

Finally, we should note that Krespel and Antonie are also bound up in a unique, dynamic relationship. For a brief moment, Antonie embodies the Romantic dream of a perfect synthesis of the real and the Ideal. Krespel sees himself as confronted with this particular phenomenon, primarily in his capacity as an artist, although he is, of course, her father and as such emotionally involved in her fate. In spite of this however, he recognizes 14 the essential artificiality of Antonie’s being. He resists the temptation to try to cling on to this Ideal — a course of action that would inevitably bring about his downfall — and retains his status as a self-determining individual with both feet firmly planted in the real world. For this reason it is impossible to regard Krespel as a tragic figure; he has more in common with a critical, reflective artist than with a Romantic artist filled with longing whose downfall is brought about by the impossibility of bringing about a synthesis between the transcendent world of the Ideal and the world of reality. Thus it is fitting that the narrator asks Krespel to enlighten him after Antonie has died — a request which Krespel is happy to fulfill. He recognizes the real significance of all that has happened; he knows not only the precise chronology of events, but also understands their symbolic significance. Krespel complies with the narrator’s request not as a broken individual full of remorse, but as a human being filled with hope and confidence: “und führte mich an das Fenster, beide Flügel öffnend. Mit aufgestützten Armen legte er sich hinaus, und so in den Garten herabblikkend erzählte er mir die Geschichte seines Lebens” (SW III, 44).

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Notes 1

Thus James M. McGlathery, for instance, regards Krespel as a jealous tyrant with latent incestuous desires: “Krespel’s concern for his daughter’s health is subconsciously motivated by incestuous jealousy.” See James M. McGlathery, “‘Der Himmel hängt ihm voller Geigen’: E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Rat Krespel, Die Fermate, and Der Baron von B,” GQ 51 (1978): 135–49 (137). However, it goes without saying that this type of interpretation not only presupposes a wholly uncritical acceptance of some of the more questionable aspects of Freudian theory, but suffers from the defect that its conclusions hold, irrespective of what is actually in the text. Susanne Asche, Brigitte Prutti, and Gabriele Brandstetter adopt a similar approach. See Susanne Asche, Die Liebe, der Tod und das Ich im Spiegel der Kunst: Die Funktion des Weiblichen in Schriften der Frühromantik und im erzählerischen Werk E. T. A. Hoffmanns (Königstein: Hain, 1985), 113– 20; Brigitte Prutti, “Kunstgeheimnis und Interpretation in E. T. A. Hoffmanns Erzählung Rat Krespel,” Seminar 28 (1992): 33–45; and Gabriele Brandstetter, “‘Die Stimme und das Instrument’ — Mesmerismus als Poetik in E. T. A. Hoffmanns Rat Krespel,” in Jaques Offenbachs “Hoffmanns Erzählungen.” Konzeption, Rezeption, Dokumentation, ed. Gabriele Brandstetter (Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 1987), 15–39. All three of the above concentrate on the relationship between Antonie’s femininity and her death, and see this as caused by Krespel’s sexually motivated oppression of her. 2

Gisela Vitt-Maucher sees Krespel’s explanation of Antonie’s death quite simply as “a metaphorically disguised confession of guilt,” whereas Wolfgang Wittkowski and Lothar Pikulik take a more complex view of the matter, drawing a distinction between an existential/metaphysical form of guilt, on the one hand, and a real sense of personal culpability on the other. See Gisela Vitt-Maucher, “Hoffmanns Rat Krespel und der Schlafrock Gottes,” Monatshefte 64 (1972): 51–57 (51); Wolfgang Wittkowski, “E. T. A. Hoffmanns Musikalische Musikerdichtungen Ritter Gluck, Don Juan, Rat Krespel,” Aurora 38 (1978): 54–74 (68); and Lothar Pikulik, E. T. A. Hoffmann als Erzähler: Ein Kommentar zu den “Serapionsbrüdern” (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987), 66. 3 Klaus Deterding, for example, regards Krespel as a tragic figure and accounts for his tragic status in terms of his failure to recognize the true nature of art: “Der Rat verwechselt den Geist der Kunst mit ihrer konkreten Gestalt, dem Instrument, und er verwechselt die Idee des Ideals mit seinem Besitz.” Accordingly, he claims that Krespel’s tragic predicament is a reflection of the impossibility of embodying the Ideal (“Sinn”) in a material form (“Materie”) and of his failure to appreciate the true significance of Romantic irony. See Klaus Deterding, Die Poetik der inneren und äußeren Welt bei E. T. A. Hoffmann (Frankfurt: Lang, 1991), 178. John Ellis, draws the reader’s attention to Krespel’s “possessiveness” (though without interpreting this in sexual terms) and concludes that Kresepl is “a vulnerable, sensitive man,” who suffers from “personal insecurity.” See John M. Ellis, Narration in the German Novelle: Theory and Interpretation (Cambridge: CUP, 1974), 112. The tragic predicament of the artist who has to find a compromise between the Ideal and the real — “how can the pure form, the inner secret of art, be externalized for an unsympathetic, unperceiving audience?” (60) — is the central issue tackled by La Vern J. Rippley, “The House as Metaphor in E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Rat Krespel,” Papers on Language and Literature 7 (1971): 52–60.

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Although critics are divided over the extent to which Krespel can be seen to fail, Horst Daemmrich and Wulf Segebrecht still regard the councilor as a tragic hero. See Horst Daemmrich, The Shattered Self (Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1973), 47–53; and Wulf Segebrecht, Autobiographie und Dichtung (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1967), 134 and 169–70. Perhaps the most positive reading of the story is that offered by Benno von Wiese who, although he places what he terms as the “unvermeidliche Duplizität” — the impossibility of realizing the Ideal in the real world — at the forefront of his interpretation, does not claim that this must necessarily bring about Krespel’s downfall. Likewise, he takes a positive view of the relationship between Krespel and his daughter Antonie: “Krespel ist es, der den schmalen Lebensraum des zur Schönheit bestimmten Mädchens abschirmt und vor der völligen Zerstörung bewahrt. Nicht als böser Zauberer, als Tyrann oder als alternder Liebhaber hat Krespel [. . .] an Antonie gehandelt, sondern als liebevoller Vater.” See Benno von Wiese, Die deutsche Novelle von Goethe bis Kafka (Düsseldorf: Bagel, 1965), 98. Despite his insightful approach to the story, von Wiese only touches upon a number of crucial issues, such as why Krespel dismantles the violins and why he destroys the violin bow after Antonie’s death. 4

See Asche, 116–17, and Prutti, 40.

5

Pikulik interprets this act, quite correctly in my opinion, as a “Symbol eines faustischen Dranges: zu wissen, was die Welt im Innersten zusammenhält” (Pikulik, E. T. A. Hoffmann als Erzähler, 65), whereas Prutti regards it as “ein[en] destruktiv[en] Akt und im ganzen gesehen ein enttäuschendes Unterfangen” (Prutti, 35). 6

See Rippley, 56: “An artist must sing, play, or perform if he is to be an artist.”

7

See Karl Ludwig Schneider, “Künstlerliebe und Philistertum im Werk E. T. A. Hoffmanns,” in Die Deutsche Romantik: Poetik, Formen und Motive, ed. Hans Steffen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, & Ruprecht, 1970), 200–19: “Der Philister [. . .] ist eigentlich kein furioser Feind der Kunst. Er weiß sie vielmehr als Mittel der Zerstreuung und Entspannung wohl zu schätzen. Gerade das aber macht ihn zu einem besonders gefährlichen Antagonisten des Künstlers. Der Philister denkt zwar nicht daran, die Kunst aus der Welt zu verbannen, wohl aber entweiht er sie durch seinen Utilitarismus” (209–10). 8

Prutti’s explicitly Freudian approach forces her to see all three male figures as guilty of denying Antonie the opportunity to demonstrate her feminine autonomy: “Die ödipale Konkurrenz zwischen ‘Vater’ und ‘Sohn’ — zwischen Krespel und dem Erzähler als Spiegelbild des jungen Komponisten B . . . — erwächst aus Dominanzund Beherrschungsphantasien, die alle männlichen Figuren mit Ausnahme des Professors in Bezug auf Antonie teilen” (36). 9 For this reason I cannot agree with Ellis when he claims that: “In spite of his love for her, he [Krespel] has felt constantly threatened by her presence.” See Ellis, Narration in the German Novelle, 110. 10

See Deterding: “Das Zerbrechen des Violinbogens ist der letzte Akt und der ins äußerste getriebene ‘Selbstbeweis,’ daß und warum sein [Krespels] Leben in der Kunst als ein nicht gelungenes anzusehen ist [. . .] Krespel ist befreit vom Bann jener Art von Kunst, die er ausübte und die nicht die rechte und wahre Kunst gewesen ist” (175). Deterding takes a negative view of Krespel’s decision to stop making violins. Although he interprets it — quite correctly in my view — as evidence of an insight on Krespel’s part, he regards this as the realization that his life as an artist has been

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in vain. Deterding sees it as an end rather than as part of an on-going process of development. Daemmrich arrives at an equally negative conclusion when he remarks that: “The discovery he [Krespel] made frees him, but simultaneously shatters his world” (52). Vitt-Maucher also draws, in my view, the erroneous conclusion that: “Krespel erkennt seine Mittelmäßigkeit als Künstler” (57). 11

There are a number of striking parallels between Hoffmann’s Antonie and more general theories of Romanticism — at least in respect to the close relationship between perfection and death. In his concept of “progressive Universalpoesie” (KA II, 182, §116) Friedrich Schlegel argues that the attempt to capture the Ideal in art is a neverending process and that perfection in the real, material world is unattainable. Only through death can the barrier between the finite and the infinite worlds be transcended, and for this reason death is — to use the phrase coined by Schleiermacher — defined as “Einheit in der Vielheit,” that is, as “eins werden mit dem Unendlichen.” See Friedrich Schleiermacher, “Über die Religion,” SFSW I, 259 and 263. Since the opposition between art (Ideal) and the individual (material reality) is already prefigured in Antonie before her death, she is not of this world and is bound to die. 12 KA II, 269, §131. 13

Wulf Segebrecht, “Hoffmanns Todesdarstellungen,” in E. T. A. Hoffmann, ed. Helmut Prang (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1976), 322–34 (331–32). 14

Although Antonie’s artificiality is not as obvious as that of Olimpia in Der Sandmann or “der redende Türke” in Die Automate (both of whom are ultimately revealed to be machines), Antonie cannot be regarded as a human being pure and simple. Indeed her curious illness — her “Behinderung” — in which death and singing are inextricably linked is sufficient to call into question her human status.

Conclusions — nie muß der Kopf dem Herzen schaden, nie muß aber auch das Herz dem Kopfe davon laufen — das nenne ich Bildung! — 1

I

that I have analyzed here, there are a wide range of complex dilemmas arising out of the interaction between the artist, the work of art, and the recipient of that work of art. Since Hoffmann believes that art is inextricably bound up with society, we are presented with an additional set of complex relationships that spring from the tension between aesthetic and social considerations, many of which are closely bound up with questions of gender. It is clear that if a genuine synthesis of artist, audience, and work of art is to be brought about, then both socio-political and aesthetic factors will play a vital role. In a world where philistinism prevails and art is seen as little more than a decorative accessory, the Romantic artist’s struggle to express the object of his longing is liable to be greeted with either incomprehension or, at worst, complete contempt. This drives the artist to adopt a series of increasingly extreme positions that can soon lead to catastrophe, be it madness, death, or both. In the case of Nathanael in Der Sandmann, and Cardillac in Das Fräulein von Scuderi, the lack of understanding shown by society — whether this society is represented by the artist’s beloved, Clara, or by the aristocratic courtiers — drives the artist to the verge of madness and triggers a series of violent acts of a criminal or quasicriminal kind: Cardillac murders the aristocrats who see his pieces of jewelery as mere commodities with which they can obtain the favors of a lady; Nathanael attempts (albeit unsuccessfully) to throw Clara from the tower and then resorts to the one final, desperate measure open to him when he commits suicide by jumping from it himself. It would be wrong, however, to assume that Hoffmann, whose sympathies clearly lie with both of these tragic figures, is anxious to absolve either from his moral responsibilities. No matter how desperate their situation may be, and no matter how much the public’s lack of interest may exacerbate their sense of desperation, this in itself is not sufficient to justify their criminal behavior. Through his characterization of Cardillac and Nathanael, Hoffmann shows the reader how dangerous it can be when the N THE NOVELLAS

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gulf between the artist and his largely ignorant audience becomes too wide; this can and will lead to catastrophe. The desperate artist pays with his life, but society loses too, for by ignoring the potential of art, its members deprive themselves of a rich source of ideas and new impulses, and thereby lose sight of the possibility of genuine individual fulfillment. Again and again in his Künstlernovellen, stories, fairy-tales, and essays, Hoffmann depicts the emptiness and boredom of the philistine world, peopled by those who lack almost all the qualities that make up a human being in the full sense of the term. In this context, we might recall Friedrich Schlegel’s observation: “Jeder ungebildete Mensch ist die 2 Karikatur von sich selbst.” But if society ignores art at its peril, so too the artist who turns his back on the material world of reality and loses himself in a metaphysical realm of aesthetics puts himself in danger. If he or she falls into this trap (in the way the singer playing the part of Donna Anna in Don Juan does) then the production of works of art, which can, of course, only be made manifest in a material form, is no longer possible. Clearly, it is one of Hoffmann’s main aims to arouse the reader’s sympathy for the artist’s (Donna Anna’s) total commitment to art (music); although the reader may share the narrator’s awe of the sublime grandeur of Donna Anna’s self-destruction in the pursuit of a metaphysical ideal, in the end there is only death. This may be seen as a sublime individual Romantic act; however it is one that runs directly contrary to the artist’s true goal, which is to help art to blossom in the temporal world. Donna Anna’s predicament, like those of the other female figures in the Künstlernovellen dealt with here, is symptomatic of a purely aesthetic dilemma that has little or nothing to do with the social reality of the temporal world. But Donna Anna is more than a Romantic artist doomed to come to a tragic end on account of her total commitment to her art. To the narrator she embodies the Ideal in female form, in which respect she resembles a number of Hoffmann’s female characters: Felizitas in Der Artushof, Zulema/Julia in Das Sanctus, Angiola T. in Die Jesuiterkirche in G., Lauretta and Teresina in Die Fermate, Antonie in Rat Krespel, and Olimpia in Der Sandmann. Even Madelon in Das Fräulein von Scuderi might be numbered amongst such characters on the grounds that both her father and Olivier idealize her. Strictly speaking though, they see her as the embodiment not of an artistic ideal, but of an ideal of virginal innocence and feminine virtue. We have already seen the problems that accrue when women are idealized in this way; they affect not only the idealized female object but also her male admirer. In the most extreme case, the idealized woman, who by definition cannot be identical with

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the Ideal itself, is held responsible when she fails to live up to the expectations of her male admirer. In this situation, either the male artist, who refuses to recognize that he has fallen prey to delusions that are solely of his own making, resorts to violence in order to punish woman for her “failings,” such as Berthold in Die Jesuiterkirche in G.; or the woman in question is subjected to such strain that the only release is death, as we see with Zulema/Julia in Das Sanctus. A further option remains open to the embittered and frustrated male artist and that is to adopt an attitude of cynicism and to hold woman responsible for her alleged shortcomings, a tactic that the narrator in Die 3 Fermate adopts. But whenever the male artist, attempting to draw closer to the Ideal, turns his back on reality and seeks the fulfillment of his longing in an idealized image of woman, the warning signs are clearly visible — though often the male artist/partner chooses to ignore them — and, more often than not, catastrophe is just around the corner. However, this dilemma is not simply a consequence of the irreconcilable conflict between the metaphysical Ideal and the prosaic reality of the material world; social factors play a crucial role. It is not only the Romantic artist who sees woman in terms of certain preconceived notions. The philistine too endorses certain conventional notions of femininity that are current in patriarchal society and looks to woman to fulfil these, And although a patriarchal society may make demands on men, these demands are clearly not of the same order as the ones made on women. Women can find themselves with two — contradictory — roles thrust upon them: in her capacity as the artist’s muse, woman is entrusted with the task of redeeming the male artist by embodying an ideal of art; and in her capacity as a wife and mother, woman’s role is to shoulder the burden of caring for her family. In both cases, however, woman can only carve out a sense of identity for herself in terms of her allotted roles and has little or no chance to develop an autonomous personality free from the constraints of a male-dominated society. Hoffmann though does not leave us with only a series of catastrophic relationships and tragic figures doomed to fail. In the Künstlernovellen, he shows us a number of positive images of the artist, figures who undergo an often painful process of self-development, but who emerge having come to terms with themselves, without having rejected their artistic calling, or succumbed to the temptation to abandon art altogether and join the ranks of the philistines. By adopting a position of ironic detachment, the central character in Rat Krespel is able to endure — and benefit from — a cathartic process that is triggered by Antonie’s death. In Der Artushof, Traugott finally discovers true happiness

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once he recognizes that he had been mistaken in thinking Felizitas was the embodiment of the Ideal, and instead of cursing her, he comes to recognize that it is he — and not she — who has been responsible for the delusion. This insight enables him to recognize the qualities of a real woman (Dorina), and with her he continues to follow his artistic calling. To a certain extent, both Bettina in Das Sanctus and Florian in Die Jesuiterkirche in G. (another figure all too often ignored in the secondary literature) are also positive artistic figures. In Das Sanctus, Bettina undergoes a process of development, albeit with the help of the Enthusiast, whose account of the story of Zulema/Julia reflects her own dilemma and acts as a therapeutic device. Nonetheless, it is she herself who makes the journey to self-discovery and thereby rejects her society’s view that art is simply something that can be exploited to bolster the prevailing ideology. Florentin manages to engage in art and create pictures of high artistic merit, but he does so without a constant inner struggle and without losing his pleasure in life. Hoffmann’s characters display a broad spectrum of human behavior; he depicts their foibles with a delicious irony that is present in so many of his works; subtle descriptions of character, which range from the Romantic artist in the grip of an obsessive longing to the utterly bourgeois philistine at the other. Hoffmann’s own Romantic tendencies are evident in the way he contemplates the possibility of a metaphysical Ideal (with all the positive and negative implications that that entails), as well as in his disparaging view of those of an extreme philistine disposition. Be that as it may, he makes the point again and again that the world of art is not a remote region accessible only to other Romantic artists who have turned their backs on the world of reality. If some of his figures do experience defeat, then the reasons for this can be traced to a number of diverse causes: distorted social norms, problems of gender relations, a false conception of Romantic longing, and a Romantic attitude to life that is limitless and absolute, which gives rise to a feeling of constant melancholy and can only lead to the abyss. Hoffmann is also searching for a better world, one where there would be more opportunity for art to realize its full potential. However, instead of despairing at the apparent irreconcilability of two diametrically opposed worlds, he seeks out points where they coincide. Often this search is fruitless, but there are moments when, much to his delight, such instances can be found. These moments are not to be understood as fixed, unchanging states, but as part of an on-going dynamic process that each individual must continue to rediscover for himself. The same applies to us as readers of Hoffmann’s texts. We are continually required

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to engage with the artistic dilemmas with which we are presented, and this is made possible by the way that, for Hoffman, art and life are so closely bound up with each other. Such dilemmas are not simply philosophical-aesthetic problems enacted in a transcendent metaphysical realm, but are always inextricably bound up with the everyday lives of ordinary human beings of flesh and blood. Although Hoffmann was fascinated by Romantic notions and theories, he retains a skeptical attitude towards an unbridled Romanticism and continually warns us against giving in to the temptation to embrace any such tendency. This is not to say that he believed it was impossible to produce a form of Romantic art in the temporal world. For Hoffmann, art, no less than life, is a challenge, and far from advocating despair, he exhorts the individual to recognize the limitless possibilities of such a challenge and to recognize that, as human beings, we could — and should — make use of our potential both as individuals and as members of society as a whole: “Der 4 Mensch soll etwas sein und tun.”

Notes 1

Briefwechsel I, 51 (12 December 1794).

2

KA II, 174, §63.

3

There are a number of obvious parallels here with Biblical images of femininity. Although the Virgin Mary is consistently presented as a dazzling image of feminine innocence, the story of Genesis underlines how all women are condemned to share Eve’s guilt for her part in bringing about the Fall of Man — and how all women are, by definition as it were, marked by guilt and incapable of resisting temptation. 4

See Johann Gottlieb Fichte, “Über das Wesen des Gelehrten,” FW V, 38.

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Index Althoff, Gabriele, 140 n. 3 Annuß, Evelyn, 74 n. 10 Apel, Friedmar, 92 n. 3 Aristotle, 52, 56 n. 21 Arx, Bernhard von, 139 n. 2 Asche, Susanne, 166 n. 1, 167 n. 4 Auhuber, Friedhelm, 72 n. 2, 73 n. 4, 142, 150, 151 n. 1, 152 n. 12 Beardsley, Monroe, 13, 32 n. 12 Becker-Cantarino, Barbara, 35 n. 60 Belgardt, Rainer, 72 n. 3 Berklinger, Godofredus, 115 Berlin, Isaiah, 22, 33 n. 33 Bernhardi, August Ferdinand, 33 n. 34 Böhme, Hartmut, 74 n. 8 Boethius, 132 Bovenschen, Silvia, 74 n. 10 Brandstetter, Gabriele, 166 n. 1 Brantly, Susan, 72 n. 2, 74 n. 8 Bremer, Dieter, 140 n. 3 Brentano, Clemens, works by: Die lustigen Musikanten, 33 n. 36 Büchner, Georg, works by: Woyzeck, 34 n. 44 Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 129 Cadot, Michel, 92 n. 1 Castein, Hanne, 73 n. 4 Catholicism, 14 Chamisso, Adelbert von, 33 n. 34 Cherry, Christopher, 73 n. 4 Cixous, Hélène, 74 n. 10 Daemmrich, Horst, 167 n. 3, 168 n. 10

Deterding, Klaus, 139 n. 1, 140 n. 4, 141 n. 8, 166 n. 3, 167 n. 10 Dickson, Sheila, 4, 5, 9 nn. 17, 18, 17, 55 nn. 6, 9 Diebitz, Stefan, 104 n. 2 Dieckmann, Friedrich, 140 n. 3 Dierkes, Hans, 32 n. 10 Dieterle, Bernhard, 105, 124 n. 4 Dobat, Klaus-Dieter, 140 n. 3 Doerffer, Wilhelmine, Constantine, 25 Eckermann, Johann Peter, 8 n. 2 Egli, Gustav, 1 Eichendorff, Joseph von, 5, 29 Eichendorff, Joseph von, works by: Ahnung und Gegenwart, 29; Das Marmorbild, 29 Ellinger, Georg, 1, 8 nn. 3, 4 Ellis, John, 9 n. 16, 54 n. 3, 72 n. 4, 73 n. 4, 75 nn. 11, 14, 166 n. 3, 167 n. 9 Enlightenment, 10, 18, 24, 75 n. 12, 81 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 10, 26, 31 n. 3, 173 n. 4 Freud, Sigmund, 3, 8 n. 14, 71 n. 2 Fühmann, Franz, 3, 8 n. 9 Gendolla, Peter, 73 n. 4 German Idealism, 10–17 Givone, Sergio, 33 n. 40 Gnüg, Hildegard, 140 n. 3 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1, 8 n. 2 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, works by: Wilhelm Meister, 16

190 E

INDEX

Graepel, Johann Gerhard, 105 Der grundgescheute Antiquarius, 8 n. 3 Hackert, Philipp, 91, 93 n. 13 Härtling, Peter, 34 n. 49 Härtling, Peter, works by: Hoffmann oder die vielfältige Liebe, 34 n. 49 Harich, Walter, 1, 8 n. 5, 34 n. 49 Hartung, Günter, 72 n. 2 Hatt, Dorothea, 25 Hayes, Charles, 73 n. 4 Hegel, Georg Friedrich Wilhelm, 10–12, 32 nn. 4, 5 Heilborn, Ernst, 1 Heine, Heinrich, 25, 34 n. 47 Herzog, M., 55 nn. 4, 6 Hilscher, Eberhard, 73 n. 4 Himmel, Hellmuth, 54 n. 3 Hippel, Theodor Gottlieb, 33 n. 29 Hitzig, Julius Eberhard, 35 n. 72 Hoffmann, Ernst Fedor, 72 n. 2, 73 n. 4 Hoffmann, Ernst Theodor Wilhelm (Amadeus), concepts relating to the works of: artistic creativity, 5–7, 21–23, 26–27, 39, 44–45, 49–53, 57–60, 62, 64, 75 n. 16, 80–85, 88, 89–91, 96, 116– 23, 131–32, 137–38, 150– 51, 154, 157–59, 162, 169, 171–72 death, 88, 93 n. 10, 124 n. 10, 130, 136–37, 156, 162–65, 170 gender, 6, 26, 28–29, 47–49, 56 nn. 17, 18, 61–62, 74 n. 9, 86–87, 93 n. 8, 97–103, 114–16, 120–21, 124 n. 12, 125 n. 17, 132, 143–48, 150–51, 152 n. 7, 161, 165, 170, 172, 173 n. 3

human psychology, 24–25, 34 n. 45, 46–49, 53, 56 n. 11, 63, 66 irrationality, 67–70, 116, 130 Italy, 79, 84–85, 94–96, 106– 7, 134 justice, 24–25, 41–43, 52–53 law, 19–25 literary influences, 10, 31 n. 1 love, 6, 25–31, 47, 50–51, 54, 59–64, 75 n. 16, 96–99, 102, 110–15, 117–18, 123, 132, 145–47, 160 madness, 30, 34 n. 44, 57, 63, 65 marriage, 26–27, 30, 69, 107, 110, 113–14, 116, 119, 158 morality, 19–20, 24, 45–47, 50, 52–53 music, 12–13, 21, 23, 95–96, 99, 130–31, 134–35, 137– 38, 140 n. 5, 142–50, 152 n. 6, 157, 165 painting, 82, 85–90, 94, 104 n. 4, 115–17, 120, 125 n. 15, 137, 150, 152 n. 4, 159–61, 169, 170, 172 philistinism, 2, 6, 19, 21–22, 43, 45, 60–61, 69, 107–11, 118, 132–34, 136–37, 151, 158, 171 predestination, 45–46, 168 n. 11 pursuit of the Ideal, 25–31, 50, 69, 73 nn. 5, 18, 81, 83–91, 97, 99, 100–105, 108, 111, 114, 120–22, 133–38, 147, 157–60, 163, 169, 170–71 society, 6, 21–24, 34 n. 46, 50, 71, 95–96, 100, 105, 151, 169, 171, 173 Hoffmann, Ernst Theodor Wilhelm (Amadeus), critical approaches to, 1–9, 18–19, 31– 36, 54–57, 71–75, 79, 92–93,

INDEX

103–6, 124–25, 129, 139–42, 150, 151–53, 166–68 Hoffmann, Ernst Theodor Wilhelm (Amadeus), works by: Der Artushof, 7, 23, 27–28, 34 n. 54, 35 n. 61, 93 nn. 8, 12, 94, 97, 102, 105–25, 170–71 Die Automate, 168 n. 14 Die Brautwahl, 27 Der Dichter und der Komponist, 142, 152 n. 9 Don Juan, 7, 17, 22, 28, 34 n. 54, 74 n. 9, 94, 129–41 Die Elixiere des Teufels, 29, 34 n. 45, 56 nn. 15, 17, 92 n. 2, 124 n. 10 Fantasie-und Nachtstücke, 7 Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier, 27 Die Fermate, 7, 27, 34 n. 54, 93 n. 8, 94–105, 170–71 Das Fräulein von Scuderi, 2, 6– 7, 17, 23, 39–56, 75 n. 18, 93 n. 9, 94, 169–70 Der goldne Topf, 27, 105 Die Jesuiterkirche in G., 2, 6–7, 23, 28, 34 n. 54, 56 n. 13, 57, 74 n. 9, 79–94, 97, 106, 124 nn. 10, 12, 17, 170, 171–72 Meister Floh, 34 n. 46 Nachtstücke, 79 Rat Krespel, 6–7, 23, 27, 34 n. 54, 56 n. 13, 57, 93 nn. 10, 12, 104 n. 5, 124 n. 12, 135, 170–71 Ritter Gluck, 142 Das Sanctus, 7, 17, 34 n. 54, 142–52, 170–72 Der Sandmann, 2, 4, 6–7, 20, 23, 27, 57–75, 93 n. 8, 94, 104 n. 3, 106, 124 n. 9, 152 n. 4, 168 n. 14, 169–70 Die Serapionsbrüder, 7, 17, 129

E 191

Hoffmann, Ernst Theodor Wilhelm (Amadeus), letters and diaries: Briefe, 33 nn. 29, 35, 36, 41, 124 n. 7, 173 n. 1 Tagebücher, 33 nn. 30, 32, 35 nn. 56, 62, 64, 65, 36 nn. 67–71 Holbeche, Yvonne, 54 n. 4, 55 nn. 6, 8 Homer, 1 Hummel, Johann Erdmann, 94, 97 Jahn, Friedrich Ludwig, 24 Jenaische Allgemeine LiteraturZeitung, 39, 54 n. 1 Jennings, Lee B., 72 n. 2 Jonson, Ben, 107 Kafka, Franz, 20 Kaiser, Gerhard, 33 n. 39 Kaiser, Hartmut, 140 n. 3 Kamla, Thomas A., 74 n. 8 Kamptz, Karl Albrecht von, 34 n. 46 Kant, Immanuel, 10, 24, 31 n. 3, 32 n. 4 Kanzog, Klaus, 55 n. 7 Keller, Jules, 92 n. 1 Kesting, Marianne, 105, 124 n. 3 Kleist, Heinrich von, 26, 30, 92 n. 5, 152 n. 6 Kleist, Heinrich von, works by: Brief eines jungen Dichters an einen jungen Maler, 92 n. 5; Die heilige Cäcilie oder die Gewalt der Musik, 152 n. 6; Das Käthchen von Heilbronn, 26 Kluckhohn, Paul, 34 n. 52, 35 n. 59 Koebner, Thomas, 73 n. 4 Köhn, Lothar, 73 n. 6 Kohlenbach, Margarete, 74 n. 10 Kohlhof, Sigrid, 8 n. 9 Kremer, Detlef, 71 n. 2

192 E

INDEX

Kreutzer, Joachim, 140 n. 3 Kühn, Sophie von, 35 n. 57 Kunz, Joseph, 5, 9 n. 19, 140 n. 3 Laußmann, Sabine, 142, 151 n. 2, 152 n. 10 Lee, Hyun-Sook, 103 n. 1 Lehmann, Hans-Thies, 72 n. 3 Liebrand, Claudia, 106, 124 n. 6 Loquai, Franz, 142, 150, 151 n. 1, 152 n. 12 Lukács, Georg, 2, 8 nn. 6, 9 Maassen, Carl Georg von, 1, 8 n. 3, 4 Mahlendorf, Ursula, 71 n. 2 Mann, Thomas, 29 Mann, Thomas, works by: Der Tod in Venedig, 29 Marc, Julia, 26, 28, 30–31, 34 n. 49, 35 nn. 62, 70, 105, 124 n. 2, 129, 139 n. 2 Matt, Peter von, 71 n. 2, 4, 106, 124 n. 6, 13 Mayer, Hans, 2, 8 n. 7 McGlathery, James M., 4, 8 n. 15, 71 n. 2, 72 n. 2, 166 n. 1 Meier, Albert, 139 n. 1 Menhennet, Alan, 72 n. 4, 73 n. 4 Merkl, Helmut, 71 n. 2 Molière, Jean-Baptiste, 107, 129 Momberger, Manfred, 3, 4, 8 n. 13 Motekat, Helmut, 72 n. 3 Motte Fouqué, Friedrich de la, 33 n. 34 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 129, 138 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, works by: Don Giovanni, 129 Müller, Hans von, 1, 8 n. 3 narrative structures, 4–5, 7, 16– 20, 23, 53, 70, 79, 80, 82, 92 n. 2, 94, 106, 119, 129, 133–34, 138, 173

Nehring, Wolfgang, 73 n. 6, 74 n. 8, 140 n. 3 Newmann, Gail M., 71 n. 2 Novalis (Georg Philipp Freiherr von Hardenberg), 14, 25, 26, 30, 32 n. 19, 35 nn. 57, 66, 45, 56 n. 12 Novalis (Georg Philipp Freiherr von Hardenberg), works by: Heinrich von Ofterdingen, 14; Hymnen an die Nacht, 35 n. 57 Obermeit, Werner, 75 n. 12 Orlowsky, Ursula, 72 n. 2 Pabst, Rainer, 73 n. 6 Patzelt, Johanna, 139 n. 2 Pikulik, Lothar, 55 n. 7, 104 n. 2, 106, 124 n. 6, 166 n. 2, 167 n. 5 Pix, Gunther, 105, 124 nn. 5, 19 Poe, Edgar Allan, 105 Post, Klaus D., 55 n. 5, 56 n. 18 Prawer, Siegbert, 71 n. 2 Preisendanz, Wolfgang, 72 n. 2, 75 n. 17 Prutti, Brigitte, 166 n. 1, 167 nn. 4, 5, 8 Raddatz, Fritz J., 105, 124 n. 2 Richter, Jean Paul Friedrich (Jean Paul), 26 Rippley, La Vern J., 166 n. 3, 167 n. 6 Romantic aesthetic theories, 10– 16, 18, 21–22, 27, 45, 49, 60, 92 n. 4–7, 119 Romantic Irony, 10, 14–16, 30, 87–89, 103, 113, 159 Romantic longing (Sehnsucht), 14–16, 27, 29–30, 85, 88, 96, 121–22, 132, 160, 169 Rorer-Trzcinska, Maria, 26, 30, 34 n. 49, 35 n. 64 Rosteutscher, Joachim, 105, 124 n. 1

INDEX

Roters, Eberhard, 35 n. 64 Safranski, Rüdiger, 3, 8 n. 12, 26, 33 nn. 37, 42, 34 n. 48 Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph, 10, 145, 152 n. 5 Scheyer, Ernst, 103 n. 2 Schiller, Friedrich, 93 n. 11 Schlegel, Friedrich, 5, 9 n. 20, 11–16, 26–28, 32 nn. 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 34 n. 53, 35 nn. 55, 58, 48, 56 nn. 16, 20, 92 n. 6, 122, 124 nn. 18, 20, 168 nn. 11, 12, 170, 173 n. 2 Schlegel, Friedrich, works by: Lucinde, 27 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 168 n. 11 Schmidt, Jochen, 72 n. 4, 73 n. 6 Schmidt, Ricarda, 74 n. 10 Schmolling, Daniel, 24, 34 n. 44 Schnapp, Friedrich, 33 n. 43, 35 n. 71 Schneider, Karl Ludwig, 167 n. 7 Schönherr, Ulrich, 142, 150, 151 n. 1, 152 n. 13 Schulz, Gerhard, 35 n. 57 Schweitzer, Christoph E., 103 n. 2 Segebrecht, Wulf, 3, 8 nn. 10, 11, 33 n. 37, 139 n. 2, 164, 167 n. 3, 168 n. 13 Sommerhage, Claus, 72 n. 3 Stadler, Ulrich, 73 n. 6 Steinecke, Hartmut, 34 n. 44, 71 n. 1 Süskind, Patrick, 55 n. 4 Süskind, Patrick, works by: Das Parfum, 55 n. 4 Swales, Martin, 139 n. 1 Tatar, Maria, 72 n. 2 Thalmann, Marianne, 54 n. 3

E 193

Tieck, Ludwig, 5, 16, 26, 32 n. 26, 33 n. 34, 124 n. 11 Tieck, Ludwig, works by: Herzensergießungen eines kunstliebenden Klosterbruders, 124 n. 11 Tirso de Molina, 129 Todorov, Tzvetan, 18, 32 n. 27 Trützschler u. Falkenstein, Friedrich von, 24 Varnhagen, Rahel, 39, 54 n. 1 Veit, Philipp, 33 n. 34 Vietta, Silvio, 72 n. 4, 73 n. 4 Vitt-Maucher, Gisela, 166 n. 2, 168 n. 10 Vogel, Nicolai, 72 n. 2 Voß, Heinrich, 1 Voß, Johann Heinrich, 1, 8 n. 1 Wackenroder, Wilhelm Heinrich, 5, 124 n. 11 Wackenroder, Wilhelm Heinrich, works by: Herzensergießungen eines kunstliebenden Klosterbruders, 124 n. 11 Wägenbaur, Birgit, 34 n. 51 Wagenknecht, David, 71 n. 2 Walter, Jürgen, 72 n. 3 Wandel, Gerhard, 139 n. 2 Weimar classicism, 10 Weinholz, Gerhard, 140 n. 6 Weiss, Hermann, 55 nn. 6, 8 Wellbery, David E., 139 n. 1, 140 n. 4 Wellenberger, Georg, 32 n. 18 Werner, Hans Georg, 2, 3, 8 nn. 8, 9, 33 n. 38, 124 n. 8 Whitinger, Raleigh G., 55 nn. 4, 6 Wiese, Benno von, 167 n. 3 Wittkowski, Wolfgang, 140 n. 3, 166 n. 2 Wright, Elizabeth, 72 n. 2 Ziolkowski, Theodore, 34 n. 44