E. T. A.

Hoffmann and the Serapiontic Principle

Critics have long sought to elucidate the multilayered texts of

E. T. A. Hoffmann by applying to them a particular set of
theories and ideas that Hoffmann himself subsumed under the
heading of the “Serapiontic Principle.” This principle, which
Hoffmann expounded in his collection of tales Die
Serapionsbrüder, involves a complex intersection of the artist’s
faculties of imagination and perception. However, Hoffmann’s
mode of presenting his theory presents an unusual problem:
rather than the usual form of an essay or treatise, he adopts a
fictional framework, complete with a set of “characters”; this in
turn sets up a number of perspectives on the theory itself. This
combination of literary and theoretical elements presents a
severe challenge to critics, and not surprisingly there has been
little agreement about what the “principle” actually entails or its
wider relevance. With the principle as prime focus, this book
provides detailed analysis of a broadly based selection of
Hoffmann’s texts, both theoretical and literary. It offers new
perspectives on his narrative invention and the range of his
theoretical interests, thus redefining his place at the forefront of
German Romanticism.

Hilda Meldrum Brown is professor of German at St Hilda’s

College, University of Oxford.
Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture
E.T. A. Hoffmann and the
Serapiontic Principle
Critique and Creativity

Hilda Meldrum Brown

CAMDEN HOUSE
 Copyright © 2006 Hilda Meldrum Brown

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First published 2006

by Camden House

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ISBN: 1–57113–348–8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Brown, H. M. (Hilda Meldrum)

E. T. A. Hoffmann and the Serapiontic principle: critique and
creativity / Hilda Meldrum Brown.
p. cm. — (Studies in German literature, linguistics, and culture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1–57113–348–8 (hardcover: alk. paper)
1. Hoffmann, E. T. A. (Ernst Theodor Amadeus), 1776–1822.
Serapions–Brüder 2. Hoffmann, E. T. A. (Ernst Theodor Amadeus),
1776–1822 — Technique. 3. Frame-stories — History and criticism.
I. Title. Series.
PT2360.S5B76 2006
833⬘.6–dc22
2006020518

Cover illustration: Einsiedler’s Gedanken, woodcut by Kaspar Oertel of

original drawing by Joseph Ritter von Führich. By kind permission of
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin-Preußischer Kulturbesitz.

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.

Disclaimer:
Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook.
To view these images please refer to the printed version of this book.
For ABZ
Contents
List of Illustrations viii
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
List of Abbreviations xiii
Introduction: Approaches to the Serapiontic Principle 1

Part 1
1: Overture: Jacques Callot 21
2: Der Einsiedler Serapion: The Formulation of a Principle 33
3: Der Dichter und der Komponist: Text and Music 57
4: Alte und neue Kirchenmusik 72
5: Prinzessin Brambilla: Callot Revisited 92
6: Epilogue: Des Vetters Eckfenster 106

Part 2
7: Frame Narrative and the Serapiontic Principle 119
8: From Visual to Verbal: Three Serapiontic Tales 135
9: The “Nachtseite der Natur” and the Serapiontic Principle 157
10: The Märchen and the Serapiontic Principle 169
11: The Serapiontic Principle: The Wider Critique 185

Conclusion 197
Select Bibliography 201
Index 207
Illustrations
1. Hoffmann’s autograph for Louis Spohr of page of
“Still und hehr die Nacht” 68
2. Letter from Ludwig van Beethoven to Hoffmann,
23 March 1820 75
3. Hoffmann’s sketch of his “Neue Wohnung in
der Taubenstraße” 112–13
4. Doge und Dogaresse. Copy of oil painting by
K. W. Kolbe 137
5. Meister Martin und Seine Gesellen von E.T.A. Hoffmann,
etching by H. Schmidt after a painting by K. W. Kolbe 142
6. Gesellschaft in einer Römischen Locanda (Die Fermate).
Oil painting by J. E. Hummel 149
7. Hoffmann’s sketch for Das fremde Kind 174
Preface

T HIS STUDY OFFERS A NEW ANGLE on the works of the great Romantic
writer, composer, and eminent judge, E. T. A. Hoffmann. Hoffmann’s
status — especially in the Anglo-Saxon world — has been overdetermined by
images emanating from such sources as operetta and ballet. He has been
regarded mainly as a quaint eccentric with a penchant for paranoid “gothic”
characters and spooky, sensationalist scenarios. Conversely, in his native coun-
try Hoffmann has been hailed as a leading practitioner of postmodernist the-
ory. The writers of numerous highly technical monographs have strayed ever
further away from their starting point in his fiction and failed to demonstrate
his breadth and skill as a writer and thinker.
By focusing attention on the collection entitled Die Serapionsbrüder I
have two aims in mind: first, I wish to demonstrate the coherence and con-
sistency with which Hoffmann puts forward a series of interconnected ideas
about the creative process and its reception that add up to a highly individ-
ual, if unorthodox, “Poetics.” It is amazing to find how dismissive (or blind)
many commentators have been about this important aspect of Hoffmann’s
oeuvre and how this lack of awareness has often distorted readings of the
Tales. Hoffmann was a leading spirit in German Romanticism, which, as a
powerful literary movement, was unique within the European context for its
close connection to contemporary philosophical ideas, and which strongly
influenced English literature (for example, Coleridge). Hoffmann adapts the
“symphilosophizing” tendencies of Novalis and the Schlegel brothers (many
of whose ideas he shares), which he transforms into a more relaxed, less
intense, but nevertheless seriously informed preoccupation with the implica-
tions of idealist philosophy for artistic creativity. Second, such an emphasis
on Hoffmann’s theoretical interests and developing “Poetics” sheds new
light on many of his Tales that have tended to be ignored. I have focused
attention on the Serapionsbrüder collection, not only because this provides
the main exposition of these ideas, but because it contains a number of fine
but often neglected works that benefit conspicuously from being associated
with Hoffmann’s theories and with the frame narrative. These include Die
Fermate, Doge und Dogaresse, Meister Martin der Küfner, Das fremde Kind,
and Die Königsbraut.
Acknowledgments

I T IS A PLEASURE TO ACKNOWLEDGE my debt of gratitude to several col-

leagues. Foremost among these is Professor Jeremy Adler (King’s
College, University of London) who has supported this venture through-
out and generously shared his extensive knowledge of the philosophical
background in German idealism, which I believe to have underpinned
much of Hoffmann’s thinking about aesthetics. His suggestions for the
chapter entitled “Der Einsiedler Serapion” were invaluable. I have also
profited from the expertise of Professor Reinhard Strohm (Oxford), who
read the two chapters on Hoffmann and music and made valuable sugges-
tions. A special word of thanks is due to librarian colleagues in Bamberg,
Berlin, and Oxford: Prof. Dr. Bernhard Schemmel (Head Librarian,
Staatsbibliothek Bamberg and President of the E. T. A. Hoffmann-
Gesellschaft) put his unrivaled knowledge of Hoffmann bibliography
and iconography at my disposal, and Frau Irmgard Hoffmann of the
Staatsbibliothek Bamberg was unstinting in her practical advice and help
during my visits to the Hoffmann-Arbeitszimmer in the Staatsbibliothek.
My thanks are also due to Frau Dr. Jutta Weber (Department of
Manuscripts, Staatsbibliothek Berlin) and to Dr. Jörg Petzel (Berlin) for
helpful discussions. At the Oxford end, Ms. Jill Hughes of the Taylorian
Library was indefatigable in pursuing obscure references and answering
bibliographical queries.
I am grateful to the AHRB for funding that enabled me to take an
extra term’s research leave, and to St. Hilda’s College and the Faculty of
Modern Languages, University of Oxford, for assisting me with travel
grants.
Hilda Meldrum Brown
Oxford, January 2006
Abbreviations
AMZ Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung. Leipzig
[Oct. 1798–28 Dec. 1848].
DVjS Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft
und Geistesgeschichte. Stuttgart, 1927–.
ETAHJb E. T. A. Hoffmann-Jahrbuch (Mitteilungen der
E. T. A. Hoffmann-Gesellschaft New Series).
Ed. Hartmut Steinecke, et al. Berlin:
Erich Schmidt Verlag, 1993–.
HSW E. T. A. Hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden
(in 7 volumes). Ed. Hartmut Steinecke and Wulf Segebrecht
(with Gerhard Allroggen, Friedhelm Auhuber, Hartmut
Mangold, and Ursula Segebrecht). Frankfurt am Main:
Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1985–2004.
Includes the following volumes cited with abbreviations:
HSW/FP Frühe Prose, Werke 1794–1813. Vol. 1 (2003).
HSW/FS Fantasiestücke, Werke 1814. Vol. 2/1 (1993).
HSW/E Die Elixiere des Teufels, Werke 1814–1816.
Vol. 2/2 (1988).
HSW/NS-B Nachstücke, Klein Zaches, Prinzessin Brambilla,
Werke 1816–1820. Vol. 3 (1985).
HSW/SB Die Serapionsbrüder. Vol. 4 (2001).
HSW/KM Lebensansichten des Katers Murr, Werke
1820–1821. Vol. 5 (1992).
HSW/SW Späte Prosa, Briefe, Tagebücher, Werke,
Aufzeichnungen, Juristische Schriften
1814–1822. Vol. 6 (2004).
KSA Kritische Friedrich-Schlegel-Ausgabe. Ed. Ernst Behler et al.
Paderborn, Zurich: Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 1958–.
MHG Mitteilungen der E. T. A. Hoffmann-Gesellschaft
e. V. (1955–1992) Old Series.
RD Romantik in Deutschland, Sonderband to
DVjS (1978). Ed. Richard Brinkmann.
Introduction: Approaches to the
Serapiontic Principle

T HE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE is a term much bandied about in

Hoffmann criticism. However, as a concept or critical tool it has not
found wide-spread acclaim nor been deemed to have much application to
Hoffmann’s literary works, let alone much relevance outside these. Even
when it is invoked, there is little agreement about its precise meaning, nor
have there been serious attempts to unravel its multifaceted exposition.
Some are disposed to deny its importance altogether and complain of
muddled presentation on Hoffmann’s part;1 others2 are skeptical about the
meaningfulness of terms such as “inneres” or “wirkliches Schauen.” Few,
if any, seem to wish to extend its scope beyond the literary to fields like the
visual arts and music. It is my intention in this book to clarify Hoffmann’s
theory and to show its relevance to a large portion of his creative output.
Because for Hoffmann the process of reception is, as we shall see, closely
linked to the creative process itself, this scrutiny may produce some new
insights into the narrative works and the seriousness of Hoffmann’s pur-
pose as a contributor to the Romantic program.
There are good reasons for the neglect and misunderstanding with
which the Serapiontic Principle has been received. Hoffmann’s was one of
the most acute, perceptive, and wide-ranging critical minds of his gener-
ation, not only in the realm of prose fiction and narrative but also in that
of musical criticism, in which he was a pioneer, writing regular reviews of
compositions by the leading composers of the day in the Leipzig
Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung. His most celebrated review — of
Beethoven’s Symphony No.5 in C Minor — is still referred to admiringly
by musicologists. Both this and other reviews, such as that of the Overture
and Incidental Music to Goethe’s Egmont, achieve a level of musical analy-
sis that was technically advanced for its day, combining detailed harmonic
analysis with general observations on the process of reception and the
effects on the listener produced by great works of art.3 Likewise, the dis-
cussions in Die Serapionsbrüder (1819–21) that address particular exam-
ples of prose narrative open up at many points a range of analytical
perspectives not only on contemporary literature but on the connecting
links between the different art forms. As we shall see, it is the Serapiontic
Principle that gives focus and depth to these speculations. But in his
attempt to follow the debate on such matters that accompanies the tales in
Die Serapionsbrüder, the reader is confronted with a major difficulty, not
2
INTRODUCTION

normally encountered in critical writing about the arts. For Hoffmann

situates the discussions themselves within a fictional context by developing an
extremely elaborate frame, complete with a set of characters, all equipped
with their own distinctive personalities and perspectives, to the point
where, on a superficial reading, these might seem to verge on the contra-
dictory.4 The reader is in fact being challenged to develop a new way of
assimilating and appraising multi-stranded discursive arguments that
accompany the tales themselves.
If he had chosen, Hoffmann could have presented his highly illuminat-
ing and continually developing insights into the creative process and narra-
tive art by means of a more traditional form, say the essay format or even
series of aphorisms, a form of presentation that had been brought to a high
point by theorists and philosophers such as Lichtenberg, but had also been
favored by the early Romantics Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis, with whose
works he was familiar. In this format one can imagine that Hoffmann’s
“Poetology” might have possibly acquired a more clearly defined and
respectable status among theorists, and his reputation as an original thinker
on aesthetic matters and his considerable contribution to the Romantic
debate might have been more appreciated — or noticed. As it is, however,
Hoffmann abjured all traditional or formal modes of presenting theoretical
ideas on literature. Following the tradition of the second generation of
Romantics, to which he (loosely) belongs, he opted for a more informal
presentation. Insofar as other members of this group produced aesthetic
theories at all (and they were much less inclined to do so than their prede-
cessors) they favored the dialogue form as a vehicle for the presentation of
ideas, an especially interesting example of this being the much favored
“gallery dialogue” (see below, p. 136). This form can be regarded as an
extension of the philosophical dialogue (most familiar to us, perhaps, in the
format used by Plato), but it had also been used occasionally by the Jena
Romantics, notably the Schlegels and Tieck, mainly for satirical purposes,
alongside other forms of presentation, and in Romantic hands it branches
out into a less formal, more interactive, chatty, and relaxed kind of discus-
sion. This is a variant that, as we shall see, Hoffmann himself adapts as a
sub-form within the larger-scale device of the frame narrative in Die
Serapionsbrüder to become a rather more serious and elaborate mode of dis-
cussion of aesthetic topics (for example, Der Dichter und der Komponist).
The all-embracing frame itself, which Hoffmann adapts from the model of
Tieck’s Phantasus, could be regarded as a further large-scale development
of the dialogue. This form, which Hoffmann expands to unprecedented
proportions, and which acquires a distinctive fictionality, is deployed with
considerable originality and provides him, as we shall see, with a flexible
vehicle for communicating his most important statements about the arts.
The following study attempts to develop ways of teasing out those
neglected ideas on creativity and the arts that are central to Hoffmann’s
 INTRODUCTION
3

oeuvre, but that are deeply embedded in his artistic presentation. Its prin-
cipal focus will be the Serapiontic Principle, which I regard as the key
element for elucidating both the theoretical and the practical sides of
Hoffmann’s creative mission.
There is an interesting recent parallel case of another great prose writer
who has mixed theoretical and fictional elements in her work, and who is
herself a Hoffmann aficionado: Christa Wolf.5 In Wolf’s case, additionally,
biography and autobiography intermingle, this being a function of Wolf’s
distinctively twentieth-century interest in the problem of identity and the
difficulty of saying “I.” But the process of writing, essentially the major
focus of the biographical process for Wolf — as for Hoffmann — is the-
matized within the creative work itself (see Nachdenken über Christa T.
[1968] and Kindheitsmuster [1977] inter alia). For his part Hoffmann has
recourse to his huge framework structure in Die Serapionsbrüder to satisfy
and explore from as many angles as possible what almost appears to be a
personal quest for illumination about the artistic process. Wolf adopts the
expedient of including prefaces and long accounts of the genesis of her
works (see Kassandra — Voraussetzungen zu einer Geschichte, 1983), and
Hoffmann too favors the preface form in many of his other prose works.
But, drawing on new possibilities offered in the media age, Wolf goes fur-
ther when she even insists that interviews and evidence that would
normally be regarded as having purely documentary status should be
considered as part of the evidence of the fictional works themselves.
Pursuing the parallel further, while by no means echoing Hoffmann’s
Serapiontic Principle in its terms of reference, Christa Wolf’s equally wide-
ranging theory of “subjective authenticity,” a portmanteau term that has
proved difficult to pin down to one simple formula, serves a similar func-
tion of artistic self-analysis within her oeuvre. Like Wolf’s aesthetic, the
principle is a nexus of closely interconnected ideas about narrative, and
about the creative arts in general, and many varied shoots issue from it.6
Once more like Wolf’s theory, it reflects on the part of the author a high
degree of self-consciousness and an almost obsessive insistence on the need
to explain the mechanics of the writer’s craft instead of letting this speak
for itself. Hoffmann (and Wolf) share the earnest wish to explain their aims
in writing — either because they sense special problems in its reception by
contemporary readers (Wolf, of course, has a political agenda) and wish to
forestall misunderstanding or criticism, or simply for enlightenment about
their own creative processes. But in the case of Die Serapionsbrüder
these efforts were foiled and for long ill-understood and unappreci-
ated. Thoughtless or penny-pinching editors presented generations of
readers with individual tales divorced entirely from the context of the
frame narrative, and this undoubtedly led to distorted readings and
contributed further to the general misunderstanding of the range and
subtlety of Hoffmann’s presentation of particular themes, especially the
4
INTRODUCTION

Supernatural.7 Quite apart from highlighting the intrinsic significance of

the theoretical content of the frame discussions, a switch of focus to this
part of Hoffmann’s work lays down a challenge to the reader to examine
its relationship to the individual texts, one that has been almost completely
neglected.
The common ground evident in the composition of Wolf’s and
Hoffmann’s respective methodologies to which I have briefly drawn atten-
tion also highlights a feature of Hoffmann’s work that has become much
more fully recognized in the wake of the critical theory debates during the
latter part of the twentieth century, namely its striking self-consciousness
and anticipation of modernist narrative techniques and complexities. It has
been helpful to find that narratology has released Hoffmann from the
charge of peddling “Unterhaltungsliteratur” (for example, Nußknacker
und Mausekönig), or “Spukgeschichten” (for example, Der Sandmann).
Indeed, along with other Romantic writers, Hoffmann has now been
drawn into the net of poststructuralist and deconstructionist criticism, a
position that is at the opposite end from earlier biographical approaches
but to which, it is argued by their supporters, his works lend themselves
particularly well.
According to the leading exponent of this approach among Hoffmann
scholars, Detlev Kremer,8 Hoffmann may seem to be communicating
meaning to his readers (“sinnzentrierte Lektüren”) by his favored use of
allegory, for instance (see Der goldene Topf), but this is deceptive. Instead,
his fondness for intertextuality, multi-stranded (“polyphonic”) narrative
perspectives (see Die Serapionsbrüder), and his ironic detachment, to sin-
gle out only a few features, signify a lack of any closure or resolution in the
narratives (even in the Märchen) and make multiple, indeterminate mean-
ings and readings not just possible but inevitable. Following the now famil-
iar pattern of analysis established by Jacques Derrida and Roland Barthes,
a Hoffmann text can be expected, according to Kremer, to demonstrate
the author’s (or more accurately the reader’s, since the term “author” as
such no longer carries meaning) response to what he sees as a series of
(inconclusive and self-contradictory) reflections on the structures and
conditions of Romantic literature (“eine durchgängige Selbstreflexivität”).
This kind of approach has been summarized as an “endless play of signi-
fiers which can never be finally nailed down to a single centre, essence or
meaning.”9
An alternative response to the complexities of Hoffmann’s narrato-
logical strategies, however, might start from an assumption that a “poly-
phonic” perspectivism does not in itself spell disharmony.10 Equally, the
ubiquitous presence of irony in Hoffmann’s works — like that of paradox
in the works of other writers of this period — may not be a crazy, “ludic”
response that stems from a despair about meaning, but rather an expres-
sion of awareness and acceptance of the contradictions with which human
 INTRODUCTION
5

beings (and especially authors) are confronted, and a recognition that

there are nonetheless meaningful patterns to be discerned. These might
be, in Hoffmann’s case for example, the polarities of thought and “prin-
ciples” that he (and his fellow Romantics) had inherited and absorbed from
the immensely influential philosophies of their day (such as those of Kant,
Fichte, and Schelling). It is clearly awkward for Kremer and others of his
persuasion to acknowledge such “außertextuelle” possibilities or to wish to
clarify the relationship between transcendental philosophy and literature in
the early nineteenth-century German tradition, and it is therefore no sur-
prise to find that the possibility that these discourses might play an import-
ant part in defining Hoffmann’s way of looking at the world — one that
goes beyond the level of an intertextual game — has been disallowed and
discredited.11
Although the “Serapiontic Principle” as outlined, expounded, debated,
and exemplified in countless different ways within Die Serapionsbrüder
might seem to apply exclusively to the tales in that collection, it is much
more far-ranging in scope and can be applied to virtually all of Hoffmann’s
prose writings. It is an ever-evolving, self-proliferating phenomenon almost
akin to a biological process. The analogy of biological growth and develop-
ment could certainly be applied to the procedures used in Die
Serapionsbrüder itself, which represents the culmination as well as the most
thoroughgoing presentation of Hoffmann’s theories, but additional phases
in the evolutionary process can be observed in other works too, both those
preceding and those following that collection. The first seeds are clearly
observable in the preface (“Jacques Callot”) to the Fantasiestücke, while
Hoffmann’s last thoughts on the matter are to be detected in the posthu-
mous tale Des Vetters Eckfenster (1822), which could be regarded as a kind
of last will and testament. These two examples provide what one could call
a prologue and an epilogue to the mainstream exposition presented in Die
Serapionsbrüder and can be usefully considered from that perspective. But
that does not mean to say that, tucked away in various fictional crannies,
there are not many other strands that link up with the main lines of this
process. Epigrammatic, often satirical and amusing chapter headings are a
feature of certain types of Hoffmann’s narrative both within and without
Die Serapionsbrüder; authorial interpolations, addresses to the reader, and
many other devices invite a critical response and create a highly interactive
relationship between the two.12 Conversely, there is often an appeal for
openness of mind on the part of the reader, by which is implied an ability
on his or her part to grapple with a number of different approaches and per-
spectives simultaneously and to exercise critical judgment in evaluating this
“polyphonic” approach to themes and issues.
Of course this is not to deny the element of play and manipulation,
which is undeniably a central feature of Hoffmann’s art. In this respect the
diagnosis of postmodernist theory — but not necessarily the consequences
6
INTRODUCTION

that it draws — might be accepted. The reader is being invited to partici-

pate in a seemingly open-ended process of inquiry and discovery and, as it
were, to make his own contribution to the debate. In a sense it might even
seem that Hoffmann is setting out deliberately to develop his readers’ crit-
ical faculties by presenting alternative ways in which to approach a text.
The question has been raised (see Uwe Japp13) as to whether in expound-
ing the so-called “principle” one of Hoffmann’s aims might be to produce
guidelines for budding authors or, alternatively, to present his readers and
critics with the “correct” kind of critical tools (what Japp calls a “Kriterium
der schulgerechten Literaturkritik”) for the purposes of literary analysis.
Both would seem unlikely, unless this educational process is intended to
open the reader’s mind to critical debate rather than follow one particular
line.14 It seems more probable that Hoffmann wishes either to disarm criti-
cism of his work, sometimes even incorporating points raised in reviews,15
or (more positively) to promote a deeper understanding of the implica-
tions of critical analysis. Such a program, if indeed Hoffmann was setting
out with it in mind, has until recently stood little chance of success with
his readership, who have been following quite different cues. Now that the
manipulative aspect in all Hoffmann’s narrative fiction, and most especially
in Die Serapionsbrüder, is more clearly understood, the playful side of his
narrative art can be fully addressed within the wider context of Hoffmann’s
ever-evolving program, that is, as a necessary adjunct or counterbalance to
the dark and disturbing vision (“Ernst”) presented in many of the tales.
For, as we shall see, the Serapiontic Principle is designed to embrace both
ends of the artistic spectrum, “Ernst und Scherz,” the serious and the
light-hearted, either in juxtaposition or in combination. This paradoxical
principle and the ironic narrative stance with which it is associated are prin-
cipal manifestations of the Serapiontic. They act as a ground bass running
through Hoffmann’s entire fiction, but come most clearly and explicitly to
the fore in Die Serapionsbrüder. By focusing attention on the Serapiontic
Principle, one can more easily judge the nature and function of
Hoffmann’s irony, an area in which confusion still reigns, but which, since
it represents the point of intersection between the substance and the style
of his fiction, is of central importance. The coexistence in Hoffmann’s
practice of irony with enthusiasm and commitment to the creative impulse
is a highly interesting paradox, and one that he shares with Friedrich
Schlegel.16 A detailed analysis of its operation in theory and practice will
give the lie to the reductive view of Hoffmann as not much more than a
clever manipulator of texts.
It has sometimes been argued that the framework discussion in Die
Serapionsbrüder was purely a matter of convenience, forced upon
Hoffmann by his publisher, who wished to have the tales he had already
published and completed linked together by a unifying thread. Because the
great majority of tales had indeed been published separately in various
 INTRODUCTION
7

journals and thus predated the creation of the framework,17 it was assumed
that the latter was merely grafted on and had no structural or thematic sig-
nificance. This approach is at last losing currency,18 though traces still
remain in some popular editions and anthologies.19 Typically, under pres-
sure of this kind from a publisher, Hoffmann’s genius was activated. He
was not satisfied to provide a flimsy wrapping in which to accommodate
his tales, one that could be easily discarded. Hoffmann was put in mind of
the model of Ludwig Tieck’s highly successful Phantasus (published in
1812), which he mentions appreciatively in the foreword to the Die
Serapionsbrüder, in which, however, the narrative frame had only been
loosely presented, leaving much scope for development. He regarded his
publisher’s directive as an artistic challenge and seized on the opportunity
of developing in much greater detail the ideas about narrative and the cre-
ative process that had been gradually taking shape, probably starting in his
Bamberg days (that is, from 1808), and had been clarifying in his mind
into the germ of a “Poetics” after the highly successful publication in 1814
of his first major collection of tales, the Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier;
at that stage he had expressed his thoughts succinctly in a brief preface
(“Jacques Callot,” see chapter 1 in this volume). In the Fantasiestücke
there are already signs of Hoffmann’s leanings towards the frame narrative,
though necessarily at this point only in a rudimentary form, through the
introduction of a fictitious narrator in the persona of the “reisender
Enthusiast” in Don Juan. Another (anonymous) highly intrusive writer-
narrator, in Der goldene Topf, cannot resist commenting on the artist’s
dilemma as his own in the closing epilogue. Further developments are evi-
dent in the ambitious novel, Die Elixiere des Teufels (1815–16), in the
extended role accorded to the manipulative fictitious editor at the begin-
ning (especially in the “Vorwort”) and at various stages in the novel there-
after, when he spells out for the reader’s benefit the salient features in
the forthcoming narrative: “das Schauerliche, Entsetzliche, Tolle,
Possenhafte.”20 The characteristic programmatic emphasis on the mixture
of the horrific, the absurd, and the comic by Hoffmann’s fictitious editor
is here set before the reader as a paradoxical antithesis or conundrum from
the outset. But within the given formats of these various works, some of
them freestanding, Hoffmann had little opportunity other than by stealth
or brief allusion to give expression to his growing and compelling urge to
analyze alongside creating, and to providing a critical commentary to
accompany the tales. However, as we shall see, in late works written after
the Die Serapionsbrüder (for example, Prinzessin Brambilla [1821] and
Des Vetters Eckfenster) he would develop new strategies of internal analysis
to replace the more disjoined format of the frame narrative.
Hoffmann’s erratic path to becoming a famous literary writer may be
recalled at this point. Although he had written for publication in various
journals one or two pieces (including “Ritter Gluck”) in his Bamberg
8
INTRODUCTION

years, his career as a writer only began in earnest — faute de mieux — in

1813, when it became clear that the political uncertainties during the final
stages of the Wars of Liberation that had forced him away from Bamberg
and Dresden offered little hope that he would ever be able to earn a living
in his preferred role as a composer, or even “Kapellmeister.” Reluctantly he
returned to Berlin and eventually to a prestigious position in the state judi-
ciary, and this return to a legal career could, it seems, or perhaps had to,
coexist with Hoffmann’s belated debut as a popular writer and (soon) local
celebrity in Berlin. A hectic program of writing in his spare time went hand
in hand with professional responsibilities that became ever greater as
Hoffmann’s outstanding legal ability was recognized officially and he was
rewarded with important assignments;21 these twin roles were combined at
a level of intensity and excellence that is truly remarkable. Hoffmann was
catching up rapidly in the art of writing and he must have been almost sur-
prised at the ease with which he so quickly attained success. Having dur-
ing his Bamberg period already combined practical and creative musical
activities with critical analysis of new compositions through his contribu-
tions to the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, it is not surprising that now
that he had focused on a new artistic métier as a writer (albeit part-time)
he should experiment with combining the critical and the creative sides of
his own writings.
However, one cannot infer that the decision to create a link between
his tales, most of which, as mentioned above, had already been published
separately, had been in his mind from the outset. It was more a question
of opportunities and a happy conjunction of events that took place in
Hoffmann’s personal life in Berlin around 1818. For his fascination with
the creative process and the art of narrative was by no means a closet pur-
suit. It found expression in his gregarious leanings, his sociability, and con-
stant desire to interact with fellow writers and other kindred spirits, sharing
his ideas and receiving from others stimulus and encouragement. The
cliché image of the alcohol-driven writer holding forth among his friends
in wine-houses and hostelries so assiduously peddled and trivialized by
Jacques Offenbach in The Tales of Hoffmann has been hard to dispel. But
it creates an impression of over-indulgence or loss of control that is highly
misleading. Rather, the evidence suggests that in Hoffmann’s case, the
twofold stimulus of wine and companionship unleashed a spate of brilliant
conversation, tale-telling, and discussion of artistic matters.22 Armed with
his publisher’s generous advance towards the publication of Die
Serapionsbrüder and seizing the opportunity of the return to Berlin after a
three-year journey round the world of his friend, the botanist and writer
Adalbert von Chamisso, Hoffmann decided in November 1818 to rein-
state a literary club, the “Seraphinenorden,” which he had founded a few
years earlier but which had lapsed in 1815 on the departure of Chamisso
for foreign parts.23
 INTRODUCTION
9

The phenomenon of artistic groupings and their significance for liter-

ary movements and programs is an important feature of Romanticism in
Germany and Austria of the nineteenth century and one that has attracted
much attention.24 Obviously, this was an extension of the aristocratic
salons of the eighteenth century, now transposed to a middle-class milieu.
Frequently groupings were focused on a particular geographical center, for
example, Jena, Heidelberg, Vienna, or, in Hoffmann’s case, Berlin. The
latter two localities are especially significant in that they imply distinctly
urban milieus: Hoffmann’s works are full of allusions to city life in its gre-
garious aspect; they are often set in coffee-houses and wine-bars and offer
glimpses of life on the streets of Berlin. As it was to do for Alfred Döblin
over a hundred years later, Berlin, the big city, soon to become a metro-
polis, was already starting by the early decades of the nineteenth century to
serve as a powerful source of inspiration and stimulus to artists. Its excite-
ment, dynamism, and limitless possibilities replaced the rural or pastoral
landscapes that had for so long performed a similar role and inspiration for
German artists. It is a moot point whether Hoffmann would have been
able to develop his career as a prose writer so successfully had he remained
in a provincial town and without this intense form of stimulus.25 By tem-
perament he had always been susceptible to environmental influences, as
can be seen from his extreme reaction when “banished” to a Polish back-
water (P5ock) during his period of office in the legal department of the
Prussian Civil Service.
The transformation of a real biographical situation — namely the
refounding of the “Seraphinenorden” — into a literary theme presented no
difficulty for Hoffmann (we shall see later that by basing a fictional narra-
tive on such solid foundations he was in fact implementing one of the car-
dinal principles of the Serapiontic Principle). At first Hoffmann and his
publisher had agreed to give the collection the title Die Seraphinenbrüder,
recalling the early days of the club. But when in 1818 Hoffmann got down
seriously to the business of creating the framework narrative, his imagin-
ation immediately started to work on the matter of incorporating into a fic-
titious frame his now fully fledged theoretical interests in the creative
process. He conceived the idea of giving the members of the literary group
a patron, the Polish Saint Serapion, as a peg on which to hang his theories.
The hermit figure (“Einsiedler”) around whom an exemplary tale was to be
spun was a stock Romantic motif 26 and as such would provide familiar
access to his readership. At the same time — perhaps surprisingly — the
original “Seraphinenorden” in turn was rechristened the “Serapionsorden,”
thus turning the real into the imaginary. This kind of blurring of the dis-
tinctions between the two worlds is entirely characteristic.
The real and the fictional meet again in Hoffmann’s foreword to the
collection (which originally comprised two books only), where he point-
edly alludes to an actual reunion of the literary friends on St. Serapion’s
10
INTRODUCTION

Day. At the same time Hoffmann draws attention to the literary model for
his frame — Tieck’s Phantasus. Hoffmann’s flattering remarks about
Tieck’s achievement may nowadays seem rather excessive: Tieck represents
the “vollendeten Meister” whose observations on art and literature offer
“die tiefsten scharfsinnigsten Bemerkungen.”27 Disarmingly, Hoffmann
implores the “geneigter Leser” not to make comparisons between such an
accomplished work as Tieck’s and his own. Probably no irony is intended
here since Hoffmann was one of the more modest of all the great writers,
but his emphasis on sociability is an underlying principle that certainly links
his work with Tieck’s:

Hier soll die Unterhaltung der Freunde, welche die verschiedenen

Dichtungen mit einander verknüpft aber mit das treue Bild des
Zusammenseins der Gleichgesinnten aufstellen, die sich die Schöpfungen
ihres Geistes mitteilen und ihr Urteil darüber aussprechen. Nur die
Bedingnisse eines solchen heitern unbefangenen Gesprächs, in dem recht
eigentlich ein Wort das andere gibt, können hier zum Maßstabe dienen.28

Originally, the two books of tales envisaged by both Hoffmann and his
publisher were to be arranged according to certain principles, the respect-
ive volumes being concluded with a Märchen (Nußknacker und
Mausekönig and Das fremde Kind respectively). The rationale for this, at
least on the author’s part, is important and its implications will be dis-
cussed below at greater length. According to the principles laid down
by the Bund, each book represents an evening’s worth of storytelling,
ranging over the entire gamut of the serious, the tragic, the comic, and the
absurd. It is clear that the author intends to manipulate his reader’s moods
and responses not just to individual stories but to the set of narratives as a
whole. Concluding each set with a Märchen ensures that there will be a
balancing out, that any dissonances will be resolved and that the mood on
parting will always be brought back to a happy state of equilibrium. Of
course it is clear that an element of performance is involved in this
arrangement, whereby the tales are being orally delivered and responded
to. This criterion seems to be important for Hoffmann and for his readers,
though for the latter the reception process is experienced at a remove —
and any fictional equilibrium achieved may not find an exact equivalent for
a readership. Readers are unlikely to experience the mixture of moods pre-
sented by the tales in the same way as listeners, who are reacting, as it were,
to a kind of live performance, which creates an immediacy of response and
direct interaction. It is this kind of prescriptive manipulation that might
lend support to Uwe Japp’s notion mentioned above that, in expounding
his theories of narrative, Hoffmann has a didactic program in mind. But if
so, it is one achieved by hidden persuasion and manipulation rather than
by direct statement. For each and every theoretical statement is placed
within its fictitious context, and related to the personality of the member
 INTRODUCTION
11

involved. This means that it may be modified by opposing or differing

ideas voiced by one or other of the characters discussing it; second, it is
subject to its practical outcome (or, alternatively, its starting point) in the
form of the particular (doubly fictitious) narrative tale from which it is
derived or to which it may give rise.
Discussion of Hoffmann’s many and varied forms of expounding the
Serapiontic Principle, traced over the period of its evolution and develop-
ment, will form the basis of the first part of the following study. The sec-
ond part examines the way in which this process operates in conjunction
with particular tales on which it is focused, which are mainly taken from
the Serapionsbrüder collection. I shall examine the use of the framework
technique in particular, and its relationship to those tales that seem to
acquire among the members of the group the status of exemplarity (or,
as in one interesting case, non-exemplarity) as specimens deemed
“Serapiontic.” In both the more general and the more applied contexts the
nature of Hoffmann’s analysis is so penetrating that important issues are
addressed within the fields of psychology and aesthetics, such as the mind-
body question, the nature of sense perception, and the relationship of the
individual senses to one another and to the aesthetic experience, drawing
on the latest theories. For at the beginning of the nineteenth century a
seismic shift was taking place in theories of sense perception. Dissa-
tisfaction with rigid Enlightenment ideas was now openly expressed, par-
ticularly in relation to the possibility of a strict separation or hierarchical
arrangement of the senses.29 The earlier reduction of the senses to but five
in number (vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch) and the categorization
of the first two, which were sometimes termed “Fernsinnen,” while the
remainder were “Nahsinnen,” was now questioned.30 Hoffmann and his
generation would have no truck with the dominance of the eye that had
prevailed in the Enlightenment scheme of things. This was now associated
either with the idea of primacy of rationality and the intellect, or else the
autocratic monopoly by one sense, sight, as the exclusive source for obtain-
ing information about the physical world. Kant’s clear opposition of the
physical and mental faculties had been modified by Schiller’s development
of an intermediary category of the Aesthetic and the “Spieltrieb,” con-
ceived of as a harmonious amalgamation of (all) the senses and the intel-
lect. But that somewhat contrived solution to the problem of dualism did
not clearly address the question of the relationship of the senses either
to one another or to other faculties such as the emotions or the imagin-
ation (variously termed “Einbildungskraft,” “Phantasie,” “Herz,”
“Gefühl,” or “inneres Anschauen”), which all clamored for attention
within the Romantic canon.
In seeking to extend the bounds of perception Hoffmann was at one
with his contemporaries, and it has recently been argued that this quest
was born of a desire to pursue further the Enlightenment’s thirst for
12
INTRODUCTION

knowledge,31 different only insofar as that knowledge now enters hitherto

uncharted realms, which may include the subconscious or the extrasensory.
The exclusivity of the eye itself is subject to limitations, and more attention
is given to its operation in conjunction with other faculties, for example,
imaginative processes (cf. the “mind’s eye”). The remarkable development
of alternative sense perceptions in the case of blind or deaf subjects had
already been noted by Enlightenment theorists,32 but the consequences
drawn from this observation are now much more radical. Claims are even
made that physiological processes, such as the operation of the ganglia in
the nervous system, which do not come under the control of the conscious
mind, can lead the subject beyond his physical limits into mysterious spir-
itual realms.33 Most important of all, the verbal and aural faculties come to
the fore, and the various art works, literature, and music to which they are
respectively linked tend to displace the visual arts, which had for so long
assumed the leading position in eighteenth-century theory and practice.
A further extension of this revolution in sense perception and what
Gerhard Neumann has described as the “Grenzerweiterung der
Wahrnehmung” (106–7) is the move to break down barriers between the
various art forms themselves and to do so, moreover, by creating connect-
ing links across the defined limits of individual art forms. The philosopher
Schelling states:

Ich bemerke . . . , daß die vollkommenste Zusammensetzung aller

Künste, die Vereinigung von Poesie und Musik durch Gesang, von Poesie
und Malerei durch Tanz, selbst wieder synthesiert die componiertste
Theatererscheinung ist, dergleichen das Drama des Altertums war, wovon
uns nur eine Karikatur, die Oper, geblieben ist, die in höherem und
edlerem Stil von Seiten der Poesie sowohl als der übrigen konkurrieren-
den Künste uns am ehesten zur Aufführung des alten mit Musik und
Gesang verbundeten Dramas zurückführen könnte.34

Schelling’s prophetic view of opera as a worthy potential successor to

Greek drama would find fulfillment fifty years later when Richard Wagner
created the ambitious form of music drama, a fully integrated amalgam-
ation of words and music, which would approach Schelling’s ideal more
nearly than any other form had ever done. But the postulation of what
became known as the total work of art (“Gesamtkunstwerk”) had been an
important clarion call to Romantic artists before Wagner’s day and
throughout the nineteenth century. The Gesamtkunstwerk could indeed
be described as the most exotic fruit of this profound revolution of the
senses. Hoffmann plays his part in the program both in practice and in the-
ory (for example, through his opera Undine) and, as Gerhard Neumann
rightly suggests, it is encapsulated in the Serapiontic Principle.35 It would
go beyond the bounds of this study to consider the full implications of
the Gesamtkunstwerk here. The same applies to the phenomenon of
 INTRODUCTION
13

synesthesia — the artificial mingling of sense impressions, a device espe-

cially favored by Romantic poets and most famously, later in the nineteenth
century, by Baudelaire, who, greatly influenced by Hoffmann’s call for
unity across the arts, proposed an elaborate theory of “Correspondances.”36
Yet another of these fruits was the much increased scope now given to the
sense of hearing and its appropriate art form, music, which, now liberated,
was destined to rise to rare heights in German-speaking lands.37
These developments form an important background to Hoffmann’s
theories and explain to some extent their breadth of range and his reluc-
tance to consider narrative or narrative theory in isolation from other artis-
tic phenomena. It might seem odd to find an essay on church music (Alte
und neue Musik) and on the relationship between the opera composer and
his librettist (Dichter und Komponist) appearing in what is essentially a col-
lection of narratives. But it is perfectly understandable in Hoffmann’s
terms; indeed one has the impression that the inclusion of these substantial
pieces on music, both of which address the issue of its relationship with
words, is essential to Hoffmann’s theoretical armature. He probably would
have been uncomfortable had not Die Serapionsbrüder included some sub-
stantial representation for this art form, in which he himself was a performer
and composer and which he always regarded as supreme among its sister
arts, as he had already proclaimed in the earlier Kreisleriana. As we shall
also see, one of Hoffmann’s major means of facilitating theoretical connec-
tions between the different art forms is through the Serapiontic Principle.
In the following study attention will be drawn to what seem to me the
major primary sources for Hoffmann’s exposition of the Serapiontic
Principle over the range of his prose writings between 1815 and 1822. The
preface to the Fantasiestücke, entitled “Jacques Callot,” immediately clari-
fies his position on the role of “inneres Schauen” in the creative process
and anticipates several of what will become the important features of the
Serapiontic Principle. The main section examines and evaluates, first the
exemplary and central narrative, entitled Der Einsiedler Serapion, which is
the major point of reference for all subsequent allusions to and discussions
of the principle in Die Serapionsbrüder. There follow analyses of the two
essays in the same collection that focus on music and demonstrate the con-
nection between this art form and the principle. Hoffmann’s continued
elaboration of the principle and inclusion of additional facets after this
point are studied in Prinzessin Brambilla, and his final insights, formulated
shortly before his death, are expressed in Des Vetters Eckfenster. The major-
ity of these texts are semi-theoretical, in the sense that they contain what
could be described as discursive as opposed to fictional material. This
applies especially to the tale Der Einsiedler Serapion, arguably the most
substantial text, whose exegesis leads to a major theoretical formulation.
But as is often the case with Hoffmann the fictional is never entirely
detached from the nonfictional.
14
INTRODUCTION

The second part deals first with the mechanics and distinctive role of
the fictional frame, examining the individual characters, their interaction,
and the achievement (or not) of consensus in the critiques and wider dis-
cussions of the issues raised by the individual tales. It then examines in
detail various ways in which frame and principle in Die Serapionsbrüder
operate in the more practical context of narrative appraisal. General theor-
etical points emerging from the first part, together with the appropriate
critiques that emerge in the frame discussion, provide a context in which
to examine tales that have been selected to illustrate different aspects of the
Serapiontic Principle. Here I have chosen to group them according to the
following themes: the transformation of material from the visual to the ver-
bal medium; the “serapiontic” exploration of the Supernatural, first, as a
malevolent “böses Princip” and second, (in the Märchen form) as a basic-
ally benign force.
The concluding chapter reviews the wider relevance of the Serapiontic
Principle, and briefly considers its application as a tool for literary critique
with reference to two of the most celebrated tales from the Fantasiestücke
and Nachtstücke collections respectively, namely, Der goldene Topf and Der
Sandmann.

Notes
1
H. Pfotenhauer, “Exoterische und esoterische Poetik in E. T. A. Hoffmanns
Erzählungen,” Jahrbuch der Jean Paul Gesellschaft 1982: 129–44, writes of
Hoffmann’s “Fehlleistungen” and “Ausdrucksschwierigkeiten” (botched efforts
and problems of expression, 134). Siegfried Schumm, Einsicht und Darstellung
(Göppingen: A. Kümmerle, 1974), 161, states that Hoffmann is “kein Philosoph,”
but concedes that his thinking is shaped by contemporary philosophical trends.
2
Uwe Japp, in a succinct and illuminating analysis, prefers the term
“Korrelationspoetik” to Hoffmann’s theory of the principle and finds difficulty in
particular with the term “inneres Schauen” (“Das Serapiontische Prinzip,” in E. T.
A. Hoffmann, Text ⫹ Kritik, ed. Heinz Ludwig Arnold [Munich: Text ⫹ Kritik,
1992], 63–75; here, 73).
3
Carl Dahlhaus, Die Musiktheorie im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert, part 1 (Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1984), 196: “Durch Beethovens Symphonien
in Hoffmanns Interpretation [. . .] ist der Musikbegriff der ersten
Jahrhunderthälfte geprägt worden wie durch Wagners Musikdramen [. . .] in
Nietzsches Interpretation [. . .] der des zweiten.”
4
Readers who are unfamiliar with the frame in the Die Serapionsbrüder may wish
to refer at this point to chapter 7, “Frame Narrative and the Serapiontic Principle,”
which discusses Hoffmann’s use of the device.
5
On Christa Wolf’s Hoffmann reception see Beverley Hardy in Howard Gaskill,
ed., Neue Ansichten (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1990), 73–84.
 INTRODUCTION
15

6
The intricacies of narrative perspective in Hoffmann’s work have been described
as “polyphonic”; see Victor Terras, “E. T. A. Hoffmanns polyphonische
Erzählkunst,” The German Quarterly 39 (1966): 551. The term has more recently
been adopted by Detlev Kremer, among others, in his book E. T. A. Hoffmann:
Erzählungen und Romane (Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 1999).
7
Hoffmann’s early and major detractor, Walter Scott, and Goethe (who followed
him in his denigration of the content of the tales), together with his former friend,
the publisher Julius Hitzig, seemed quite unaware of the significance of the dis-
tancing techniques evident in Die Serapionsbrüder and elsewhere in Hoffmann’s
works. This may have set an unfortunate precedent.
8
Detlev Kremer, E. T. A. Hoffmann: Erzählungen und Romane, 12.
9
See the critique of deconstruction by Terry Eagleton, in his Literary Theory: An
Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985), 138.
10
As is well known, contrapuntal and polyphonic musical textures invariably exist
within a harmonic framework. See Nora Haimberger, Vom Musiker zum Dichter:
E. T. A. Hoffmanns Akkordvorstellung (Bonn: Bouvier, 1976). Haimberger
emphasizes the point that for Hoffmann dissonance (especially as represented by
the dominant and diminished seventh), is often employed metaphorically to
express anguish. However, Hoffmann (in the form of his musician-character,
Kreisler) regards dissonance as something to be resolved (“unaufgelöste
Dissonanzen [sind] recht widrig”), and his supreme model for consonance is
Palestrina (106). See also discussion below in part 1, chapter 4, “Alte und Neue
Kirchenmusik.”
11
Detlev Kremer, Romantische Metamorphosen: E. T. A. Hoffmanns Erzählungen
(Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1993) 227, 324; Peter von Matt, Die Augen der
Automaten: E. T. A. Hoffmanns Imaginationslehre als Prinzip seiner Erzählkunst
(Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1971), 103; Claudia Liebrand, Aporie des Kunstmythos
(Freiburg im Breisgau: Rombach, 1996), 10.
12
See Petra Liedke Konow, “Sich hineinschwingen in die Werkstatt des Autors:
Asthetische Rekurrenzphänomene in E. T. A. Hoffmanns Rahmenzyklus Die
Serapionsbrüder,” ETAHJb 2 (1994): 57–68.
13
Japp, “Das Serapiontische Prinzip,” in E. T. A. Hoffmann, Text ⫹ Kritik, ed.
H. L. Arnold, 63.
14
Having said that, there is often evidence that the discussion is being
steered towards a consensus position, see below, part 2, chapter 7, “Group
Dynamics.”
15
See, for example, points raised in the discussion of Nußknacker und Mausekönig,
part 2, chapter 10, below.
16
Kremer, in his E. T. A. Hoffmann: Erzählungen und Romane, also invokes Fr.
Schlegel’s theory in support of his deconstructionist interpretation of Hoffmann’s
irony, but without drawing attention to its wider implications. See Athenäum: A.
W. and F. Schlegel, eds., Eine Zeitschrift, vol. 1, section 2 (Berlin: F. Schöningh,
1798), 190 where irony is defined as a “steten Wechsel von Selbstschöpfung und
Selbstvernichtung.” See also Ernst Behler, German Romantic Literary Criticism
(Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993), 149.
16
INTRODUCTION

17
Of all the tales in Die Serapionsbrüder only “Der Einsiedler Serapion,” “Die
Bergwerke zu Falun,” [“Eine Spukgeschichte”] [“Vampirismus”] and “Die
Königsbraut” had not been published before.
18
See Walter Müller-Seidel’s still excellent afterword to the Winkler edition of Die
Serapionsbrüder (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1978), 1001:
“erst in der Überschau des Ganzen wird die künstlerische Leistung in ihrem vollen
Umfang sichtbar” and “[wir] wollen die Geschlossenheit des Zyklus betonen.”
19
E.g. E. T. A. Hoffmann, Werke, ed. H. Kraft and M. Weckert (Frankfurt am
Main: Insel, 1967), which is based in turn on the Aufbau-Verlag edition.
20
Die Elixiere des Teufels, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden, ed.
Hartmut Steinecke and Wulf Segebrecht (with Gerhard Allroggen, Friedhelm
Auhuber, Hartmut Mangold, and Ursula Segebrecht) (Frankfurt am Main:
Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1985–2004), vol. 2/2:12. Henceforth HSW.
21
On Hoffmann’s success at — and difficulty with — combining two very different
careers, see Ulrich Mückenberger, “Phantasie und Gerechtigkeitssinn: Der Dichter
und Jurist E. T. A. Hoffmann,” Neue Rundschau 100, no. 2 (1989): 163–86.
22
Hitzig, Hoffmann’s friend and biographer adopts a prudish tone about what he
regarded as the excesses of the gatherings after Hoffmann and his friends moved
venue from Manderlee to Lutter und Wegener (SB, in HSW, 1235. This view has
recently been challenged by Lothar Pikulik, E. T. A. Hoffmann als Erzähler
(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987), 52–53.
23
The relationship between the real and the fictional club is dealt with in more
detail below, part 2, chapter 7, “The Frame.”
24
See Marianne Thalmann, Romantiker entdecken die Stadt (Munich: 1965),
where Hoffmann’s works are cited passim; also Lothar Pikulik, E. T. A. Hoffmann
als Erzähler, 21–22.
25
See below, chapter 4, “Über alte und neue Kirchenmusik,” in which there is dis-
cussion of the respective stimulus on the creative process of a rural or an urban
environment.
26
Cf. “Zeitung für Einsiedler,” a Romantic periodical publication founded by
Arnim, Brentano, and Görres in 1808. It also appeared as “Trösteinsamkeit.”
27
Hoffmann, “Vorwort” to Die Serapionsbrüder, 11.
28
Hoffmann, “Vorwort” to Die Serapionsbrüder, 11.
29
This had already been challenged by the farsighted Lessing, who contrasted the
“physical” and the “spiritual” eye (das körperliche Auge and das Auge des Geists).
See his early poem “Uber die Mehrheit der Welten”(1746) and reference there to
“des Geistes schärfres Auge,” in Werke, ed. K. Lachmann, (Stuttgart: Göschen,
1886), 272. In Laokoon it seems that the phrase “des Geistes Auge” is synonymous
with “Einbildungskraft.” See Peter Utz, Das Auge und Ohr im Text: Literarische
Sinneswahrnehmung in der Goethezeit (Munich: W. Fink, 1990), 40. Influences
from neo-Platonism cannot be discounted.
30
Cf. Utz, Das Auge und Ohr im Text, 66, who glosses a passage from Schiller’s
Ästhetische Erziehung as follows: “die geschichtsphilosophische Grenze von Natur-
und Vernunftmensch scheint hier als Grenze zwischen Nah- und Fernsinnen.”
 INTRODUCTION
17

31
See Gerhard Neumann, who, in a wide-ranging essay, describes the Serapiontic
Principle itself as just such an extension, as “eine Poetologie der erweiterten
Aufklärung,” (“Hoffmanns Wissenschaftspoetik,” in Aufklärung als Form
[Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 1997]), 116. J. W. Ritter, the influen-
tial physicist and friend of Novalis, proposed a rearrangement of the traditional
order of significance accorded to the respective faculties by privileging hearing over
sight, see Ritter, Fragmente aus dem Nachlaß eines jungen Physikers (Hanau/Main:
Kiepenheuer, 1984 (based on 1810 edition, Heidelberg, Mohr und Zimmer), 166:
“Das Hören ist ein Sehen von innen, das innerstinnerste Bewußtsein [. . .]. Der
Gehörsinn ist unter allen Sinnen des Universums der höchste, größte, umfassend-
ste, je es ist der einzige allgemeine Sinn. Es gilt keine Ansicht des Universums ganz
und unbedingt, als die akustische.”
32
Cf. Diderot, “Lettre sur les aveugles”; “Lettre sur les sourds et muets.”
33
See Hoffmann’s tale “Der Magnetiseur” (Fantasiestücke) and (untitled) tale of
“magnetism” from the Serapionsbrüder narrated by his character Lothar, and dis-
cussed below, part 2, chapter 9, “The Nachtseite der Natur.”
34
See “Philosophie der Kunst,” in Schellings Ausgewählte Schriften, ed. Manfred
Frank, vol. 2 (1801–3) (Frankfurt am Main: 1985), 564.
35
Cf. Neumann, “Hoffmanns Wissenschaftspoetik,” 114–17.
36
See Utz, Das Auge und Ohr im Text, 210.
37
Hoffmann alludes to Ritter’s theories in “Johannes Kreislers Lebensbrief.” Reil
and Herder have also been invoked as pioneers in placing the aural above the visual
faculties; see Utz, Das Auge und Ohr im Text, 194.
Part 1
1: Overture: Jacques Callot

H OFFMANN’S FIRST COLLECTION OF TALES, the Fantasiestücke, was pub-

lished in four books between 1814 and 1816, and right from the start
of his compilation in 1813 he adopted deliberate principles in the order and
presentation of the individual works. Not yet at this point favoring the
route taken by Goethe in his Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten or
Ludwig Tieck in his Phantasus, and which he himself would develop in Die
Serapionsbrüder, of providing a frame narrative, he did not wish to throw
his works before his public in a random fashion, either. Instead he adopted
two unifying structural elements to place around the tales, first an overar-
ching title: Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier: Blätter aus dem Tagebuch eines
reisenden Enthusiasten, which he himself justified as having been deliber-
ately chosen as a preface (“Vorrede”) to the succeeding tales.1 The second
consisted in a succinct programmatic opening piece, Jacques Callot, in
which he sought to provide his readership with what amounts to a concise
statement of the artistic principles that he was proposing to adopt in the
collection as a whole. In this connection it is relevant that several of the tales
themselves were still taking shape at the point when the first two volumes
had already been published (Der goldene Topf, for example, followed as vol-
ume 3 later in the same year, 1814, after the appearance of the first two
books). Because not all the tales — or other writings, such as the essays Der
Dichter und der Komponist and Über alte und neue Kirchenmusik that he
wrote during the period in which the collection was assembled — were
taken up in the Fantasiestücke, it would appear that the principles of eligi-
bility outlined in Jacques Callot were consciously and consistently adopted.
The title itself was immediately contentious and had to be defended by
Hoffmann against the objections of the then hugely popular writer Jean
Paul (Richter) who had condescended (under persuasion from
Hoffmann’s publisher Kunz) to supply a preface (the present “Vorrede”).
Hoffmann’s title contains in compressed form a number of separate ingre-
dients that carry various important signals to his readership. First, the term
“Fantasiestücke” is one that Hoffmann seems to have annexed from the
visual arts;2 second, the use of the term “Manier” (which is here applied to
the seventeenth-century French engraver, Callot) had been famously
employed by Goethe in his essay of 1789 entitled “Einfache Nachahmung
der Natur, Manier, Stil.” Last but not least, there is the creation of a ficti-
tious narrator in the guise of a “reisender Enthusiast,” who threads his way
through the collection, drawing on the journal he has ostensibly compiled
22
OVERTURE: JACQUES CALLOT

on his travels, and sometimes also appearing in his own right as a charac-
ter within a particular tale. The word “Enthusiast” is itself a highly reson-
ant term in early nineteenth-century Germany;3 it is connected with the
concept of original genius (for which the Sturm-und-Drang term “Genie”
is no longer deemed suitable) and sometimes, in its more intense manifest-
ations, is linked to the term “Exaltation.” To certain minds, therefore, it
has strong associations with extreme Romantic attitudes or forms of
behavior. And as such it is not without pejorative overtones. Hoffmann
seems to wish to maintain a degree of distance towards the excesses asso-
ciated with his enthusiast’s utterances. The high incidence of superlatives
that the latter applies to Callot, for example, “überreich,” “heterogenst,”
“natürlichst,” point to a degree of authorial detachment. In addition,
in the seventh chapter of volume 1, Die Abenteuer der Sylvester-Nacht,
Hoffmann introduces a counter-figure to the enthusiast in the guise of an
editor (“Herausgeber”). As we hear from the traveling enthusiast, this edi-
tor figure interestingly bears the name “Theodor Amadäus Hoffmann,” a
good example of the “fictional author” if ever there was one, and a typic-
ally ironic gesture on Hoffmann’s part.4 Die Abenteuer der Sylvester-Nacht
is flanked by a preface, the authorship of which is attributed to this
“Hoffmann”-editor, and a postscript presented by the traveling enthusiast.
As the first to have his say, the editor takes the opportunity offered by
directly addressing the “günstiger Leser” and providing an apologia for the
enthusiast’s more extravagant flights of fancy. The distancing effect
towards the enthusiast that is thus created is then finally counterbalanced
by the real (or “empirical”) author, Hoffmann, who allows the enthusiast
to have the last word and to address “Hoffmann” as “editor.” The process
of splitting the narrative voices en route in the collection, so to speak, and
separating them out into two distinct and contrasting personalities (or sep-
arate aspects of one personality) is characteristic of Hoffmann’s flexible
approach to narrative perspective. In this instance one might suspect that
the device is reflecting an unresolved dualism in his own position and giv-
ing evidence of a fundamental polarization in the mind of the creative artist
and teller of tales, who is torn between unbridled enthusiasm (such as
characterizes the tone of the Kreisleriana, for instance) and the more cau-
tious sobriety (“Besonnenheit”) that is evident in many of the others.
More persuasive, however, is the view according to which enthusiasm and
sobriety are regarded as complementary rather than mutually exclusive or
adversarial aspects in Hoffmann’s conception of the genial,5 and it has
been observed that elsewhere he specifically attributes such qualities to
Beethoven, who, for Hoffmann, represents the archetypal Romantic
artist.6
In this first collection of tales we can already detect the seeds of the
elaborate narrative devices and structures that will be developed further in
Hoffmann’s later fiction and will attain a high degree of complexity in Die
 OVERTURE: JACQUES CALLOT
23

Serapionsbrüder. In the Fantasiestücke the two narrators interact with the

tales, with each other (a little), and also with the fictitious “günstiger
Leser” in the characteristically playful and manipulative way in which
Hoffmann chooses to present narrative — though at this stage the artistic
and thematic ramifications are still rather less developed than they will later
become.
In his preface to the Fantasiestücke, Jean Paul’s alternative suggestion
for a title to the collection — “Kunstnovellen” — is surprisingly anodyne.
When suggesting it, he was already familiar with the Jacques Callot pref-
ace, and could scarcely have missed its import or have misunderstood
Hoffmann’s intentions. Either Jean Paul did not examine the ideas in the
Callot piece (or did not want to, for there was little love lost between the
two writers) or he was not concerned to evaluate its relevance to the col-
lection as a whole. Possibly there may have been a more sinister reason for
his rejection of the title — one that would have applied as much, of course,
to the Callot piece as to the title itself. Jean Paul reacted particularly
unfavorably to the precise nature of the artistic program outlined by
Hoffmann, for which the Callot engravings were intended to serve as a
model. It is clear that he did not care for “Hoffmanns views emanating
from the new-fangled literary school” (that is, Romanticism, with which
Hoffmann is clearly identified).7 But Hoffmann was not prepared to give
ground on a matter to which, on his own admission, he had given much
thought (“den Zusatz ‘in Callots Manier’ hab ich reiflich erwogen”).8
Over and above any personal animosity between the two writers there
is evidently here a plain clash of ideas about art and in particular the direc-
tion being taken by the recent (“neu-poetisch”) generation of Romantic
writers. Jean Paul [Richter] (1763–1825), a quirky, idiosyncratic writer,
possessed of a truly elephantine humor (or “Laune” as Hoffmann ironically
described it when discussing the matter of the preface with his publisher,
Kunz), was, because of his age, an outsider, caught between Romanticism
and Classicism, and his position in literary history is difficult to pin down.
At a time when German writers were simultaneously confronted with the
powerful influences emanating from Weimar and the heady programs
being advanced by the new generation of Romantics in Jena, he had been
plowing a lone and independent furrow and was skeptical about subscrib-
ing to what he regarded as current literary fashions. As Hoffmann had
feared, he was precisely the wrong person to provide a preface for his
Fantasiestücke.9
Because of the elegance and lightness of touch with which Hoffmann
dispatches theoretical matters, it could easily escape the attention of the
reader that what, in the Callot piece, may appear at first sight to be a his-
toricizing appreciation of a seventeenth-century French graphic artist is in
fact nothing of the sort. As Siegbert Prawer has so convincingly argued,
Jacques Callot is both a persuasive piece of rhetoric, artfully and subtly
24
OVERTURE: JACQUES CALLOT

presented, and a presentation of key points in the Romantic program.10

The Callot originals (which Hoffmann had seen in Bamberg) serve as a
starting point for the narrator’s enumeration of a range of artistic princi-
ples; in observing and reconstructing Callot’s own methods of projecting
his vision of the physical world, Hoffmann is simultaneously becoming
aware of parallels that can serve as guidelines for the would-be Romantic
artist (here represented by the traveling enthusiast). The direct address to
Callot (“du kecker Meister”) also sets up a level of intimacy and under-
standing and a closeness between the writer’s and the visual artist’s respec-
tive approaches to their craft.
The features identified in Callot’s model of creativity are many;
indeed, in its sheer conciseness, the piece packs in a whole repertoire of
technical features relating to Callot’s art that Hoffmann regards as having
wider applicability. The reader is hustled briskly from one to the other and
might have wished to linger on some, but it is as if Hoffmann is setting
down a number of key points — almost a kind of memorandum — for his
own future reference and development. We have to remember that Jacques
Callot is a kind of opening fanfare to the Fantasiestücke. As Prawer has
demonstrated, it operates on two levels: first as itself an artful construct
and secondly as an artistic credo. Although Hoffmann described it in a let-
ter as a preface, he did not choose that (or a similar term) in the published
version, as if he wished his reader to enjoy the manner in which it is pre-
sented as much as the content, inviting him to see it as an integrated, not
detached, part of the Fantasiestücke. It was in fact his first attempt to com-
bine these two functions of theoretical issues and pure narrative and he
succeeds in smuggling in a large number of key issues without a sense of
overload. The piece is both succinct and suggestive.
If one were to sum up the key assumptions that underpin the large
range of topics covered in Jacques Callot, one would point to the common
ground that is established between the two distinct art forms, the visual
and verbal, the main issue being the way the faculty of imagination
(“Fantasie”) operates in each and the ironic distance that the artist assumes
towards his material. Callot is praised especially for being able to take
ordinary material from the real world (“die Gestalten des gewöhnlichen
Lebens”) and to transform this matter into forms that are remote, strange,
and exotic, but that still retain something of their familiar origins. The
memorable, succinct phrase used here is “etwas fremdartig Bekanntes.”11
The process of transformation is therefore non-(rather than anti-)naturalistic
but manages to be so in a way that does not seek to disguise its “real” ori-
gins. Even a seemingly prosaic subject — a peasants’ dance — becomes in
Callot’s hands hyper-real in that the musicians sitting aloft in the trees
resemble birds rather than humans. So vivid are the results that an artistic
procedure and technique that are employed in what is in point of fact a
black-and-white engraving triggers in the observer the kind of response
 OVERTURE: JACQUES CALLOT
25

and vivid impression that could normally, that is in real life, be achieved
only through color: “kräftig und in den natürlichsten Farben glänzend.”12
Choice and selection of material are additional aspects of Callot’s art
to be addressed. The salient features are intensity and concentration. Based
on the minutiae of ordinary everyday life, the artist’s process of selection
is designed to create a sense of plenitude, of teeming life, but to do so in
the most economical manner: “Kein Meister hat so wie Callot gewußt, in
einen kleinen Raum eine Fülle von Gegenständen zusammenzudrängen.”
Clearly defined figures and images stand out in sharp relief, at one and the
same time free-standing, distinct entities, existing “als Einzelnes für sich”
and yet at the same time all the heterogeneous parts belonging to a total-
ity. In one sense such an art form might immediately conjure up other
familiar seventeenth-century examples, notably the Dutch school of genre
painting. But it would seem that Hoffmann deliberately veered away from
referring to this school, despite its growing popularity in the early nine-
teenth century.13 He also veered away from his first thoughts about a suit-
able model, namely, the eighteenth-century English satirical graphic artist
William Hogarth, for reasons that will become clearer. It is obvious that
his choice of Callot as an alternative was very carefully considered, as he
himself attested. Genre painting was probably too naturalistic to meet his
criteria or serve as a model for his Romantic program; he was looking for
something that would give more food for thought, above all something
that would stimulate and appeal to the imaginative faculties.
Jacques Callot does not present a detailed analysis of painterly tech-
niques at all. Indeed on technical grounds the point is made that Callot
breaks all the rules of composition, that his works have been taken to task
by “schwierige Kunstrichter” (hard-to-please critics) on the charge that
they do not pay enough attention to fundamental aspects of composition
such as the grouping of figures or to the distribution of light. Callot’s
appeal lies in less tangible effects and above all on an underlying approach
to his materials that triggers his creative powers to produce works that
touch equally deep chords in the viewer’s heart and mind. Hoffmann is
searching in this essay to uncover this process, starting from the point of
its reception, that is, the viewer’s personal response, and working back
from there to the creative act. The conceptual framework he comes up
with focuses on two terms in particular: the first, irony, denotes a mode of
looking at the world in general and taking up a certain position towards it;
the second focuses more precisely on one means whereby this is achieved,
namely, by exploiting the grotesque, a feature common to the visual and
verbal arts and one that is based on the exaggeration of particular (that is,
existing) features of the original source material and that often creates dis-
turbing or shocking effects. Both these elements that Hoffmann identi-
fies in Callot’s art open up common ground that stretches beyond
the normal bounds of each individual art form and promotes a broad view
26
OVERTURE: JACQUES CALLOT

not just of art but of life. In other words they touch on the philosophical
or the “weltanschaulich” aspect of the Romantic program, which — in
all its various manifestations — is seeking for new, or unusual, forms of
expression.
It is well established that irony is a key concept in Hoffmann’s work
and, as will become amply clear later, it is an important ingredient in the
Serapiontic Principle, where it is linked to Lothar’s theory of “Erkenntnis
der Duplizität.” Its central role in Jacques Callot already provides an explan-
ation for Hoffmann’s persistent refusal to accept the limitations of any
theory of art that confines itself to merely reproducing what we perceive
in the physical world. Combined with the all-important faculty of imagin-
ation (“Fantasie”) — here briefly defined in non-visual terms — irony
supplies a perspective on the substance, the true meaning lying beneath the
surface level of reality. In this role and in its more extreme form, it borders
on the satirical and is often harsh and excoriating, since Hoffmann implies
that at the heart of all things in the world of humans all is not necessarily
for the best: benign and malevolent principles exist side by side. This train
of thought might initially have led Hoffmann to consider Hogarth as his
paradigm, since that particular artist’s vision of mankind presents unfor-
gettable images of depravity, cruelty, and inhumanity, unmasking the
hypocrisy lying behind a complacent social order. Such a view of under-
lying horror is, however, too bleak and hopeless for Hoffmann. It is “puni-
tive satire” (as opposed to “scherzende”) to use Schiller’s helpful
terminology;14 it employs black humor and is one-sided in its focus on ills
that may be real but that are too closely linked with specific social or polit-
ical conditions and need to be placed within a wider perspective. Irony and
“scherzende Satire” work differently. Callot’s irony, for instance, presup-
poses a sovereign detachment on the part of the artist, who, by exercising
his imagination, can look out over the entire range of human activity, some
of it uplifting or amusing, some dark and disturbing, thereby displacing
man from the complacent Enlightenment perch that he has attained by
virtue of his position as the unique possessor of reason. Thus the example
of Callot’s art opens up the prospect of exploring the darker side of human
existence (“die Nachtseite der Natur” as G. H. Schubert describes it), but
viewing it with a certain detachment and awareness of its function within
the whole.
The narrator explicitly draws together this definition of irony and the
process of reception, as the serious viewer of Callot’s art is invited to pen-
etrate the surface level of reality in order to understand what lies beneath
what may seem to be “skurril” attempts of the artist to horrify by such
grotesque hybrid forms:

Die Ironie, welche, indem sie das Menschliche mit dem Tier in Konflikt
setzt, den Menschen mit seinem ärmlichen Tun und Treiben verhöhnt,
 OVERTURE: JACQUES CALLOT
27

wohnt nur in einem tiefen Geiste, und so enthüllen Callots aus Tier und
Mensch geschaffne groteske Gestalten dem ernsten tiefer eindringenden
Beschauer, alle die geheimen Andeutungen, die unter dem Schleier der
Skurrilität verborgen liegen. (HSW/SB, 18)

One work of Callot’s is cited for just such serious contemplation as an

example of the use of the grotesque: his “Temptation of St. Anthony”15
(which in some respects is reminiscent of the earlier treatment of this sub-
ject by Matthias Grünewald in his Isenheimer Altar) demonstrates how
parts of the human anatomy can be reified and turned into instruments of
destruction or ridicule by devilish fiends who torment the Holy Man.
These images are typically grotesque in their comic, but simultaneously
indecent and sinister, distortion of the human body and the pain and vio-
lence that they convey. Nonetheless Callot’s artistry wins from the viewer
terms of approbation, “vortrefflich” and “ergötzlich,” even as he lays bare
the horror of what lies beneath the surface. The two chosen examples, the
“Peasant Dance” and the “Temptation,” represent contrasting styles of
artistry and evoke a different range of responses, the one at surface level
being a happy scene that on closer scrutiny contains dissonant elements
through the slightly grotesque detail of tree musicians; the other unre-
lievedly somber in its images but with a modicum of comic relief being
suggested through the distorted physiognomy of the devils. The comple-
mentarity of the serious and the comic (often defined as “Ernst und
Scherz”) is one of the cardinal principles on which Hoffmann’s narrative
program is based and, as will be demonstrated, is specifically linked to the
Serapiontic Principle.
Surveying Jacques Callot in detail as I have been doing above, one
becomes aware that not even the stealth and sophistication of Hoffmann’s
presentation can conceal the insistence with which he is promoting the
Romantic program and, conversely, how the barbs against Enlightenment
and Classical norms are deliberately timed to achieve maximum effect. On
two separate occasions the opportunity is taken to refer explicitly to
Romanticism. The first occurs in the context of Hoffmann’s discussion of
the first of his two Callot examples, the “Peasants’ Dance,” where the
seeming coarseness of the subject matter is transcended by an imaginative
and original treatment: it appears “in dem Schimmer einer gewissen
romantischen Originalität,” opening up immediately the dimension of the
strange and the fantastic. The second is reserved for the last summarizing
paragraph in which the narrator (in the form of the traveling enthusiast)
reiterates his point about Callot’s amazing ability to transform reality and
lend to it an aura of mystery and the exotic, but now he applies this prin-
ciple explicitly to the literary sphere. This process of transformation of the
ordinary (“die Gestalten des gewöhnlichen Lebens”) into the extraordin-
ary is reinforced as a cardinal principle of Romanticism; it emanates from
28
OVERTURE: JACQUES CALLOT

the poet’s inner world, “in seinem innern romantischen Geisterreiche.”

Once more the term “Schimmer” is used to suggest the mysterious and
impalpable effects this has on the reader or receiver:

Könnte ein Dichter oder Schriftsteller, dem die Gestalten des gewöhn-
lichen Lebens in seinem innern romantischen Geisterreiche erscheinen,
und der sie nun in dem Schimmer, von dem sie dort umflossen, wie in
einem fremden wunderlichen Putz darstellt, sich nicht wenigstens mit
diesem Meister entschuldigen und sagen: Er habe in Callots Manier
arbeiten wollen? (HSW/FS 2/1, 18)

The twofold iteration of the word “Romantic” is quite deliberate: the first
statement applies to the effects produced by the visual art form, the sec-
ond to the literary sphere. It is clearly Hoffmann’s intention to link these
different art forms under the “Romantic” heading.
In addition to such explicit reference to the Romantic program there
are other hints and allusions in the text that the careful reader will imme-
diately associate with it. Chief among these is the motif of the veil
(“Schleier”) that is lifted in an attempt to disclose mysteries. Sources for
this notion, which is much favored by Hoffmann’s contemporaries, includ-
ing Schelling and Novalis,16 probably come from the contemporary inter-
est in Egyptian religious mysteries associated with temple of Sais and its
cult of the veiled goddess, Isis. Novalis and many others had been attracted
by this imagery, which appealed for both its religious and its artistic asso-
ciations. Hoffmann’s veil is given a slightly different twist: instead of draw-
ing aside the veil of the goddess, the serious viewer is encouraged to draw
aside the “Schleier der Skurrilität,” in other words the husk that consti-
tutes the outer appearance of the art form, in order to penetrate the mys-
terious depths beneath the surface, thus gaining access to “die geheimen
Andeutungen,” intimations of higher truths that can then be revealed and
communicated by the artist.
Other signs of direct allegiance to the Romantic program include
terms like “Fantasie,” “wunderlich,” and of course “Ironie” and
“grotesk.” At the same time as this vigorous promotion of the Romantic
cause is being expressed, the case against the opposition (whether
Enlightenment or Classical) is not forgotten: for example, the references
to the rules of painting that Callot is deemed to have infringed remind one
of examples elsewhere among Romantic writers of concern about the stul-
tifying effect of the art academies on spontaneous creativity, or likewise in
the punchline at the very end of Jacques Callot when the word “Manier”
is used provocatively to clinch the respectability of a concept that had been
subject to critical examination and had acquired negative connotations
within the canon established by Weimar Classicism.17 In the visual arts
“manner” or “mannerism” was originally applied to late Renaissance and
early seventeenth-century work (for example, Goya) and was criticized
 OVERTURE: JACQUES CALLOT
29

specifically for its complicated groupings and its fondness for the grotesque
and fantastic. To the classical mind it appeared one-sided, lacking all har-
mony and balance. Both in terms of its subject matter and the techniques
it employed, “Manier” had become discredited. With Hoffmann’s piece
that rejection is boldly addressed and the position reversed. His method of
using the comparatively unknown seventeenth-century artist, Callot, to
reflect an early nineteenth-century aesthetic position that was being imple-
mented by the second generation of Romantic writers was original and
subtle. But the strategy of singling out this particular approach to art was
especially daring in its explicit prioritization of “Manier” and blatant
departure from Goethe’s carefully constructed three-stage scheme, in
which “Stil” is the highest criterion and “Manier” occupies an ambiguous
position.
Over and above this general artistic manifesto with its clear statement
of allegiance to Romanticism, Jacques Callot is a key document in
Hoffmann’s own personal evolution as a theorist. Already it contains in a
nutshell some of the most important themes and issues that he would take
up and develop further in Die Serapionsbrüder. These include principally
questions associated with the creative process: the use of the fantastic and
the grotesque; the centrality of irony; the mixture of serious and comic at
the center of art and of life; and the importance of the reception process,
especially the interactive aspect of narrative technique. As far as the creative
process is concerned, Hoffmann had not as yet clarified or conceptualized
matters that would become of major importance in his later works, espe-
cially Die Serapionsbrüder. His approach is intuitive, tentative, and experi-
mental (though the tentative aspect that is such a feature of the style and
presentation and has been so well analyzed by Siegbert Prawer may well be
a deliberately assumed pose). To take an example: the description of
Callot’s modus operandi and the transformation of ordinary life into some-
thing rich, exotic, and yet familiar (“etwas fremdartig Bekanntes”) would
be examined in much more detail within the context of the discussions of
the Serapiontic Principle, of which it could be regarded as an embryo
form. In particular, more attention would be paid to the role of sense per-
ception and the opposition of the purely visual faculty (“Sehen”) and the
visionary and imaginative (“inneres Schauen”). A whole range of possibil-
ities would be opened up to chart the operation of the faculty of imagin-
ation (“Fantasie”) and its effect on the psyche of the artist himself, whose
extreme flights of fancy may result in a dislocation or inability to adjust to
normal circumstances. The operation within the creative process of the
analytical faculty (“Erkenntnis”), for example, alongside the purely
imaginative (“Fantasie”) is another issue that would have to wait until
Hoffmann had amassed more experience of narrative writing from which
he could deduce what he would term (like the philosophers of his day)
“principles.”
30
OVERTURE: JACQUES CALLOT

On the other hand the interactive approach that Hoffmann would

make particularly his own in his prose fiction is already present in exem-
plary form in “Jacques Callot. The reception-process of a work or works of
art is deliberately set before us by the expedient of presenting an enthusi-
ast who is attempting to articulate his overwhelmingly positive reaction to
this artist’s graphic work and to penetrate beneath its surface — with the
additional purpose of transposing his findings to another art form, namely,
literature. The receiver is at one and the same time a potential writer
(“Dichter” or “Schriftsteller” as Hoffmann disarmingly suggests, leaving
open the level of greatness) and/or a highly receptive reader. The degree
of responsiveness and appreciation can be gauged by the implication that
as an observer he is able, through the operation of his imagination, to con-
vert a black-and-white print into a work that is full of color, following the
allusive and virtuoso techniques adopted by the artist. In this ability to
transform material the receiver is no passive consumer but develops his cre-
ative powers in ways analogous to those of the artist himself. Hoffmann
pays his public a big compliment, though one wonders how many have
risen to the challenge.18 Not all, it seems, have been able to appreciate the
wide-ranging relevance of the Callot piece and its subtitle to the
“Fantasiestücke.”

Notes
1
In a letter to Kunz (8 September 1813), Hoffmann expressly drew attention to
the importance of the title-appendage to the Fantasiestücke: “Den Zusatz ‘in
Callots Manier’ hab ich reiflich erwogen und mir dadurch Spielraum zu Manchem
gegeben.” This suggests that he had in mind certain overarching principles for the
collection, albeit flexible ones.
2
See E. T. A. Hoffmann, HSW/FS, 583: “ ‘Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier’ heißt
bei Hoffmann also etwa ‘phantastische Gemälde in der Art Callots.’ ” It had, how-
ever, become a commonplace for the term to be applied to musical compositions
from J. S. Bach to Mozart and many nineteenth-century composers, and this gen-
eral meaning suits Hoffmann’s interdisciplinary program ideally.
3
See Friedrich Schlegel, “Enthusiasmus und Ironie,” in KSA, 2:318. Christa
Karoli, Ideal und Krise enthusiastischen Künstlertums in der deutschen Romantik
(Bonn: 1968). See also the useful commentary in HSW/FS, 589–92.
4
HSW/FS, 359: “Du siehst, mein lieber Theodor Amadäus Hoffmann! Daß nur
zu oft eine fremde dunkle Macht sichtbarlich in mein Leben tritt.”
5
Put forward by Hartmut Steinecke; see HSW/FS, 591.
6
In Hoffmann’s famous review of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in C Minor in the
Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, Leipzig (henceforth AMZ), the composer is pre-
sented as the quintessential Romantic artist: “so entfaltet auch nur ein sehr tiefes
Eingehen in die innere Struktur Beethovenscher Musik die hohe Besonnenheit des
 OVERTURE: JACQUES CALLOT
31

Meisters, welche von dem wahren Genie unzertrennlich ist und von dem anhal-
tenden Studium der Kunst genährt wird” (HSW/FP, 720–74). (This formulation
is taken over almost verbatim into the “Kreisleriana” (HSW/FS 1:3 and 4:9).
7
Jean Paul to Kunz 16 November 1813: “Ich muß vollständig-wahr sein können;
besonders da mir Hoffmanns Ansichten aus der neu-poetischen Schule nicht
immer zusagen. Der in meiner entworfenen Vorrede gebrauchte Titel
‘Kunstnovellen’ wäre vielleicht der passendste für das Buch,” (Schnapp, E. T. A.
Hoffmann in Aufzeichnungen seiner Freunde und Bekannten [Munich: Winkler,
1974], 261).
8
Hoffmann to Kunz 8 September 1813, in E. T. A. Hoffmann, HSW, vol. 1,
1794–1813, ed. G. Allroggen et al., 307.
9
“Jean Pauls Kleister-und Essig-Aale haben mir tüchtig vorgeschnalzt,” wrote
Hoffmann to Kunz on 24 March 1814 (HSW vol. 1, 25). Jean Paul’s remarks had
a considerable (negative) effect on the reception of the Fantasiestücke, so much so
that Hoffmann implored his publisher to omit the preface altogether in subsequent
editions — but to no avail. It is with us today, an odd period piece that shows scant
appreciation of Hoffmann’s genius.
10
Siegbert Prawer, “Die Farben des Jacques Callot: E. T. A. Hoffmanns
‘Entschuldigung’ seiner Kunst,” in Wissen aus Erfahrungen (Festschrift für
Herman Meyer), ed. Alexander von Bormann (Tübingen: 1976), 392–401.
11
This formulation bears unmistakable traces of Novalis: cf. “Die Kunst, auf eine
angenehme Art zu befremden, einen Gegenstand fremd zu machen und doch
bekannt und anziehend, das ist die romantische Poetik” (Novalis, Fragmente, ed.
E. Kamnitzer, (Dresden: Wolfgang Jess, 1929), 621, no. 1941.
12
This point is noted by Prawer, “Die Farben des Jacques Callot,” 395.
13
See Heinrich von Kleist apropos his source material for Der zerbrochne Krug, in
a letter to Fouqué, 25 May 1811, in Sämtliche Werke, vol. 2, ed. Helmut Sembdner
(Munich: Hanser, 1965), 862: “Es ist nach Teniers gearbeitet.”
14
“Über naive und sentimentalische Dichtung” in Werke (Nationalausgabe), vol.
20, part 1 (Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1962), 442: “satirisch ist der
Dichter, wenn er die Entfernung von der Natur und den Widerspruch mit dem
Ideale . . . zu seinem Gegenstand macht. Dies kann er aber sowohl ernsthaft und
mit Affekt, als scherzhaft und mit Heiterkeit ausführen. . . . Jenes geschieht durch
die strafende, oder pathetische, dieses durch die scherzhafte Satire.”
15
The first work of Callot’s described in “Jacques Callot” is the untitled engraving
that art historians call “Bauerntanz zu dem Musikanten aufspielen, die wie Vögelein
in den Bäumen sitzen”; the second “Die Versuchung des Heiligen Antonius.”
Hoffmann was familiar with the Stengel collection of Callot’s works in Bamberg and
may well have been familiar with other works of his as well. See commentary in
HSW/FS, 606–7. We shall find below (see chapter 5, “Callot Revisited”) that he
would return to Callot as an inspiration in his late tale Prinzessin Brambilla.
16
Cf. Novalis, “Die Lehrlinge zu Sais,” in Novalis Schriften, vol. 1, ed. P. Kluckhohn
and R. Samuel (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1960), 110: “Einem gelang es — er
32
OVERTURE: JACQUES CALLOT

hob den Schleier der Göttin zu Sais / Aber was sah er? Er sah — Wunder des
Wunders — sich selbst.”
17
H. M. Brown, “Goethe and Hoffmann on “Manier,” Oxford German Studies 33
(2004): 149–65.
18
As a footnote to this question of reception and quality of response on the part
of Hoffmann’s readership, one is put in mind of the tongue-in-cheek vignette in
Des Vetters Eckfenster in which the flower-girl expresses her untutored opinions
about the book she has borrowed from the lending library, unaware that she is
addressing its author himself. See chapter 6.
2: Der Einsiedler Serapion:
The Formulation of a Principle

Introduction

S INCE HIS FIRST ATTEMPTS in the Fantasiestücke (the Callot preface and
the “Kreisleriana”) to formulate his aesthetic ideas, Hoffmann’s
Romantic program had been developing apace alongside his growing
experience as a writer. The need for an appropriate medium to present his
ideas was therefore becoming urgent. Like his fellow Romantics who had
a theoretical bent, Hoffmann could not use forms like manifestos or trea-
tises, all of which had associations with Enlightenment systems. His need
was for a flexible instrument that could accommodate his ever-expanding
thoughts about the creative process and give scope for the expression of
different shades of an argument — a requirement that may have reflected
his cast of mind or, possibly, have been a by-product of his legal training.
He was clearly committed to delivering his ideas in a form that was both
lively and flexible.1 His preferred mode of presentation — an elaborate
frame narrative — and the demands it makes on the reader somewhat
resemble those created by a sophisticated modern literary text — and in
elucidating any such text, as present literary criticism reveals, one can
expect ambiguities rather than categorical statements.
The form of presentation employed for the exposition of the
Serapiontic Principle in Die Serapionsbrüder is particularly complex. Here
confusion has reigned about the relationship between the tale of the her-
mit, the narrator (Cyprian’s) interpolations, the initial discussion of its
meaning by members of the group, and Lothar’s subsequent summarizing
and definitive statement, which is based on gathering up all the strands of
the previous discussion to form a “principle.” Hoffmann uses the term
“principle” frequently in both his critical and his fictional works,2 and it is
widely employed in contemporary philosophy. The formulation of the
Serapiontic Principle, as things turn out, has to wait until another tale, Rat
Krespel, has been narrated. Most commentators concentrate exclusively on
Lothar’s summarizing statement, which follows on from the group’s reac-
tions to this work, without connecting it up to the important first stage in
the process that leads on to this defining point, a process that also involves
a consensus among the four group members who have expressed their
individual viewpoints. Hoffmann had good reason, I believe, to adopt this
two-stage presentation and in this chapter I shall show how it is connected
34
DER EINSIEDLER SERAPION

with the underlying philosophical premises of the argument and the nature
of the theory that is being expounded. This aspect of Hoffmann’s think-
ing has, surprisingly, attracted little attention in the secondary literature.
As a reader Hoffmann was an omnivore, a man with the widest intellectual
interests, living and writing at a time of tremendous intellectual ferment in
the German-speaking world and consorting with many other first-class
minds.3 He was acquainted with the leading ideas being propounded in
the Romantic period, particularly those of its early generation, the philo-
sophically literate Frühromantiker, especially Novalis, and also with the
scientific writings of popularizers like J. W. Ritter (who was a close associ-
ate of Schelling’s) and G. H. Schubert, who wrote particularly on the role
of the unconscious, and much of whose work was on the borderlands of
psychology and philosophy. Hoffmann’s keen interest in developments in
the mind-body question, for instance — a topic that, as we shall see, the
members of the Serapionsbund regularly examine in its various forms — is
well documented. Detailed case histories had been compiled in the fields
of Mesmerism, Somnambulism, and Galvanism, and were arousing much
interest both at the popular level and among writers who were prompted
to speculate about the consequences that might be drawn between the
workings of the human mind and the unconscious. Hoffmann’s writings
— both fictional and theoretical — testify amply to his knowledge of cur-
rent theories relating to medicine and psychology.4
These interests would clearly provide Hoffmann with important and
up-to-date themes for his writings (Die Elixiere des Teufels, Der Sandmann,
Der Magnetiseur). But at a more fundamental level a clear intellectual
framework can be discerned in Hoffmann’s aesthetic theory or poetics.
This is not intrusive, and no philosophers’ names are mentioned, but its
terminology immediately betrays its origins in post-Kantian Idealist philo-
sophy, specifically “Naturphilosophie,” which was gaining ground from
the late 1790s and through the early 1800s among the Frühromantiker, as
their initial enthusiasm for Fichte started to wane. This had as its main
practitioner Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–1854), who pro-
duced a series of widely publicized lectures and influential works, the most
relevant of which to Hoffmann are “Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur”
(1797), “Von der Weltseele” (1798), and “Erster Entwurf eines Systems
der Naturphilosophie” (1799). Hoffmann notes two of the above in his
diary without comment but his diary entry for the other, “Von der
Weltseele,”5 conveys slightly more information. It would seem from his
letters that Hoffmann had made a thorough study of this particular text,
announcing on 26 July 1813 to his friend Kunz6 that he had concluded his
“Studium von Schellings Weltseele” and hoped to proceed forthwith to a
reading of Schubert’s Ansichten von der Nachtseite der Naturwissenschaft
(1808), a prospect that he was clearly relishing rather more. It is interest-
ing that this serious study of philosophical works should have started just
 DER EINSIEDLER SERAPION
35

at the point when Hoffmann had completed his first collection of tales, the
Fantasiestücke, and the first draft of his major opera, Undine, and was
undertaken shortly after the first publication of these philosophical works.
Schubert’s Ansichten, which was based on an influential lecture series given
in Dresden, had been published five years earlier, but as far as we can tell
it did not attract Hoffmann’s attention at that juncture, even though
he had access to the extensive lending library in Bamberg run by his
friend Kunz. Nor is there any evidence of his having read Schelling’s
“Naturphilosophie” at that point either, although the particular texts he
mentions in 1813 had all been published several years earlier.
The co-presence of the works of Schelling and Schubert on
Hoffmann’s reading list in 1813 does not seem to have been fortuitous.
Schubert was a popularizer of Schelling’s Naturphilosophie (among other
theories) and applied its principles to his own scientific observations eclec-
tically. His books are written in an accessible style with plenty of anecdotes
and illustrations and little or no systematic theorizing — and, in compari-
son with Schelling’s, could be described as philosophically undemanding.
Whether by chance, design, or a desire to approach the subject systema-
tically, Hoffmann’s order of reading seems to have made sense, familiariza-
tion with the basic principles being a precondition for a study of the diverse
application of these. Schubert’s debt to Schelling can be illustrated from a
comparison of two brief extracts, both of which, as we shall see, have rele-
vance to Hoffmann’s own literary presentation of themes concerning the
relationship between “Geist” and “Natur.” Schelling wrote:

Die Natur soll der sichtbare Geist, der Geist die sichtbare Natur sein. Hier
also, in der absoluten Identität des Geistes in uns und der Natur außer uns,
muß das Problem, wie eine Natur außer uns möglich sey, auflösen.7

Schubert wrote:

Der Geist der Natur scheint sich mit denselben Gedanken, mit denselben
Problemen zu beschäftigen, welche auch dem unsrigen am meisten
anliegen, und welche derselbe am meisten zu lösen bemüht ist. . . . Der
Geist der Natur tut hier wirklich einen prophetischen Blick über das
jetztige Dasein des Menschen hinaus, und beantwortet diesem hiermit
eine der angelegentlichsten Fragen seines Geistes.8

The style and emphasis may be different: Schelling’s abstraction contrasts

with Schubert’s more down-to-earth application of the general principle of
equivalence or reciprocity between “Geist” and “Natur.” Both refer to the
problematic aspect of that relationship, implying that perfect harmony is
something to be striven for rather than assumed. Schelling’s statement is
based on the premise that total identity can only be achieved in the
Absolute. This issue will be broached in Hoffmann’s programmatic opening
tale, Der Einsiedler Serapion, where the operation of “Geist” is examined
36
DER EINSIEDLER SERAPION

in quasi-philosophical terms by the Einsiedler, and, later in the book, from

a contrasting perspective, by Lothar. The almost dialectical manner in
which these two discourses are presented and discussed has a direct bear-
ing on the formulation of the Serapiontic Principle itself and on our evalu-
ation of its significance.
However, another possibility is raised at this time by various thinkers
anxious to bring a happy resolution of the potential dichotomy for
mankind a bit closer. This is the superimposition on the (potentially) oppo-
sitional structure of “Geist” and “Natur,” together with the positive
and negative principles that are characteristic of each, of a “triadisches
Geschichtsbild,” an idea that is familiar to us from other sources in the
Goethezeit, ranging from Schiller (“Über naive und sentimentalische
Dichtung”) through to Novalis (“Die Christenheit oder Europa”) and
beyond.9 According to the Romantic version of this historical view of the
dichotomy, man’s innate capacity for development in intellectual and spir-
itual terms (in Romantic parlance often concisely expressed in terms of the
mathematical progression known as “Potenzierung”10) points forward to
the possibility of the future reattainment of an absolute state of harmony
between “Geist” and “Natur.” Schelling expresses the notion of regained
harmony in terms of the evolution of the individual human “Geist” and its
future return to the blissful state of childhood harmony as “victor over its
own powers and by dint of its own merits.”11
Schubert’s diagnosis of a universal conflict in the respective spheres of
“Geist” und “Natur” is similar, but expressed in more concrete terms:

In der ganzen uns umgebenden Sinnenwelt zeigt sich, ebenso wie in der
geistigen, der stete Kampf zweyer Prinzipien, welche ursprünglich einander
befreundet, sich feindlich gegen einander entzünden. Der Kampf zwischen
beyden läßt sich durch die verschiedensten Entwicklungsstufen — Klassen
und Geschlechter — verfolgen, bis dahin, wo zuletzt das zerstörende
Prinzip von dem ihm entgegengesetzten besiegt wird.12

The prospect of a reconciliation of the warring principles suggested

here is expressed in explicitly Christian terminology, as Schubert alludes to
the biblical fall and the regaining of the lost paradise in terms of a divine
revelation of the higher truths that are to be gleaned from the evidence of
nature’s symbolic language: “Der Inhalt jenes großen Hieroglyphen-
Buches ist mithin derselbe, als der der geschriebenen Offenbarung.”13
Hoffmann is aware of the same constant battle between opposing
principles, and this dualistic perspective on life will underpin Lothar’s for-
mulation as the “Duplizität des Seins,” which becomes a key aspect of the
Serapiontic Principle. For his part he will propose two solutions to the
basic problem, one time-bound, the other transcending time. The first is
the above-mentioned familiar triadic formula, which here is expressed in
terms of the personal or spiritual development of an individual character
 DER EINSIEDLER SERAPION
37

and will be reinforced through the agency of myth. This approach is exem-
plified in Der goldene Topf, where the Genesis myth provides an analogue
for Anselmus’s development as a poet. It can be found in several other
mythical interpolations in his Märchen, such as Prinzessin Brambilla and
Meister Floh. A harmonious synthesis between “Geist” and “Natur” can
also occasionally be achieved by visionary insights that transcend time:
“Ahnungen,” or intimations of a higher world that beckons intermittently
and to which access comes through sudden, intense experiences and emo-
tions aroused by art (most especially music), which border on ecstasy.14
Hoffmann’s entire work could be said to oscillate between these cont-
rasting positions, the dualistic impasse and the visionary, transcendental
resolution of dichotomies. Unlike some of his Romantic predecessors,
however, such as the visionary Novalis, who also addresses the problem
posed by the opposition of “Geist” and “Natur,” instead of privileging
one side of the equation, for example, “Geist” (in its equivalent form of
“Fantasie”), Hoffmann presents characters who are exposed to powerful
pressures from both sides, the physical and the spiritual, which prove incap-
able of resolution — and sometimes (though not frequently) this is taken
to the extreme limits of tragedy (for example, in Die Elixiere des Teufels).
The problem of resolution is at the forefront of many of his fictional and
theoretical works15 and the obstacles are meticulously exposed. However
ardently resolution is desired, however, it is often left hanging or shown to
be impossible (as in Der Sandmann, Die Bergwerke zu Falun, and Rat
Krespel).
The tale that editors have entitled Der Einsiedler Serapion, which is
narrated by the frame character Cyprian, seems at one level to achieve reso-
lution, but this too, on closer inspection, turns out to be complex and
conditional.16 It contains in a nutshell the basic programmatic material that
will form the mainstay of the frame dialogue over the length and breadth
of the Serapionsbrüder. It is a complex piece in which a philosophical
debate is presented through the filter of a narratorial perspectivism, in
which the reader’s attention is fully engaged as he is invited to consider the
plausibility of the arguments being proposed and weigh up their relative
importance. If the contextualization of the argument17 is ignored or ran-
dom selections made from it, the results can only be one-sided. Both the
contents of Serapion’s argument and the mode of its presentation must
therefore be examined in greater detail than is customary.

Der Einsiedler Serapion

This is one of the tales in the collection in which the teller of the tale him-
self plays a leading part in its action. The hermit’s tale is presented by
Cyprian, the member of the brotherhood who is the most receptive to the
38
DER EINSIEDLER SERAPION

Occult and Supernatural; there are added complexities because of the

time-span that has now elapsed between the event and its telling and the
fact that the teller informs his audience that he no longer entirely shares
the views and attitudes that he held at the time it took place. Thus Cyprian
performs the double function of eye-witness and partly doubting Thomas.
Even within the “erzählte Zeit” of the narrative, his attitude develops. At
first sight he had found the hermit’s “madness” incomprehensible and
taken on the role of a psychotherapist, using methods that were at the time
current for dealing with patients in asylums who exhibited idées fixes and
that could be described as aggressive shock tactics.18 When these fail, the
skeptic becomes more sympathetic to the crazy logic of the hermit’s posi-
tion, to the extent that the latter even entertains hopes of converting him
to his own view of reality. This does not, however, happen, nor does it lead
to any fundamental change in Cyprian’s outlook: his attitude towards the
hermit remains ambiguous. On the one hand the perspective of normal
rationality reasserts itself; on the other he does believe he has achieved
more insight and understanding of the underlying causes of the hermit’s
delusion and also has become aware of the fact that it has a positive angle,
insofar as the hermit’s visionary pronouncements, when applied to artistic
matters, carry considerable authority.
The hermit’s story touches on issues of time, place, and identity. It
also raises questions about what actually constitutes insanity, a matter that
was of great contemporary interest and on which a wide spectrum of views
prevailed, ranging from the view that it was merely a kind of false percep-
tion to its being regarded as a serious physical malfunctioning. At the same
time — and it is here that the tale will open up onto the theme of art —
the hermit’s “Wahnsinn” is revealed to be compatible with the highest
degree of artistic and narrative skill. The question of how to interpret the
contradiction in the hermit’s behavior and views, which will occupy the
members of the group in their discussions for some time, revolves mainly
around one main issue: the relationship of madness and great art to one
another. The business of exegesis does not start outside the telling, how-
ever, for in the exchanges between Cyprian and the hermit there has
already been a great deal of discussion, much of it of a serious nature on
the borderlands between philosophy and psychology.
It is principally in the matters of identity, time, and place that the her-
mit’s idée fixe manifests itself.19 Although in real life, we are led to believe,
he is a German nobleman and a former diplomat, Serapion insists that he
is an early Christian martyr, Saint Serapion, living in the Theban desert in
the third century A.D. The little hermitage that he has built with his own
hands and round which he has placed an idyllic garden is situated in a
German forest near B. (almost certainly Bamberg). It is not entirely clear
what has triggered this transformation from the worldly position of a suc-
cessful diplomat of aristocratic origins, who has combined his professional
 DER EINSIEDLER SERAPION
39

career with writing poetry, to that of a recluse who has opted out of virtu-
ally all social activity and turned his back on “normal” life. A recurring
motif is Serapion’s reference to his “martyrdom” which, he insists, was
instigated by the Roman Emperor Decius, but he gives no details of the
reasons for it. “Martyrdom” here, at the most prosaic level, could be seen
as a metaphor or chiffre for a serious life crisis and for survival of a sort
beyond this; it clearly represents a total rejection of material in favor of
non-worldly values, and his post-martyred condition manifests itself in the
ascetic life of monasticism and self-denial, familiarly associated with the
hermit topos in Romanticism.20 Following this train of thought — though
Serapion himself does not make this explicit — the struggle with conflict-
ing principles may have been the cause of the crisis in Graf P.’s life, and
only by completely rejecting the material world and assuming another
identity could he hope to survive. Pursuing this even further, the drastic
outcome might be construed as an oblique comment on Hoffmann’s part
about the precarious position of the sensitive individual — one thinks of
his gallery of artist figures that are “zerrissen” and their inability to resolve
the claims of “inneres” with “äußeres Leben.”
The hermit, then, lives entirely in the world of the spirit (“Geist,”
“Fantasie”), whose main focus in his case appears to be literary creation,
since for the benefit of Cyprian he narrates on the spot three brilliant tales
(to which, tantalizingly, Hoffmann does not give his readers access and
which therefore remain at the level of oral tradition (all the other tales will
be “read” by their author-narrators). He claims he has attained a high
degree of serenity (“Heiterkeit”), which is only ruffled when visitors like
Cyprian try to persuade him to return to his former condition. The her-
mit, it seems, is in a state of denial about his past, sensing that to return to
it, even in his imagination, will induce the same torments and conflicts that
he associates with his earlier “martyrdom.” In other words his madness
seems to be a defense against what he regards as a world full of pain and
conflict. At some deeper, subconscious level he must surely be aware of
this, hence the vehemence of his attempts to ward off what he describes as
the attacks of “Widersacher,” that is to say, those Satanic beings, or anti-
Christs, who would seek to persuade him to return to “normal” life. There
are clear allusions here to Satan’s temptation of Christ and of various Saints
(for example, St Anthony).21
But Serapion’s opposition to such attempts does not take the form of
angry, emotional outbursts. Rather, as a coping device the hermit has
evolved an elaborate theory or philosophy of his own to explain and con-
firm the validity of his extreme position (or, viewed from another angle,
the role he has assumed). This philosophy carries overtones of Fichte’s
transcendental idealism and also of Novalis’s idea of “magic idealism,”
upholding the supremacy of mind (“Geist”) over all claims upon it eman-
ating from the empirical world, and most specifically the realm governed
40
DER EINSIEDLER SERAPION

by time and space: “Ist es nicht der Geist allein, der das was sich um uns
her begibt in Raum und Zeit, zu erfassen vermag?” For the hermit, there-
fore, “Geist” controls sense perception — and thus time and space —
rather than vice versa: “Ja, was hört, was sieht, was fühlt in uns? — vielle-
icht die toten Maschinen die wir Auge — Ohr — Hand etc. nennen und
nicht der Geist?” With this rhetorical question Serapion reveals his con-
tempt for the empiricist, sense-based, mechanical theories of perception
that were associated with Enlightenment philosophy. As an alternative we
are presented with an example of the belief in the primacy of “Geist,”
which, in Romantic usage, includes overtones of “spirit” and “imagina-
tion” as well as “mind” in the narrower intellectual sense (Hoffmann, like
most Romantics, consistently avoids Kant’s terminology of “Verstand” and
“Vernunft”). The power and control attributed to this faculty of “Geist”
is, in Serapion’s interpretation, absolute, possibly divine in origin, since he
describes his own dedication to the spiritual life in such terms, styling him-
self as “den Gott geweihten Anachoreten.”
To bolster this notion of the supremacy of “Geist” over sense percep-
tion and to define his conception of “Geist” more precisely, Serapion sets
up an imaginary debate with Ariosto,22 one of the early Renaissance poets
(the other sparring partners from his imaginary literary circle are the fig-
ures of Dante and Petrarch, with whom Serapion conducts regular imagin-
ary discussions in a kind of “Geistergemeinschaft”). Serapion’s argument
takes on the features of an academic “disputatio”: First he puts his own
proposition about the exclusive power of the mind (“Geist”) to create its
own — the only — world in time and space and the subordinate role
played in this process by the senses themselves. Then he sets up his ficti-
tious mouthpiece, Ariosto, to articulate a proposition that contradicts the
one he himself has put forward. This proposes that the figures and events
created by the poetic imagination (“Geist”) are unique and inhabit a world
of their own, unconnected to that which is governed by space and time,
which, it is implied, operates according to different laws: “[er meinte] er
habe im Innern Gestalten und Begebenheiten geschaffen, die niemals in
Raum und Zeit existierten.” This view, attributed to Ariosto,23 which pos-
tulates a clear separation between “Geist” and “Natur,” art and life, con-
flicts with Serapion’s unitary, monistic conception. Serapion finally restates
his own position, challenging and manipulatively knocking down the
inherently dualistic view of his opponent, Ariosto (“ich bestritt, daß dies
möglich sei”). Serapion’s clinching argument in the debate about mind
and matter introduces a new point, as he calls on a superior faculty that he
describes as “höhere Erkenntnis” and that he identifies exclusively with the
exceptional poet, the “seer,” prophet, or mystical thinker. He believes he
has won over his opponent to his side: “er [Ariosto] mußte mir einräumen,
daß es nur Mangel höherer Erkenntnis sei, wenn der Dichter alles, was er
vermöge seiner besonderen Sehergabe vor sich in vollem Leben erschaue,
 DER EINSIEDLER SERAPION
41

in den engen Raum seines Gehirns einschachteln wolle” (HSW/SB, 34).

Undismayed by any mismatch between the fruits of a potentially infinite
imagination and the finite human physical repository (“Gehirn”) that is
available for processing these, the mind of the possessor of this “higher fac-
ulty” of knowledge and understanding (for so the hermit views his own
position) can transcend the gulf between “Geist” and “Natur,” and can
attribute to his fantasy world the same location in time and space as applies
to the phenomenal world, that is, the realm that exists outside the poetic
— or poeticized — world.
But this view of the mind and imagination — implying an enhanced,
intensified (“potenziert”) form of insight and creativity — is a poetic ideal
rather than a practical proposition for artists who have not adopted
Serapion’s idée fixe solution for dealing with the strains and pressures, the
paradoxes and contradictions with which they are confronted in everyday
life. And that means the majority. A new aspect in the discussion presents
itself at this point: the familiar Romantic triadic “Geschichtsbild” men-
tioned above, according to which human perception and the imaginative
reception of sense data involved in the creative process may be viewed in
terms of a progression over time (and to express which, as I mentioned
above, Hoffmann will have recourse to invented interpolated myths). In
Serapion’s case the myth through which this idea is transmitted is encap-
sulated in his own fictionalized life story, which is summed up in his pre-
and post-martyred condition and his appropriation of the identity of the
Saint. Serapion is meticulous in recording details of time and place as if
they were not simply extensions of his own imagination. He transposes
time from the present nineteenth to the third century A.D. and the place
from Bamberg to the Theban desert near Alexandria, the application of the
visionary “höhere Erkenntnis” bringing with it the insight that past, pre-
sent, and future are as one, and distances between widely separated parts
of the world are non-existent: “Erst nach dem Märtyrertum kommt jene
höhere Erkenntnis, die genährt wird von dem Leben in tiefer Einsamkeit”
(HSW/SB, 34).
From this exclusive perspective inhabited by the seer or prophet,
Serapion sets himself apart from ordinary mortals, implying two levels of
awareness, a lower and a higher: “Erkenntnis” (the term used by Lothar)
and “höhere Erkenntnis” (which is exclusively used by Serapion).
Serapion’s form of life has much of the Rousseauesque idyll about it; his
garden is described in such a way as to evoke the Garden of Eden. But, to
complicate the matter, the hermit’s apparent return to a state of childlike
innocence may be a (fictive) delusion, a “Wahn” rather than a reality. For
if, as was suggested earlier, Serapion’s “martyrdom” is a chiffre for his
rejection of all the conflicts that confront the sensitive and creative mind
in its dealings with the “real” world, then his past, that world to which he
had once belonged is, equally, not something that he can completely
42
DER EINSIEDLER SERAPION

discard or forget.24 As an inspired poet like Hölderlin knew only too well,
few poets are visionaries for more than limited periods; “höhere
Erkenntnis” as a strategy for overcoming life’s dichotomies is not a durable
option. Only extreme expedients (such as a deliberately or unconsciously
assumed madness or the inspired poet’s moments of exaltation) can con-
ceivably provide some respite. As with the narrator’s glimpse of his hero
Anselmus (Der goldene Topf) arriving in “Atlantis, dem Land der Poesie,”
when viewed from the empirical standpoint such claims have all the
fragility that characterizes poetic illusion (“Wahn”).
In this complex opening preface Hoffmann is deliberately using hyper-
bole, calling on a most extreme example of the poet’s dilemma. The her-
mit’s “vision” and belief that he has achieved a Utopian state is a poet’s
“solution” couched entirely within his own terms of reference. There will
be many other poet and artist figures in the subsequent tales, some of
whom may approach the mad or the eccentric, like Rat Krespel, but there
are none who attain the exemplary status of the hermit, which is set up in
the frame dialogue. The problem of reconciling the inner and outer
worlds, in Schelling’s terms “Geist” and “Natur,” will be demonstrated
through these artist figures in various ways and shown to affect them at dif-
ferent levels of intensity, some tragic, some ironical, and some light-
hearted. Other angles on the issue are already suggested within the
exemplary tale Der Einsiedler by the introduction of a different kind of
poet as sparring partner, here the (doubly) fictionalized Ariosto — and are
further reinforced by the ambiguous reaction over time to Serapion of his
fellow artist and our narrator-figure, Cyprian, who is skeptical, but increas-
ingly sympathetic towards the hermit; other members of the Bund will, of
course, persist in regarding him as (negatively) mad.
Serapion is presented as a kind of “super-artist” — a kind of intensi-
fied, “potenziert” Kreisler, one might say — who, to his own satisfaction
at least, achieves a consistency in his art and his life that is denied to
others is. This is attested by his ability to tell tales the excellence of which
Cyprian as listener is at a loss to describe in words other than by a series of
superlatives and which Hoffmann himself, as author, leaves to the imagi-
nation of his readers. The first of the “Novellen” Serapion narrates25 is
described by Cyprian as emanating from “der geistreichste, mit der
feuerigsten Fantasie begabte Dichter.” And the artistic excellence of these
tales is described in greater detail thus: “Alle Gestalten traten mit einer
plastischen Rundung, mit einem glühenden Leben hervor, daß man fort-
gerissen, bestrickt von magischer Gewalt wie im Traum daran glauben
mußte, daß Serapion alles selbst wirklich von seinem Berge erschaut”
(HSW/SB, 34). The nature of the reception process and the criteria that
are here carefully relayed by Cyprian will be important for the future dis-
cussions of the principle. The overlap with Callot’s pictorial depictions
(note the word “plastisch”) is striking, as is the notion that the sense of
 DER EINSIEDLER SERAPION
43

reality conveyed by the work is attributable to the viewer’s belief that what
is depicted is based on the closest possible identification between the
artist’s “Geist” and his material, and that what Serapion has “seen” from
his mountain-top vantage point is imbued with a dynamic quality that par-
allels life itself.26 What is being described by Cyprian — though not rec-
ognized by Serapion — is reminiscent of a principle that had been
formulated by S. T. Coleridge at roughly the same period: the notion, now
so familiar in the English tradition as to almost have become a common-
place, of the “willing suspension of disbelief,”27 a principle on which so
much great imaginative art depends. It is to some extent a paradoxical
notion, since “willing” is as much as to say “knowing” and the idea of
“suspension” in the reception process suggests a condition in which the
receiver can temporarily occupy an alternative world to that which he
normally inhabits, while remaining aware of the boundaries between them.
For poets such as Novalis (and Hoffmann’s Serapion) this point is taken
further, and the poet’s exceptional ability to transform the bare bones of
reality and to persuade others to suspend their normal ways of evaluating
it is developed to the point where the attainment of this alternative view is
elevated to the status of a “magic” power.
When applied to the creative act and its reception, this magical power
dissolves all barriers between the empirical and the imaginative worlds. The
artist’s state of creative “exaltation,” his sense of being driven by a quasi-
divine power, cannot be maintained indefinitely, and the contours of the
real world of time and space will reassert themselves. What Serapion is try-
ing to do — and, it would appear, not entirely without difficulty — is to
perpetuate that state of exaltation and “höhere Erkenntnis,” to create for
himself as in an artwork a timeless Golden Age world, not “willingly,” but
rather by denial. His imaginative faculty (“inneres Schauen”) is in perpet-
ual overdrive, drawing on his accumulated inner resources of imagination
and applying and extending the artist’s intense concentration and vision-
ary sweep until, to his satisfaction, the external world is, as it were, forced
to bend to his command. When viewed from the normal, commonsensical
perspective, these moments of exaltation may seem bizarrely inappropriate
or disturbing (even the sympathetic Cyprian testifies to a feeling of “tiefer
Schauer”).
The particular form taken by Serapion’s “madness” is not, as far as one
can tell, documented in any precise way in the case histories itemized by
Reil, Pinel, and others in the contemporary medical and psychiatric litera-
ture with which, as we have seen, Hoffmann was familiar, though there are
references there to other types of idées fixes.28 It seems to be presented
almost as a deliberately chosen strategy, or at least one to which Serapion
is subconsciously attracted, and the blurring of the distinction between
“Wahn” and “Wahnsinn” is significant. As was noted, it clearly does not in
any way impair the quality of his artistic abilities, nor, more surprisingly, is
44
DER EINSIEDLER SERAPION

it incompatible with a sense of humor (though we have to take this on

trust).29 The Graf’s insistence on being identified with the historical per-
sona of the hermit Serapion indicates that he has adopted a role, one more-
over which has been carefully selected after considerable research into the
lives of the early saints. It also suggests that the concepts of space and time
are still important to Serapion in theory, even though in practice he is fic-
tionalizing and manipulating them, living out his inner life in terms of the
alternative reality that he has created for himself.30 Depending on one’s
viewpoint this can be seen as either an idyllic or a hellish condition, and
judging by the collective responses of the reasonably normal members of
the Serapionsbrüder, it is chiefly the latter. Serapion’s story presents a ref-
erence point to which other artists can be compared, not in order that they
might emulate the hermit’s extreme behavior, but so that they (and pre-
sumably Hoffmann’s readers) can be reminded of the gulf that exists
between the real and the imaginary worlds.
One is struck by the complexities and ambiguities raised by Der
Einsiedler Serapion, Hoffmann’s second major attempt to create a pro-
grammatic “Vorspiel” to a collection of tales. The Callot preface is by
comparison clear and straightforward; it concentrates almost entirely on
matters of artistic skill and presentation, and nothing is said about the
artist’s personal struggles or mental condition. By focusing on such an
extreme figure and by allying the theme of madness to that of art
Hoffmann has greatly added to the problem of interpretation; this can eas-
ily be demonstrated by reviewing the secondary literature on the topic of
the Serapiontic Principle, much of which focuses on the theme of madness.
It is especially confusing that no sooner has the main section of Cyprian’s
narrative ended with his account of the death of the hermit than the mem-
bers of the Bund express strong views and adverse reactions that raise
doubts about the very status of the tale in the mind of the reader. Even
Cyprian’s championship of the hermit is brought into question when he
confesses that his meetings with him and his own enthusiasm date from an
earlier phase in his life, when he was especially drawn to the then fashion-
able “gothic” mode of writing and to exploring situations in which “die
Natur gerade beim Abnormen Blicke vergönne in ihre schauerlichste
Tiefe”; now, as Cyprian recounts the tale several years on, he expresses a
deep “Grauen.” Theodor for his part is particularly upset at Serapion’s
insistence that madness is a state comparable to bliss (“Seligkeit”) and
should be embraced by artists in general. Ottmar, normally well disposed
to manifestations of the occult, finds in the tale “Etwas Überspanntes.”
Only Lothar is completely silent.
As was already pointed out, Hoffmann, adopts an installment system
in his exposition of the Serapiontic Principle. Before members of the group
can make further progress towards a narrative theory to guide their own
efforts, another story, Rat Krespel, is inserted. This has been deliberately
 DER EINSIEDLER SERAPION
45

chosen by Theodor, its author and narrator, with a view to creating a kind
of corrective to the first tale, which he dislikes so intensely. The central fig-
ure, Krespel, shares with the hermit an oddness and singularity but would
certainly not rate so highly on the scale of madness. His background,
though, is not completely dissimilar to Graf P.’s; a high-powered lawyer,
diplomat, and councillor whose advice is sought by princes, he combines
his professional with his artistic interests (music being the relevant art form
in this case), and has a penchant for playing — and dismembering — vio-
lins. He could be described as a sensitive soul who has little defense against
the wiles of his fellow humans, especially those close to him, other than by
creating a hard, misanthropic shell and keeping them at bay: “Es gibt
Menschen . . . denen die Natur oder ein besonderes Verhängnis die Decke
wegzog . . ., sie gleichen dünngehäuteten Insekten, die im regen sicht-
baren Muskelspiel mißgestaltet erscheinen, ungeachtet sich alles bald
wieder in die gehörige Form fügt” (HSW/SB, 54). Vulnerability, awk-
wardness, and social ineptness are common features among Hoffmann’s
gallery of poets and dreamers (one thinks of Anselmus). But these qualities
are more acute in Krespel’s case and seem to involve his adopting particu-
larly grotesque postures at inappropriate moments, mixing the serious and
the frivolous in a disturbing and disconcerting confusion, as, for example,
when he performs a kind of “Totentanz,” a frenzied jig, immediately after
his daughter’s funeral, almost dragging the observing Theodor along with
him: “es war mir, als wollte er mich verhüllt herabziehen in den schwarzen
entsetzlichen Abgrund des Wahnsinns” (HSW/SB, 53). For the narrator,
Theodor, Rat Krespel must be regarded as a transitional tale in terms of its
presentation of the theme of madness. Indeed, together with its successor,
Die Fermate, it is meant to demonstrate a progression, illustrating “den
sanften Übergang vom Wahnsinn durch den Spleen in die völlig gesunde
Vernunft.” That sense of gradation is not, however, fully attested to by all
the members of the Bund, since their attitudes towards “Wahnsinn” differ
so much and they are still unable to see any wider relevance in the tale of
Serapion.
Nevertheless, it is clear to the reader that a strategic element is
involved in the arrangement of the tales, both in terms of the development
of themes and, more generally, in their overall arrangement within particu-
lar books. Der Einsiedler Serapion presents a form of mental aberration
(whether it can be described as clinical madness is another matter), dis-
turbing, first, because it can be viewed as an extreme reaction to a pro-
found insight into the nature of life and above all the difficulty of
reconciling its dichotomies, and, second, because the subject himself is so
resistant to any well-meaning attempts to “cure” him. This is very much
an exploration of the “Nachtseite der Natur,” the human mind in extremis,
having been forced into a position of isolation and inaccessibility. Rat
Krespel reveals a different picture, dark too, certainly, but possibly one that
46
DER EINSIEDLER SERAPION

is more accessible in human terms than is the hermit’s: however eccentric

Krespel’s behavior may be, he is not taking upon himself the role of a
prophet who advocates madness as a panacea for all earthly problems, as
Serapion had done. There is bitterness, not self-deluded “Heiterkeit,” in
Krespel’s behavior, a growing misanthropy, outbursts of “spleen” and also
an intermittent anti-social tendency to isolation.31 These behavioral odd-
ities are Krespel’s only outlets as a sensitive individual who is not well
equipped to hit back at the world. Krespel is not opting out of social life
like the hermit; he continues painfully to live it out as one personal disas-
ter after another befalls him. Serapion’s coping device had been to take
refuge in his delusion and idée fixe; Krespel’s bitter outbursts against the
world are described as his own particular form of lightning conductor,
“sein Blitzableiter” (HSW/SB, 54), and thus they too serve as a kind of
safeguard. We learn much later of the causes for such suffering: an unhappy
marriage, and unwarranted cruelty, violence, and abuse towards him from
his Italian prima-donna wife. This degree of suffering might be compared
to Graf P’s mysterious “martyrdom,” but it does not lead to madness.
After this brilliant, disturbing, and unresolved tale Theodor carries for-
ward the narrative scheme he had announced by lightening the atmosphere
in Die Fermate, deliberately eradicating all reference to madness. This
delightful tale is linked to Rat Krespel by the theme of music and the figure
of the prima donna.32 But this time the manipulative female virago — here
presented in a far less dangerous form in the character of Therese — is neu-
tralized by the firm handling she receives at the hands of Theodor, the
frame character who, as Cyprian had been, is a leading player in his own
tale.
While the first reactions to Der Einsiedler Serapion had been based on
the controversial figure of the hermit and the theme of madness, the more
obviously artful narrative qualities in the two subsequent tales and the
absence in them of any theorizing or reflection on the topic of madness
give the reader scope to view and enjoy them in terms of fiction rather than
as programmatic utterances. That seems to be the way they are judged too
by the Serapionsbrüder, while Der Einsiedler Serapion at this stage in the
development of the group’s establishment retrospectively acquires an
important new programmatic significance. It would appear that the exer-
cise of comparing and contrasting the two tales (Der Einsiedler Serapion
and Rat Krespel) — a basic but nevertheless fruitful tool in all literary crit-
icism and pedagogy — promotes these new insights. The formerly silent
Lothar now steps forward to claim for Der Einsiedler Serapion an exem-
plary status, brushing aside Rat Krespel as a tale full of “kecke Tollheit” but
heart-rending to an almost unbearable degree (“die . . . mir wenigstens
das Herz zerschneidet”). This new assessment and evaluation is achieved
by Lothar’s placing the theme of madness (which had loomed so large in
the members’ first reactions) within a wider context and viewing the figure
 DER EINSIEDLER SERAPION
47

of the hermit now from the perspective of the artist as the true poet (“des
wahren Dichters”) who maintains his ancient, time-honored role of a
prophet and seer and points the way to future generations. This broad
sweep would indeed seem justified from the evidence of Cyprian’s tale.
where the virtues and benefits of the poet-hermit’s simple life lived in idyl-
lic harmony with nature had been extolled as a model and as an (implied)
antidote to its alternative, namely, modern materialism and inner conflict.
Lothar, more than the others, it seems, is able to appreciate the Classical
resonances of this vision of the Golden Age, which had inspired genera-
tions of poets from antiquity through to the Renaissance (for example,
Ariosto and Tasso) and beyond.
Lothar is also mindful now of the qualities that single Serapion out as
a potential model and guide for budding poets and artists. Even his mad-
ness, when viewed alongside the disturbing, unbalanced example of
Krespel, seems less offensive and is now used metaphorically as a defining
quality associated with the great artist: “weil nur der Geist des vortref-
flichsten oder vielmehr des wahren Dichters von ihm [Wahnsinn] ergriffen
werden kann” (HSW/SB, 67). But ultimately — and at this point Lothar
is moving towards the first important formulation and statement of what
can be identified as a “principle” — it is the quality of Serapion’s poetic
visions and his ability to communicate these to others that will have the
most practical relevance to a group of writers who are planning to refound
their literary society. Intensity and communicability of the inner vision is
paramount, as is the sense that what the poet communicates is based on
personal involvement with his material, and that his transformation of this
results in an enhancement or intensification of what has been observed or
perceived and raises the work above the ordinary level, giving it lasting
appeal:

Jeder prüfe wohl, ob er auch wirklich das geschaut, was er zu verkünden

unternommen, ehe er es wagt, laut damit zu werden. Wenigstens strebe
jeder ernstlich darnach, das Bild, das ihm im Innern aufgegangen recht
zu erfassen mit allen seinen Gestalten, Farben, Lichtern und Schatten,
und dann, wenn er sich recht entzündet davon fühlt, die Darstellung ins
äußere Leben [zu] tragen. So muß unser Verein auf tüchtige Grundpfeiler
gestützt dauern und für jeden von uns allen sich gar erquicklich gestal-
ten. Der Einsiedler Serapion sei unser Schutzpatron, er lasse seine
Sehergabe über uns walten, seiner Regel wollen wir folgen, als getreue
Serapionsbrüder! (HSW/SB, 69)

A three-stage process is being described here: first the successful internaliza-

tion of carefully selected sense impressions, then the shaping of this material
into artistic form, and finally — when cast in the form of the finished work —
a process of externalization as the finished product acquires a public dimen-
sion through the reception process. Ideally, in these processes of internalization
48
DER EINSIEDLER SERAPION

and reception a harmony between “Geist” and “Natur” should be achieved

through the medium of the artwork. In practice, however, this will rarely be
the case: as the frame discussion will reveal, faults can easily be identified,
particularly at the second (“wirkliches Schauen”) and the final stages of the
creative process. The brethren, however, in this much extended evaluation
of Serapion’s significance as a poet, are being urged to set him as the high-
est possible yardstick by which to judge their future literary efforts.
To this program can be added some additional points supplied by
Lothar. As well as expressing the need for intense imaginative focus on the
material as defined above — for the poet, that is, to inwardly “see” the
subject of his inspiration — Lothar uses the term “das geistige Auge” to
convey more precisely the major faculties involved, suggesting the interac-
tion of the two crucial organs of perception and imagination, the eye and
the mind.33 Second, he alludes to the nature and range of the emotions
that must be brought into play in the process of artistic representation
(“darstellen”). Here Hoffmann is promoting one of his most insistent cre-
dos, namely, the idea that art is meant to convey the whole gamut of
human emotions; further, that these should be expressed as feelings that
are both extreme and strongly contrastive, that is, as emotions such as
pleasure and pain, and in all their variations: “Lust, Entsetzen, Jubel and
Schauern.”34 The “geistiges Auge” — as a hybrid faculty, an amalgamation
of mental and physical perception — operates within the poet’s special
sphere, he being the instigator of its field of activity, while the specific emo-
tions involved in the responses elicited by the finished artwork (“Lust,”
“Schauern,” and so on) may be contained in the poet’s own personal
“Begeisterung,” or general involvement with his material, and are more
deliberately tailored to the reactions of the recipients of this process,
namely, his audience or readership. In Hoffmann’s poetics the links
between the processes of genesis and reception of a work of art are unusu-
ally close, but the relationship is complex and the emotions involved in the
case of the latter are more specifically targeted.35 The contrasting emotions
cited as essential for the receiver hold the key to Hoffmann’s narrative
ambitions in general, ranging as they do from, on the one hand, exaltation
and on the other to the “gothic” mode evoking “Schauer,” which some
have seen as Hoffmann’s most distinctive contribution to literature. These
seemingly incompatible forms of literary reception may coexist within a
single work (Rat Krespel with its bitter-sweet quality could be cited), or
may be presented through the particular organization of an entire set of
narratives (for example, the arrangement of the tales within the respective
books), or, as in Kater Murr by means of a daring attempt to achieve
simultaneity in the presentation of the comic and the tragic, in which the
two narratives are constantly juxtaposed.36
In his long peroration Lothar finally switches the attention of the group
away from the theme of madness, which had arguably been overstated by
 DER EINSIEDLER SERAPION
49

Cyprian at the outset of the discussion, to the neglect of the theme of art.
He is now able to place this “Wahnsinn” in the context of Serapion’s exclu-
sive cultivation of the faculty of the imagination (in effect it is an extension
of the process of “inneres Schauen”), and this, as he had already explained
in great detail, is also the poet’s most powerful faculty. What Serapion lacks
is the ability, or rather, in his post-martyr state, the willingness, to suspend
disbelief and to accept that this imaginative realm is only part of a larger
totality, the dualistically constructed state of being that defines all human
life: “Armer Serapion, worin bestand dein Wahnsinn anders, als daß
irgendein feindlicher Stern dir die Erkenntnis der Duplizität geraubt hatte,
von der eigentlich allein unser irdisches Sein bedingt ist” (HSW/SB, 68).
Here once more Hoffmann can draw on his knowledge of Schelling’s
“Naturphilosophie,” with its built-in polarities,37 to present a counter-
weight to the one-sided (though artistically effective) “Wahn” or
“Wahnsinn” represented by the Einsiedler: “Es gibt eine innere Welt und
die geistige Kraft, sie in voller Klarheit, in dem vollendesten Glanze des
regesten Lebens zu schauen, aber es ist unser irdisches Erbteil, daß eben
die Außenwelt in der wir eingeschachte[l]t,38 als der Hebel wirkt, der jene
Kraft in Bewegung setzt (HSW/SB, 68). The interdependence of the exter-
nal and internal worlds is further illustrated in the analogy of the former as
a circle within whose defined compass “die inneren Erscheinungen,” that
is, our imaginative perceptions, at first vague and undefined, must find
appropriate forms of clothing and transmission to the outside world: “Die
inneren Erscheinungen gehen auf in dem Kreise, den die äußeren um uns
bilden (HSW/SB, 68). This formulation of the relationship between the
internal and the external worlds also bears the imprint of Schelling’s
thought on Lothar’s discourse.
According to the terms of this argument, then, Serapion, despite, as he
professes, being possessed of “höhere Erkenntnis,” himself lacks self-
knowledge, refusing to accept the limitations of the human condition,
which is one in which subject and object, “Geist” and “Natur,” are dis-
tinct, definable entities. He confuses the functions of mind and sense per-
ception and refuses to allow for their possible intermingling (as is clear
from his rejection of the term “das geistige Auge”). He refuses, in other
words, to accept the fact that the mind is governed by the physical con-
straints placed upon it by virtue of its dependence on sense perceptions,
and that it is subject to the limits set by time and space. It is clear that
Serapion’s monistic view of the world is philosophically in tune with recent
philosophical trends as represented by Fichte’s system, but in denial
towards the implications of Schelling’s. The latter’s, however, find a
spokesman in Lothar, who substitutes for Fichte’s solipsistic “Ich-Nicht-
Ich” configuration Schelling’s “Geist-Natur,” thereby redefining the role
and significance of the external forces.39 Hoffmann would appear to relish
the opportunity here of suggesting an amalgamation of the two positions
50
DER EINSIEDLER SERAPION

of these rival — though not hugely contrasted systems — through his

analysis of the creative process.
We can thus see how Hoffmann reveals his philosophical credentials
(which would have been immediately identifiable by his contemporary
readers) to provide a suitable conceptual framework in which to place his
theory of the Serapiontic Principle. Further evidence of this philosophical
underpinning can be found in the fact that Lothar’s analysis, down to its
very terminology, makes deliberate cross-reference to that earlier philo-
sophical debate in Der Einsiedler Serapion, the disputatio between Ariosto
and Serapion mentioned above. Serapion had contemptuously applied the
word “eingeschachtelt” [sic], for instance, to describe the limitation
involved in attempting to process multifarious creative insights through the
agency of one physical organ, the brain (“Gehirn”), whose proper function,
it is implied, is to deal with more lowly sense impressions. Now Lothar picks
up this notion of restriction implicit in the processing of sense impressions,
but does so in order to confirm that such apparent restriction of the poet’s
autonomy does indeed reflect the true state of affairs: “Es ist unser irdisches
Erbteil, daß eben die Außenwelt, in der wir eingeschachte[l]t, als der Hebel
wirkt, der jene Kraft in Bewegung setzt”: the internal and external are inex-
tricably bound together. He also picks up the phrase “jenen Funktionen der
Wahrnehmung” as if continuing the train of thought originally articulated
by Serapion when he had asked the rhetorical question: whether it is the
mind (“Geist”) or some other organ of perception (eye, ear, or hand) that
is exclusively responsible for fashioning (“gestalten”) material derived from
the world around us in time and space: “Gestaltet sich nun etwa der Geist
seine in Raum und Zeit bedingte Welt im Innern auf eigne Hand und über-
läßt jene Funktionen einem anderen uns innewohnenden Prinzip?” A dual-
ist might wish to reply in the affirmative to this rhetorical question, which
clearly expects the answer “no.” Serapion’s own implied (solipsistic) posi-
tion has now been addressed directly by Lothar and dismissed as untenable.
Another position had been suggested, that of Ariosto (Serapion’s fic-
tional sparring partner); his view was, roughly, that the poet can “give to
airy nothings a local habitation and a name,” that is, he can conjure up a
world of imaginary figures and events — even, possibly, a Golden Age —
that has no counterpart in the “Außenwelt.” In other words, that time and
space can exist in two entirely different forms, one fictional the other
“real.” That position had been vigorously rejected by Serapion because of
its dualistic implications and the separation of the internal and external
worlds that it entailed. Lothar’s “correction” is based on his view that the
external world has a prior role in the processing of the poet’s materials —
events, actions, and so on — all of which do indeed have their starting
point in sense perception, not vice versa.
None of this debate — apart from the important statement about
Serapion’s failure to recognize the “Duplizität” of life — impinges on the
 DER EINSIEDLER SERAPION
51

hermit’s artistic excellence or the way in which his “inneres Schauen”

operates to produce works of exemplary quality. Drawing, presumably, on
a rich inner life and storehouse of impressions that had developed in his
earlier eventful days, he can subconsciously activate a “Hebel” that pro-
motes his imaginative fancies and visions.40 These seem to be triggered for
example, when he looks down on the countryside from the vantage point
of his hill (a familiar metaphor for the artist’s superior vantage point).
Presumably this external motivation does not have to be “topped up” on
each occasion when he is creating a story, but can be stored in the mem-
ory for future use.
While contemporary thinking of the day as represented by
Hoffmann’s principal points of reference, Schubert and Schelling, empha-
sized the ideal of a harmonious reciprocity between the external and inter-
nal worlds, if only in the Absolute, Lothar’s dualistic formulation does not
refer explicitly to harmony. The Romantic pursuit of unity — to which
Hoffmann also is dedicated, and which constitutes one pole in his double
view — is represented by Serapion’s poetic vision, although that in turn is
qualified by the general awareness of the fact that his illusory attainment
of “höhere Erkenntnis” has been bought at the expense of that ordinary
“Erkenntnis” (reflection, ironic awareness) that is Lothar’s more pragmatic
yardstick of measurement. The principle of “Duplizität that finally emerges
from the dialectic set up by Serapion’s and Lothar’s respective definitive
positions will serve Hoffmann in an even more significant and practical
way than Lothar’s brief and rather laconic phrase “Erkenntnis der
Duplizität” might suggest. For it is on the basis of this awareness of the
two-sidedness of life and the distinctness of “Geist” and “Natur” that
Hoffmann will apply to his narrative fiction a very important means of pro-
cessing his material while in no way excluding the inspirational or “enthu-
siastic” insights when the poet may exult in his sense of tapping in to the
very primal forces that unite “Geist” and “Natur.” This is the ingredient
of irony (which he appropriately shares with that other dualistic thinker,
Ariosto) and which, like Friedrich Schlegel, Hoffmann does not see as
incompatible with enthusiasm. The entire Serapionsbrüder collection is
enclosed within the ironic embrace created by the frame narrative. It can
be identified internally, when, for example, sharp juxtapositions, either of
tales themselves or of situations within them, including mythological inter-
polations, expose the dissonances and contradictions in life; and second,
and most important, in the self-reflexive mode of narration and the nature
of the commentary that Hoffmann’s large and brilliantly organized frame-
work technique makes possible. This latter important dimension of the
Serapiontic Principle — ironically — cannot be theorized about or be the
subject of reflection in Die Serapionsbrüder for the very obvious reason
that the figures in the frame behave as “real” characters and cannot see
themselves or their debates as part of a work of fiction!
52
DER EINSIEDLER SERAPION

As I shall demonstrate in later chapters, there are other Serapiontic or

Serapion-related features and points of detail that will be added in the
course of the discussions and in the light of the ever-growing corpus of
tales that will accumulate over subsequent evenings of story-telling. But
the general terms of reference have been set out clearly and will provide
the basis for all future discussions. Hoffmann has presented his arguments
in terms of contemporary thought, using Fichte, Schelling, and Schubert
as his points of reference, and adopting mainly the terminology of
“Naturphilosophie.” But his development of these ideas is wholly distinc-
tive and original: his approach to the consequences of the dualism present
in Schelling’s thought will be worked out in many forms, literary and the-
matic, and the prospect of harmony or transcendence implied by the
Fichtean hermit model will be only cautiously entertained and entirely
confined to the realm of aesthetics, rather than to life in general. Life itself
will consistently display its ambiguous, unresolved aspect to the reader of
Die Serapionsbrüder.

Notes
1
Hoffmann made this point himself when presenting his musical essays for the
AMZ to the publisher, Härtel, in dialogue form; HSW, vol. 1, Frühe Prosa,
Kommentar, 1309: “Die Einkleidung, welche die Spur der Zeitverhältnisse trägt
und die tröstenden Schlußworte, die ich dem Dichter in den Mund gelegt, dürften
wohl ein größeres Interesse gewähren, als wenn ich dem Ganzen die Form einer
trocknen Abhandlung gegeben.”
2
In Die Elixiere des Teufels two principles are sharply contrasted, the one benign,
the other hostile. Pater Leonardus expounds the positive principle as follows: “Ist
es nicht herrlich, Bruder Medardus, daß unsere Kirche darnach trachtet, jene
geheimnisvollen Fäden zu erfassen, die das Sinnliche mit dem Übersinnlichen
verknüpfen, ja unseren zum irdischen Leben und Sein gediehenen Organism so
anzuregen, daß sein Ursprung aus dem höheren geistigen Prinzip, ja seine innige
Verwandtschaft mit dem wunderbaren Wesen, dessen Kraft wie ein glühender
Hauch die ganze Natur durchdringt, klar hervortritt und uns die Ahndung eines
höheren Lebens dessen Keim wir in uns tragen, wie mit Seraphsfittichen umweht”
(HSW 2/2: 33). Compare with Medardus’s exultant feeling of power, a principle
that he has copied from Euphemie: “Es bedurfte nur Euphemies Erklärung über
die Tendenz ihres Lebens, um mich selbst die überwiegende Macht fühlen zu
lassen, die wie der Ausfluß höherer Prinzipe mein Innerstes beseelte” (HSW 2/2:
84). The expression of polarities in terms of positive and negative “Principien” is
also a feature of contemporary philosophy; cf. Schelling: “In der Natur strebt alles
continuierlich vorwärts; daß dies so ist, davon müssen wir den Grund in einem
Prinzip suchen, das eine unerschöpfliche Quelle positiver Kraft, die Bewegung
immer von neuem anfängt und ununterbrochen unterhält. Dieses positive Princip
ist die erste Kraft der Natur. Aber eine unsichtbare Gewalt führt alle Erscheinungen
in der Welt in den ewigen Kreislauf zurück. Das dies so ist, davon müssen wir den
 DER EINSIEDLER SERAPION
53

letzten Grund in einer negativen Kraft suchen, die, indem sie die Wirkungen des
positiven Princips continuierlich beschränkt, die allgemeine Bewegung in ihre
Quelle zurückleitet. Dieses negative Prinzip ist die zweite der Natur” (Friedrich
Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur (1797), in
Schellings Werke, ed. Manfred Schröter [Munich: Beck, 1927], 1:449); also G. H.
Schubert, Die Symbolik des Traums (Bamberg: 1814), 3–4.
3
It is hard to overestimate the mood of intellectual excitement generated in
the first decades of the nineteenth century and the extent to which it perco-
lated down to the general public through popular writings. Writing of the
“Jahrhundertwende” Robert Solomon observes: “It is a rich and exuberant period.
The excitement of the French Revolution was still in the air. Napoleon was begin-
ning to institute the ideological reforms of the enlightenment and shake up the
feudal German princes, German poetry was making a claim to international status,
and German philosophy, thanks to Kant, was already recognized as the best in
Europe” (Robert Solomon, Continental Philosophy since 1750 (Oxford: Oxford UP,
1988), 54–55.
4
Regarding Hoffmann’s familiarity with current theories and his contact with
leading practitioners such as Adalbert Friedrich Marcus (an associate of Schelling’s)
in Bamberg, then a leading medical center with an excellent hospital, see Wulf
Segebrecht, “Krankheit und Gesellschaft: Zu E. T. A. Hoffmanns Rezeption der
Bamberger Medizin,” in Romantik in Deutschland: Ein interdisziplinäres
Symposium, special issue of DVjs [henceforth cited as RD] ed. Richard Brinkmann
(Stuttgart: 1978), 267–90.
5
This work made a strong impression on Goethe, who maintained close relations
with Schelling over the years and supported his candidature for the Chair of
Philosophy at Jena. See Karl Otto Conrady, Goethe: Leben und Werk, vol. 2
(Königstein: 1985), 187. Goethe’s poem “Weltseele,” written in 1803, by its very
title acknowledges the close bond between him and Schelling at that time. Jeremy
Adler, in his article “Schellings Philosophie und Goethes weltanschauliche Lyrik,”
Goethe Jahrbuch 1995: 149–65, has shown that the reciprocal benefits issuing from
the various exchanges between the two extended, in Goethe’s case, far beyond this
particular poem.
6
E. T. A. Hoffmann, Briefwechsel, ed. Hans von Müller and Friedrich Schnapp
(Munich: 1967–69), 1:403.
7
Schelling, Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur in Werke, ed. M. Schröter 1:706.
8
G. H. Schubert, Die Symbolik des Traums (Bamberg: 1814), 36–37.
9
See especially Hans-Joachim Mähl, Die Idee des goldenen Zeitalters im Werk des
Novalis (Heidelberg: 1965).
10
Cf. Martin Dyck, Novalis and Mathematics (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina
P, 1958), 85–86; also John Neubauer, “Zwischen Natur und mathematischer
Abstraktion: Der Potenzbegriff in der Frühromantik,” RD (1978): 175–86.
11
Cf. Schelling “Über den Verlust und die Wiederherstellung der Identität”:
“Vorher hatten die Menschen im (philosophischen) Naturzustand gelebt. . . . Es
wäre auch nicht zu begreifen, wie der Mensch je jenen Zustand verlassen hätte,
wüßten wir nicht, daß sein Geist, dessen Element Freiheit ist, sich selbst frei zu
54
DER EINSIEDLER SERAPION

machen strebt, sich den Fesseln der Natur und ihrer Vorsorge entwinden, und dem
ungewissen Schicksal seiner eignen Kräfte überlassen mußte, um einst als Sieger,
und durch sein eignes Verdienst in jenen Zustand zurückzukehren, in welchem er
unwissend über sich selbst die Kindheit seiner Vernunft verlebte” (Schelling, “Uber
die Probleme, welche eine Philosophie der Natur aufzulösen hat,” in Ideen zu einer
Philosophie der Natur, 602.
12
Schubert, Die Symbolik des Traumes, 37–39.
13
Schubert, Die Symbolik des Traumes, 37–39.
14
Cf. “Alte und neue Kirchenmusik” and discussion below in chapter 4.
15
Hoffmann will sometimes, for example, use the idea of musical harmony as a
metaphor to express the resolution of “dissonance,” see below, chapter 4.
16
See section on “consensus” in the frame narrative, chapter 7 in this volume,
“Frame Narrative and the Serapiontic Principle.”
17
See chapter 7 in this volume, “Frame Narrative and the Serapiontic Principle.”
Many distinguished commentators, past and present, lapse into the solecism of
attributing views expressed by individual characters to Hoffmann himself.
18
Cf. J. C. Reil, Beiträge zur Beförderung einer Curmethode auf psychischem Wege
(Halle: 1808–12) and Ph. Pinel, Abhandlung über Geistesverwirrungen oder
Manie, aus dem Französischen übersetzt und mit Anmerkungen versehen von
Mich. Wagner (Vienna: 1801). Hoffmann was familiar with both works, as is evi-
dent from Cyprian’s reference (“Ich las den Pinel — den Reil — alle möglichen
Bücher über den Wahnsinn” (SB, 27).
19
See Reil, Rhapsodien über die Anwendung der psychischen Kurmethode auf
Geisteszerrüttungen, 2nd ed. (Halle: 1818), 316: “Die fixe Idee, als Produkt einer
zu hoch gespannten Saite im Gehirn, tönt bei jeder auch noch so heterogenen
Erregung desselben.”
20
The topos of “Einsiedlertum” reached a peak of popularity in the Romantic
period. “Klosterbrüder” and “Einsiedler” occur in the pages of Wackenroder,
Tieck, Arnim and Brentano, to name but a few of Hoffmann’s contemporaries.
See G-L. Fink, “L’Erémite dans la littérature allemande,” Etudes germaniques 18
(1963): 163–99, and J. Fitzell, The Hermit in German Literature (Chapel Hill,
NC: U of North Carolina P, 1961).
21
See Eva Horn, “Die Versuchung des heiligen Serapion: Wirklichkeitsbegriff
und Wahnsinn bei E. T. A. Hoffmann,” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für
Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte (henceforth DVjS) 76 (2002): 214–28.
22
Ludovico Ariosto (1474–1533) was the author of many epic poems on chival-
ric themes, the most famous of which is Orlando Furioso. Ariosto was “discovered”
by the Frühromantiker, who sensed in him a kindred spirit. Benedetto Croce (see
Ariosto, Shakespeare und Corneille (Bari: 1961) has drawn attention to Ariosto’s
sovereign irony, which he compares to “das Auge . . ., der auf die Bewegung in der
Schöpfung, aller Schöpfung blickt, jedes Ding gleicherweise liebt, gute wie
böse. . . . Von der gewöhnlichen Bedeutung der Ironie vollzog sich der Übergang
zu jenem metaphysichen Verständnis, wie es unter Fichtianern und Romantikern
gängig ist. Wir sollten bereit sein, ihre Theorie auf die Inspirationen des Ariosto
anzuwenden” (quoted in Ernst Behler, Klassische Ironie, Romantische Ironie,
 DER EINSIEDLER SERAPION
55

Tragische Ironie (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1972), 52.

Schelling too was interested in Renaissance writers like Ariosto and Dante and
wrote an essay entitled “Dante in philosophischer Beziehung” in 1803.
23
For an analysis of Goethe’s reception of Renaissance ideas see Jeremy Adler,
“Modelling the Renaissance: Intertextuality and the Politics of Goethe’s Tasso,”
Proceedings of the English Goethe Society 63 (1994): 1–48. For discussion of the
importance of the Italian Renaissance for the Early Romantics, see Ernst Behler,
“Die italienische Renaissance in der Literaturtheorie der Brüder Schlegel,” in
Romantik und Renaissance, ed. S. Vietta (Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler, 1994),
176–95.
24
Eva Horn, “Die Versuchung des heiligen Serapion,” 224, has drawn attention
to the “Freudian slip” made by the hermit when he comments on the vast distance
separating Bamberg and “das ferne, ferne Alexandria” (SB, 31).
25
An interesting choice of genre. One might have expected “Märchen,” given the
importance Hoffmann attached to this form for expressing the fantastic.
26
See also discussion in chapter 1 in this volume, “Overture: Jacques Callot.”
27
Cf. S. T. Coleridge, Biographia Literaria (1817): “In this idea originated the
plan of the Lyrical Ballads in which it was agreed that my endeavour should be
directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic; yet so as to
transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth suffi-
cient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of dis-
belief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith,” Romantic Poetry and Prose,
ed. Harold Bloom and Lionel Trilling (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1981), 645. It is per-
haps no coincidence that Coleridge made a detailed study of German idealist
thought, in particular that of Schelling, and that his analysis of the imagination, like
Hoffmann’s, was strongly colored by the subject-object dichotomy.
28
Hoffmann disarmingly excludes the applicability of the theory of idée fixe by
making Cyprian himself refer to it deprecatingly: “Ich holte weit aus und sprach
sehr gelehrt über die Krankheit der fixen Ideen, die den Menschen zuweilen befalle.”
Serapion disclaims at length being possessed of any such idée fixe (SB, 29).
29
Cf. “Sein unübertreffllicher Humor machte ihn zum angenehmsten, seine
Gemütlichkeit zum liebenswürdigsten Gesellschafter, den es nur geben könnte”
(SB, 25). Again, the word “Gemütlichkeit,” which is widespread in Hoffmann’s
works, might seem puzzling when applied to one who has chosen the life of a her-
mit. For further discussion of Hoffmann’s use of the term, see below, ch. 5,
“Prinzessin Brambilla.”
30
Some commentators see a connection with Fichte’s solipsistic philosophy; see,
for example, Silvio Vietta “Romantikparodie und Realitätsbegriff im Erzählwerk
E. T. A. Hoffmanns,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 100 (1981): 575–91; here,
585; and K-D. Dobat, Musik als romantische Illusion, (Tübingen: Niemeyer,
1984), 232: “In Serapions Argumentation zeigt sich bereits eine Radikalisierung
der Fichteschen Position, indem die autonomen Denkmuster zur Erfassung der
irklichkeit sich verselbständigt haben.”
31
At one point in his life Krespel is described as “anachoretisch” (HSW/SB, 45) .
Later, however, he displays more sociable tendencies.
56
DER EINSIEDLER SERAPION

32
See discussion below, chapter 8, “From Visual to Verbal.”
33
The idea stems from Neo-Platonism and Plotinus. It is invoked by many
Romantics, most notably by the painter Caspar David Friedrich: “Schließe dein
leibliches Auge, damit du mit dem geistigen Auge zuerst siehest dein Bild. Dann
fördere zutage, was du im Dunklen gesehen, daß es zurückwirke auf andere von
außen nach innen” (Caspar David Friedrich in Briefen und Bekenntnisse [Berlin:
Henschelverlag Kunst und Gesellschaft, 1968], 94).
34
Another notable example is the preface to Die Elixiere des Teufels, in which the
reader is enjoined to accompany the “editor” “durch finstre Kreuzgänge und Zellen
— durch die bunte — bunteste Welt zu ziehen und mit ihm das Schauerliche,
Entsetzliche, Tolle, Possenhafte seines Lebens zu ertragen” (HSW, Elixiere, 12).
35
Cf. Petra Liedke Konow, “Sich hineinwerfen in die Werkstatt des Autors:
Ästhetische Rekurrenzphänomene in E. T. A. Hoffmanns Rahmenzyklus, Die
Serapionsbrüder,” ETAHJb 2 (1994): 57–68.
36
The junctures between the narratives are typographically emphasized, and two
distinct story lines emerge, Murr’s autobiography and Kreisler’s biography. The
contrast forms a structural principle on which the entire work is based.
37
Schelling, “Von der Weltseele”: “Es ist ein erstes Prinzip einer philosophischen
Naturlehre, in der ganzen Natur auf Polarität und Dualismus auszugehen,”
Schellings Werke, ed. Schröter, 1:527.
38
The “Lesart” “eingeschachtet,” which occurs several times in the first edition of
Die Serapionsbrüder (1819–21), is not semantically consistent with the form
“eingeschachtelt,” which only occurs once (it is used by Serapion himself in his dis-
putatio with Ariosto when he tries to make nonsense of the idea that the higher
insights of the poet could be bundled [“eingeschachtelt”] into the narrow confines
of the brain). Although the reading “eingeschachtet” in Lothar’s formulation and
at other points in the Die Serapionsbrüder may be diplomatically correct, one can-
not help but feel that the image of the “Schachtel” is more apposite than one of a
“Schacht,” and that we could well be dealing with a misprint (or rather several). It
is even possible that some commentators have been misled into building up the-
ories on the basis of the metaphorical implications of one or the other term.
However, given the lack of any extant manuscript source for Die Serapionsbrüder,
the matter is unlikely to be resolved. I am grateful to Prof. Wulf Segebrecht
(Bamberg) for his valuable comments on this textual problem.
39
Other references to Fichte occur in Prinzessin Brambilla. See Jeremy Adler,
Introduction to Kater Murr (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1999), xix. Fichte’s term
“Ich” is generally replaced by “Geist” in Hoffmann’s usage, which suggests
an alignment with Schelling. See also the discussion of Prinzessin Brambilla in
chapter 5 in this volume.
40
Cf. Lothar: “Du sahst den versteckten Hebel nicht” (HSW/SB, 68)which
echoes the phrase “der versteckte Poet,” which Hoffmann took from Schubert. See
discussion below on irony and “der versteckte Poet,” chapter 5, Prinzessin
Brambilla: Callot Revisited.
3: Der Dichter und Der Komponist:
Text and Music

A S THE TITLE SUGGESTS, this dialogue addresses the relationship between

words and music — here the libretto and the operatic score. It is an
important historical landmark in the succession of lively debates over the
centuries on this topic that have accompanied and tracked the emergence
of German opera as a major and distinctive form, though Hoffmann’s con-
tribution has been somewhat neglected in comparison with those of other
illustrious practitioners, who include Gluck, Carl Maria von Weber,
Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss, and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was in
fact an issue that so preoccupied Hoffmann that he had been planning to
write an essay on the topic from as early as his Bamberg period (1809),
when he was regularly producing and conducting operas at the theater.
Hoffmann’s perspective is polemical in that he is aware at the beginning of
the nineteenth century of signs of degeneration in the form of opera in
Germany (in his words, “die ausgeartete Form der Oper”) and is anxious
to diagnose the causes, which, he suspects, may have something to do with
the quality of libretti and the treatment of words by the composer; such a
diagnosis may, hopefully, lead to a cure.1 In all this we detect something of
Hoffmann’s role as the pioneer figure in the evolution of German
Romantic opera. In both versions of the essay (the earlier one of which
appeared in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, the later one in Die
Serapionsbrüder), Hoffmann’s contribution is presented fictitiously
through dialogue form2 but this dialogue in turn is placed within a com-
plex frame in which different views are expressed. Now it takes its place as
part of the wide-ranging discussions of aesthetic matters, both philosoph-
ical and technical, that are such a distinctive feature of Die Serapionsbrüder.
Hoffmann’s profound insight into the problems raised in interdisciplinary
collaboration is based on first-hand experience as a writer of libretti and as
a composer, as well as in the practical role of producer, interpreter, con-
ductor, and even professional critic of the finished products. This founda-
tion in the practical, analytical, and creative aspects of opera writing gave
him an unusually authoritative perspective among his contemporaries, pro-
viding a firm basis for theoretical speculations about the problem of the
relationship of text to music, and promoting access to broader interdisci-
plinary issues and the creative process in general, which was clearly a topic
that fascinated him. At an earlier point he had considered including the
dialogue-essay in the Fantasiestücke but thought better of it (possibly taking
58
DER DICHTER UND DER KOMPONIST

the view that the inclusion of the extensive Kreisleriana gave sufficient
coverage to the topic of music), and when it came to planning the new col-
lection, Die Serapionsbrüder, in 1819, he reminded his publisher, Reimer,
of the appropriateness of including the piece, suitably altered to fit its new
surroundings. I shall suggest he had good underlying reasons for so doing.
For it is no accident that almost as soon as the program for successful
(“Romantic”) narrative art has been given an airing at the beginning of
volume 1 of the Serapionsbrüder, following the presentations of the tales
Der Einsiedler Serapion and Rat Krespel, there follows in close juxtaposi-
tion with Der Dichter und der Komponist a second major exposition focus-
ing on the interdisciplinary connection of text and music in the hybrid
form of opera. The theme of the relationship of words and music is then
followed through and consolidated further in volume 2 with the dialogue
Alte und neue Kirchenmusik. This reinforces the important part played by
spiritual and religious forces in the creative and reception process and their
problematic status in early nineteenth-century church music. A deliberate
and systematic presentation of key aesthetic principles can thus be
observed in these early chapters of the collection although it is typical of
Hoffmann’s understated approach towards his subject not to labor the
point.
In its original form, Der Dichter und der Komponist is the earliest of
the pieces in the Serapionsbrüder collection to have been written and pub-
lished, and there is a substantial gap in time between the two versions,
during which important political changes had taken place. Napoleon had
now been defeated and a mood of postwar exhilaration and a sense of
renewal were evident after 1815 before the new order (which would be of
a marked conservative character) had became consolidated and a more
sober mood of “Restoration” was reflected in the forms of realism that we
associate with the Biedermeier style. The original (Allgemeine
Musikalische Zeitung) form of Der Dichter und der Komponist exists sim-
ply as a free-standing dialogue between the two friends, Ferdinand, a
poet, and Ludwig, a composer. But in its later form in Die
Serapionsbrüder it is flanked by two fairly substantial discussions among
the musical members of the Bund, Theodor, and Cyprian, the latter sup-
ported by the theoretically-minded, always skeptical, often moody, and
sometimes maverick Lothar.3 The six-year gap (1813–19) between these
two published versions enabled Hoffmann to visit the topic afresh and
add new facets and perspectives. This period in Hoffmann’s creative life is
marked by the completion (in 1814) and performance (in 1816) to
acclaim at the National Theater in Berlin of his own most ambitious
opera, Undine, based on a libretto written by the popular Romantic writer
Baron Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué, author of the celebrated
“Erzählung” of that name. That Hoffmann’s views on the opera form and
his judgments on particular examples in the operatic repertoire were still
 DER DICHTER UND DER KOMPONIST
59

undergoing development during this period can be observed in his

famous volte face about the operas of the controversial Italian celebrity
composer of the day, Gasparo Spontini, who had been enjoying a pro-
longed succès fou in Paris with his vast and spectacular works.4
Many of the basic ideas in the essay about the relationship between
Dichter and Komponist owe much to Hoffmann’s own personal experi-
ence of collaboration with Fouqué, which belongs to the earlier part of this
period, namely the years 1812–13. Their exchanges are well documented
and are revealing about the respective attitudes of the two partners in the
enterprise. For one thing, when it came to delicate matters, the negotia-
tions were often transacted through an intermediary, their mutual friend,
Julius Hitzig, the publisher, who acted as a kind of broker. That in itself
does not point to an ideally frank and open relationship between Dichter
und Komponist. Thus, when Hoffmann wanted to convey the message
that a libretto must be brief and to the point (Fouqué being a notoriously
long-winded writer) he asked Hitzig to insinuate this notion into his dis-
cussions with the writer. Later, he pointed out for Fouqué’s benefit the
high points in the action of the original Märchen and the parts he regarded
as potentially the most suitable for composition. Conversely, when Fouqué
started work on converting his Märchen into a “Textbuch,” he remarked
ironically to Hitzig (apropos the subject matter of Undine): “Das Wasser
geht mir . . . etwas an die Zähne,”5 and later (on completing act 1), per-
haps a shade ungraciously: “Von dieser [Undine] wird, so Gott will, heute
der erste Akt fertig.”6 Hoffmann, though, seemed to be extremely satisfied
with the end product (on 30 November 1812 he told Hitzig “ich finde
durchaus im Text nichts zu ändern”).7 The whole process of conversion
from book to libretto took only two months. Hoffmann reports that he is
proceeding to the business of composition, which is being done after he
has finished his working day, that is, from seven until ten thirty P.M., in a
coffeehouse.8 At this point in the process he is composing entirely in his
head. Thereafter at home, and with the aid of a piano, he can continue
composing, and only after that proceed to write down the music in score.
As an interesting postlude Fouqué records that Hoffmann’s participation
in the process was extensive and that he scrutinized every line: “Hoffmann
hat so viel Teil an der Dichtung als Opernentwurf, daß ich ohne ihn auch
über keine Zeile disponieren darf.”9 It is certainly the case that at several
points Hoffmann underlined his main criterion for a successful libretto:
“vorzüglich gedrängte Kürze” (for which Emanuel Schikaneder serves as a
model) and the need to bring out clearly the points of highest dramatic
and emotional impact.10 This input into the libretto on the part of the
composer presents an interesting compromise, in which the actual text is
sketched out by the author following prompts from the composer and is
subsequently subjected to revisions by the composer. The division of labor
between Dichter and Komponist in this collaboration is thus not exactly
60
DER DICHTER UND DER KOMPONIST

cut-and-dried, and the role of the Komponist in contributing to the gen-

eral lay-out of the libretto is considerable.11
A question that is not, of course, clarified in these exchanges is why,
although himself an accomplished writer, Hoffmann did not feel confident
from the outset about creating his own libretto based on Fouqué’s
Märchen as well as composing the music.12 Quite apart from his own pro-
fessed disinclination to write verse — and German Romantic opera, while
showing signs of starting out on its long road to music drama (a term that
Hoffmann was one of the first to employ, putting it in the mouth of his
character Ferdinand)13 was still operating for its texts on the “Singspiel”
model of alternating spoken dialogue and verse arias — Hoffmann may
have had other more fundamental reasons for wishing to preserve the two
distinct functions of Dichter and Komponist. As will be seen, these link up
with the theoretical principles that he had been formulating in connection
with literature, mainly narrative, and the visual arts (Jacques Callot) and
that he now wished to extend into the field of music. Hence the appropri-
ateness of this essay (and its complementary piece, Über alte und neue
Kirchenmusik) within the Serapionsbrüder collection.
Briefly, the dialogue in Der Dichter und der Komponist deals with the
notorious difficulties experienced by any composer who harbors ambitions
to write operas. How can such a composer procure a suitable text? He is
forced continually to ransack the literary repertoire, ancient and contem-
porary alike (in Hoffmann’s case the names of those whose works he had
thus ransacked include Goethe, Calderón, and Franz von Holbein, as well
as Fouqué). Since selections of such texts have to be made, then cast into
regular meter and rhyme, in theory as many as three separate persons could
be involved in what can then become a three-stage process. Whether the
adaptation should be carried out by the author, a second writer, or indeed
the composer himself is the point at issue in Hoffmann’s dialogue. In his
early, less ambitious operatic works, Hoffmann himself did what seems to
be regarded by his fictitious character, the soldier-poet Ferdinand, as the
hack work; in others, such as Undine, he demurred.14 The stay-at-home
composer, Ludwig, in the inner dialogue has come to the conclusion that
there is an intractable problem here: it is that the composer needs a handy
and compliant Dichter more than the Dichter needs the composer. And
Ferdinand confirms that no Dichter worth his salt can tolerate the hard
grind of preparing a text to become “opernfähig”: it is, he complains “die
undankbarste Arbeit der Welt.” If the composer for his part is too proud
to deal with the less glamorous mechanical task of adapting a text for the
purposes of creating a libretto, and transposing it into regular meter and
rhyme schemes, neither does the poet for his part wish to break down what
may be his own carefully wrought artwork into such component parts and
serve them up for the purpose of an operatic presentation. It seems that
the technical problems cannot be solved without one side giving some
 DER DICHTER UND DER KOMPONIST
61

ground: the composer lacks the technical means — and Ludwig argues that
each art form has its own specialist skills that are not transferable to the
others15 — the poet has the means, but neither the will nor the motivation
to serve as a skivvy rather than a collaborator working on equal terms. He
too has his amour propre16 (one notes that the assumption is made here
that the contemporary writer or poet is being required to do both the writ-
ing and the adaptation (or possibly plunging straight into a libretto?), a
situation that would, of course, not arise in the case of texts by long-dead
authors, which could be adapted).
In this dialogue Ludwig, the musician, is the partner who has an ide-
alistic vision of the great power that words and music can wield jointly
through the hybrid form of opera. Ferdinand’s role initially is the negative
one of resisting any involvement on the part of the poet and putting the
burden of libretto writing entirely onto the composer. It would appear that
in his estimation opera is not worth the effort, although he starts to move
his position in the face of the powerful rhetoric used by Ludwig to convey
the sublime and otherworldly effect that is evoked when the two parts of
the enterprise, music and words, interact at the deepest level, each enhanc-
ing the other.
This invocation of the sublime is the climax and turning point of the
dialogue. Then, Ludwig argues, the rewards are equally overwhelming for
both parties, for along with their audience both participants will gain
access to
jenem fernen Reiche, das uns oft in seltsamen Ahnungen umfängt, und aus
dem wunderbare Stimmen zu uns herabtönen und alle die Laute wecken,
die in der beengten Brust schliefen, und die, nun erwacht, wie in feurigen
Strahlen freudig und froh heraufschießen, so daß wir die Seligkeit jenes
Paradieses teilhaftig werden — da sind Dichter und Musiker die innigst
verwandten Glieder einer Kirche: denn das Geheimnis des Worts und des
Tons ist ein und dasselbe, das ihnen die höchste Weihe erschlossen.17
(HSW/SB, 102)
Ferdinand’s opposition weakens markedly after this peroration:
Ich höre meinen lieben Ludwig, wie er in tiefen Sprüchen, das
geheimnisvolle Wesen der Kunst zu erfassen strebt, und in der Tat schon
jetzt sehe ich den Raum schwinden, der mir sonst den Dichter vom Musiker
zu trennen schien. (HSW/SB, 101)
This is because what his friend is offering is no ordinary kind of opera, in
which music and words simply follow their own agenda and never merge
fully (what Ludwig dismissively terms “Schauspiel mit Gesang”). Rather it
is a full-blooded new program for opera, in which the constituent parts
merge and interact at a profound level, creating something that transcends
those constituents. With high pathos Ludwig enjoins Ferdinand to rise to
the new challenge now confronting the Dichter:
62
DER DICHTER UND DER KOMPONIST

Der Dichter rüste sich zum kühnen Fluge in das ferne Reich der
Romantik; dort findet er das Wundervolle, das er in das Leben tragen soll,
lebendig und in frischen Farben erglänzend, so daß man willig daran
glaubt, ja daß man, wie in einem beseligenden Traume, selbst dem dürfti-
gen, alltäglichen Leben entrückt in den Blumengängen des romantischen
Landes wandelt, und nur seine Sprache, das in Musik ertönende Wort
versteht. (HSW/SB, 103)

What is more, this Romantic program lays heavy emphasis on the

Supernatural and otherworldly, thus challenging the Dichter to explore
new and exciting territory for his art. Ferdinand, it would appear, is gradu-
ally coming round to admitting that the gap between Dichter and
Komponist is narrowing and to warming to the notion that there is a
socio-religious aspect in such collaboration: invisible forces existing
between like-minded spirits are all gathered together in a kind of virtual
institution, or church. By joining such a community the Dichter is sub-
scribing to artistic values that will consolidate and strengthen the new
Romantic program for opera. Ferdinand is thus gradually coaxed into
abandoning his cynical disbelief and becoming an enlightened supporter,
even agreeing with Ludwig’s argument about the suitability of a fiaba,
(that is, fairytale) by Gozzi18 entitled Il corbo (the plot of which is fully
recounted) as ideal material for an operatic libretto. The eligibility of this
particular text as the source for a libretto is based on the evidence, first, of
its happy combination of comic and serious elements (“Ernst und Scherz”)
and, secondly, its poetic treatment of the Supernatural, which is so skillful
that all disbelief is suspended. The skeptical Ferdinand has to admit: “Du
hast recht, das Wunderbare erscheint hier als notwendig, und ist so poet-
isch wahr, daß man willig daran glaubt.”
Additional points that sway Ferdinand are Ludwig’s reassurance that
both the opera seria with its sublime effects as represented by Gluck (and
to a lesser extent Piccinni), and the opera buffa (represented in German by
Mozart) already provide models. These two types of opera fulfill
Hoffmann’s requirement that the Serapiontic in art must express the
whole spectrum of “Ernst” and “Scherz.” Ferdinand can see from this that
the new program will allow plenty of scope for the Dichter to deploy his
talent for characterization and present a full range of human experience:

In der opera buffa wäre es recht eigentlich das Phantastische, was in die
Stelle des Romantischen tritt und die Kunst des Dichters müßte darin
bestehen, die Personen nicht allein vollkommen geründet, poetisch wahr,
sondern recht aus dem gewöhnlichen Leben gegriffen, so individuell
auftreten zu lassen, daß man sich augenblicklich selbst sagt: Sieh da! Das
ist der Nachbar, mit dem ich alle Tage gesprochen. (HSW/SB, 112)

This speech does more than merely voice agreement with Ludwig’s
presentation of the new program for opera. It also makes unmistakable
 DER DICHTER UND DER KOMPONIST
63

reference to what we recognize from the earlier discussion as a main fea-

ture of the Serapiontic Principle, namely, that the Supernatural or other-
worldly must be allied to the familiar and everyday (as in Jacques Callot’s
phrase: “etwas fremdartig Bekanntes”). I shall return later to the soubri-
quet “serapiontic” that is applied to Ferdinand by the frame character
Theodor and at first sight might seem puzzling.
It seems, then, that when the two disputants had been discussing the
technical problems associated with collaboration they were at loggerheads.
The opening up by Ludwig of what can be described as a transcendental
dimension to the fruits of this joint enterprise (“die innigst verwandten
Glieder einer Kiche”) combines with further appraisal of the existing mod-
els of Gluck’s and Mozart’s operatic practice to produce a persuasive case
and bring about an appreciation on Ferdinand’s part of the range of the
new program in which Ludwig is seeking to involve him. At the end of the
debate only one sticking point seems to remain: the demand on the part
of the composer for linguistic simplicity and dramatic conciseness — and
one recalls here Hoffmann’s guide-lines for Fouqué in composing the
libretto for Undine as conveyed via Hitzig — is not immediately accept-
able to Ferdinand, who persuasively expresses the poet’s frustration at,
among other things, having his offerings rejected when inferior ones are
accepted, and who still has difficulties with the autocratic demands of
the composer and the drastic compression he demands for an operatic
presentation:
Alle Mühe diese oder jene Situation, den Ausbruch dieser oder jener
Leidenschaft, recht in bedeutenden Worten aufzufassen und darzustellen,
ist vergebens; denn alles muß in ein paar Versen abgetan sein, die sich
noch dazu rücksichtslos nach eurem Gefallen drehen und wenden lassen
sollen. (HSW/SB, 114)

The Dichter’s concern at the brutal reductionism applied to what may

have been conceived of as a free-standing, fully articulated prose work or
stage drama but which now has to be tailored to fit the operatic format is
perfectly understandable, and rather gives the lie to the possibility of any
equal partnership between Dichter und Komponist. Ludwig has to con-
cede that it is only the broad brush strokes that count in a successful
libretto and that it operates most effectively when the words have reached
the limits, in other words when the music can take over to express the inex-
pressible (“Das ist ja eben das wunderbare Geheimnis der Tonkunst, daß
sie da, wo die arme Rede versiegt, erst eine unerschöpfliche Quelle der
Ausdrucksmittel öffnet!”).19
Es ist die Musik, die nun das Ganze so in richtiges Licht und gehörige
Perspektive stellt, daß alles lebendig hervortritt, und sich einzelne,
willkürlich scheinende Pinselstreiche zu kühn herausschreitenden
Gestalten vereinen. (HSW/SB, 114)
64
DER DICHTER UND DER KOMPONIST

Ludwig’s program for Romantic opera also takes account of the practical-
ities of the theater and the needs of the audience — a matter on which
Ferdinand has nothing to say. Realistically, the audience probably cannot
hear all the words which are sung, but all the more reason why the focus
should be concentrated on effects of high dramatic impact (“Beinahe ohne
ein Wort zu verstehen, muß der Zuschauer sich aus dem, was er geschehen
sieht, einen Begriff von der Handlung machen können”). This is a telling
point with which few would disagree and it is one to which, as we saw
above, Hoffmann attached special importance in his collaboration with
Fouqué. The danger inherent in too vague a response, that is, where the
music alone is left to carry the meaning, must be counterbalanced by a
libretto that focuses concisely on essentials and eschews all that is irrele-
vant, such as Metastasian metaphors; these essentials focus on the emo-
tions that are conveyed by the particular dramatic situation:

Was nun die Worte betrifft, so sind sie dem Komponisten am liebsten, wenn
sie kräftig und bündig die Leidenschaft, die Situation, welche dargestellt
werden soll, aussprechen; es bedarf keines besondern Schmuckes, und ganz
vorzüglich keine Bilder. (HSW/SB, 115)

Ludwig produces a familiar but telling example to illustrate the point: the
emotions aroused by an archetypical operatic situation, namely, the part-
ing between two lovers. The word “addio,” he suggests, is all that is
required for the librettist to represent the idea of such a parting. No ver-
bal reflections on the matter are relevant or interesting. It is for the com-
poser to draw on his rich reservoir of melody and harmony by means of
which the full range and depths of emotion appropriate to such a situation
can be explored.
In view of all these points there is really no way that Ludwig can side-
step the disparity that has been opened up in terms of the respective con-
tributions of Dichter and Komponist: his only hope is to appeal to
Ferdinand’s idealism, the notion of collaboration and the sacrifice of indi-
vidual autonomy in the interests of the collective good embodied by the
new Romantic opera. However, in order to sum up the complexities of the
relationship we must return to the question of the Serapiontic and its gen-
eral relevance for Hoffmann’s program for the arts and the aspirations of
a post-war generation. And that in turn requires us to consider the reac-
tions of the members of the Bund in the overarching frame that surrounds
the inner dialogue. As if gently to remind and plant associations in the
mind of the reader of the Serapionsbrüder, Hoffmann twice uses the epi-
thet “serapiontisch” to describe the gallant poet-cum-soldier Ferdinand,
once before the dialogue begins, when Theodor, the narrator, explains
(HSW/SB, 94) that he was able to bolster his own morale during the anx-
ious period during the war when he was in danger of losing all confidence
in his “Existenz in der Kunst,” by inventing a “Serapiontic friend,” an alter
 DER DICHTER UND DER KOMPONIST
65

ego and sparring partner (that is, Ferdinand the soldier-poet). And after
Theodor’s narrative concludes with Ferdinand’s idealistic vision of a post-
war renaissance of the arts, Lothar refers to him once more as Theodor’s
“serapiontischer Freund” (HSW/SB, 118). That tense period (1813–14),
in which the inner dialogue is set and when the future was still hanging in
the balance, has now by 1819 long since passed into history, but it is still
close enough for the members of the Bund to recall and relive in their
imaginations the sense of heightened intensity so typical during a time of
war. The theme of war in fact itself acts, in Chinese box fashion, as a frame
to the dialogue itself. The unusual circumstances of the meeting of Ludwig
and Ferdinand form a brilliant vignette that depicts the reactions and
behavior of a group of civilians under bombardment.20 In contrast to the
material privations and nerve-shattering experiences of the citizens of
Dresden, there is the exalted idealism of those, like Ferdinand, who had
been moved to take action in defense of their fatherland and its cultural
heritage. In turn, the soldier Ferdinand contrasts sharply with the stay-at-
home composer, Ludwig, who continued (albeit with an uneasy con-
science) throughout the war to devote his energies to his art, music,
existing in a kind of ivory tower. Ferdinand, the man of action, thus
becomes a symbol of hope for the regeneration of his country in peacetime
when, as Ludwig proposes, he joins him in embracing the new Romantic
program which has the Serapiontic Principle as its foundation stone
(“Grundstein”). This two-fold iteration of the term “serapiontic” (first by
Theodor, then by Lothar) is a suggestive reminder to the reader of the
continuities that Hoffmann wishes to build in to the theoretical part of the
frame structure in the Serapionsbrüder.
Lothar’s succinct formulation earlier in the first volume, which serves
as a guideline for future discussions of the principle, had contained the
image of the lever (“Hebel”),21 implying the intensification of the creative
imagination at the crucial point of gestation (in that earlier context, of
course, the terms of reference are still literature). The notion of applied
force during the “levering” process introduces a different image, that of
kindling (“entzünden”): the “Geist” is ignited and the imagination can
blaze forth (Hoffmann frequently uses the term “entzünden” to express the
mysterious workings of inspiration). Here, as so often in the case of these
exegeses, we have to bear in mind the fictional dimension of the frame, and
the continuity and cross-referencing of the topics under discussion. In Der
Einsiedler Serapion Lothar had produced a constructive critique to set
against the one-sidedness and extreme subjectivity, bordering on “mad-
ness,” of the hermit’s view of life that was at the heart of that tale. At that
point he was careful to emphasize the importance in creative work of
striking a balance between the extremes of poetic fancy and the more con-
trolled, detached, sober procedures that contribute to the production of
great works of art. In the frame dialogue surrounding Der Dichter und der
66
DER DICHTER UND DER KOMPONIST

Komponist, Theodor the composer is under pressure from his fellow

Serapionsbrüder, Ottmar, Lothar, and Cyprian, all of them writers who
have all tried in vain to get him to agree about the choice of a libretto.
Failure to reach agreement on this matter has brought them to consider the
option that the Komponist should, as twentieth-century composer Paul
Hindemith, who experienced similar frustrations, once expressed it, faute
de mieux “lay his own eggs”22 and write his own libretto. The inner dia-
logue has left the issue largely unresolved and if anything caused a polar-
ization between Lothar — who remains convinced that the composer
should write his own libretto (a paper solution, as Ludwig has demon-
strated) and clearly identifies with Ferdinand’s original defense of that posi-
tion — and Cyprian, who seems to have been won over by Ludwig, the
composer’s (more problematic) case for aiming at a deep level of integra-
tion of music and text — moving into the field of “Durchkomponierung,”
one might suggest — while keeping the two functions of poet and com-
poser separate.
At the end of a session (or volume, as here), earnest attempts are made
to conclude on a note of reconciliation and harmony among the members
of the group. But as we have seen, there is no clear resolution either in the
inner frame dialogue or in the narrative frame. The apparent agreement
reflected in Ferdinand’s seemingly compliant and enthusiastic final speech
relates more to his commitment to a new political and social order of
things and the opportunity for a general renewal of culture in the postwar
world than to an equal sharing out of the spoils between Dichter and
Komponist. He has certainly raised some pretty intractable practical prob-
lems about collaboration, which Ludwig has blithely ignored. On the
other hand, he has demonstrated his credentials as an artist who can appre-
ciate the potential for “Serapiontic” collaboration in the field of opera and
has glimpsed some of the ways in which the hybrid form can combine
higher flights of imagination with the true Dichter’s natural concern to
depict human characters and situations in depth, albeit in a more concen-
trated fashion than would be normal in a literary context. But that implies
a compromise.
In his excellent book on Hoffmann’s musical writings,23 David
Charlton gives an interesting reading of Hoffmann’s purpose in Der
Dichter und der Komponist (based, however, mainly on the early
Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung version). He rightly draws attention to
the contemporary debates regarding the respective merits of the dual or
single identity of an opera composer and librettist. Not only were several
composers — admittedly none of them among the giants — engaged in
writing their own texts in the early 1800s but, as he points out, Hoffmann
himself had done so in his earlier works (though admittedly these were all
rather slight Singspiele, such as “Die Maske” [1799]). Significantly, as we
have seen, he had expressly refused to take over the entire task in his most
 DER DICHTER UND DER KOMPONIST
67

ambitious opera, Undine. Charlton, however, reads Der Dichter und der
Komponist as a call to arms on Hoffmann’s part and an encouragement to
composers to take over the entire business of adaptation of a libretto as
well as its musical composition. From our analysis of the Serapionsbrüder
text I would argue that the position is much more ambiguous, and that
Ludwig is throughout putting up a stout case for separation of the two
functions, much of which eventually finds acceptance with Ferdinand. As
we have seen, Ludwig, who in Charlton’s reading would surely have to
become a spokesman for such a mission, declares his own reluctance to
deal with both parts of the job and spends his time trying to persuade
Ferdinand otherwise. As Ludwig sees it, musical composition draws on a
general inspiration on the part of the composer, which may be triggered
by the possibilities of a particular text not of his own making (Hoffmann
uses the image of a surging torrent to suggest the powerful flow of melodic
inspiration: “ganz hingerissen und nur arbeitend in den Melodien, die ihm
zuströmten, würde er vergebens nach den Worten ringen” [HSW/SB,
100]). He is clear that such a flow of musical inspiration could be com-
pletely destroyed by the need to wrestle with words and the particularities
of the text at the same time: “so würde dieser Strom . . . gar bald, wie in
unfruchtbaren Sand versiegen” (HSW/SB, 100). He would even feel hap-
pier about coming up with the basic ideas for a text than he is with the
business of tailoring it to the demands of the musical score, though that
does not seem to be a serious option. It is clear that the Dichter,
Ferdinand, gives way to Ludwig’s rhetorical appeal for solidarity in the
promotion of the Romantic program for opera (and its “Serapiontic”
foundations) at a time of national renewal, while Ludwig for his part, it
would appear, makes no reciprocal concessions.
Charlton finds support in the frame discussion for his view that
Hoffmann is urging a multi-tasking on the part of the composer and leans
in particular on Lothar’s view and the fact that he remains unconvinced
that Theodor has proved his point about the impossibility of combining
the two roles (“er hat mich nicht überzeugt” [HSW/SB, 114]). It would
seem, paradoxically, that the two (doubly) fictitious characters, Ludwig
and Ferdinand, are eventually of one mind, in visionary rather than in
practical terms, whereas, even after Theodor has finished his narration
(which had been intended as a means of illustrating and clarifying the
issues), unanimity has receded even further among the members of the
group.
However, Hoffmann has a final card up his sleeve. If verbal means of
resolution cannot be achieved, music itself can prove its superiority. The
final traces of discord among the members of the group are completely
resolved by Cyprian and Theodor, who invoke the muse of music itself
and suggest an extempore performance. The four Serapionsbrüder form a
vocal quartet (Theodor accompanying them on the piano) and sing a
68
DER DICHTER UND DER KOMPONIST

Disclaimer:
Some images in the printed version of this book
are not available for inclusion in the eBook.

To view the image on this page please refer to

the printed version of this book.

Hoffmann’s autograph for Louis Spohr of page of “Still und hehr die Nacht”
(“Nachtgesang aus der Genoveva des Maler Müllers”), from Herford
Homburg, Louis Spohr: Bilder und Dokumente seiner Zeit (Kassel, 1968).

composition of Theodor’s (as yet not written out), based on a poem by

Maler Müller (from Golo und Genoveva).24 This produces a suitably har-
monious and uplifting parallel to the visionary speech in which Ferdinand
had prophesied a glorious renaissance in Germany after the conclusion of
the war, a speech that carries clear overtones of the same intellectual, spir-
itual and artistic awakening and renewal that Novalis had articulated over
a decade or so before in his essay “Die Christenheit oder Europa”:
Die Morgenröte bricht an und schon schwingen sich begeisterte Sänger
in die duftigen Lüfte und verkünden das Göttliche, es im Gesange
lobpreisend. Die goldnen Tore sind geöffnet und in einem Strahl entzün-
den Wissenschaft und Kunst das heilige Streben, das die Menschen zu
einer Kirche vereinigt . . . Ewig verbunden zum höhern Sein im Leben
und Tode. (HSW/SB, 118)
 DER DICHTER UND DER KOMPONIST
69

This musical finale is indeed a highly individual — though not immediately

transposable — solution to the age-old aporia presented by the relation-
ship of Dichter and Komponist.25

Notes
1
“Manches über die jetztige ausgeartete Form der Oper so wie die Bedingnisse
des wahren OpernSujets und die Behandlung desselben von Seiten des Dichters
und des Komponisten würde darin vorkommen” (1 July 1809, letter to the editor
of the AMZ, Friedrich Rochlitz; reprinted in Hoffmann’s Briefwechsel, vol. 1, ed.
Harro von Müller and Friedrich Schnapp [Munich: Winkler, 1967], 293. Carl
Maria von Weber made a similar point in 1812, when writing about Anton
Dreysig’s “Singakademie,” referring to the “increasing deterioration of vocal and
especially choral music.” See John Warrack, ed., Carl Maria von Weber, Writings
on Music (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1981), 115.
2
Hoffmann had deliberately chosen the more lively form, which permitted what
he termed “die Einkleidung, welche die Spur der Zeitverhältnisse trägt” over a
“trockene Abhandlung.” Rochlitz, the enlightened editor of the AMZ, actively
encouraged this kind of fictitious presentation; see Warrack, Carl Maria von Weber,
Writings on Music, 216.
3
For an analysis of the individual characters in the frame, see below, chapter 7,
“Frame Narrative and the Serapiontic Principle.”
4
Compare Hoffmann’s critical remarks in 1815 on Spontini’s Fernan Cortez in
“Briefe über Tonkunst in Berlin” with his enthusiasm for the same composer’s
Olimpie in 1821 (“Nachträgliche Bemerkungen über Spontinis Oper Olimpia”).
See H. M. Brown, “Italia and Germania: Reflections on a Theme in the Works of
E. T. A. Hoffmann,” The Publications of the English Goethe Society, New Series 70
(2000): 10–11.
5
Fouqué to Hitzig, 7 September 1812, in Schnapp, Der Musiker E. T. A. Hoffmann,
188.
6
Fouqué to Hitzig, 17 September 1812, in Schnapp, Der Musiker E. T. A. Hoffmann,
190.
7
Hoffmann to Hitzig, 30 November 1812, in Schnapp, Der Musiker E. T. A.
Hoffmann, 200. It is interesting that in his famous review of Hoffmann’s Undine Carl
Maria von Weber found fault with the libretto, his criticism being that the author
“knew his own story” too well and therefore failed to clarify the action sufficiently in
his adaptation. See John Warrack, ed., Carl Maria von Weber, Writings on Music, 203.
8
Schnapp, Der Musiker E. T. A. Hoffmann, 201: “und nun eile ich mit der Undine
in der Tasche in ein mir nahe gelegenes mit dem Theater verbundenes
Kaffeehaus . . . und komponiere . . . um halb 11 Uhr — nun setze ich mich an mein
Klavier — die aufgeschlagene Undine vor mir und nun geht erst recht das rechte
begeisterte Komposition los — So kommt es denn, daß ich, bin ich ganz fertig, sehr
rasch und ohne eine Note ändern zu müssen die ganze Komposition aufschreibe.”
9
Schnapp, Der Musiker E. T. A. Hoffmann, 201.
70
DER DICHTER UND DER KOMPONIST

10
Hoffmann to Hitzig 15 August 1812. Briefwechsel, ed. Müller and Schnapp, 348.
11
Long after Hoffmann’s death, in 1839, Fouqué modestly claimed only to have
written the verse sections of Undine: “Höchstens fügte ich meinerseits noch eine
Arie oder ein Duo hin und wieder ein” and, unlike his counterpart, Ferdinand, in
Hoffmann’s dialogue piece, did not seem to resent the inequality of the relation-
ship, conceding that “der Operndichter billig und notwendig dem Komponisten
ausnehmend viel überlassen muß,” Schnapp, Der Musiker E. T. A. Hoffmann, 602.
Because of his considerable practical experience of the theater, which far exceeded
Fouqué’s, as well as his literary talents, Hoffmann was hardly a typical example of
the Komponist. When, after Hoffmann’s death, there was discussion between the
theater director, Brühl, and Fouqué about a revival of Undine, Fouqué was happy
to plan a completely new introduction with a new composer (Kienlen), Weber hav-
ing been approached without success, as he was involved with the completion of
Euryanthe. Nothing came of the venture.
12
Jean Paul had already raised expectations that Hoffmann could carry out both
tasks; see the preface to “Fantasiestücke”: “denn bisher warf immer der
Sonnengott die Dichtgabe mit der Rechten und die Tongabe mit der Linken zwei
so weit auseinanderstehenden Menschen zu, daß wir noch bis diesen Augenblick
auf den Mann harren, der eine echte Oper zugleich dichtet und setzt” (HSW
2/1:16). Hoffmann’s dialogue could therefore be regarded as a riposte or answer
to the question posed in the outer frame by Ludwig: “Ist denn nicht vollkommene
Einheit des Textes aus der Musik nur denkbar wenn Dichter und Komponist eine
und dieselbe Person ist?”
13
“Doch glaube ich, daß es eine schwere Aufgabe sei, nach den Bedingnissen des
musikalischen Drama zu schreiben” (HSW/SB, 104).
14
He later (1821) himself uncomplainingly assumed the lowly role of translator
and adaptor of the French text of Spontini’s opera Olimpie for its first performance
at the Königliches Schauspielhaus, Berlin.
15
“Es ist uns Komponisten auch in der Tat kaum zuzumuten, daß wir uns jenen
mechanischen Handgriff, der in jeder Kunst zum Gelingen des Werks nötig, und
den man nur durch steten Fleiß und anhaltende Übung erlangt, aneignen sollen,
um unsere Verse selbst zu bauen” (HSW/SB, 99).
16
The discrepancy is neatly pointed up in the respective level of royalties that were
paid to each. In the case of Hoffmann and Fouqué the ratio was 5:3
(composer:librettist). See Brühl to Hoffmann, 10 August 1816 (Schnapp, Der
Musiker E. T. A. Hoffmann, 446).
17
Modern readers have trouble with these effusive signs of religiosity on
Hoffmann’s part. Carl Dahlhaus, however, contextualizes them in an illuminating
way; see C. Dahlhaus, “E. T. A. Hoffmanns Beethovenkritik und die Ästhetik des
Erhabenen,” in Beethovens klassische und romantische Musikästhetik (Cologne:
Laaber, 1988), 98–111. Dahlhaus links Hoffmann’s concept to Kant’s and Schiller’s
theory of the Sublime but insists that Hoffmann’s substitution of a religious dimen-
sion must be taken literally: “Das moralische Pathos, das bei Kant und Schilller
herrschte, wurde durch ein religiöses — das man nicht als pseudo-religiös verdächti-
gen sollte — abgelöst,” (108). See also Dahlhaus’s discussion of the transcendental
 DER DICHTER UND DER KOMPONIST
71

in music in the following chapter, entitled “Geheimnisvolle Sprache eines fernen

Geisterreichs: Kirchenmusik und Oper in der Ästhetik E. T. A. Hoffmanns.”
18
Gozzi was one of Hoffmann’s favorite authors; see Hedwig Rusack, Gozzi in
Germany (New York: Columbia UP, 1930). The insertion of a long résumé of the
fairy tale into the essay dialogue is possibly inappropriate, but on the other hand it
provides the reader with some clear evidence of what Hoffmann believes to be suit-
able material on which to base a libretto, It would seem, however, that no com-
poser has taken the hint.
19
Ludwig invokes an important principle, “Potenzierung,” borrowed from mathe-
matics (see discussion above, chapter 3, “Der Einsiedler Serapion”) to express the
process of intensification and stepping up of expressive power when music is allied
to words: “In der Oper soll die Einwirkung höherer Naturen auf uns sichtbarlich
geschehn, und so vor unseren Augen sich ein romantisches Sein erschließen, in
dem auch die Sprache höher potenziert . . . ist” (HSW/SB, 104). I shall discuss this
idea in further detail in the next chapter, “Über alte und neue Kirchenmusik.”
20
Hoffmann had first-hand experience of the bombardment of Dresden. He was
also an eye-witness at the battlefield near Dresden, which he visited in 1813, about
which experience he wrote a visionary essay; see “Die Vision auf dem Schlachtfeld
bei Dresden,” HSW/FS, 479–82.
21
Cf. “Es ist unser irdisches Erbteil, daß eben die Außenwelt in der wir
eingeschachte[l]t, als der Hebel wirkt, der jene Kraft in Bewegung setzt” (HSW/SB,
68). See discussion above, Der Einsiedler Serapion.
22
Paul Hindemith, Briefe, ed. D. Rexroth (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1982),
154.
23
David Charlton, E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Musical Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge
UP, 1989); “Introduction to The Poet and the Composer: Hoffmann and Opera,”
169–209.
24
“Still und hehr die Nacht.” Hoffmann himself started to set these very poems
to music in Bamberg in 1809, but no extant manuscript has survived, apart from
the autograph page, whose relationship to the verbal description in HSW/SB is
unclear. See HSW/SB, 1305. The detailed description of the four sections of


Müller’s poem and precise reference to modulations (A major–F minor–D



major–B minor–F major) suggest the existence of an actual composition of
Hoffmann’s. See also Wolfgang Schneider, “E. T. A. Hoffmanns Nachtgesang aus
der ‘Genoveva’ des Malers Müller,” MHG 11 (1964): 37–48.
25
Apropos this see Brian Trowell’s article on “Libretto” in The New Grove
Dictionary of Opera, ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 1992), 1201:
“Whoever writes the libretto for an opera must acknowledge that, unless the form
changes beyond recognition, melodic and musical forms must play the primary role
in shaping its success.” Trowell also quotes W. H. Auden’s reflections after his col-
laboration with Stravinsky on The Rake’s Progress: “The verses which the librettist
writes are not addressed to the public, but are really a private letter to the com-
poser. They have their moment of glory, the moment in which they suggest to him
a certain melody; once that is over, they are as expendable as infantry to a Chinese
general: they must efface themselves and cease to care what happens to them.”
4: Alte und neue Kirchenmusik

T HIS ESSAY (OR, AS THEODOR DESCRIBES IT, “KLEINE ABHANDLUNG”) can be

regarded as a continuation — and, as will be presently suggested, the
climax — of Hoffmann’s exposition in the Serapionsbrüder of his theoret-
ical program as it had been outlined up to this point in the various formu-
lations of the Serapiontic Principle. Hoffmann has moved on from the
literary aspects to a consideration of two major ways in which music can
achieve its potential as the most expressive of all art forms: the first (outlined
in “Der Dichter und der Komponist”) is in the hybrid form of opera, the
second, in the form of church music (“Über alte und neue Kirchenmusik”).
Both forms, significantly, involve the interdependence of music and words
(or texts). We saw how the first iteration of Hoffmann’s literary program,
based on the “Serapiontic Principle,” had been (fictionally) prompted by
the spontaneous response of a group of friends to the stimulus of a literary
reunion after a long absence — and in an atmosphere where a strong col-
lective will is evident among the group to set up a program of renewal of
their creative mission and release their long-dormant imaginative powers.1
A similar missionary zeal accompanies “Der Dichter und der Komponist,”
which calls for a new program of Romantic opera and has all the greater
sense of immediacy in that, at the time the original version was written in
1814, the Allies were moving towards victory against Napoleon.
A sense of mission also underpins “Alte und neue Kirchenmusik,”
which, once more, exists in two widely spaced versions. In this, the second
of the two pieces dealing with the question of the relationship between
words and music, the hybrid form in question — church music — proves
in one sense to be less problematic than opera, in that the need to fashion
a fresh text on each separate occasion, with all the related difficulty of
deciding whether this should involve one or two separate artists, has been
eliminated. The permanent form of the church liturgy, even down to the
traditional language, Latin, has the advantage of simplifying the process of
musical setting and leaving the composer free to respond to an already
“given” and seemingly endlessly inspirational structure and linguistic con-
struct.2 The reader is provided with a succinct analysis of the characteristic
features of each section of the Mass: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus,
Benedictus and Agnus Dei, an analysis that sums up their underlying pur-
pose and effect: “Die Worte des Hochamts geben in einem Zyklus nur den
Anlaß, höchstens den Leitfaden der Erbauung und in jeder Stimmung wer-
den sie den richtigen Anklang der Seele erwecken” (HSW/SB, 490).
 ALTE UND NEUE KIRCHENMUSIK
73

There is a broad survey of the historical field — reaching as far back as

medieval times and using the high point in the history of church music, the
Renaissance, both as a paradigm for the purposes of comparison with the
present and as a springboard for the future.3 The awareness that church
music in his own day is now in serious decline,4 not surprisingly, leads to
another call to arms on Hoffmann’s part and an appeal to his contempor-
aries to take up the challenge and revive the form. Hence the sense of mis-
sion and a certain rhetorical flavor that creeps in to the “Abhandlung”
from time to time. However, the nature of and response to this appeal by
the members of the “Bund” (as well as by modern commentators) is by no
means straightforward, and has been the focus of much debate.
This may be partly the result of a complicated genesis, certainly in
comparison with “Der Dichter und der Komponist.” Although Hoffmann
preferred to leave the piece on church music together with its preliminary
frame discussion untitled, from the time of its publication in Die
Serapionsbrüder onwards editors have opted to supply one nonetheless.
Their choice is identical to the title that belongs strictly to the much longer
and more detailed essay on the topic of church music, commissioned by
Rochlitz, the editor of the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, that appeared
in that journal in 1814. This has led to confusion, since readers have not
always been aware that there are substantial differences between the two
versions. First, there is a huge difference in scale: the Allgemeine
Musikalische Zeitung version runs to around twenty-eight printed pages
and contains many musical examples and analyses based on the works of
now obscure Italian composers,5 while the Serapionsbrüder version runs to
only twelve and contains no musical quotations. Clearly the latter is aimed
at a less specialist audience. And the ratio of musical analysis to more dis-
cursive material is greatly altered. Second, and most important, though
scarcely ever commented on, the later Serapionsbrüder version is an amal-
gamation of two separate pieces written for the musical journal. Not only
does Hoffmann annex and pare down parts of his original essay on Church
Music, but he also takes over a second piece that had first been published
in May 1813, namely, his review of Beethoven’s Mass in C Major. Finally,
while the original version is presented from the perspective of one uniform
authorial voice, the later one separates out into two distinct voices, a fea-
ture that is matched by a two-part presentation of the external frame char-
acters, Cyprian and Theodor.6 Because the “inner dialogue” emerges
directly from the “outer” and what had been a general discussion involv-
ing additional perspectives and voices, a more highly differentiated pre-
sentation of the issues is achieved than had been possible in the original
Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung version. As I shall demonstrate, the inclu-
sion of a section referring to the Beethoven Mass may have served the pur-
pose of enabling Hoffmann to address a theme of direct relevance to his
presentation and theory of the Serapiontic Principle, namely, the process
74
ALTE UND NEUE KIRCHENMUSIK

of linking words and music to create sublime, otherworldly effects. This

could be seen as an extension of the more secular processes described in
the earlier companion piece on opera. But this issue is shown to be con-
troversial, since, as it turns out, there is an absence of consensus among the
members of the group as to whether, in the chosen contemporary exam-
ple of church music, the Beethoven Mass, the composer has actually suc-
ceeded in scaling the expected heights in his handling of the words and
music.7 There is also ridicule for the decision made by the publisher
Breitkopf und Härtel (which in fact was made at the composer’s request)
to commission for the Mass in C a translation of the Latin text into the ver-
nacular German, the two versions to appear side by side.8 The inappropri-
ate register of this translation (actually it bears an uncanny resemblance to
the famous pantheistic speech in the catechism scene of Goethe’s Faust!)
is amusingly analyzed by members of the group who, on this matter at
least, are unanimous about its unsuitability. But at a more serious level this
tailpiece to the debate underlines further the problematical status of
church music in Hoffmann’s day which can be seen to extend even to a
general sense of insecurity about the time-honored supremacy of the Latin
text of the Mass.
The problem of old and new emerges in two main forms in the debate
in the final version, which is shared almost but not quite entirely between
the two musical frame characters, Theodor and Cyprian: the issues of the
spiritual force of church music and its present-day decline are debated.
Within the main analysis itself Cyprian’s contribution is the more substan-
tial of the two. As mentioned above, it is a greatly compressed version of
the original essay,9 but is now mainly concentrated on Palestrina and one
or two other composers (for example, Caldara and Allegri). At the same
time the material incorporated from Hoffmann’s review of what was a rep-
resentative new or modern work, Beethoven’s Mass, and the discussion of
this work — a performance of which, the frame character Sylvester reports,
he has recently attended in the Catholic Church and about which he
is enthusiastic (“im höchsten Sinn des Worts ergriffen”) — forms an
important starting and concluding point for the more widely ranging dis-
cussion of church music and the general problems confronting sacred
music at the time.
One line of argument addresses the past, present, and future of church
music. The Beethoven Mass, a brand new work by an already famous com-
poser, far from being greeted with enthusiasm by all members of the group,
evokes reservations for its allegedly uninspiring musical treatment of the
form. Even Theodor, who as a composer himself is the major spokesman
for music, seems slightly ambivalent: “Und doch fand ich mich getäuscht in
Ansehung dessen wie Beethoven die Worte des Hochamts aufgefaßt hat.”
This disappointment echoes that expressed by Hoffmann in his original
Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung review, where he too had clearly come to
 ALTE UND NEUE KIRCHENMUSIK
75

Disclaimer:
Some images in the printed version of this book
are not available for inclusion in the eBook.

To view the image on this page please refer to

the printed version of this book.

Letter from Ludwig van Beethoven to Hoffmann, 23 March 1820. By kind

permission of Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn-Archiv, Staatsbibliothek zu
Berlin-Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Mus.ep.autogr.

the work with certain expectations. These were based partly on his hunch
that in this first setting of the Mass Beethoven would be influenced by the
robust example of Joseph Haydn’s greatest works in the genre (for exam-
ple, the Cäcilienmesse and the so-called Nelson Mass) but possibly also on
his having recently reviewed Beethoven’s revolutionary Fifth Symphony, in
which the composer had so effectively exploited the “Hebel des Schauers,
des Entsetzens,” that he was likewise expected to raise the level of the
liturgical text to sublime regions. On the other hand Hoffmann (in both
76
ALTE UND NEUE KIRCHENMUSIK

versions) and his character Theodor share the view that the overall tone
of Beethoven’s work is an entirely appropriate expression of devotional
piety. Theodor cannot fault its clear, simple, unostentatious outlines or
its effective, but not flamboyant, instrumentation (“die verständige
Instrumentierung”). The problem, therefore, seems to be not that
Beethoven’s Mass represents just another inadequate new setting, reflecting
modern degeneration, but that in its many-sidedness Beethoven’s genius
has not conformed here to the highest expectations.10 It would be a mis-
reading of the text to propose, therefore, that Hoffmann’s conflation of the
two different reviews is undertaken as a rod to beat the back of all contem-
porary composers of church music: Beethoven is not being accused, as most
of them are, of mixing the sacred with the secular, or for introducing friv-
olous operatic devices into the musical score. The Mass in C is, as Theodor
firmly puts it, “ganz des genialen Meisters würdig.” But the general
trends forming around it are worrying (Hoffmann removed from the
original review a phrase about the settings of the Mass as having become a
mere fashion, a mere “Mode”). He has other purposes in mind for
Beethoven’s Mass in its new Serapionsbrüder setting, as I shall presently
demonstrate.
The main problem with most modern settings of the Mass in his view
lies in a lack of genuine religious commitment and the consequent inabil-
ity of composers to rise to true spiritual heights. This matter is fully cov-
ered in Cyprian’s section, an appropriate allocation, as he is associated with
matters spiritual rather than with musical technicalities (though, of course,
the origins of Cyprian’s argument can be found in Hoffmann’s own ori-
ginal essay and thus presumably also carry — or carried — authorial
approval).11 Cyprian, not the composer Theodor, appears qua historian of
church music who interprets the current trends in church music as indica-
tive of an urgent need to redefine and reinstate the religious dimension. It
is not made clear, however, whether his negative diagnosis of present-day
church music points to a growing crisis in religion itself in an increasingly
secularized, post-Aufklärung world, or whether those other competing
developments in the fields of opera and instrumental music that he views
as detrimental to church music are the cause or merely the symptoms of a
more deep-seated malaise. His historical argument traces a rising trend in
musical spirituality forwards from antiquity to the Middle Ages and one
backwards from the present, both of which meet in a peak in the world of
Renaissance music and Palestrina. The magnificent edifice of polyphonic
church music is presented as a model that would spread its benign influ-
ence over the whole of church music for another two hundred years12
(that, of course, takes us to the “Aufklärung,” which Hoffmann, like
Novalis, holds responsible for stifling all imaginative and spiritual impulses
in the name of Reason). Palestrina’s style is described in terms of monu-
mental architecture:13 as blocks of pure polyphony, based on series of
 ALTE UND NEUE KIRCHENMUSIK
77

chords (triads) — virtually all of them consonant — that build up to cre-

ate an overwhelming effect.14
The task now before Hoffmann’s contemporaries is to recapture and
build upon the spirit of such music, even if the style as such cannot be
replicated. At this point we note the rhetorical emphasis and “enthusiasm”
mentioned above: “Mag die Zeit der Erfüllung unseres Hoffens nicht
mehr fern sein. Mag ein frommes Leben in Friede und Freudigkeit begin-
nen und die Musik frei und kräftig ihre Seraphsschschwingen regen”
(HSW/SB, 500).15
This analysis of the excellence of Palestrina’s music — which represents
a veritable “Golden Age” — is composed of contrasting elements. The
“enthusiastic” (and missionary) is certainly one, but should not lead one to
ignore the other more analytical aspects, which relate to the technical skills
of the composer. The first line of approach necessarily tends to be orientated
around the reception process; the second focuses more on the musical
language itself and identifies more precisely the methods of composition.
Sometimes (as in the above example) the two become intertwined, which
can be disconcerting and tends to alienate musicologists whose apprecia-
tion of Hoffmann’s analytical insights may be adversely affected by the co-
presence of rhetorical or emotional appeals. The treatment of the theme of
the special status of music among the other art forms is a case in point. For,
according to Cyprian, music’s main distinguishing feature is its unique abil-
ity to convey an overwhelmingly spiritual meaning. Modern commentators
might well agree with the premise that among art forms music has unique
features, but would almost certainly not admit to the second proposition,
which is predicated on the admission of “extra-musical” considerations into
the argument. The claim for uniqueness in these terms is expressed at vari-
ous points throughout the essay and in vocabulary that at times may sound
annoyingly abstract or vague (for example, “ätherisch”), though the term
“Geist” to express imaginative and creative processes (compare
Vergeistigung; “reingeistig”) — is central to Romantic philosophical termin-
ology of the period (see Schelling) in general and is employed ubiquitously
and consistently throughout Hoffmann’s writings: “Keine Kunst geht so
ganz und gar aus der inneren Vergeistigung des Menschen hervor, keine
Kunst bedarf nur einzig reingeistiger ätherischer Mittel, als die Musik”
(HSW/SB, 494). This idea receives further elaboration: “Die Ahnung des
Höchsten und Heiligsten der geistigen Macht, die den Lebensfunken in der
ganzen Natur entzündet, spricht sich hörbar aus im Ton und so wird Musik,
Gesang, der Ausdruck der höchsten Fülle des Daseins — Schöpferlob”
(HSW/SB, 494). Here, as at many other points in the essay, the idea of recip-
rocal forces at work in the spheres of “Natur” und “Geist” carries strong
echoes of Schelling’s “Naturphilosophie.” In the “Philosophie der Kunst”
(1802–3), for example, Schelling draws attention to the uniqueness of music
as an art form in very similar terms: “So sind die Formen der Musik als
78
ALTE UND NEUE KIRCHENMUSIK

Formen der real betrachteten Ideen auch Formen des Seyns und des Lebens
der Weltkörper als solcher, demnach die Musik nichts anderes als der ver-
nommene Rhythmus und die Harmonie des sichtbaren Universums
selbst.”16
Hoffmann elaborates further on the idea of the spiritual force con-
veyed by music by making a connection between organized religion and
music. Whether this is purely metaphorical or literal is sometimes difficult
to decide (the term “Schöpferlob” is highly suggestive). Commentators
are reluctant to take Hoffmann’s expressions of religious fervor at face
value.17 The context of an essay on church music necessarily implies church
performance and the use of particular musical and liturgical forms, of
which the Missa is the most important. Clearly Hoffmann’s main reference
point is the Catholic liturgy, with which he was fully conversant from his
early days in Prussian Poland (P5ock, Posen, and Warsaw) and, of course,
later in Bamberg. He is aware of moves elsewhere in the German-speaking
world to adapt works like the Beethoven Mass for use in Protestant
churches, but from his personal statement at the very end of his earlier
review he clearly shares the misgivings expressed by his character Theodor
about the division of the structure of the Mass by Beethoven’s publisher’s
into three sections (this being the usual format for the so-called
“Lutheran” Mass) and reduced to a format in the vernacular composed of
what are termed “hymns.” Certainly Hoffmann felt strongly about the
further misappropriation of religious music for the purposes of concert
performances.18
For there is no doubt that an ecclesiastical ambience is for Hoffmann
a prime factor in contributing to the religious aura that he regards as an
essential ingredient in the performance of church music. Palestrina is a
prime example of how music was used as a means of reinforcing and reaf-
firming the spiritual content of the Mass (“als in Italien das Christentum
in seiner höchsten Glorie strahlte”). According to a much quoted but not
wholly authenticated anecdote,19 Palestrina, the icon of Renaissance
church music, responded to the threat of an interdict, pronounced by the
Pope at the Council of Trent, on the further performance of polyphonic
music in the Sistine Chapel. The reason behind this interdict was that set-
tings of the words of the Mass had now reached a level of unintelligibility
that could no longer be tolerated. Elaborate, distracting modulations and
extended melismas (that is, groups of several notes, sung to a single syl-
lable) all contributed, it was contended, to distract attention from the
deeper liturgical meanings, so that the intonation of the Mass had come
to represent a purely secular experience and was not conducive to the
reinforcement of belief. The Mass in six parts that Palestrina composed, as
some historians would have it, to correct this impression and restore
the confidence of the Papacy in the important liturgical role of music,
was dubbed Missa Papae Marcelli. Significantly, this is the work which
 ALTE UND NEUE KIRCHENMUSIK
79

Hoffmann chose to single out as exemplifying an ideal marriage of music

and words to create a sense of the otherworldly. Palestrina’s insistence on
making the text intelligible in accordance with the Council’s demands (“ut
verba ab omnibus percipi possint”: so that the words can be understood by
all) would seem to have been realized by his adoption of a “note-by-note”
technique, where the clarity of the words is achieved by, wherever possible,
matching each syllable to a note, in marked contrast to the preceding
plethora of melismas and modulations within the musical texture.
Hoffmann’s reference to the anecdote concerning the Missa Papae
Marcelli underlines further his statement that a cultic dimension is intrin-
sic to the nature of music:20 “Ihrem innern eigentümlichen Wesen nach ist
daher die Musik religiöser Kultus und ihr Ursprung einzig und allein in der
Religion, in der Kirche zu suchen und zu finden” (HSW/SB, 409).
However, Hoffmann does not intend to obfuscate this issue by giving
an impression that the means by which music is able to achieve the tran-
scendental and inexpressible is entirely shrouded in mystery.21 As he himself
had stated in “Der Dichter und der Komponist,” music is a “potenzierte
Sprache,” a more intensely expressive language, which, when combined
with appropriate words, can extend their range of expression to unheard-of
heights. This unique “potential” power can, he argues, be traced to music’s
harmonic system and in particular the role played within it of the chord or
triad.22 As Palestrina’s Mass had demonstrated, these sublime effects are
produced by an arrangement of chords to form a powerful and seamless
structure with a minimum of modulation and maximum of consonance.23
The spaciousness of church acoustics also plays a role in achieving such
otherworldly effects: “Ohne allen Schmuck, ohne melodischen Schwung
folgen in seinen Werken meistens vollkommen konsonierende Akkorde
aufeinander, von deren Stärke und Kühnheit das Gemüt mit unnennbarer
Gewalt ergriffen und zum höchsten erhoben wird” (HSW/SB, 497). Here
Hoffmann is also drawing attention to the effect of the predominantly
consonant nature of Palestrina’s harmonies, in which the infrequent disso-
nances are quickly resolved, thus releasing tension and producing an effect
of exceptional serenity and tranquillity. The various associations that accu-
mulate around this one technical feature, the triad, are truly remarkable:
social (“Gemeinschaft”) and therapeutic (“Trost”) as well as religious, ben-
efits can all be gained, so it is suggested, from the effects produced by this
most fundamental feature of musical harmony.
The communion at higher level between the poet-librettist and the
opera composer that had been suggested in “Der Dichter und der
Komponist” was in that context enthusiastically heralded in an ecclesiast-
ical metaphor as a communion of like-minded members belonging to one
single congregation or “church” (“die innigst verwandten Glieder einer
Kirche”). Now — because of present-day inadequacies — the idea of com-
munion is extended over a wider range in time and place to encompass an
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ALTE UND NEUE KIRCHENMUSIK

invisible church (“eine unsichtbare Kirche”24) linking past and present. At

the same time something closely akin to a musical equivalent of the com-
munity of saints is being suggested: the musical masters, such as J. S. Bach
and Handel join Palestrina and others who inhabit a kind of paradise
(“Pantheon” or even “Valhalla” does not quite convey the meaning). The
works of these great artists (“die heilige Schar”) transcend time and space.
They serve as a perpetual reminder to each new generation of the heights
to which art and religion, in close alliance, can rise: “Eine wunderbare
Geistergemeinschaft schmiegt ihr geheimnisvolles Bund um Vergangenheit,
Gegenwart und Zukunft. Noch leben geistig die alten hohen Meister,
nicht verklungen sind ihre Gesänge: nur nicht vernommen wurden sie im
brausenden tosenden Geräusch des ausgelassenen wilden Treibens, das
über uns einbrach” (HSW/SB, 499). The note of high pathos struck by
Cyprian is unmistakable. Cyprian, as we have seen, normally represents an
extreme position on matters like the Occult and the Mystical and is fre-
quently teased by his fellow members, which makes the reader alert to
Hoffmann’s possible irony whenever he gives tongue (as, for example in
the opening tale, “Der Einsiedler Serapion”). But on this occasion the pro-
mulgation of the idea of the “Geistergemeinschaft” and the “heilige
Schar” is likely to reflect the views of the author, since the same visionary
speech, virtually verbatim, can be found in the original Allgemeine
Musikalische Zeitung version,25 in which Hoffmann has adopted no liter-
ary persona but is speaking directly to his readership. The “communio
sanctorum,” or fellowship of holy persons, specifically saints, is a notion
that appears in the annals of the early church in the fifth century A.D. and
becomes an integral part of the Nicene Creed and thus part of the
Eucharist. Great art — particularly music — outlives human transience, an
idea already to be found in the Classical world (compare Horace: “Exegi
monumentum aere perennius”: I have built a monument more durable
than bronze). In articulating this idea Hoffmann is thus placing himself in
a long-established Western cultural tradition. But now it receives added
spiritual significance and status through the associations with the Christian
liturgy that Hoffmann weaves into it.
“Über alte und neue Kirchenmusik” has provoked much discussion
and many differences of opinion. It may be useful at this point to summar-
ize the most obviously controversial points. These are, first, the apparent
contradiction in an approach that tries to combine normative and histor-
ical criteria. It is argued26 that the essay operates with value judgments that
do not blend happily with a strictly chronological survey of the develop-
ment of church music within its long and illustrious tradition in Western
music. Following on from this general point we find criticisms from music-
ologists about Hoffmann’s rejection from his pantheon of specific works in
the musical canon: most notably Mozart’s Masses (“seine schwächsten
Werke”) and Haydn’s Oratorios (The Creation is deemed to be too secular)
 ALTE UND NEUE KIRCHENMUSIK
81

while, on the other hand, the church music of Michael Haydn is

extolled. It is this partisan approach and its seemingly narrow basis for
judgment that leads scholars like Martin Geck to make the radical observ-
ation that Hoffmann is operating with what he terms an “Ideologie” and
that he is “gegen die Sache and für das System.”27 This would point to a
rigid adherence on Hoffmann’s part to his own value system and little
appreciation for the technical excellence of many other examples of church
music, simply on the grounds that they do not fit his preconceived ideas
about genre. On the other hand, however, it is conceded28 that
Hoffmann’s insistence on preserving the cultic and linguistic traditions in
the performance of the Mass and other liturgical forms played an impor-
tant part in the revival of early church music in Germany which, through
the development of “Singakademien” and choirs, gathered momentum in
the 1820s and culminated in rediscovery of Bach’s great sacred works and
Mendelssohn’s celebrated first performance of the St. Matthew Passion in
Berlin in 1829.
Another line of approach that has often been used to counter
Hoffmann’s argument — and chiefly by musicologists — focuses on what
is interpreted as his proposition that the developments in vocal and instru-
mental techniques have affected church music adversely. More often than
not the technically sophisticated mechanisms of woodwind and brass
instruments, as Hoffmann saw it, had seduced composers of church music
into exploiting their new-found brilliance of timbre and greater freedom in
modulation, thus interfering drastically with the vocal line. This had had
the effect of moving church music further away from its roots.
Contamination from the theater and the opera, where the new instrumen-
tal virtuosity had been developing apace (Cyprian talks of “von dem kraft-
los verwirrenden Geräusch der Instrumente”) had further militated against
the simplicities for which Palestrina’s music had so long served as a para-
digm and which were so ideally suited to the cultic and sublime aspects of
performance.
It is on this point perhaps that Hoffmann’s argument is most vulner-
able and that he has been accused of contradicting himself. As has been
pointed out, the language of music, its entire melodic and harmonic sys-
tem, could never have developed in the kind of segregated environment he
seems to be suggesting. Hoffmann himself in his famous review of
Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony had already expertly analyzed the contribu-
tions made by the individual instruments to the orchestration and the
powerful effect of the whole symphony, and asserted that instrumental
music is “die romantischte aller Künste.”29 It seems unlikely that he would
turn his back on such prospects of greater expressiveness in the field of
church music.
Possibly some of Hoffmann’s critics have not examined his text, and
in particular the frame discussion, closely enough.30 For at the beginning
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ALTE UND NEUE KIRCHENMUSIK

of the piece Theodor has already made it abundantly clear that his critique
is addressed to the excesses of the new instrumental revolution, not to its
complete irrelevance for the future of church music. How could that be
when Hoffmann’s character has conceded the huge new expressive poten-
tial that is available and stated unequivocally that there is indeed an import-
ant role for the new instrumentation — subject to the proviso that it
should always be appropriate to the substance of any piece of church
music: “Indessen bin ich doch der Meinung, daß man mit dem Reichtum
den die Musik, was hauptsächlich die Anwendung der Instrumente bet-
rifft, in neuerer Zeit erworben, in der Kirche zwar nicht prunkenden Staat
treiben dürfe, ihn aber doch auf edle, würdige Weise anwenden könne”
(HSW/SB, 492). Hoffmann, then, envisages a coming together of old and
new and is far from imposing an “ideology.” He had acknowledged the
dynamic march of the times in Schellingian terms: “immer weiter fort und
fort treibt der waltende Weltgeist” and is anxious only to preserve what is
fundamental to the nature of church music, not reconstitute Palestrina.
His two advocates, Cyprian and Theodor, are basically of one mind
(though Cyprian is the more hard-line, Theodor more open to new possi-
bilities). Cyprian finds comfort in the fact that there are still a few “treue
Diener der von der Erde verschwundenen Kirche” around and invokes the
supreme example of Mozart’s Requiem. He reserves his wit and ire for the
more common, run-of-the-mill examples, full of empty passage-work with
intricate but non-essential, restless modulations. In particular, he is con-
cerned about the effect on good choral singing of fussy writing for the now
technically much improved woodwind and brass instruments. At the end
of his visionary speech Cyprian urgently and eloquently conveys the need
for composers to focus single-mindedly on the eternal verities in great art
(“das Wahrhaftige”), such as have been transmitted over the ages by “die
heilige Schar” (alias the “Geistergemeinschaft”). In this way spiritual
“Reichtum” will replace “Ostentation.”
That brings us back, finally, to the Serapiontic Principle and its con-
nection to the ideas explored in “Alte und neue Kirchenmusik.” As is the
case in “Der Dichter und der Komponist” — and just as deliberately, it
seems — the essay is topped and tailed by a passing reference to the prin-
ciple. The wry, cynical (“skurril”) Vincenz,31 who, it is emphasized, is no
musician himself and has just joined the four founding members, mock-
ingly utters the words “O Serapion” before Theodor even starts to launch
into his enthusiastic presentation of the excellence of some contemporary
settings of the Mass by Mozart and Haydn that seem to him to fulfill all
the demands of the Romantic program. After the conclusion of the “kleine
Abhandlung” the frame discussion resumes, and Vincenz once more inter-
venes, makes a joke about the story of Pope Marcellus and Palestrina’s
Mass, and imposes his own individual ban on any further “serapiontisch”
discussions on music: “nun verbanne ich, ein zweiter ergrimmter Papst
 ALTE UND NEUE KIRCHENMUSIK
83

Marcellus, alles fernere Gespräch über Musik aus der Kapelle des heiligen
Serapion” (HSW/SB, 501)32 It would seem that, as with the earlier essay
on Romantic opera, Hoffmann wishes to draw the reader’s attention to the
“serapiontic” nature of the discussion, which is meant to be read in con-
junction with the ongoing discussions of the principle that had been so
deliberately launched in these first chapters.
There are two immediate points of linkage. The first relates to the
matter of words and music, which was fully analyzed in “Der Dichter und
der Komponist,” where we saw how difficult it was to persuade the word-
smith of the value of the Romantic program for opera, in which his con-
tribution seemed to be the lesser. As has been already noted, this problem
should scarcely ever arise with the texts for church music except in the
revealing case of the vernacular version of the Beethoven Mass. With good
reason Hoffmann spends some time in the closing phase of the discussion
demonstrating exactly why the vernacular text is deemed unsuitable. When
Theodor had expressed his disappointment with the Beethoven work, he
used terminology reminiscent of the first Serapiontic discussion, in which
Lothar had interpreted the hermit’s story and used the motif of the lever
(“Hebel”) to define the point of intersection between reality and imagin-
ation and to demonstrate the process of enhancement of the creative
impulse. Beethoven’s Mass, it seems, for some tastes (not Sylvester’s) fails
to achieve the sublime effect, which involves a complex amalgam of terror
and delight such as we associate with a sublime experience:33 “Beethovens
Genius bewegt sonst gern die Hebel des Schauers, des Entsetzens”
(HSW/SB, 493). According to the analytical (though not particularly
musical) Lothar, however, the Mass in C remains firmly earthbound; his
negative view has been much influenced, it seems, by the plodding trans-
lation of the Missa into the vernacular, which is now wittily illustrated by
members of the group.
In this way, therefore, we infer that for a composer the (“given”) words
of a liturgical text themselves can serve the same function as the images or
other starting material (for example, pictures, historical documents, tales)
that are all grist to the mill of the “serapiontic” artist. They provide the basis
on which the imagination must get to work to internalize and “lever” the
material to greater levels of expressiveness: “Die Worte des Hochamts
geben in einem Zyklus nur den Anlaß, höchstens den Leitfaden der
Erbauung und in jeder Stimmung werden sie den richtigen Anklang in der
Seele erwecken” (HSW/SB, 490). The set Latin words of the Mass have an
endless appeal and carry multifarious associations; they can and have been
a source of the most diverse and imaginative musical inspiration over many
centuries. They meet the needs of a composer admirably and do not require
any alteration (nor, Hoffmann would add, translation).
Hoffmann uses the term “hieroglyph” to suggest the mysterious
“higher language” of the music in such a context. It is a much used, even
84
ALTE UND NEUE KIRCHENMUSIK

overworked term in Romantic parlance. Here it does not express the nota-
tion, which was introduced in the Middle Ages, in order to give music
permanence on paper, but rather the special expressive qualities underlying
the mere notes, qualities that enable music, through performance, to rise
to sublime heights. This “higher language” is formed by the inspired inter-
action between the two fundamental principles on which music is based,
namely, melody and harmony: “die Hieroglyphe des Tons in seiner
melodischen und harmonischen Verkettung.” Again, as in the earlier dis-
cussions of the Serapiontic Principle, the ordinary materials, there the writ-
ten words or images, here notes representing musical sounds, both
signifier and signified, become the bedrock on which complex and elabor-
ate imaginative structures can be built.
However, to my mind the key argument to support the thesis that
Hoffmann is attempting to draw music into the theory of the Serapiontic is
to be found in the frame discussion that precedes the discussion on church
music. We have to remember that before editors superimposed the title this
discussion ran straight into the “Abhandlung” without a break, linking dis-
cussion and exposition more tightly. The first part of the frame discussion
contains a display of extravagant verbosity on the part of the new recruit, the
“scurrilous” Vincenz, who obviously identifies himself with Shakespeare’s
fool, Jacques. This “Scherz” gets so out of hand that the stern leader and
theoretician, Lothar, has to intervene and does so by restating, for the new
recruit’s benefit, the fundamental features of the Serapiontic Principle, by
which all members are obliged to abide. The important restatement at this
point has been largely ignored, despite the reappearance in it of features
familiar to us from Lothar’s initial formulation:

Es gehört ein eigner Sinn, ein durchdringender Blick dazu, die Gestalten
des Lebens in ihrer tieferen Eigentümlichkeit zu erschauen und auch mit
diesem Erschauen ist es nicht getan. All die aufgefaßten Bilder, wie sie
im ewigen bunten Wechsel sich ihm zeigten bringt der Geist, der in
dem wahren Dichter wohnt, erst auf die Kapelle34 und wie aus dem
Niederschlag des chemischen Prozesses gehen als Substrat die Gestalten
hervor, die der Welt, dem Leben in seiner ganzen Extension angehören.
(HSW/SB, 488)

What we find this time is a succinct summary of the entire process,

starting with the inital “Erschauen,” that is the penetration of the mater-
ial (“die Gestalten des Lebens”) by “ein durchdringender Blick.” The next
phase involves the “Geist” — Hoffmann’s shorthand for the integrating
faculty of imagination — which gets to work on this rich mix of material
drawn from real life and mentally stored (“wie sie im ewigen bunten
Wechsel sich ihm zeigten”). To clarify further this complex process of
interaction Hoffmann now applies a metaphor that he had not used
previously, taken from the field of chemistry. These select “Gestalten,”
 ALTE UND NEUE KIRCHENMUSIK
85

transformations of images derived from external sources, are, as it were,

subjected through the creative process to the same kind of refining tech-
niques as are applied in the testing and isolating of precious metals. Of
Hoffmann’s many and varied means of attempting to explain and describe
the mysterious workings of the creative process, this particular metaphor
seems to me to convey his meaning very appropriately. The process of
extraction of nobler elements from among a heterogeneous (“bunt”) array
of possible components and the identification of the product itself as the
“substrate” that emerges from all this clarifies the transforming relation-
ship that the creative artist brings to bear on his material. At the same time
it reinforces the point that the starting material itself must be worked upon
and refined if the potential enrichment (the “Potenzierung”) of its con-
tents is to be fully realized. Out of this complex brew will emerge such cre-
ations as the great figures of world literature, such as Falstaff and Sancho
Panza. And as a postscript Cyprian adds to this the final phase in the equa-
tion: the importance of “Erkenntnis,” a concept familiar to us from
Lothar’s earlier formulation. For these creations of the imagination have
their counterparts in everyday life: this means that the physical appearance
of an individual may, in certain instances, strike the onlooker as being all
of a piece with his inner qualities and character (“sein ganzes Wesen”), just
as in the higher imaginative examples. According to Cyprian, in making
this connection we are using our cognitive faculty of “Erkenntnis” (“Liegt
es denn aber nicht bloß in unserer Erkenntnis, daß es geschieht?”) In other
words we simultaneously are aware of and separate out two levels, the
material and the non-material, and in so doing experience that selfsame
“Erkenntnis der Duplizität” that Lothar had identified as a basic principle
applicable to both life and art when he gave his first definition of the
Serapiontic Principle.35
As a final footnote to Hoffmann’s deliberate linking up of theoretical
statements across the different books of the Serapionsbrüder, one notes
that Vincenz’s still dismissive reaction to the conclusion of the more dis-
cursive section refers back ironically to the telling image “auf die Kapelle
bringen,” which was such an important part of Lothar’s programmatic
summary, by turning it into a pun, and describing it mockingly as a
“Gespräch über Musik aus der Kapelle des heiligen Serapion.” This can be
read at two levels. One is to bring the “kleine Abhandlung” — and thus
music — into a close relationship with the Serapiontic Principle that had
been so clearly outlined by Lothar, originally in terms of literary creativity.
The other is to treat the subject in a mocking fashion, mixing “Ernst” with
“Scherz,” which is also one of the features of that same Principle. The
operation of the principle in an art form like music is obviously more dif-
ficult to define than in the literary context, since, to use another image in
this connection, it would seem that the rungs of the “Himmelsleiter,”36
rather than being set on terra firma, are already positioned at a higher
86
ALTE UND NEUE KIRCHENMUSIK

point on the scale that leads heavenwards. However, again it is by the asso-
ciation of music with words that the relationship is comparable. Under the
Serapiontic umbrella we are being invited to connect up these various
examples of creativity across different art forms and note their potential
participation in the same general dynamic process (compare Schelling’s
“immer waltende Geist”) that feeds into great art.
The transition from this part of the frame discussion, which is
couched mainly in terms of literature, to the topic of music, specifically
church music, is further reinforced by Sylvester’s strong support for
Lothar’s restatement of the Serapiontic Principle. By picking up the term
“durchdringen,”37 which Lothar had applied to the artist’s penetrating
gaze (“erschauen”), Sylvester links it to the reception process in the case
of music, which, he argues, takes complete hold of his inner being (“mein
ganzes Wesen . . . ganz und gar durchdringend”) and can inspire sublime
emotions. Hoffmann possibly wants his readers to regard this sublime
outcome as a “Substrat,” and as part of the same process that Lothar had
described, though this is left implicit. From here we are led back to the
Beethoven Mass in C, on which Cyprian and Theodor (as well as Sylvester
and Lothar) immediately take up opposing positions. Cyprian and Lothar
are in agreement about the failure of this work to scale the heights of sub-
limity (“hübsche und geniale Musik,” “durchaus kein Hochamt” and “zu
jubilierend zu irdisch jauchzend”). Sylvester and Theodor insist on the
sublimity of Beethoven’s work. Sylvester’s retention of the key term
“durchdringen” drives home the point that the sublime can be
expressed in a variety of forms through the almost infinite number of
possibilities for setting the same sacred texts. This then prompts Theodor
to give an apologia for what is clearly being construed by him as an
example of “neue Kirchenmusik” and to defend it against the ultra-
conservative line taken by Cyprian. However, this is another case where,
despite all attempts, a clear resolution or consensus (“Sättigung,” to use
Schelling’s terminology) cannot be achieved, as the members remain
divided.
With this essay Hoffmann has concluded the major exposition of his
program, extending the range of reference of the Serapiontic Principle by
drawing it into the sphere of hybrid, word-based art forms such as opera
and church music. There will be further references to the principle, but
they will be brief, and no new major points will be added after the first
two volumes. Having — with the help of his gang of seasoned critics —
covered the ground so comprehensively, Hoffmann can proceed to apply
his findings to the particular texts that follow — and later in the collec-
tion even to the works of some other contemporary writers. He will, how-
ever, as we shall see, at a later date, in Prinzessin Brambilla and “Des
Vetters Eckfenster,” have some important additional thoughts on the
principle.
 ALTE UND NEUE KIRCHENMUSIK
87

Notes
1
See introduction to this volume.
2
The frame characters Lothar and Sylvester ask for elucidation concerning this
implied uniformity and limitation in the liturgical texts, and an answer to the ques-
tion of how one single text can produce such a huge wide variety of musical
responses: “Überhaupt möcht ich wissen, worin die völlig miteinander kon-
trastierende Verschiedenheit des Geistes liegt in dem die Meister die einzelnen
Sätze des Hochamts komponiert haben?” (HSW/SB, 489). It is a fair question, and
Theodor’s and Cyprian’s extended discussion is meant to provide some of the
answers.
3
Among the works of others of his contemporaries who had proclaimed a similar
view of the art of this period, the joint collection of essays by W. H. Wackenroder
and Ludwig Tieck (“Herzensergießungen eines kunstliebenden Klosterbruders”) is
the most familiar.
4
Various reasons have been suggested for this, such as the adverse effects on the
choral tradition and choirs of the widespread secularization of monasteries and
convents after 1803. Hoffmann also has an eye on the deleterious effects of
the a-religious intellectual atmosphere that had been established during the
Aufklärung, reaching a climax in the French Revolution. This forms part of his
polemic in the “Abhandlung.”
5
In addition to Palestrina’s “Missa Papae Marcelli” Hoffmann includes discussion
of works by Vallotti, Caldara, and Marcello, often supported by substantial quota-
tions from unpublished manuscript material.
6
To some extent the two frame characters, Cyprian — the more mystical — and
Theodor — the more musical — polarize into supporter and antagonist respectively
on the issue of “old” and “new” church music. Cyprian is allotted parts of the ori-
ginal essay on church music, while Theodor takes over the opening section of the
review of Beethoven’s Mass in C. This polarization (which turns out to be not so
clear-cut as might have been supposed) may reflect uncertainties towards the issue
that had developed in Hoffmann’s own mind over the intervening five-year period.
7
The Mass in C, op. 86 is Beethoven’s first known attempt at the form. The more
famous Mass in D, op. 123 (“Missa Solemnis”), written some years later, was
unknown to Hoffmann. Its grandeur and sublimity would have provided an inter-
esting corrective to the lightweight impression of the earlier Mass as articulated by
some members of the Bund.
8
This was carried out by Dr. Christian Schreiber. Beethoven was not particular
about the quality of the text: “es braucht eben kein Meisterstück zu sein, wenn es
nur gut auf die Musik paßt” (Georg Kinsky, Ludwig van Beethoven, thematisch-
bibliographisches Verzeichnis. ed. Hans Halm [Munich: G. Henle, n.d.], 240)
Ironically, Beethoven particularly liked the opening translation of the Kyrie (“tief
im Staub anbeten wir”) which is ridiculed by the Serapionsbruder, Sylvester, on the
grounds that it is “modern, gesucht preziös und weitschweifig zu gleicher Zeit”
(HSW/SB, 501).
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ALTE UND NEUE KIRCHENMUSIK

9
The research materials were lent to him in May 1814 by Breitkopf und Härtel
and consisted of manuscripts as well as printed music, so much of Hoffmann’s
discussion would have been based on what amounted to musical scores that read-
ers were encountering for the first time; see Charlton, E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Musical
Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989), 353, and Martin Geck, “E. T. A.
Hoffmans Anschauungen über Kirchenmusik,” Beiträge zur Geschichte der
Musikanschauung im 19. Jahrhundert, ed. Walter Salmen (Regensburg, 1965), 61.
10
Hoffmann’s analysis of the work itself is full of praise for its technical excellence.
Having himself been trained in early days, however, in the rigors of counterpoint,
he seems a trifle concerned about the lightness of touch with which Beethoven dis-
patches some of the fugal sections (for example, in the Osanna, 754). Perhaps he
is concerned about a general lack of rigorous technical training in his own time,
which he connects with the decline in the traditional foundations for church music,
and disappointed that Beethoven is not upholding this more emphatically. See
Karlheinz Schlager, Kirchenmusik in romantischer Sicht:. Zeugnisse des
Musikjournalisten und des Komponisten E. T. A. Hoffmann (Regensburg:
Katholische Universität Eichstätt, 1993), 7. Beethoven’s respect for Hoffmann
(“einem so geistreichen Mann”) is reflected in his letter dated 23 March 1820 (see
figure 2).
11
As already mentioned above, much of the technical analysis from the original
review has not been carried over into the Serapionsbrüder version. This lends to
Cyprian’s statements a more obviously subjective tone.
12
This presentation of the virtues, musical and religious, of Palestrina’s music has
been compared by one musicologist to the very criteria that had been set by the
Council of Trent itself, and that were readopted in the nineteenth century in the
Revival Movement for church music: see K. Schlager, Kirchenmusik in romantis-
cher Sicht, 7.
13
See the contrasting imagery of the two cathedrals in Theodor’s section (below,
89): St. Peter’s, Rome, representing the Classical, the Straßburg Münster the
Modern and Romantic. This imagery can be traced back to Goethe’s Sturm und
Drang essay “Von deutscher Baukunst” (1773).
14
It has been suggested that in his interpretation of Palestrina’s music Hoffmann
is following in the footsteps of the composer Johann Friedrich Reichardt, whose
writings were known to him through the AMZ. However, Hoffmann’s debt could
also be indirectly routed through August Friedrich Schlegel. These two possible
sources for Hoffmann use very similar terminology in their description of the
Palestrina’s harmonies: Reichardt writes of “Kraft und Kühnheit,” Schlegel of
“Stärke und Kühnheit.” See Ernst Lichtenhahn, “Zur Idee des goldnen Zeitalters
in der Musikanschauung E. T. A. Hoffmanns” in RD, 505–6.
15
Perhaps the association of this word with the “Seraphinenorden” the real-life
equivalent of the “Serapionsorden,” may not be fortuitous.
16
Schelling, Ausgewählte Schriften, ed. Manfred Frank, 6 vols. (Stuttgart:
Suhrkamp, 1985), 2:329.
17
See Klaus-Dieter Dobat, Musik als romantische Illusion. Eine Untersuchung zur
Bedeutung der Musikvorstellung E. T. A. Hoffmanns für sein literarisches Werk
(Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1984), 85: “Stößt der theologische Bezug bei Hoffmann
 ALTE UND NEUE KIRCHENMUSIK
89

häufig auf Verwunderung, so sollte doch darauf hingewiesen werden, daß sein
Konzept nicht religiös motiviert ist, sondern die zeitgenössische Umwertung des
Kunstenthusiasmus mitvollzieht und in einer säkularisierten Kunstreligion
aufgeht.” Some might not wish to be so categorical regarding Hoffmann’s personal
religious views, about which we can only speculate. The Cyprian voice is insistent
in the Serapionsbrüder, though occasionally it has to be checked by those of other
members, such as Lothar and Theodor. The many parallels between religious ter-
minology and musical analysis that have already been noted above in Hoffmann’s
work and that include the use of the term “Gott” to express the idea of a divine
Absolute (see discussion in chapter 2, “Der Einsiedler Serapion”) are common-
place among the Romantics and suggest the importance for their thinking of the
transcendental dimension. This is possibly more relevant than any attempt to iden-
tify Hoffmann’s beliefs with particular religious systems or doctrines. In discussing
this matter in connection with Hoffmann, Carl Dahlhaus inclines to applying the
concept of a “Kunstreligion”; this he traces to the writings of Schopenhauer. See
Dahlhaus, “Instrumentalmusik und Kunstreligion,” in Die Musiktheorie im 18. und
19. Jahrhundert, Part 1: Grundzüge einer Systematik (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche
Buchgesellschaft, 1984), 91–94.
18
“So ist wahrscheinlich um der herrlichen Musik auch in protestantischen
Kirchen ja wohl sogar in Konzertsälen Eingang zu verschaffen, auch in der
deutschen Bearbeitung das Ganze in drei Hymnen geteilt” (HSW/SB, 414). One
recalls in this connection Hoffmann’s remark about the unsuitability of perform-
ing Mozart’s Requiem Mass in a concert hall, where it is like “die Erscheinung eines
Heiligen auf dem Ball” (a saint appearing at a ball). See “Alte und neue
Kirchenmusik,” AMZ version, in HSW 2/1, 529.
19
For details see Hoffmann HSW, 2/1:890: “sein Hauptziel . . . war, eine
Kirchenmusik zu fördern, die an den Errungenschaften der kunstvollen Polyphonie
festhielt, ohne die Verständlichkeit des Textes zu gefährden.”
20
Again musicologists would not agree about permitting extra-musical factors into
an appraisal; see Knud Jeppersen, The Style of Palestrina and the Dissonance (New
York: Dover, 1970), 47. While noting the external impetus to achieve new heights
that Palestrina would have received from his project to reform the Mass, the excel-
lence of the work created to that end, so Jeppersen argues, can be substantiated and
appreciated exclusively in musical terms. Much the same could presumably be said
about J. S. Bach’s B minor Mass (which unfortunately for Hoffmann was at this
time virtually unknown), though, in Hoffmann’s defense, musical analysis as a dis-
cipline can hardly be held to have succeeded in explaining the overpowering effect
that these (and other) masterpieces may have on the listener.
21
Hoffmann twice uses the comparison between the sublime effect produced by
the architecture of St. Peter’s in Rome and that of the Strassburg Cathedral (the
latter much heralded as a symbol of “German” art by the young Goethe) to con-
vey the difference in kind between the effects of the older Italian form of the Mass
and its modern-day counterparts. In doing so he uses the (Goethean) term “kom-
mensurabel” (implying “with human measure”) to suggest the limited range of the
latter, implying its opposite, the term “inkommensurabel,” to describe the higher
forms.
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ALTE UND NEUE KIRCHENMUSIK

22
Composers and thinkers (from Pythagoras through to Kepler and beyond) have
speculated on the transcendental or mystical significance of music’s foundations in
physical and mathematical laws; for example, see Paul Hindemith’s Kepler Opera,
Die Harmonie der Welt (1954). Modern analysts have tended to draw on the math-
ematical rather than the mystical aspects. Carl Dahlhaus, however, raises doubts
about the truly scientific basis of what is often regarded as evidence, namely har-
monic progression; see “Musik als Wissenschaft, Kunstlehre und Propädeutik,” in
Die Musiktheorie im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert, Part 1: Grundzüge einer Systematik,
102–16. Contemporaries of Hoffmann such as J. W. Ritter (Fragmente aus dem
Nachlaß eines jungen Physikers (Leipzig and Weimar: 1984), 102–16) and A. W.
Schlegel (Vorlesungen über schöne Literatur und Kunst, ed. J. Minor (1884),
1:257) also discuss the symbolic nature of the triad and the associated idea of unity
or “Gemeinschaft,” as well as its associations with the Trinity. Hoffmann has assimi-
lated some of these associations in his reference in the essay, for example, his phrase
“eine wunderbare Geistergemeinschaft,” see below, p. 80.
23
For a discussion of Romantic harmony and in particular the resolution of disson-
ance, see Nora Haimberger, Vom Musiker zum Dichter: E. T. A. Hoffmanns
Akkordvorstellung (Bonn: Bouvier, 1976).
24
The notion of the “invisible church” is often read as a reaction to institutional
religion, but I do not believe this is uppermost in Hoffmann’s usage. The motif has
been traced to an “Athenäum” aphorism of Friedrich Schlegel (KSA, 11:243 [no.
414]), but many other examples, from Luther to Kant, Hegel, and Schelling can
be cited: see Wolfgang Rüdiger, “Musik und Religion,” in Musik und Wirklichkeit
bei E. T. A. Hoffmann: Zur Entstehung einer Musikanschauung in der Romantik
(178–92) (Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus, 1989).
25
See Hoffmann, HSW, vol. 2/1, 531.
26
Feldges and Stadler, E. T. A. Hoffmann: Epoche — Werk — Wirkung (Munich:
Beck, 1986), 252: “Tatsachlich bereitet Hoffmanns Text Schwierigkeiten: die
Stilkriterien . . . scheinen zu einseitig aus den Werken der Vergangenheit bezo-
gen . . . und durch die Gegenüberstellung von ‘inbrünstiger Andacht’ und ‘prunk-
enden Leichtsinn’ droht der Diskurs von einer historisch-ästhetisch auf eine
moralische Ebene verschoben zu werden.”
27
Martin Geck, “E. T. A. Hoffmans Anschauungen über Kirchenmusik,” 63.
28
Martin Geck, “E. T. A. Hoffmans Anschauungen über Kirchenmusik,” 71,
where Hoffmann is deemed to be more worthy of the description “Vater der zu
seiner Zeit beginnenden Restauration der Kirchenmusik” than any other musician
or theorist in this area before or after him. Musicological opinion is, however,
sharply divided on the extent to which Hoffmann can be regarded as a pioneer of
the revival of early church music in the nineteenth century.
29
HSW, vol. 1, Frühe Prosa, 532.
30
A notable exception is Carl Dahlhaus, Die Idee der absoluten Musik (Kassel:
Bärenreiter, 1978), 94–98, who argues convincingly that instrumental and church
music are complementary: “Es ist derselbe Geist des modernen Zeitalters, der sich
in der Vokalpolyphonie als christlicher Geist und in der Symphonie als romantis-
cher Geist manifestiert”(96).
 ALTE UND NEUE KIRCHENMUSIK
91

31
For further analysis of the role of this figure see part 2, chapter 7, “Frame
Narrative and the Serapiontic Principle.”
32
For the play on the word “Kapelle” see discussion below, pp. 85–86.
33
Cf. Hoffmann’s review of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, HSW 1:534:
“Beethovens Musik bewegt die Hebel des Schauers, der Furcht, des Entsetzens,
des Schmerzes und erweckt jene unendliche Sehnsucht, die das Wesen der
Romantik ist.”
34
Cf. “Gold auf die Kapelle bringen” ⫽ by chemical means to test metals. The
“Kapelle” is a crucible in which an unpurified mixture of metals is melted and the
pure, in the form of a “Substrat,” is separated from the impure.
35
See chapter 2 in this volume, “Der Einsiedler Serapion.”
36
See HSW/SB, 371.
37
The chemical term “Durchdringung” is one that Hoffmann uses regularly when
defining both the creative and the reception processes. It is common in Romantic
writings; see Schelling: “Zu einer vollkommen chemischen Durchdringung gehört
auch, daß kein Teil der Auflösung weniger aufgelöst enthalte, als er enthalten kön-
nte, d.h. daß beide Körper durch einander gesättigt sind” (Ideen zu einer
Philosophie der Natur, vol. 5 of Werke, ed. Manfred Durner et al. [Stuttgart:
Frommann-Holzboog, 1994], 296).
5: Prinzessin Brambilla: Callot Revisited

E VEN AFTER HAVING EXPLORED THE EXTENSIVE OPPORTUNITIES

analysing his aesthetic theories afforded by the framework in Die
Serapionsbrüder, Hoffmann continues right to the very end of his career to
for

examine points not covered there or to clarify and develop other key issues
in greater detail than had been possible within the scope of the frame dis-
cussions. Prinzessin Brambilla offers the opportunity of tackling irony, a
topic that had been somewhat neglected in the Serapionsbrüder (presum-
ably, as I suggested above, because of the fictional frame itself) but that had
been briefly identified as a key principle as early as the Callot preface to the
Fantasiestücke. The tale also enlarges on the topic of allegory, which had
only been summarily addressed so far. By a happy coincidence — the pre-
sentation to Hoffmann of eight original Callot prints of the Carnival by a
friend1 — he had a suitable model on which to expand and develop in
more theoretical terms what had become central features of his own nar-
rative technique.
Prinzessin Brambilla is generally regarded as one of Hoffmann’s most
complex and difficult works and possibly for this reason has become a par-
ticular source of attraction to those who have praised its “unerschöpfliche
Bildgestalt” and its “bewegliches Spiel der Konstruktion und
Dekonstruktion.”2 This approach might be thought to cast doubt on any
view of Prinzessin Brambilla that regards it a source of material to illustrate
the further development of aspects of Hoffmann’s aesthetic theory.
However, such a procedure can be justified on several counts. First, the
allegorical element embedded in the elaborate structure of the tale is more
fully developed than hitherto and the issue of allegory itself becomes a
focus of discussion. Since, however, within the tale itself opinions differ on
the interpretation of the term allegory, and it is linked to the concepts of
irony and humour, the presentation of this issue becomes one of some
complexity. Second, the subject of the allegory in Prinzessin Brambilla
itself relates to aesthetic matters and forms of creativity, and, more nar-
rowly, to theatrical performance. Finally, even a close deconstructionist
reading cannot gloss over the fact that theoretical discussions among the
characters (chapter 3), as well as narratorial interventions (chapter 4), place
before the reader’s consideration ideas that themselves are elaborated in
the course of the tale and carry a degree of independent authorial author-
ity, akin to the techniques used in the Serapionsbrüder. No more than
those, I suggest, can they be easily deconstructed.
 PRINZESSIN BRAMBILLA
93

Of course it would be absurd to suggest that Hoffmann wrote

Prinzessin Brambilla simply to illustrate a somewhat neglected aspect of his
own theory and approach to creative writing. It is first and foremost a work
of incredible imaginative invention and exuberance, but characteristically,
in the process of creating the extravaganza, the self-conscious and analyti-
cal part of Hoffmann’s mind is ensuring that his readers are provided with
pointers towards an understanding of its deeper meaning. Hoffmann’s
imagination was always at work refashioning and recreating promising
material that might come his way haphazardly. We have noted how cre-
atively he responded in Die Serapionsbrüder to his publisher’s demand for
a suitable means of linking his collected tales, by building around them an
intricate fictional frame with its own independent narrative. The Callot
prints in turn became, in true Serapiontic fashion, the catalyst for his set-
ting in motion a purely fictitious narrative plot, based on the Roman car-
nival. The late return to Callot will at the same time have invited further
reflection on the role of irony as a principal device for uncovering the
deeper levels of meaning that underlie the surface of reality (“alle die
geheimen Andeutungen, die unter dem Schleier der Skurrilität verborgen
liegen,” as Hoffmann had expressed it in Jacques Callot). As was already
suggested, this irony would turn out to be an offshoot of the Serapiontic
Principle. By a happy conjunction of events this revisiting of the “scur-
rilous” artist who had so successfully combined “Ernst” and “Scherz” —
another strand of the Serapiontic Principle — gave Hoffmann the oppor-
tunity to expand upon and embellish his earlier, more briefly expressed
ideas about irony.
The operation of an ironic principle takes various forms in Prinzessin
Brambilla; sometimes it is expressed in a discursive, sometimes in an exem-
plary mode. The discursive mode is not by any means confined to theor-
izing about humor and irony (these two being closely connected in
Hoffmann’s theory) but these twin issues are placed within a broader
frame of reference, one that has strong connections with the principle as
expounded in Die Serapionsbrüder. Thus, for example, via authorial intru-
sions into the text (for example, chapter 4) the reader is encouraged to join
the narrator in a journey away from the level of the commonplace and
everyday (“gewöhnlicher Alltäglichkeit”) and into higher realms of fantasy
(a locality to which Hoffmann likes to attach the term “Reich”). Here it is
a “Reich, welches der menschliche Geist im wahren Leben und Sein nach
freier Willkür beherrscht” (HSW/NS-B, 791).3 This possibility for free and
uninhibited movement between the two levels is liberating and may pro-
duce a sense of exaltation in the minds of characters and readers who are
able and willing to suspend disbelief.4 Not all Hoffmann’s characters
respond so enthusiastically, however. Lothar, the eternal doubting Thomas
and the frame character in Die Serapionbrüder who is responsible for draw-
ing together the threads of the discussion of the principle, presents the
94
PRINZESSIN BRAMBILLA

terms of reference and postulates two opposing worlds, “Außen” and

“Innen,” which are very similar to the narrator’s formulation in Prinzessin
Brambilla. But Lothar brings a more guarded response to the practical
limitations faced by the individual artist. This is an awareness of the
“Duplizität des Seins” (“unser irdisches Erbteil”), and it is this more sober
awareness (based on “Erkenntnis”) — which is the other side of the artis-
tic coin of “Exaltation” and represents that critical detachment (which
elsewhere Hoffmann terms “Besonnenheit”) — that opens up the possi-
bility of two modes of irony, one exultant, imbued with a sense of freedom,
the other more sober, tending towards melancholy, and based on an
awareness of limitation.5 For Hoffmann the ironic mode is thus achieved
by an awareness of the totality of life in all its contradictions, the “Ernst”
and the “Scherz,” the limited (“bedingt”) and the unlimited (“unbed-
ingt”). G. H. Schubert had used the phrase “der versteckte Poet in uns”
to demonstrate that the principle of irony operates both in the dream
world and in the natural world, as a means of bringing together contra-
dictions and polarities that cannot be resolved:

Dasselbe, was wir bei der Sprache des Traums bemerken, jenen Ton der
Ironie, jene eigentümliche Ideenassociaten und den Geist der Weissagung,
finden wir auch auf ganz vorzügliche Weise, in dem Originale der
Traumwelt, in der Natur wieder. In der Tat, die Natur scheint ganz mit
unserem versteckten Poeten einverstanden, und gemeinschaftlich mit ihm
über unsere elende Lust und lustiges Elend zu spotten, wenn sie bald aus
Gräbern uns anlacht, bald an Hochzeitsbetten ihre Trauer klagen hören
lasset, und auf tiefe Weise Klage mit Lust, Fröhlichkeit mit Trauer wun-
derlich paart.6

This view of irony implying the parallel direction of “Geist” and “Natur”
is grounded in contemporary philosophical thought, specifically
Schelling’s “Naturphilosophie.” Elements of both Friedrich Schlegel’s the-
ory of irony and Schubert’s adaptation of Schelling’s ideas seem to be pre-
sent in Hoffmann’s conception, although Schubert, conspicuously, is not
concerned with literary usage. Hoffmann, for his part, is following
the trend established by Schlegel, which situates irony firmly in literary-
philosophical territory and away from the rhetorical sphere, which it had
occupied almost exclusively since antiquity.7
These implications of the theory of irony are made explicit in the
Märchen-capriccio Prinzessin Brambilla.8 In simple terms the quest of the
hero, Giglio — at first sight indistinct and unfocused — is marked by many
obstacles and setbacks. It has been triggered by his creation of an idealized
image (“Zauberbild”) of his beloved, which in turn had been set in motion
by the fairy-godfather figure, the magician Celionati, whose magic spec-
tacles act as a catalyst for change, enabling the user to see beyond the every-
day levels of reality to higher realms of the imagination. In Giglio’s case this
 PRINZESSIN BRAMBILLA
95

vision of an ideal conflicts with his existing overblown self-image, resulting

in a “chronic dualism.” The experiential process — after many a turn and
twist — consists of a gradual realization and understanding (“Erkenntnis”)
of his true self, his vocation as an actor and the true significance of his
attainment of his beloved as a tangible reward for his progress. The latter,
Giacinta, initially a kind of Cinderella figure, living in poverty as a lowly
seamstress, undergoes a parallel, though less complex and more shadowy
development than Giglio’s. Her contact with the theater world, as a cos-
tume maker, starts at a modest level, but she ultimately moves closer to the
higher reaches of this art world through her active involvement in the car-
nival in the metamorphosed form of Prinzessin Brambilla. Finally, she
undergoes a further typically Romantic super-transformation in the inter-
polated “Urdarquelle” myth, where she takes on the form of Mystilis, the
inspirational muse figure for the hero, in allegorical terms a female embod-
iment of Romantic poetry.9 According to the secondary Märchen, or myth,
of the “Urdarquelle,” which is interpolated into the first, that is, the carnival
action, Mystilis emerges, after the paralysing torpor of the “Blumenschlaf”
(a typical Märchen motif, reminiscent of the Sleeping Beauty), from the
calyx of an exotic lotus flower, a potent symbol in Romantic iconography.10
As so often when expounding the various facets of the Serapiontic Principle,
Hoffmann is here aligning his imagery with well-established Romantic tra-
ditions in both literature and the visual arts.
Allegory plays an extremely important part in Hoffmann’s presenta-
tion of this particular double Märchen. There is of course nothing new in
his use of mythical parallels in the form of interpolations, as these feature
in virtually all his Märchen, (for example, the creation myth in Der goldene
Topf.11 Such is the exuberance of Hoffmann’s fantasy, however, that it is
not the dry, reductive-looking résumés such as “Glauben und Liebe” (Der
goldene Topf), or “Der Gedanke tötet die Anschauung” (Prinzessin
Brambilla) and so on, that stand out in the reader’s memory, but rather
the richness and elaboration in the author’s depiction of these “parallel
universes,” the real and the fantastic, so liberally endowed with inventive
details and humor. In all these instances one figure is charged with the task
of making explicit, or interpreting, the “meaning” of the allegory. In
Prinzessin Brambilla the reader is offered contrasting readings by the hero
Giglio and the masterful Celionati respectively: Giglio in his higher
transformed state as Prince Cornelio Chiappieri, an Assyrian prince, and
the charlatan Celionati (alias Der Magus Hermod in the “Urdarquelle”),
who is sometimes seen as an “alter ego” of the author.12 The latter con-
firms Giglio’s diagnosis of what Hoffmann, perhaps not without a dash of
self-irony, given his prolific tendency elsewhere to insert allegorical myths
into his Märchen, presents as a “weakness” (“Fehler”) of Celionati’s,
namely his tendency “oftmals ins Allegorische zu fallen” — but, as we shall
see, this remark will be qualified.
96
PRINZESSIN BRAMBILLA

The fact that there is ambiguity about Celionati’s definition of the

term “allegory” within the tale itself is significant. Goethe’s famous and
influential distinction between “allegory” and “symbol” had given primacy
to the symbolic mode of expression in which multifarious possibilities of
meaning are deemed infinitely more attractive than a clear-cut, one-to-one
equivalence between the “allegorical material” and the subject of the alle-
gory.13 For Goethe allegory is a somewhat discredited form. Mainly
through the popularity in the eighteenth century of the fable, a kind of
miniature allegory, it was deemed to have become virtually a mechanical
device.14 The result of Goethe’s reevaluation is a polarization of the two
modes, allegory and symbolism, and a downgrading of allegory, which
found widespread acceptance (and to some extent still does). In the import-
ant discussion between the German artists and Celionati in the caffè greco
(chapter 3) the spokesman for the Germans, the painter Franz Reinhold,
links allegory and irony but disapproves of irony being too closely linked
to allegory, which he appears to be using in the pejorative, limited
Goethean sense (“Gott tröste Euch, wenn Ihr uns etwa die Dummheit
zutrauen solltet, die Ironie nur allegorisch gelten zu lassen” (HSW/NS-B,
813), whereas irony has a more profound, philosophical dimension. This
idea is picked up by Celionati at the end of the tale in his summarizing
“Erklärung,” which draws out the inner allegorical meaning of the
“Urdarquelle” myth in a tongue-in-cheek way, almost, it would seem, in
defiance of Reinhold’s strictures. As a postlude to the “happy-ever-after”
ending in which Prince Chappieri/Giglio, through having learned to laugh
at himself, is united with his Princess Brambilla/Giacinta, he offers a delib-
erately pedantic explanation of Giacinta’s role, thus: “Ich könnte sagen,
du seiest die Fantasie, deren Flügel erst der Humor bedürfte um sich
emporzuschwingen, aber ohne den Körper des Humors wärst du nichts,
als Flügel und verschwebtest, ein Spiel der Winde, in den Lüften”
(HSW/NS-B, 910).15 This explication of Giacinta’s allegorical function in
Prinzessin Brambilla is in fact an object lesson in irony on Celionati’s part;
for he is ironizing his own propensities towards allegorizing, and standing
back to assert that he himself is not going to pursue this route, on the
grounds that both Reinhold and Giglio, in his transformed role of Prinz
Cornelio Chiapperi), had already (and, he implies, justly) criticized this
tendency in him: “Aber ich will es nicht tun, und zwar auch schon aus dem
Grunde nicht, weil ich zu sehr ins Allegorische, mithin in einen Fehler
fallen würde, den schon der Prinz Cornelio Chiapperi auf dem caffè
greco mit Recht an dem alten Celionati gerügt hat” (HSW/NS-B, 910).
In fact he does not follow his own resolve, but proceeds to draw out fur-
ther allegorical meanings from the whole story — explaining the signifi-
cance of both the myth and the carnival action — and identifying the
theatrical carnival in terms of the familiar notion of a “Welttheater,” albeit
one in miniature: “in der kleinen Welt, das Theater genannt. . . . So
 PRINZESSIN BRAMBILLA
97

sollte . . . wenigstens in gewisser Art das Theater den Urdarbronnen

vorstellen, in den die Leute kucken können” (HSW/NS-B, 910).16 Since
there seems to be good authority for regarding Celionati as one of the
author’s alter egos, his statements carry considerable weight. However, the
careful reader will note his phrase “in gewisser Art,” which leaves one won-
dering if Hoffmann is suggesting the tentative nature of a (limited) alle-
gorical interpretation such as he has supplied (and one also notes the
equally tentative, hypothetical phrase: “man könnte glauben . . .”).
Indeed any reductive view of the “allegorical” nature of Prinzessin
Brambilla cannot satisfy, for in the Romantic period the term was subjected
to another general overhaul and ceased to hold the same pejorative conno-
tations that it had for the classical Goethe. Both Schelling17 and Solger18
allow for its having a double significance; in other words the figures and
characters take on a fictional identity independently of any meanings or
interpretations to which they might be subject, and cannot therefore be
reduced to mere chiffres. This more liberal interpretation of allegory also
informs Tzvetan Todorov’s more recent very nuanced analysis of the con-
cept (which is presented in the context of his study of the Fantastic), in
which he suggests that there are many different relationships and permuta-
tions between allegory and its abstract “meanings.” Todorov contrasts the
reductive, or, as another commentator puts it, “over-determined” form of
allegory,19 which is more akin to fable, with other (“under-determined”)
examples, in which the independence of the allegorical material from its
subject of allegory allows the former to retain its power and force and to
resist all explaining away.20
The discussion of allegory in Prinzessin Brambilla employs termin-
ology familiar to us from Hoffmann’s other expositions in the
Serapionsbrüder frame. Celionati had proclaimed in the caffè greco, when
events were nearing a climax, that Giglio’s problem consisted in a funda-
mental, or “chronic” dualism, and this had been redefined by Franz
Reinhold in more contemporary, philosophical (that is, “German”) terms
as “jene seltsame Narrheit, in der das eigene Ich sich mit sich selbst
entzweite, worüber denn die eigene Persönlichkeit sich nicht mehr festhal-
ten kann” (HSW/NS-B, 894). Celionati confirms his agreement (“nicht
übel”) but supplements it with more detail about the precise nature of this
personality disorder in the Urdarquelle myth, which he proceeds to narrate
in two instalments. The first is relayed in the caffè Greco; in this instalment
the absurdly self-conscious attitudes of the young royal couple, King
Ophioch and Queen Liris, in the myth are emphasized, one of whom
laughs inanely, while the other is over-serious and completely wrapped up
in solemn thoughts, neither of them heeding the other or mindful of their
duties as rulers. The situation escalates to the point where their mental
paralysis precipitates a universal stagnation throughout the entire kingdom.
Their problem is redefined later in a fantastic episode when the magician
98
PRINZESSIN BRAMBILLA

Hermod (who is part of the Urdarquelle myth and, as was suggested above,
is the Märchen counterpart of Celionati in the outer tale) formulates it once
more in the language of contemporary German philosophy, this time play-
fully transposing the term “chronische Dualismus” into the Fichtean ter-
minology of “Ich” and “Nicht-Ich” in a formulation that may well be
parodistic: “Der Genius mag aus dem Ich gebären/Das Nicht-Ich, mag die
eigne Brust zerspalten,/Den Schmerz des Sein’s in hohe Lust verkehren”
(HSW/NS-B, 904).21 The Urdarquelle quest involves a process of self-dis-
covery, which is achieved by the age-old motif of the mirror-image and self-
confrontation, a harmonious variant on the Doppelgänger motif. This is
clearly a parallel to Giglio’s situation in the outer carnival action, when, hav-
ing assumed the mask of Pantalon, the commedia character, he ultimately
confronts his “phantom-Ich” and after a sword-fight destroys it. By this
voluntary act of destruction of what is amusingly termed his “Nicht-Ich,”22
which turns out to be a cardboard cutout and mere husk, and by this asser-
tion of his true “Ich,” Giglio has attained “Erkenntnis” and overcome his
“chronic dualism.”23 The means whereby this fundamental “dualism” can
be overcome is now specified as an ironic detachment — “Ironie” and
“Humor” — specifically, the ability to laugh (but through “Lachen” but
not “Gelächter”), at the absurdities of life (“die Faxen des ganzen Seins”)
and most especially at oneself. It seems that this variety of humor, with its
unmistakable self-awareness, is identified as specifically “deutsch” and pos-
sesses therapeutic powers (“die wunderbare, aus der tiefsten Anschauung
der Natur geborene Kraft des Gedankens, seinen ironischen Doppeltgänger
zu machen” (HSW/NS-B, 826), a phrase that once more suggests the
Schellingian reciprocity of the two systems of “Geist” and “Natur” and
once more brings to mind Schubert’s notion of the “versteckte Poet.” The
creative process and “Kraft des Gedankens,” can, so it seems, through the
positive effect of irony, unite the warring faculties of thought (“Gedanke”)
and intuition (“Anschauung”).
Hoffmann is presenting two levels of artistic creativity in Prinzessin
Brambilla: the first focused on the main plotline with its emphasis on the-
atrical performance, ranging from the bombastic tragedies of the Abbate
Chiari to works of real stature, the second on the author-narrator’s self-
conscious intrusions and anxiety to share with the reader the convolutions
of his own inspiration and his progress with creating his complex narrative
with the help of “allegory.” This level implies literary forms (for example,
a prose “capriccio”) and is predicated on a fruitful relationship between the
reading audience and the author who is presenting the material.24 Of the
many examples of this relationship I shall examine only two additional
examples, one from chapter 3, the other from chapter 4. In both it seems
that Hoffmann is searching for some internal narrative equivalent to the
convenient framework technique that had served him so well in the
Serapionsbrüder. The first example is virtually a dialogue and is presented
 PRINZESSIN BRAMBILLA
99

in the unashamed theorizing of the caffè greco artists, principally their

leader Reinhold, and Celionati. It offers an interesting twist to the subject
of humor by relating it to national differences between the Germans and
the Italians. The second is less integrated into the plot, being a long nar-
ratorial excursus in which the author-narrator confides in his “vielgeliebter
Leser,” in an attempt to reconstruct and disclose the imaginative routes by
means of which, as an artist, he is developing his fantastic subject matter.
The view of the Germans as deep thinkers that is expounded in the
caffè greco may not be wholly serious on Hoffmann’s part (or, alterna-
tively, and possibly more convincingly, may be an explicit recognition of
the important influence that current German philosophy was having on
contemporary literature), but whatever his reasons for framing the debate
in terms of this opposition, it provides him with a pretext for some semi-
philosophical theorizing that might otherwise be considered inappropriate
in a work that calls itself a “capriccio.” The discussion on “Scherz” and
“Ironie” presents the familiar premise of “Duplizität,” the two opposing
levels of reality, the inner world of the mind and imagination, and the
outer world of appearances. The spokesman, Reinhold, insists on the
importance of the reflective inner life as the artist’s major source of
strength, and avers that “deutscher Humor,” in drawing on this, strikes
deeper roots than the superficial Italian variety (which is represented solely
by the extreme example of the carnival). “Deutscher Humor” connects
with fundamental principles and with the nature of life itself, for it is pre-
sented in Schellingian terms as “Die Sprache jenes Urbildes selbst, die aus
unserem Innern heraustönt und den Gestus notwendig bedingt durch
jenes im Innern liegende Prinzip der Ironie, so wie das in der Tiefe
liegende Felsstück den darüber fortströmenden Bach zwingt, auf der
Oberfläche kräuselnde Wellen zu schlagen” (HSW/NS-B, 247). In this
capacity it connects with the principle of irony in its positive form; that is,
the ability to draw back even from painful experiences and, in a spirit of
amused detachment, to view things without exaggeration or excess. This
ironic mode seems to emanate from the same region as the “Urbild” or
primal vision of the thinker (or artist), namely from “dem Innern.”
“Deutscher Humor,” then, implies a serious attitude towards the comic,
whereas the Italian view of “Humor,” so it would appear, is one-dimensional
and exclusively “possenhaft.” Reinhold also criticizes the latter for its heart-
lessness, its focus on ridicule and “Gelächter” directed at the foibles of
one’s fellow human beings, even verging, in some of the carnival types and
their antics, on an unbridled expression of violence and hatred. Reinhold
insists that, by contrast with the Italian, the German ethos has a humane
side, which he terms “Gemütlichkeit.25 Those who share an appreciation
of the type of “Humor” he defines — like Celionati himself, who speaks
German and was educated in Germany — are not necessarily “German,”
for Hoffmann is addressing like-minded souls from wherever they are to
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PRINZESSIN BRAMBILLA

be found; they form that community or brotherhood that he often invokes

and to which he gives the name “Geistergemeinschaft” and “die unsicht-
bare Kirche.”26 Celionati’s own role is thus identified by the Germans with
their own view, although it becomes ambivalent through his equivocal atti-
tude towards the commedia, which does not fit the criteria of “deutscher
Humor.” His means of reorientating Giglio from the superficiality and
bombast of the roles he has been playing in the abbot’s tedious tragedies,
and from being an actor whose self-consciousness is such that he cannot
play any other role but himself, into a self-critical and self-aware individual
who has come to reject the emptiness of his previous approach to life and
the theater, has been the commedia, whose frivolity is the mirror image of
the abbot’s Il moro bianco (The White Moor). But this is only one stage in
a process that involves Giglio’s passage through the frivolities of the com-
media to full “Erkenntnis.”
This exposition of the contrasting ideas on “Humor” presented by
Reinhold and Celionati respectively is followed directly by their allegorical
transposition in the form of the interpolated Urdarquelle Märchen, where
further points are made explicit. The process of drawing on the “innere
geistige Kraft” contained within the myth produces a combination of ironic
awareness and laughter, adding new practical possibilities for a resolution of
the problems posed in the main action. Those like the errant Giglio can, its
appears, after all, tap in to those inner resources of “Geist” that are latent
and simply waiting to be activated, thereby achieving a higher level of
insight and awareness and (in Giglio’s case), in more practical terms, a vastly
improved level of his future performance as an actor once he has divested
himself of the crippling obsession with his own empirical “Ich.”
Finally, the discursive opening section of chapter 4 is strategically
placed to provide a follow-up to the exposition of the theories of humor,
irony, and allegory that have been outlined in such detail in the preceding
chapter. Now the voice of the narrator-author provides a wider frame of
reference as he launches into general reflections on creativity and the
process by which the creative mind operates. This is done in a manner that
immediately recalls passages in the Serapionsbrüder and elsewhere. A
eulogy in praise of the human faculty of imagination (“der menschliche
Geist [ist] selbst das allerwunderbarste Märchen”) suggests the limitless
diversity of resources that repose within, greater, it seems, than even the
solar system and the visible world around us. Imagery of a mine (“Grube”)
so often applied by Hoffmann to express this vast capacity of the mind
(“Geist”), together with its contents, the precious stones that fill it with
brilliant light,27 is here reinforced by the general topographical motif of the
glorious “Reich,” which contrasts with the limited confines of the physical
world. The faculty of “erschauen,” familiar to us from the Serapionsbrüder
and also the first Callot essay, signals the focus on these precious materials
by creative minds, and the image of the mine is developed further by
 PRINZESSIN BRAMBILLA
101

reference to the subsequent process of extracting and bringing these

treasures up to the surface. This metaphor of the excavation and recovery
of hidden treasures is one of which many creative artists are fond. But
soon, in a visionary effusion, the narrator has returned to consider a more
interesting aspect, namely the state of mind — a kind of waking dream-
state or reverie — that is most propitious for creative inspiration and that
can serve almost as a compensation for all earthly woes: “den Traum, den
wir durch das ganze Leben fortträumen, der oft die drückende Last des
Irdischen auf seine Schwingen nimmt, vor dem jeder bittre Schmerz, jede
trostlose Klage getäuschter Hoffnung verstummt, da er selbst, Strahl des
Himmels in unserer Brust entglommen, mit der unendlichen Sehnsucht
die Erfüllung verheißt” (HSW/NS-B, 830).
Many other connections between the theories outlined in Prinzessin
Brambilla and Hoffmann’s central theory of the Serapiontic Principle
could be identified, but enough has been said to demonstrate the excep-
tionally wide range of reference to aesthetic issues that is incorporated in
this work. In addition to the general question of artistic creativity, there is
explicit analysis of the question of dualism/duplicity, which underlines all
of Hoffmann’s work, and, connected to this, a detailed discussion of the
principle of irony and its central importance as a possible antidote to the
one-sidedness that is a familiar aspect of the conditio humana. Prinzessin
Brambilla in short offers a comprehensive, if unsystematic, survey of
Hoffmann’s “Poetics.”28 As well as adding to our knowledge of the
Romantic program in general, these theoretical reference points underpin
Hoffmann’s own particular brand of narrative fiction — indeed, they are
being simultaneously put into practice and expounded. The self-irony
encapsulated in the caffè greco discussions on issues and principles that
Hoffmann identifies as central to the creative process can be read as a ret-
rospective allusion to his penchant for demonstrating the theoretical and
philosophical underpinning to his own ideas about art and artistic creativ-
ity that are subsumed under the umbrella of the Serapiontic Principle.
What constitutes a development in Hoffmann’s oeuvre is the complete
integration of theoretical and narrative presentation in one seamless whole.
In this respect the formula is at the opposite end of the spectrum from Die
Serapionsbrüder, the one integrated, the other disjoined, though the appli-
cation of the principle itself is not, of course, affected by the different
approach. Both are equally successful in terms of the need to incorporate
critique and creativity; each represents Hoffmann’s Protean ability to ring
the changes on his material. Drawing as it does on prose narrative, music,
the visual arts, and the performing arts (both dance and theater), the tale
Prinzessin Brambilla is, even by Hoffmann’s interdisciplinary standards, an
artistic tour de force. Our understanding of it, I would suggest, is greatly
enriched by our awareness of the principles on which his ingenuity and
imagination are based and by means of which he is able to achieve his ends.
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Notes
1
On the occasion of his forty-fourth birthday Hoffmann was presented by his
friend and fellow Serapionsbrüder, Johann Ferdinand Koreff, with a set of eight
Callot etchings entitled Balli di Sfessania, featuring typical Carnival figures. These
were reproduced in the first published edition of Prinzessin Brambilla, a practice
that has been maintained in all good subsequent editions, as was obviously the
author’s intention.
2
See Detlev Kremer, Romantische Metamorphosen: E. T. A. Hoffmanns
Erzählungen (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1993), 326.
3
The term “Willkür” is reminiscent of Friedrich Schlegel’s various definitions of
irony and Romantic Poetry and points to the philosophical and transcendental
dimension that this important theorist uniquely pioneered among the Romantics.
Schlegel’s view of irony is strongly tinged with the notion of polarity and is pre-
sented dialectically as “an alternation between self-creation and self-annihilation”;
see Ernst Behler, German Romantic Literary Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
1993, 141–53, here 149.
4
Peter von Matt, in Die Augen der Automaten: E. T. A. Hoffmanns
Imaginationslehre als Prinzip seiner Erzählkunst (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1971), 170
talks of Hoffmann’s “Aufgabe, diese rezeptive Exaltation nicht nur zu erwecken,
sondern auch vor Fehlgängen und irriger Ausrichtung zu bewahren. . . .”
5
See Behler, German Romantic Literary Theory, 151, who sees both possibilities
in Schlegel’s various formulations.
6
G. H. Schubert, Die Symbolik des Traums (Bamberg: 1814), 30.
7
In her still helpful study, Die romantische Ironie in Theorie und Gestaltung, 2nd
ed. (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1977), Ingrid Strohschneider-Kohrs distinguishes
between Schubert’s conception of irony (and the notion of an ironic intelligence
abroad in the natural world in the form of what Schubert calls “der versteckte
Poet”) and Hoffmann’s thinking on the issue: “Unverkennbar überschreitet
Hoffmann den allgemeinen Ironie-Gedanken Schuberts, wenn er betont, daß erst
Bewußtsein und Verstand die Sprache des versteckten Poeten forme und objek-
tiviere” (160). Hoffmann is likely to have turned to Schlegel’s more penetrating
and original insights as his starting point, despite the fact that he clearly also knew
Schubert’s reference and alluded to the striking phrase “der versteckte Poet in uns”
in a letter to Hitzig, 2 Sept. 1814. BW I, 483, notes 10 and 11. The latter foot-
note also refers to Hoffmann’s diary entry from the end of August 1814 in which
he transposes “versteckt” to “innere”: “Der innere Poet arbeitet und überflügelt
den Criticus und den äußeren Bildner.”
8
This work can be analyzed only briefly here. For a more comprehensive analysis,
see Ingrid Strohschneider-Kohrs, Die romantische Ironie, 362–424; also Kremer,
Romantische Metamorphosen, 261–332, and Stefan Ringel, Realität und
Einbildungskraft im Werk E. T. A. Hoffmanns (Cologne: Böhlau, 1997), 261–90.
9
The allegorical role of Queen Mystilis in the Urdarquelle myth is gradually clari-
fied until finally she is transformed into a figure of gigantic proportions, poised in
perfect equilibrium between the material and spiritual worlds, her feet firmly
 PRINZESSIN BRAMBILLA
103

planted in the bed of the Urdarquelle while her head is in the heavens. She can also
be regarded as a metamorphosed — or more highly “potentialized” — form of
Giacinta; see Kremer, Romantische Metamorphosen, 286: “Der Magus Hermod
steht zu seiner Prinzessin Mystilis in einem vergleichbaren Verhältnis wie der Autor
Hoffmann zu seiner Prinzessin Brambilla/Prinzessin Brambilla.”
10
Cf. Novalis’s “blaue Blume” in Heinrich von Ofterdingen and also Ph. O.
Runge’s influential sequence of paintings entitled “Der Morgen,” which promi-
nently feature giant lilies. The exotic Oriental lotus flower may carry sexual over-
tones and associations with renewal.
11
See “The Märchen and the Serapiontic Principle,” chapter 10 in this
volume.
12
Kremer, Romantische Metamorphosen, identifies the author with both Celionati
und Ruffiamonte. Of Ruffiamonte: “Es handelt sich um einen Abgesandten, um
eines der zahlenden Phantome des Autors Hoffmann und immer wenn er eine
Seite in seinem großen Buch umschlägt dann — so läßt sich vermuten — beginnt
ein neuer Abschnitt im Capriccio über die Prinzessin Brambilla,” 271. Of
Celionati: “In der Figur des Scharlatans Celionati überlagern sich die Funktionen
des Autors und des Lesers” (276).
13
“Es ist ein großer Unterschied, ob der Dichter zum Allgemeinen das Besondere
sucht oder im Besonderen das Allgemeine schaut. Aus jener entsteht Allegorie, wo
das Besondere nur als Beispiel, als Exempel des Allgemeinen gilt; die letztere aber
ist eigentlich die Natur der Poesie; sie spricht ein Besonderes aus, ohne an’s
Allgemeine zu denken oder darauf hinzuweisen” (Johann Wolfgang Goethe,
Maximen und Reflexionen, in Werke: Weimarer Ausgabe, ed. Gustav von Loeper,
Erich Schmidt, et al., four parts, 133 vols. in 143 (Weimar: Hermann Böhlau,
1887–1919), part 1, 422:146).
14
Tzvetan Todorov, “La poésie et l’allégorie,” in Introduction à la littérature fan-
tastique (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1970), 63–79.
15
“Humor” here seems to be synonymous with irony, as Novalis had suggested in
his interpretation of Schlegel’s theory: “Was Friedrich Schlegel als Ironie karakter-
isirt, ist . . . nichts anders als die Folge, der Charakter der Besonnenheit, der
wahrhaften Gegenwart des Geistes. Schlegels Ironie scheint mir ächter Humor zu
seyn,” (Novalis, Schriften, ed. Richard Samuel, with Hans-Joachim Mähl and
Gerhard Schulz, [Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1965], 2:425).
16
See Kremer, Romantische Metamorphosen, 301. I disagree, however, with his
view that Celionati’s disclaimer about allegory should be taken at face value, for the
reasons suggested above.
17
See Schelling’s essay “Über Dante in philosophischer Beziehung” (1803),
where he comments on Beatrice’s twofold allegorical status: first, in the narrower
sense of representing theology and second, in the sense that she and other charac-
ters also have independent roles (“sie zählen zugleich für sich selbst, und treten als
historische Personen ein, ohne deswegen Symbole zu sein.”)
18
See K. W. F. Solger, Vorlesungen über Ästhetik, ed. K. L. L. Heyse (Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1962). For Solger the term has a positive
meaning and is seen as a kind of revelation of the Beautiful.
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PRINZESSIN BRAMBILLA

19
William Actander O’Brien, “E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Critique of Idealism,”
Euphorion 83 (1989): 369–406.
20
Todorov, in “La poésie et l’allégorie,” 72, argues that nowadays “l’allégorie
explicite est considerée comme un sous-littérature.” In works of fantasy (he cites
here Hoffmann’s Die Abenteuer der Sylvesternacht) in which the allegory is not
made explicit, it will preserve its mystery (74).
21
This is the second (modified) version of the Magus Hermod’s oracular and
Fichtean pronouncement; see also HSW/NS-B, 864–65.
22
The terminology should not be pressed too far; it is possibly a parody (that is if
“Nicht-Ich” is equated with “Phantom-Ich”). Stefan Ringel, in his Realität und
Einbildungskraft im Werk E. T. A. Hoffmanns, 273, however, reads the Fichte ref-
erence on a more serious level: “Sobald das endliche Ich in der Lage ist, das eigene,
höhere Ich im Nicht-Ich zu erkennen, findet es zur Einsicht in die ursprüngliche
Einheit. Es wird wieder zum absoluten Ich.” One cannot help thinking that, given
the general ridicule leveled against Fichte’s philosophy in the early nineteenth cen-
tury (cf. Goethe’s Faust, Kleist’s Amphitryon, Jean Paul etc.), it seems unlikely that
Hoffmann (of all writers) is keeping an altogether straight face here.
23
Klaus Deterding, Die Poetik der inneren und äußeren Welt bei E. T. A. Hoffmann
(Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1991), 268, makes a useful distinction between
“dualism” and “Duplizität”: “Duplizität” is “erkannter Dualismus.”
24
“Deutlicher noch als in anderen Erzählungen hat Hoffmann der Prinzessin
Brambilla eine hermeneutische Leserführung eingeschrieben,” (Kremer,
Romantische Metamorphosen, 276). This would appear to be a partial concession to
readings such as that of Strohschneider-Kohrs, who shows how an aesthetic
(“Kunstlehre”) is being systematically presented at every level of the work as well
as being implemented by the form and presentation itself (Kohrs, Die romantische
Ironie, 401).
25
We have here the most useful guide to the way Hoffmann is using the term
“Gemütlichkeit.” The German artists see it in opposition to “das Possenhafte,” the
aspect of the commedia that troubles them most and that produces “unheimliche
Schauer.” The suggestion is that this humane, sociable quality might with profit be
adopted in the commedia. Strohschneider-Kohrs prefers the term
“Gemüthaftigkeit,” which, if indeed it exists, would certainly to modern ears sound
less pejorative. The emphasis is on “Gemüt” in the sense of “heart” or “soul,” or
mind in relation to feelings rather than intellect (cf. “gemütvoll”).
26
See above, p. 80.
27
Nearest to Hoffmann in time is Novalis’s Heinrich von Ofterdingen and the
description of the hero’s descent into the recesses of his mind and imagination in
the form of a mine, accompanied by his mentor, the old miner.
28
Hoffmann’s lack of a systematic form of exposition of his ideas might seem to
resemble Friedrich Schlegel’s, see Behler, German Romantic Literary Theory, 152
who talks of “a type of fragmentary writing that does not necessarily have to break
apart into splinters of thought, but can also manifest in more coherent
texts . . . and still reveal a fragmentary, incomplete perspectivistic or asymmetric
outlook.” However, Ingrid Strohschneider-Kohrs sees a much greater formal
 PRINZESSIN BRAMBILLA
105

coherence and sums up the comprehensive nature of the presentation of key aes-
thetic principles in Prinzessin Brambilla as follows: “Das Wissen und Benennung
von Grundbedingungen, Voraussetzungen und Prinzipien des Erzählwerks wird
selber Fabel und Strukturbestandteil und bildet wesentich die Form des
Einzelwerks mit heraus. Die künstlerische Ironie verschärft und outriert damit eine
in der Erzählkunst immer schon angelegte Möglichkeit — sie gestaltet sie reflek-
tierend in der Steigerung, ja Potenzierung ihres Grundprinzips,” (Die romantische
Ironie, 422).
6: Epilogue: Des Vetters Eckfenster

T HIS VERY LATE TALE, written in 1822, only a few months before
Hoffmann’s death, has had a particularly contradictory reception from
commentators. Perhaps this is the result of the editorial inconvenience cre-
ated by a text that was posthumously published and therefore often absent
from editions, or else incorporated into the miscellaneous collection of
“späte Prosa.” Such a detachment from any fixed moorings may have con-
tributed to, or may have encouraged, readings of the work as a kind of “odd
man out,” its late date giving room for speculations about its ground-breaking
status as a forerunner of nineteenth-century “realist” prose narrative and
thus a clear indication of new beginnings,1 or a development in Hoffmann’s
own progress as a writer. However, as we shall see, this masterly tale actually
consolidates the theoretical program (or what has been termed “die
Poetologie des Schauens”) that Hoffmann had steadily been expounding
alongside his literary works ever since the publication of the Fantasiestücke,
that program for which the Serapiontic Principle serves as a convenient prin-
cipal focus. Furthermore, the tale itself can be viewed as decidedly
Serapiontic in the way in which it utilizes visual perceptions as a lever by
means of which to present the reader with a highly poetic, non-material
vision of life, albeit one tinged with sadness and regret.2 As with my study of
Prinzessin Brambilla, where important poetological aspects are to be found
embedded in the text itself rather than in the form of a clearly disjoined,
authorially or narratorially sanctioned metatext, it will be necessary to exam-
ine these theoretical implications in context. Hoffmann’s presentation is
such that literary and poetological aspects of the text are more closely inter-
woven in both these late works than hitherto. If indeed one were to talk of
a development in Hoffmann’s late works such as Prinzessin Brambilla and
Des Vetters Eckfenster, then it is this movement towards integration of the lit-
erary and the theoretical strands in his oeuvre that would seem to me far
more aesthetically significant (and plausible) than intimations of a new
“Biedermeier”-style realism.
Throughout the discussions about the operation of the Serapiontic
Principle, the faculty of perception (“Schauen”) had been a key element
and had been carefully distinguished from mere “Sehen.” It was most
clearly articulated in Lothar’s summarizing injunction to the members:
“Jeder prüfe wohl, ob er auch wirklich das geschaut, was er zu verkünden
unternommen, ehe er es wagt laut damit zu werden.” This becomes a
regular criterion and point of reference in the course of the subsequent
 EPILOGUE: DES VETTERS ECKFENSTER
107

narratives. As we have been told, such a gaze penetrates the surface level,
releasing the imaginative faculties and affording access, in the case of
Callot the artist, too, to “dem ernsten tiefer eindringenden Beschauer” of
“alle die geheimen Andeutungen, die unter dem Schleier der Skurrilität
verborgen liegen.” It is this same faculty (“Schauen”) that the invalid
writer is trying to develop in his cousin, and with some success.3 From sim-
ply viewing the marketplace from the corner window of his cousin’s apart-
ment as a confusing jumble of shapes and colors, the younger man gradually
starts to focus on particular individuals (“der brennende Punkt” that runs
through the mass spectacle): “Gut, Vetter, das Fixieren des Blicks erzeugt
das deutliche Schauen” (HSW/SW, 600), and later, after further practice:
“Dein Blick schärft sich wie ich merke” (605). His cousin’s aim is quite
precise: as a successful practicing writer he stresses the importance of devel-
oping “ein Auge, welches wirklich schaut,” emphasizing at the same time
that such a trained faculty will apply as much to the visual as the verbal art
forms (Callot, Chodowecki, and Hogarth, all masters of the genre piece,
are cited as models). His goal is pedagogic, namely to inculcate “the first
principles of art (“die Primizien der Kunst”) in his cousin. Perhaps he
hopes that the latter will one day himself also become a successful writer.
This mission has a negative as well as a positive side, however. In
effect, the writer is making a virtue of necessity. Serious debilitating illness,
involving loss of mobility in both arms and legs, has wreaked havoc with
his own ability to practice the art that is the most important thing in his
life. For while he is still able to respond creatively to the external stimulus
of his surroundings — as is clearly evident from the brilliant flow of verbal
vignettes that he constructs on the basis of his observations at the window
— that is where the process abruptly comes to a halt. Whereas the first
stage of internalization of images can still be achieved, the ability that he
once possessed to recreate and fashion these into a communicable form —
which probably calls for greater energy — is no longer possible. The text
is quite specific here: “die schwerste Krankheit vermochte nicht den
raschen Rädergang der Fantasie zu hemmen, der in seinem Innern fortar-
beitete, stets Neues und Neues erzeugend” (HSW/SW, 597). The first
stage in the process is still accessible, but the route whereby the initial
image or idea can be fashioned and formed and thus delivered to the out-
side world is cut off by a basic inability to coordinate mind and body: “aber
den Weg, den der Gedanke verfolgen mußte, um auf dem Papiere gestal-
tet zu erscheinen, hatte der böse Dämon der Krankheit versperrt.” As soon
as he wishes to set pen to paper, his fingers do not work and, worse still,
the flights of imagination that have been triggered lose all definition and
are destroyed (“verstoben und verflogen”); they cannot any longer be
externalized or communicated to others. Worst of all, the harmonious rela-
tionship of writer and the external world, his reciprocal response to the
creative forces without (“das wirkende schaffende Leben”), rare enough in
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EPILOGUE: DES VETTERS ECKFENSTER

ordinary life, is broken: “Ich geb’s auf, das wirkende schaffende Leben,
welches zur äußeren Form gestaltet aus mir selbst hinaustritt, sich mit der
Welt befreundend” (HSW/SW, 598). This would seem to be a variant on
Hoffmann’s long-established fascination with the mind-body question and
the mutual dependency of both, which is so fully analyzed in the discus-
sion arising out of the tale Der Einsiedler Serapion where the idea of phys-
ical limitation being imposed on human creativity is reluctantly conceded
by Lothar.4 The writer compares his position with a painter who sits before
a blank screen imagining he has completed a great work of art5 (to give the
full interdisciplinary range of possibilities he might also have referred to a
would-be composer such as “Ritter Gluck,” who has similar delusions
about having completed the score of the opera “Armida.” This is not an
accurate comparison, however, since the writer’s own failure is entirely due
to physical causes and not to mental delusions (as is that of “jener alte, vom
Wahnsinn zerrüttete Maler”). However, the end result, so far as artistic
creativity is concerned, is identical, whether the causes of failure derive
from mental or from physical sources. Unlike some of Hoffmann’s other
artists, this writer is not shielded through madness and delusion; his
tragedy is to be virtually cut off from his life’s source, but, simultaneously,
to be possessed of all the analytical awareness to understand and express
precisely what that loss entails. In presenting this situation fictionally in
such detail, Hoffmann is rehearsing his own methods and applying the
poetological principles on which his own work has been grounded. The
more that is known and understood about the creative process, it seems,
the more the sense of loss is felt and the deeper the feeling of resignation
at no longer being able to participate in it. Not to be able, in particular, to
complete in full the (Serapiontic) stages of processing the initial images
once they have been internalized, nor to be able to shut off these
“Primizien” or bring them forward, transformed and fashioned, to the
next stage, from the depths of his being (“aus mir selbst”) and into the
external world through the medium of the finished art work, is perceived
as a terrible deprivation, though there are no signs of self-pity in the
invalid. His cousin’s sensitive awareness of and concern for his dilemma
drives this point home discreetly but persuasively.
Some commentators have noted what they describe as a general vague-
ness in Hoffmann’s exposition of the central notion of “Schauen” in the
discussions of the principle in Die Serapionsbrüder. Uwe Japp, for example,
suggests that Hoffmann’s terminology is not always precise (in particular
he queries the use of the term “geistiges Auge” and a vague reference to
“das Bild, das ihm im Inneren aufgegangen,” terms that we have discussed
above).6 If indeed the theoretical terminology lacks sharpness and inclines
to the metaphorical, the same cannot be said of its practical application.
For Des Vetters Eckfenster gives Hoffmann the opportunity once and for all
to illustrate in considerable detail exactly how this process of internalization
 EPILOGUE: DES VETTERS ECKFENSTER
109

takes place. A succession of individual images, typically, show him once

more reaching for models from the visual arts, a technique for which his
prior mention of the three famous genre artists has prepared us. This suc-
cession is presented through a dialogue between writer and cousin, which
is clearly separated from the frame introduction and conclusion in which
the latter alone takes the part of narrator. The two contribute, either sep-
arately or jointly, to the production of around fifteen different “vignettes.”
These cover all ages and social classes and range from seasoned market
women and innocent young middle-class girls attended by “minders”
(cooks, maids and so on) to actors, war veterans, and others whose origins
are the subject of conjecture. The whole scene in the marketplace (it is the
Gendarmemarkt and was literally a stone’s throw from the theater and
from Hoffmann’s apartment in the Taubenstraße) is viewed, as it were,
through a picture frame, in the form of a window.7 The illusory quality of
the whole “presentation” is further underlined by the constant reference
to the proximity of the theater (the blind veteran, for instance, is leaning
his back “an die Mauer des Theaters”) as if to invite the reader to view the
characters themselves as part of the dramatis personae of a theatrical per-
formance. Such a performance, however, would be lacking in spoken dia-
logue: clearly no sounds reach the Eckfenster and the whole spectacle
instead takes the form of an elaborate mime, in which physical appearance,
dress, and gesture are minutely observed and become for the two specta-
tors the major means of communication. This they have to interpret, using
the writer’s knowledge of the then fashionable theory of “Physiognomik,”
or character-reading on the basis of facial features (limited here, though,
by distance, though they do have access to a “Fernglas”); inspired, imagi-
native guess-work is called on for the rest.
There seems to be a deliberate order in the arrangement of the vari-
ous vignettes: after presenting in sharply etched and entertaining detail the
rich social mix presented in the market place, Hoffmann picks out two
characters for special attention: the flower girl and the blind war veteran.
The first of these allows him to play his favorite game of juxtaposing illu-
sion and reality; the second provides an interesting parallel to the physical
disablement of the writer, though it is left to the reader to make this con-
nection, and the latter for his part seems unaware of any connection. The
“lesendes Blumenmädchen” vignette is more complicated than the other
examples, for it involves a narrative and flashback on the part of the writer
to an earlier, “real” encounter he had had with the girl in his better days.
That incident produces, retrospectively, a delightful element of humor and
self-irony. The writer had been struck by the incongruity of a flower girl
reading a book (it turns out to be a “Märchen,” not, as one might have
supposed, a realistic novel). For a “belletristischen Schriftsteller” such a
discovery is “irresistible.” Having a good sense of his own popularity and
noting that she is totally entranced by her reading (“entrückt”), he
110
EPILOGUE: DES VETTERS ECKFENSTER

immodestly surmises that it must be one of his own books that she is read-
ing. When he discovers that this is indeed the case, and assuming that any
young girl would be thrilled to meet the author of a book she is reading,
he reveals himself as such. It is then that an impasse is reached: the girl is
struck dumb and seems unable to comprehend the situation. Ruefully,
the author concedes: “Der Begriff eines Schriftstellers, eines Dichters war
ihr gänzlich fremd.” But he too has received a shock: his “verehrtes
Publikum” bears him no respect and her monosyllabic responses to his
questions about the work do not point to any great insight into its mean-
ing (“Ih, mein lieber Herr, das ist ein gar schnakisches Buch”). The situ-
ational humor, just before he actually reveals himself as the author, is
charming: she encourages him to read the book too, offering to take it
back to the lending library so that it can be reissued. But this might give
an author serious food for thought about the whole reception process and
the level of understanding he can expect from his public. Certainly he can
give himself no illusions on this score.
This episode, as can be seen, is on an entirely different footing than
the other vignettes. It raises fundamental questions about reading itself,
about the future destination and reception of a work of art, indeed of the
very tale we are reading. The fact that the girl is reading a “Märchen” by
the writer may suggest that such fiction is simply regarded as escapist lit-
erature by the public, whereas as for Hoffmann, of course, it is a form of
major importance. The author, with typically idealistic views of the role of
literature as a means of education and of opening the eyes of the less priv-
ileged members of society, himself has a real shock when his own fantasy
comes hard up against the sober reality: he had thought the girl was
“strebend nach höherer Kultur des Geistes,” but it is not so. It is clear that
he now finds revisiting the subject painful: “Nach den Blumen dort schau
ich nicht gerne hin, lieber Vetter, es hat damit eine eigne Bewandtnis.” But
he nevertheless gallantly narrates this story against himself with much self-
irony, even making the point that for many the concept of an author is
entirely irrelevant.
This retrospective vignette provides the aesthetic, self-reflexive per-
spective which, in true Serapiontic fashion, Hoffmann continually brings
to bear on his narratives; in this instance he superimposes a contrasting
level of “reality” onto a “fictional” one (as so often, Lothar Köhn’s termi-
nology of “Wirklichkeit” and “erzählte Realität” is apposite). This device
immediately opens wider vistas to the reader, giving the lie (if this is
needed) to the theory of Hoffmann’s new enthusiasm for a mimetic, reality-
based aesthetic along Biedermeier lines. The use of the past tense through-
out the narrative of the “Blumenmädchen” distances us from the immediate
recording of details of the market scene, and thus too from the process of
initiation into the art of observation that the writer has set up for his
cousin. Indeed the “Blumenmädchen” herself does not provide a fresh
 EPILOGUE: DES VETTERS ECKFENSTER
111

vignette for the cousin’s developing talents as an author — he has only got
eyes for a pretty girl (“ein Engelskind”) whom he had been following ear-
lier and who has now arrived at the flower stall. He is only half listening to
his writer-cousin’s narrative, and jokingly dismisses it as a deserved pun-
ishment for his vanity as author (“gestrafte Autoreitelkeit”) and, mock-
heroically, describes the incident as a “tragische Geschichte.”
The other lengthy episode, concerning the war veteran, strikes a note
of pathos as the cousins reflect on the miserable appearance and situation
of this man who stands with his head uplifted and his back to the Theater
Royal on the edge of the marketplace. It also raises the key issue of
“Schauen.” Once more the writer is drawing on prior knowledge based on
the veteran’s regular appearance on market days. The visiting cousin’s trite
observation that blind army veterans are well looked after by the state is
sharply refuted by his cousin, who knows a great deal more about this
man’s situation, which is one of financial dependency — despite appearing
to secure alms from passers-by — and serious exploitation by his employer,
an unscrupulous market-woman (“eine große, robuste Frau”) who forces
him to carry her baskets of supplies to the market. Here one’s gaze is
directed at the unusual, the figure who stands out from the crowd, the
outsider. Hoffmann was well aware of contemporary discussion about
blindness, a topic that had been thoroughly investigated in the Enli-
ghtenment, especially in Diderot’s essays. Much speculation focuses in this
discourse on the development of other compensatory faculties when a
primary sense, such as vision or hearing, is cut off. The writer is obviously
familiar with these theories, since he conjectures that the upwards tilt of
the head, so familiar in the stance of blind persons, points to a desperate
attempt to “erschauen”: “ein fortwährendes Streben . . ., etwas in der
Nacht, die den Blinden umschließt, zu erschauen” (HSW/SW, 614). This
idea of non-visual perception connects with Hoffmann’s general notion of
“nach Innen schauen” as distinct from “Sehen,” but is now spelled out in
even greater detail by the writer, who more closely identifies this vague
“etwas” for which the blind man is seeking by defining it in religious
terms, that is, as an effort to penetrate beyond human life to a transcen-
dental plane: “Untergegangen ist für den Armen die Abendröte des
Lebens, aber sein inneres Auge strebt schon das ewige Licht zu erblicken,
das ihm in dem Jenseits voll Trost, Hoffnung und Seligkeit leuchtet”
(HSW/SW, 614).
This moving incident has another function within the story. It serves
as an illustration of humanitarian acts of generosity on the part of the
Berlin populace (as the writer puts it: “keiner verfehlt ihm ein Almosen zu
reichen”) and younger man follows up this clue by immediately recording
in quick succession a number of examples of this generosity ranging
over a wide spectrum of society, as passers-by all press money into the
veteran’s outstretched hand. His cousin’s appreciation of the Berliners’
 Disclaimer:
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Hoffmann’s sketch of his “Neue Wohnung in der Taubenstraße,” Berlin (the

so-called “Kunzscher Riss”) with Eckfenster. Staatsbibliothek Bamberg.
 Disclaimer:
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114
EPILOGUE: DES VETTERS ECKFENSTER

“Mildtätigkeit” is reinforced by his awareness that they have not always

enjoyed such a reputation, and this enables Hoffmann to develop another
important theme with which we are familiar from Die Serapionsbrüder,
namely, the signs of a regeneration and stabilization of society in post-
1815 Europe after the long and destructive wars against Napoleon that
had ravaged Prussia more than any other German land.8 The writer dis-
cerns in the “Volk” “eine merkwürdige Veränderung,” a new vigor and
recovery of “den Geist . . ., der bald wie eine gewaltsam zusammenge-
drückte Spiralfeder mit erneuter Kraft emporsprang” (HSW/SW, 619).
More specifically, he identifies this in the mores of the populace, observing
a greater observance of law and order but also more refinement in man-
ners, possibly, as his choice of the word “Courtoisie” suggests, the result
of contact with French manners, even down to the lower strata of society:
“so wirst du selbst unter gemeinen Mägden und Tagelöhnern ein Streben
nach einer gewissen Courtoisie bemerken, das ganz ergötzlich ist” (619).
This enlightened enthusiasm about the changes in society that have taken
place since the war reflects an indomitable optimism on the part of the
invalid writer, given that his own personal circumstances and prospects are
so dismal. And they contrast with his own rueful resignation and melan-
choly about his situation (“ich geb’s auf”). It seems that being drawn out-
wards to view the spectacle of humanity at large as represented by the
market, which he finally interprets as a symbol of life in its broadest aspects
(“dieser Markt ist auch jetzt ein treues Abbild des ewig wechselnden
Lebens,” 497), does at least act as an antidote to melancholia and works
against self-pity or bitterness. In this respect his sadness at his truncated
participation in the creative process is slightly offset by exposure to life
itself, warts and all. For the vignettes of the market place are not idealized:
pettiness, greed, and spite are in evidence in the portrayal of the characters
as well as the more noble impulses of generosity.
And the tale itself is interwoven with tragedy, renunciation, resigna-
tion, as well as joie de vivre, generosity, and good humor. This perception
of the wholeness of life, of “Ernst” as well as “Scherz,” is in the eye of the
beholder and principally that of the reflective and experienced writer. At
every point one is tempted to make the connection between this character
and Hoffmann himself, while realizing the limitations of such a view.9 The
facts are clear enough. The locality is described in minute detail: without
any doubt the perspective of the “Eckfenster” is that of Hoffmann’s own
apartment in the Taubenstraße. His own drawing of the area and its build-
ings10 contains all the material one could wish to underline the point. The
rest comes from the final letters and biographical accounts of Hoffmann’s
last months as he lay there paralyzed, and like his character, unable to write
down his ideas on paper. But there the similarities end. For, in a final cre-
ative burst that produced this very tale, among a handful of others,
Hoffmann was able to dictate to his friend Hitzig the entire work. In other
 EPILOGUE: DES VETTERS ECKFENSTER
115

words, the Serapiontic Principle did not abandon him as it did his invalid
writer, and the entire process could still be carried through intact. Some
might say that it had never been better exemplified than here: Hoffmann
is able to draw on the most unpropitious source material, namely physical
debility and failing powers, and, making a virtue of necessity, to shape it
into a perfectly composed narrative in which the reader is indeed trans-
posed from a world of sheer physical limitation to the highest realms of the
human spirit. This is done in full knowledge (“Erkenntnis”) of the
dichotomy between mind and body and with the ironic detachment that is
a hallmark of the Serapiontic Principle.

Notes
1
Exponents of this view include Fritz Martini, “Die Märchendichtungen E. T. A.
Hoffmanns,” Der Deutschunterricht 7 (1955): 59, and Lothar Köhn, Vieldeutige
Welt: Studien zur Struktur der Erzählungen E. T. A. Hoffmanns und zur Entwicklung
seines Werkes Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1966), 220. It has recently been questioned by
Peter von Matt, Die Augen der Automaten, (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1971), 34, n., and
Detlev Kremer, E. T. A. Hoffmann: Erzählungen und Romane (Berlin: E. Schmidt,
1999), 181. In his wide-ranging essay “Romantische Aufklärung zu E. T. A.
Hoffmanns Wissenschaftspoetik,” in Aufklärung als Form, ed. Helmut Schmidt und
Helmut Schneider (Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 1997), Gerhard
Neumann does not refute the signs of “realism” and compares Hoffmann’s text in
this respect with Arnim’s Die Majoratsherrn and Tieck’s Liebeszauber, while at the
same time treating what he sees as evidence of such a “realistic” tendency in
Hoffmann’s tale as part of the “Duplizität des Realen,” and arguing that Hoffmann’s
text exhibits two forms of “realism.” An interesting comment on the text comes from
Walter Benjamin, who finds it to be “einen der frühesten Versuche. . . . das
Straßenbild der größeren Stadt aufzufassen” and connects it to “das Biedermeier”;
see Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 1. 2, ed. Rolf Tiedemann and
Hermann Schweppenhäuser (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1980), 628–29.
2
Wulf Segebrecht’s theory that Hoffmann is adopting “neue Perspektive” and
moving away from his earlier adherence to both Callot and the Serapiontic
(Segebrecht, Heterogenität und Integration: Studien zu Leben, Werk und Wirkung
E. T. A. Hoffmanns (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1996), 130) seems to be in
conflict with his earlier view (Segebrecht, Autobiographie und Dichtung: Eine
Studie zum Werk E. T. A. Hoffmanns (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1967), 123). The view
of Hoffmann’s tale as an example of “Biedermeier” realism would hardly have
commanded so much respect had it not been suggested by Walter Benjamin.
3
Detlev Kremer, E. T. A. Hoffmann: Erzählungen und Romane, 198, reads the
writer-character’s role rather differently, regarding him as a kind of alter ego of the
author (“die Aufspaltung des Autors in zwei Figuren . . . aus dem Dialog wird so
eine Art Selbstgespräch.” Peter von Matt, in Die Augen der Automaten, (32) plays
down the extent to which the writer is physically weakened, viewing his exposition
116
EPILOGUE: DES VETTERS ECKFENSTER

of his position as illustrative of a general breakdown in the creative process itself

(possibly, though he does not suggest this, a kind of “writer’s block”).
4
Cf. the image of “Einschachtelung” to convey the interdependence of “Geist”
and “Körper,” in chapter 2 in this volume, “Der Einsiedler Serapion.”
5
This is generally regarded as an intertextual reference to “Der Artushof”; see Matt,
Die Augen der Automaten, 31. In neither the case of the painter nor that of the com-
poser figure is the comparison apt, in that they have never been successful artists.
6
Uwe Japp, “Das serapiontische Prinzip,” in E. T. A. Hoffmann: Text ⫹ Kritik,
ed. H. L. Arnold (Munich: Text ⫹ Kritik, 1992), 68.
7
See illustration, pp. 112–13. “Rahmenschau” as a literary device was immensely
popular in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. See August Langen,
Anschauungsformen in der deutschen Dichtung des 18. Jahrhunderts: Rahmenschau
und Rationalismus (Jena: 1934; repr. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,
1965).
8
This might almost seem like a confirmation of the expectations expressed about
the post-war future in the rousing speech of Ferdinand in “Der Dichter und der
Komponist”; see chapter 3 in this volume.
9
See Kremer, E. T. A. Hoffmann: Erzählungen und Romane, 199: “Daß es E. T. A.
Hoffmann zur Zeit des Diktats der Erzählung genau so ging, sollte nicht dahinge-
hend mißverstanden werden, als handle es sich nur um eine biographsiche
Selbstspiegelung.”
10
Hoffmann’s own sketch of his apartment (complete with “Eckfenster”) and its
surroundings, in the form of a large lithographic reproduction (figure 3), was
appended to the first published edition of his works and folded in between pages
200 and 201 of Des Vetters Eckfenster, having been, according to the editor, “mit-
geteilt von E. T. A. Hoffmann.” See E. T. A. Hoffmanns Erzählungen aus seinen
letzten Lebensjahren: Sein Leben und Nachlaß, 5 vols., ed. Micheline Hoffmann,
née Rohrer [Hoffmann’s widow] vol. 3, Leben und Nachlaß, part 1, (Stuttgart: Fr.
Brodhag’sche Buchhandlung, 1839). This was a revised version of the first edition
and was overseen by Hoffmann’s friend Julius Hitzig, his widow’s name being
mentioned as an act of courtesy.
Part 2
7: Frame Narrative and the
Serapiontic Principle

The Frame

H OFFMANN’S DEVELOPMENT OF the well-established German tradition

of frame narrative takes the form to new heights, though this has
scarcely been noted, so much has the attention of commentators been
fixed on the individual tales in the collection. The starting point for
Goethe’s pioneering frame-narrative Unterhaltungen deutscher
Ausgewanderten, had been recent history, that is, the forced expulsion of
German communities resident on the left bank of the Rhine during the
Revolutionary Wars with France. Likewise Hoffmann, now writing at a
later phase in the Napoleonic saga, makes several allusions to the recent
war and its conclusion (his character Cyprian had fought in the campaign
and, like Hoffmann himself, had witnessed the bombardment of Dresden),
but in these changed circumstances his political stance is distinctly upbeat
by comparison. There are several important references to the final stages
of the struggle (The Battle of the Nations) but also optimism about the
new spirit of regeneration in a war-torn land that was now at peace again.
Hoffmann’s idea of creating a frame in which to situate his tales, most of
which had previously been published in literary journals, dates from early
1818, and as we have already seen, the model of Tieck’s Phantasus sug-
gested itself first to Hoffmann himself and then to his publisher, Reimer
(whose house had published volumes of the Tieck work between 1812 and
1816), once the search for a suitable “Einkleidung” for the collection of
tales was on. But it was clear from the start (and with a writer of
Hoffmann’s originality and inventiveness it was inevitable) that Tieck’s dif-
fuse frame structure, while diplomatically earning praise from Hoffmann
(see his “Vorrede” to the Serapionsbrüder), would only be used as a start-
ing point. In particular, the characters in his own frame, while here and
there respectfully bearing the name of Tieck’s personae (for example,
Lothar and Theodor), were bound to be fashioned into distinct individuals
rather than simply taking on the role of mouthpieces. And, of course, the
opportunity that the frame afforded to develop and expound a coherent
theoretical program was Hoffmann’s own; the somewhat random theoret-
ical observations by Tieck’s frame characters, though doubtless serving as
a model, were hardly comparable.
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FRAME NARRATIVE AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE

Hoffmann had played a leading part in a literary society or club, the

“Seraphinenorden,” in the early years following his return to Berlin in
1814; the identities of the members of that group, many of whom were
leading Romantic writers, are well documented:1 Chamisso, Contessa, and
Hoffmann’s friend Hitzig formed a core of four, and other literary friends,
like Fouqué, made occasional appearances, while the physician and writer,
David Koreff, and Ludwig Devrient, the actor and boon companion of
Hoffmann, joined later, supposedly changing the character and tone of the
society as well as the venues for meetings. In the earlier phase (1814) these
social and literary soirées had often taken place in a member’s home (for
example, Contessa’s or Hitzig’s) and occasionally in wine bars and inns.
Latterly, they would almost invariably be located in the famous wine bar
Lutter & Wegner (which exists to this day).
This clear evidence of there having been a model for his band of frame
characters certainly helps to explain the development of Hoffmann’s pro-
ject, in which the initial Tieck model blends happily with recollections of
the proceedings of the erstwhile real life Seraphinenorden. The coalescence
of fictional and factual is typical of Hoffmann’s creative methods, and the
distancing effect of time — with his new Serapionsbrüder project
Hoffmann was now looking back from 1818 — could only be conducive
to further imaginative transformations. The Seraphinenorden had broken
up for a number of reasons — absences like Chamisso’s journey round the
world, possibly different attitudes towards the group’s objectives on the
part of the newcomers, and not least Hoffmann’s increasingly heavy bur-
den of legal duties as his talents became evident to his superiors in the
Supreme Court and he rapidly advanced up the hierarchy.2 In 1818 he was
looking back to what in retrospect appeared to him as an artistically rich
and intellectually fruitful period, and drawing from this source material,
which was ripe for his artistic pen. But the most original addition to this
mélange would be the intellectual and artistic exchanges that could be
accommodated within the compass of the frame structure and that would
find their raison d’être in the Serapiontic Principle. Such a cohesive struc-
tural element has no counterpart in Tieck’s accompanying dialogue to his
diffuse collection of “Märchen,” tales, and even complete dramas.
Hoffmann’s immediate triggers and source material for the narrative
aspect of his frame derive, first, from his reading up of accounts concern-
ing “Heilige, Märtyrer und Einsiedler,” presumably with an eye to an
introductory section that would set up the terms of reference for his artis-
tic program and, second, from the happy coincidence that the reunion he
held for the original Seraphinenbrüder to celebrate Chamisso’s return
from his forty-month journey — a reunion financed by an advance
Hoffmann had received from his publisher for the first two volumes of his
new work — turned out to have been scheduled for the name day of
Saint Serapion. As we have seen above, this was the point when the real
 FRAME NARRATIVE AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE
121

brotherhood was transformed into the fictitious one. This glimpse of the
genesis of the frame provides insights into the way in which, as a writer,
Hoffmann utilizes real and imaginary material. It could almost be
described as a practical implementation of the Serapiontic Principle itself:
the writer’s practice in setting about the business of creating a fictional
frame is echoed when the frame includes discussion of that very process.
There is a remarkable coincidence between actual and fictionalized — or
self-conscious — realization of the creative process itself.
But to demonstrate that close relationship between the empirical and
fictional levels is a very different thing from establishing a biographical link
between author and characters. Prompted by Hitzig’s identification of the
Serapionsbrüder with members of the Seraphinenorden (for example,
Theodor as Hoffmann, Cyprian and Lothar as aspects of Hoffmann,
Ottmar as Hitzig and so on), there have been various speculations along
similar lines and many attempts to identify “the friends pictured within.”
And it might be argued that it is significant that, as in the real-world equiva-
lent, there are four “core” members and that these are later — as in
Die Serapionsbrüder — joined by another two, and that the Brotherhood
starts to break asunder, and even the Serapiontic Principle comes into ques-
tion, thereafter. The reductive implications of such attempts to equate life
and art are all too obvious, however, and in Hoffmann’s case become fairly
meaningless the more one examines the characters, their degree of fiction-
ality, and the effect of their interaction on the structure of the entire work.

The Membership of the Serapionsbund

Four “core” members, then, are involved in setting up the brotherhood
and the principle on which they propose to base their tales and that they
propose to utilize as the basis of their artistic critiques: Lothar, Cyprian,
Theodor, and Ottmar. Since Hoffmann had not originally envisaged writ-
ing more than two volumes (that is, Bände, each with two “sections” or
“Abschnitte”), it was probably not part of his original strategy to bring in
the two latecomers, Vincenz and Sylvester (or, for that matter, reproduce
the four-plus-two arrangement in which the original Seraphinenorden
existed). We shall see in later chapters that the extension of the member-
ship is very likely the result of the perceived need for variety and new per-
spectives on the business of writing tales: in other words, a self-critical
awareness on Hoffmann’s part based on the experience of the first two vol-
umes. There is also an occasional element of opportunism about these
changes. Lothar assumes the role of chairman and chief adjudicator and it
appears that, as is appropriate for one who carries extra responsibilities, he
is tacitly allowed some leeway since, among the founding members, he
contributes the fewest tales (that is, four). The lion’s share is equally
122
FRAME NARRATIVE AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE

divided between Theodor and Cyprian (eight each), while Ottmar con-
tributes five. The newcomers can supply only four between them: Sylvester
taking three and the lazy Vincenz a mere one. The discussions that follow
the narrations, especially in the first two volumes, tend to involve all four
members, who give their views in turn, the “author” of the particular tale
himself intervening here and there to defend or explain a point. Transitions
between narrations and the introductions to individual tales are more hap-
hazard and sometimes fairly brief. Exceptions to this pattern are the narra-
tor’s introductions to each of the eight “Abschnitte,” which are sometimes
quite substantial and provide information about the comings and goings,
and even the health, of individual members (insofar as this has bearing on
the group dynamic). In all these, however, little attention is given to per-
sonal or domestic details: the characters, highly individualized as they are,
are presented to the reader exclusively as creative artists through their lit-
erary efforts and as critics through their contributions to debate and dis-
cussion. That, of course, does not preclude a considerable degree of
self-revelation.
The abjuring of trivial topics of conversation and the exclusive focus
on the essential business of storytelling is an important principle that is laid
down at the outset. It derives from a distinction that the members agree
to draw between what purports to be a serious literary society and one
based merely on “Geselligkeit,” a coded signal for philistinism, which was
rife in Germany at this time and most evident in the “Teegesellschaften,”
much satirized by Hoffmann, and frequented by social climbers. This was
an issue with which Heine would also deal a year or two later in the “Buch
der Lieder” (adding a note of sexual innuendo). Thus when one member
starts to talk about the weather and another tells a story about a fellow
member’s relationship with a lady, Lothar lays down the law and issues rep-
rimands. This focus on essentials, which derives from the need to relate
much of the discussion to the implications and applicability of the
Serapiontic Principle, draws the collection of tales together.3
Within the collection as a whole, other unifying devices are at work.
There is a tacit agreement, which becomes consolidated into a “rule,” that
each session (which, from the reader’s point of view, constitutes an
“Abschnitt”) should be arranged in such a way as to effect a transition of
mood from the serious to the more lighthearted, thus promoting a sense
of harmony and resolution whenever the group disperses. It is also speci-
fied that after two sessions (for the reader this means one “Band” or vol-
ume), the evening should end with a Märchen. Hoffmann had difficulty
following his own characters’ strictly observed rules and, as a result of time
restraints, failed to deliver the required Märchen at the end of volume 3.
He conveniently manages to lay the blame on his dilatory character,
Vincenz, who is unable to produce this Märchen until the very last volume.
It is notable that Lothar himself — the most critical and analytically
 FRAME NARRATIVE AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE
123

minded member — is entrusted with supplying two of the three Märchen

(Nußknacker und Mäusekönig and Das fremde Kind), the Märchen being a
form to which Hoffmann attached the greatest importance. Another
means by which harmony and resolution can be achieved has already been
noted: Der Dichter und der Komponist raises issues on which consensus
among the group is lacking even after a narrative-debate (intended as an
illustration) and a thorough discussion following it, so it is followed by a
musical performance that restores the sense of unity. On another occasion,
however, when there is a debate about the controversial dramatist Zacharias
Werner, as if to emphasize that even the powerful medium of music can-
not always be expected to perform miracles, the group performance of an
extempore piece fails to have a cathartic effect. The members disperse in a
mood which is “mehr gewaltsam aufgeregt zu toller Lust, als im innern
wahrhaft gemütlich froh” (HSW/SB, 4:7); for this “terzetto buffo” they
had taken the equivalent of the telephone directory — namely, an operatic
reference work to set to music!
Other instances where Hoffmann seems to have hoisted himself on his
own petard are breaches of the strict observance of the Serapiontic
Principle that the group members have bound themselves to follow. Once
more for practical reasons — his heavy burden of professional legal work
and a concurrent heavy program of literary writing (for example, Kater
Murr, Klein Zaches, and so on) — and in order to satisfy the insatiable
demands of his publisher for ever more volumes of Die Serapionsbrüder
from 1819–20, Hoffmann found he could not deliver in sufficient quan-
tity the necessary high-quality tales demanded by his own principle. He
therefore introduces the slightly maverick character Vincenz, as a means of
relaxing the “rule” that had been central to the principle, namely that the
material must not be based on personal experience, arguing for the per-
mission to include a series of anecdotes to fill out the final (fourth) vol-
ume. Vincenz is presented as a kind of Mephistophelian clown, who
questions the validity of the principle at various points, though instead of
managing to dent its importance, like Mephisto he simply reinforces its
positive qualities, by stimulating his colleagues to rush to its defense with
ever stronger restatements of the program.

The Characters
The internal dynamics within the group are carefully calibrated. Lothar’s
main significance is as formulator and exponent, particularly through his
Märchen, of the Serapiontic Principle. He is a difficult character, who tends
initially to adopt a negative position, but can be won round — once he has
had the time to consider new evidence — to a new and positive position.
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FRAME NARRATIVE AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE

His strongly expressed emotional reactions are often only later followed by
firm and well-grounded resolve, based on more mature reflection and evi-
dence. This is especially clear in his approach toward the establishment of
the principle. Once he has clear the major issues and set out the literary
program, his skepticism about forming a brotherhood disappears; indeed
it polarizes into a tenacious belief in its vital importance, as he restates and
reformulates it at various subsequent points. When in the fifth Abschnitt a
low point is reached and he fears and anticipates the break-up of the broth-
erhood, his degree of commitment is reflected in the metaphor he uses to
suggest the fundamental importance of the Serapiontic Principle, which he
compares to a foundation supporting a building: “Dem Cyprian verdanken
wir den Grundstein des heiligen Serapion, auf den wir ein Gebäude
stützten, das für das Leben gebaut schien und zusammenstürzte in wenig
Monden” (HSW/SB, 619–20). His vulnerability to the prospect of change
and his melancholy vision of a future without this supporting prop that has
been so carefully built up points to an insecure and idealistic temperament
that will not be able to come to terms easily with the removal of what has
clearly become one of the mainstays of his life and something in which he
has invested much emotional and mental energy.
Other members of the brotherhood are aware of Lothar’s black moods
and have developed strategies for dealing with them. Vincenz counteracts
his “Ernst” with a flippant, lighthearted approach. Ottmar jollies him
along, comparing him to Hamlet and using an amusing image to reinforce
the point that one cannot allow oneself to be blown off course when the
going gets difficult: “Der Mensch darf nicht bei jeder leisesten unsanften
Berührung die Fühlhörner einziehen, wie ein schüchternes überempfind-
liches Käferlein” (HSW/SB, 620). Theodor too, at this point having just
emerged from a serious illness, as he states with his “Geist” und “Gemüt”
strengthened, is in no mood to throw in the towel: “Aus meiner eigenen
Brust weht der bebende Hauch der Natur, es ist mir, als schwämme ich,
aller Last entnommen, in dem herrlichen Himmelsblau, das über uns sich
wölbt” (HSW/SB, 622). Like many convalescents Theodor attributes his
recovery to the workings of a higher power — in this case one that oper-
ates very much on Schellingian lines: “In der Tat man muß so krank gewe-
sen sein als ich, um dieses Gefühls fähig zu werden, das Geist und Gemüt
stärkend die eigentliche Lebensarznei scheint, welche die ewige Macht, der
waltende Weltgeist uns selbst unmittelbar spendet” (SB/HSW, 622). It is
tempting to link this “illness” with Hoffmann’s own serious illness in
1819, the year in which the first two volumes of Die Serapionsbrüder were
published, but more relevant, I believe, is the fact that Hoffmann exploits
this caesura in the meetings of the group to introduce a kind of crisis point
in the frame discussion and to promote a reflective mood about the mut-
ability of all human constructs and all literary and artistic programs, a point
that is most keenly felt by Lothar. However, despite all pessimism, Lothar
 FRAME NARRATIVE AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE
125

expresses unreserved admiration for his friend Theodor’s resilience and

demonstration of the sheer power of mind over matter.
Theodor and Lothar often take different sides on issues and more than
any other pair they are sparring partners: Theodor is not a control freak
and his attitude is more laissez-faire than Lothar’s. But neither is his com-
mitment to the principle in question, and he develops its range of reference
specifically to include the world of the Supernatural and the otherworldly,
employing the metaphor of the “Himmelsleiter” (with its biblical over-
tones) to describe the process whereby the modern writer of Märchen can
create an imaginative structure whose foundations are firmly fixed on terra
firma, carrying both the artist and his audience securely to regions which,
though hitherto uncharted, become completely integrated into the fabric
of their lives:

Ich meine, das die Basis der Himmelsleiter, auf der man hinaufsteigen will
in höhere Regionen, befestigt sein müsse im Leben, so daß jeder
nachzusteigen vermag. Befindet er sich dann immer höher und höher
hinaufzuklettern, in einem fantastischen Zauberreich, so wird er glauben,
dies Reich gehöre auch noch in sein Leben hinein, und sei eigentlich der
wunderbar herrlichste Teil desselben. Es ist ihm der schöne prächtige
Blumengarten vor dem Tore, in dem er an seinem hohen Ergötzen lust-
wandeln kann, hat er sich nur entschlossen, die düsteren Mauern der
Stadt zu verlassen. (HSW/SB, 721)

This new variant on the Serapiontic Principle suggests, through the dou-
ble imagery of the ladder that provides an ascent heavenwards and the
town gateway that opens out onto the inviting prospect of a flowery land-
scape, the idea of passage from one sphere to another and the means of
gaining access to a superior position on a scale. At a later point Theodor,
along with Lothar, will take this idea in a different direction, by extending
the range of application of the principle to manifestations of the
Supernatural, in the form of “das Grauenhafte.” This extension, Theodor
avers, needs no apology, as it is a much favored and much exploited form
with the greatest of writers, including Shakespeare. Tieck, Hoffmann’s
own model, is also cited as a contemporary practitioner of note, whose
Märchen are anything but comfortable and indeed invoke “eiskalte
Todesschauer” and “tiefste Entsetzen” and yet exercise a powerful effect
on the reader or audience in the same way as tragic or sublime enactments
will do:4

Wir wissen ja alle, wie wunderbar die größten Dichter vermöge jener Hebel
[that is: “die Hebel der Furcht, des Grauens, des Entsetzens”] das men-
schliche Gemüt in seinem tiefsten Innern zu bewegen wußten . . . Die Idee
dieses Märchens [Tieck’s Liebeszauber] muß in jeder Brust eiskalte
Todesschauer, ja der Schluß das tiefste Entsetzen erregen, und doch sind die
Farben so glücklich gemischt, daß trotz alles Grauens und Entsetzens uns
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FRAME NARRATIVE AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE

doch der geheimnisvolle Zauberreiz des Tragischen befängt, dem wir uns
willig und gern hingeben. (HSW/SB, 1118)

In this formulation of the sublime-horrific, the idea of intensification

implicit in the term “Potenzierung” is explicitly conveyed by Lothar’s
original image of the lever (“jener Hebel”), which Theodor sees as a
major tool in the hands of the poet and a means of creating powerful aes-
thetic effects. The Serapiontic Principle is thereby extended to include in
its scope the lofty dimension of the sublime (and by implication is
also extended to literary forms other than narrative, for example,
tragic drama). But en route the discussion also focuses on a masterwork of
prose, Kleist’s Das Bettelweib von Locarno, which Hoffmann, his critical
faculties already well attuned to appraising the works of others from his
long experience of writing reviews of new music for the Allgemeine
Musikalische Zeitung, is the first contemporary writer of eminence to fully
appreciate.5
Building on Theodor’s insights, Lothar leads the discussion through a
succinct and analytical résumé of Kleist’s brilliant handling of the super-
natural material, and the means whereby he is able to produce spine-
chilling effects with a minimum of description, entirely through his choice
of words:

Kleist wußte in jenen Farbentopf nicht allein einzutunken, sondern auch

die Farben mit der Kraft und Genialität des vollendeten Meisters auftra-
gend wie lebendiges Bild zu schaffen wie keiner. (HSW/SB, 1119)

Cyprian’s contribution to the theory of the Serapiontic Principle

focuses on the presentation of the otherworldly in the creative arts, and in
particular on that aspect that involves religious or spiritual experience
(dubbed by Lothar “mystische Schwärmerei”). While Lothar and Cyprian
spar regularly on such topics, Lothar freely concedes the importance
of Cyprian’s contribution to the debate. After all, Cyprian’s tale, Der
Einsiedler Serapion, once fully expounded, serves as a point of reference for
all members of the group, and while it is left to Lothar to extrapolate from
it the essential points, both Cyprian and his fellow members are agreed
about the ambiguous status of the central figure, the hermit. The idée fixe,
bordering on insanity, that this character displays and that manifests itself
in an excess of spirituality and a disregard for the physical constraints of
life, is an important reminder to the reader of the extreme but very real
dangers that lurk in the artistic disposition, and that so frequently appear
as themes in Hoffmann’s writings (for example, Cardillac, Rat Krespel,
Kreisler). Cyprian’s emphasis on spirituality — albeit of a more muted vari-
ety — finds expression, as was noted above, in his own fervent reference to
the otherworldliness of great music as practiced by “eine wunderbare
Geistergemeinschaft” in Alte und neue Kirchenmusik:
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127

Throughout Die Serapionsbrüder Cyprian can be also depended on as

a critic for his sensitive, well-grounded opinions, openness of mind, and
critical insights into the tales and topics discussed. Thus he defends the
character of Elis Fröhbom in Theodor’s tale Die Bergwerke zu Falun
against the more pragmatic Ottmar’s criticisms, by explaining the hero’s
introverted and problematic character in terms of his vulnerability to hos-
tile external forces, as a victim to the “Nachtseite der Natur” and the forces
of darkness that have entered his psyche and have torn him asunder (“mit
sich entzweit”). Cyprian’s natural inclination towards the influence of
higher powers — both malevolent and benign — on human life reflects
the view that the relationship of the human and the natural worlds is pre-
ordained and characterized by a degree of reciprocity: “das große unwan-
delbare Lebensprinzip der Natur” (HSW/SB, 263). Like Hoffmann, he
has clearly read his Schubert and/or his Schelling and, it would appear,
become a disciple of “Naturphilosophie.”
Cyprian also contributes to the adoption of the principle of intensifi-
cation (“Potenzierung”), or attainment of higher levels of expressiveness
in art through a process that has been applied to music and words and that,
as I suggested above, is implicit in much of the debate regarding the
Serapiontic Principle. He applies the principle to the phenomenon of
“magnetism” (⫽ hypnosis) in the context of the mind-body question and,
in this respect, like his character the Einsiedler, comes out strongly in favor
of the notion of the superiority of mind over matter. He uses the familiar
idea of “Potenzierung,” in this connection, citing “die potenzierte Kraft
des psychischen Prinzips,” and also talks of “die geistige Potenz.” His par-
ticular penchant for the occult finds expression in the final (that is, fourth)
volume. Not only does he contribute two ghost stories (Erscheinungen and
Vampirismus) but he also plays an important part in the extended discus-
sion of the dramas and of the personality of Zacharias Werner (HSW/SB,
850), producing a résumé of the plot of Das Kreuz an der Ostsee in which
he identifies so closely with Werner’s grandiose presentation of the theme
of the decline of paganism and the emergence of Christianity in Prussia
that he literally turns pale. Other examples in which Hoffmann draws
attention to Cyprian’s physical reactions to his inner mental state could be
cited; presumably Hoffmann wishes to demonstrate the close connection
between mind and body through a character for whom this is a matter of
no small importance. For Cyprian, Werner’s dramas bear comparison with
those of Shakespeare and represent the highest pinnacle of tragic drama in
modern times. However, the consensus view of the Serapionsbrüder seems
to be that their attempts to convey sublime grandeur are disturbingly
mixed in with crass effects and the works as a whole are thereby flawed.
The fourth founding member, Ottmar, is perhaps the most shadowy.
But once more he upholds the Serapiontic Principle staunchly and is very
keen to emphasize the need to set up a new literary program in a postwar
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FRAME NARRATIVE AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE

period of renewal and regeneration. He is not allocated any of the most

famous tales and contributes fewer than his fellow founding members. His
role within the frame as a whole is mainly that of a practical, no-nonsense
individual who seems to be a foil for the bolder, more imaginative spirits
like Theodor and Cyprian; occasionally he is allocated points that had been
made in reviews of Hoffmann’s works. His other role is as devil’s advocate:
a slightly pedantic critic who misses the sheer quality and even the true
“Serapiontic” features of some of the tales, thereby forcing his fellow
members to express the positive aspects more strongly. He disapproves, for
example, of Lothar’s Märchen Nußknacker und Mausekönig and Theodor’s
Die Bergwerke zu Falun, in the latter case expressing a preference for the
source material, namely the anecdote in Schubert’s account — based on a
true story — that describes the sensational discovery of Elis’s perfectly pre-
served body. His claim as guardian of the principle is twofold: first, his
insistence on the enforcement of the practice within the collection and the
tales themselves of combining serious and comic effects (“Ernst und
Scherz”). In this role he adds further weight to Vincenz’s championship of
this particular feature of the principle (it is possibly the only feature about
which Vincenz enthuses). Second, Ottmar shows a strong interest in the
role of the occult within the Serapiontic process, in particular identifying
“die potenzierte Kraft des psychischen Prozesses” as a literary device and
noting approvingly both the therapeutic applications of Mesmerism and its
potential as a Serapiontic theme in literature: “weil er uns in unseren sera-
pionistischen Versuchen sehr oft als tüchtiger Hebel dienen kann,
unbekannte geheimnisvolle Krâfte in Bewegung zu setzen.”
As already suggested, Vincenz is the clown figure who is introduced in
volume 2, chapter 4, ostensibly to liven things up, to be provocative (he
makes the occasional joke about the group’s “sacred cow,” namely, the
Serapiontic Principle) but, as was already noted, also to serve a useful pur-
pose for his author by his sheer dilatoriness. Sylvester, who joins at the
same time, is contrasted with Vincenz and tends not to play a dominant
part in the discussions. But his usefulness, as I see it, is to give complete-
ness to the range of literary forms to which the Serapiontic Principle can
be applied. Theodor is a composer of opera and we hear about his achieve-
ment indirectly, when it is mentioned that one of his works has been per-
formed and that he is on the look out for a libretto for another. Sylvester
represents the performing arts specifically through the important genre of
drama and theater, which otherwise would not be covered. The successful
performance of one of his works on the Berlin stage leads to an animated
discussion about the theater among the members, which extends into
opera. He also makes an important contribution to the discussion about
the most suitable environment and stimulus for creative work, contrasting
the urban and rural in their respective roles as triggers for the artist. He
himself alternates deliberately between the respective attractions of rural
 FRAME NARRATIVE AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE
129

solitude and urban stimulus and excitement, the city offering a rich variety
of attractions such as gatherings of fellow artists and opportunities for
attending high-class performances of musical works (Sylvester, for exam-
ple, had attended a live performance of Beethoven’s new “Mass in C”) and
exhibitions of contemporary art (he has viewed and admired pictures by
Kolbe at an exhibition, and one of his tales, Meister Martin der Küfner
owes its inspiration to this). His ambivalent position as one caught
between attraction and repulsion towards the ever-encroaching urbaniza-
tion of nineteenth-century life reflects the equally ambivalent relationship
of many a modern artist and creative individual towards his surroundings:
So bedenke ich, daß, ist auch das ewige rastlose Gewühl, die leere
Geschäftigkeit der großen Stadt meinem ganzen innern Wesen zuwider,
ich doch auch dagegen, will ich als Dichter und Schriftsteller bestehen
mancher Anregung bedarf, die ich nur hier finde. Jene Erzählung, die ich
für gut halte, wäre nimmermehr entstanden, hätte ich nicht Kolbes Bild
auf der Kunstausstellung geschaut, und hätte ich nachher mich nicht der
Muße des Landlebens hingegeben. (HSW/SB, 486)

Sylvester’s approach to the problem is to have short bouts of immersion in

city life to spark his inspiration, followed by longer periods of withdrawal
to rural solitude and contemplation in which to attend to the matter of
developing this initial impulse and clothing the initially inchoate image in
suitable materials. This closely follows the pattern laid down for the
Serapiontic Principle, whereby the initial trigger to creativity is received
from without and is followed by “inneres Schauen,” the process of inter-
nalization or withdrawal into the reflective state. Perhaps, however, his is
an extreme case of separating the two stages, which not all creative artists
would require (not even Hoffmann himself, as we observe from the gene-
sis of Der goldene Topf (see below, chapter 11, “The Wider Critique”) but
it also reminds us of the even more drastic separation that the Einsiedler
Serapion imposed upon himself, to the point of denying altogether the
need for contact with “das ewige rastlose Gewühl.”

Group Dynamics
On his own evidence Hoffmann was much impressed by Tieck’s Phantasus
and the latter’s incorporation of literary topics (for example, the Märchen)
into the collection of prose and drama that makes up this extensive work.
One conspicuous difference between Hoffmann’s and Tieck’s handling of
material of this kind in the frame discussion is Hoffmann’s integration of
the critique and discussion of the individual tales into the composition as
a whole. This makes the frame discussion resemble a form of practical crit-
icism, especially in the more highly organized first two volumes. But even
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FRAME NARRATIVE AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE

here — as to a greater extent in the more loosely structured final two vol-
umes — the individual analyses open out onto wider vistas. Most obvi-
ously, they are linked to the Serapiontic Principle, which itself, as we have
seen, incorporates a many-stranded program explicitly grounded in the dis-
course of contemporary philosophy, drawing both on Fichtean solipsism
and Schellingian “Naturphilosophie.” In short, Hoffmann is presenting an
aesthetic rather than a random assortment of points, and in this respect has
developed the Tieck model considerably.
This greater coherence in the patterning of the ideas and analysis also
extends to the discussions themselves, which normally are anything but
vague and unstructured; indeed they have a “Konsequenz” and some-
times a clear outcome, which may take the form of consensus or agree-
ment. Typically, there will be a general airing of views, often a clash or
collision of viewpoints, interspersed with defense of his position by the
author-narrator of the tale, who may develop further points of relevance
or refer to other works for comparison, including his own. In all these
stages the members are supposed to hold in their minds the agreed crite-
ria of the principle as laid down in the first section, though, unsurpris-
ingly, that in itself is subject to different interpretations and emphasis
when the members are faced with the task of matching it against the evi-
dence of a particular tale. The final stage in what are usually short, con-
cise contributions to the debate will often take the form of a decision or
judgment that finds general acceptance. In this process, however, the
opinions of all the four (or six) voices are not always equally apportioned.
Lothar — and to a lesser extent Theodor — takes a commanding position
(I have compared the former to a chairman but if that is apt, then he is
one who does not always get his own way). A brief examination of a
few key examples will serve to illustrate the dynamic aspect of the frame
discussions.
The first is already familiar and concerns the long process leading up
to the exposition of the principle, punctuated by general discussion, narra-
tive (Der Einsiedler Serapion), further discussion, a second narrative (Rat
Krespel) further comment, and finally consensus and agreement about set-
ting up a literary society, with the Serapiontic Principle as its main terms of
reference (HSW/SB, 23–71). Although Lothar’s role, as I have already
mentioned, is of primary importance in reaching this point, the final for-
mulation is not achieved by a straightforward process. Starting at logger-
heads with his friends, Lothar at first plays the part of devil’s advocate, as
a skeptic who fears that such a venture will be unable to avoid the pitfalls
of philistinism or the ossification that generally reigns in such societies. It
is the eloquence of his three friends, Theodor, Ottmar, and Cyprian that
leads Lothar away from his somber, unreceptive mood, and from his deep-
seated anxieties about the mutability of all things and the changes that
have already overtaken their group after a long period of separation. At the
 FRAME NARRATIVE AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE
131

early stage in this process of persuasion and after the narration of the key
tale Der Einsiedler Serapion, Lothar plays no part, but, doubtless, is listen-
ing to and assimilating the arguments in the debate among his friends. At
this point the tale has been subject to many negative reactions from the
receivers: “Angst und Entsetzen” (Theodor), “etwas Uberspanntes”
(Ottmar), and even Cyprian, the narrator’s, own (latter-day) reluctance to
identify with his eccentric, or insane, character. All this adds up to a power-
ful battery of adverse criticism towards the story of the hermit, though not
one of total rejection, as the emphasis gradually shifts from horror at the
character’s mental extremism and divorcement from reality to an appreci-
ation of his abundance of imagination and creativity. This in turn leads to
a reappraisal of the Serapion tale, which is guided now by Theodor’s new
emphasis on art and creativity and his development of the theme of the
artist in narrating his tale Rat Krespel. The ensuing discussion is led by
Lothar, who now comes out of the closet and assimilates both the
Einsiedler material and that deriving from this second tale, so that the
extreme, absolutist stance represented by the hermit himself (with its
Fichtean overtones) is juxtaposed with the dualistic position achieved by
Lothar’s more Schellingian insight into the problems raised by the rela-
tionship of “Geist” and “Natur.” A complex consensus, therefore, is
reached, in which ultimately both these seemingly opposed positions can
be kept open, the one expressing the absolutist and transcendental
tendencies in art and life, the other the oppositional relationship between
subject and object.
This kind of “polyphonic” consensus, of which so many commentators
speak, does not, however, show so clearly in the subsequent discussions,
which could basically be described as applications of the principle as for-
mulated by Lothar and confirmed and extended by the others (for exam-
ple, Theodor). The debate on the relationship between words and music
(see Der Dichter und der Komponist), for instance, exists within both the
narrative and the flanking discussion sections, and no true consensus is
reached in either. The former ends at an unresolved impasse as Ferdinand
and Ludwig, after much to-ing and fro-ing beg to differ on which artist in
the collaboration should give ground to the other, the scales being
weighted more heavily against Ferdinand the writer. Though he finally
puts a good face on it and makes a resoundingly patriotic speech, this does
nothing to settle the problems raised about which art form should take the
leading role. The outer frame takes up this unresolved problem and at first
reinforces it, Lothar and Cyprian, the wordsmiths, both in search of com-
posers of libretti, initially taking up an oppositional stance towards
Theodor the musician. Later — after the narration — Cyprian moves posi-
tion, though not by resolving the argument (which seems unresolvable)
but by suggesting a way to achieve a consensus by nonverbal means,
namely through the performance of a part-song composed by Theodor to
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FRAME NARRATIVE AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE

a poem by Maler Müller. This nineteenth-century rendition is in the poly-

phonic style of Palestrina, in which each of the four singers sings a stanza
of equal length, and all four combine in a chorus at the beginning and end
of the piece. When words fail and consensus is impossible, it seems,
harmony (and a quasi-Palestrinian polyphony) can serve a restorative
function.
Two examples exist of a multi-stranded discussion on the topic of the
Märchen genre and its relationship to the principle. The first is motivated
by the narration of Nußknacker und Mausekönig, the second by that of Die
Brautwahl (SB/HSW, 719–22), a hybrid tale that Hoffmann clearly does
not regard as a Märchen but that hovers on the verge of the genre through
its juxtaposition of supernatural happenings with very down-to-earth char-
acters in a down-to-earth urban setting. In the first the author-narrator,
Lothar, tries to defend his Märchen presentation of Nußknacker und
Mausekönig as a serious tale that children are well able to understand, while
Ottmar and Cyprian voice concerns about its “ironischer Ton.” Lothar
clearly takes these criticisms (some of which had been expressed in reviews)
seriously, rates the Märchen less highly than Der goldene Topf, and concedes
that the work does not conform to Tieck’s strictures in the Phantasus —
so much so that he resolves to write another in which he will address chil-
dren and will luxuriate “weniger in fantastischer Übermut” (this will be
Das fremde Kind). Thus a movement of minds and a final consensus is
achieved, which demonstrates the value of practical criticism (as well as
Hoffmann’s attentive attitude towards reviews).
The second discussion, following Die Brautwahl opens out more obvi-
ously onto the issue of the Serapiontic Principle and its connection with
the Märchen genre. The argument ranges over older models such as the
Arabian Nights, asking the question whether these can be of use to the
modern writer. Applying a major defining feature of the principle, namely,
the requirement that the fantastic must always be tethered in the real
world, Theodor feels that the Oriental model is too remote in its settings
and characters to qualify. This point of view is refuted by Ottmar, who
makes the point that these very characters in the Arabian Nights — arti-
sans, tradesmen, tailors, and so on — are often people of modest social sta-
tus and thence very much accessible to the modern reader. He thinks that
this imparts to the tales a universal quality that can indeed be of value in
the present-day world. The upshot of the discussion is a consensus about
Lothar’s inclusive proposition that the modern Märchen must mediate
between the real and the ideal worlds and that the Arabian Nights can con-
form to this stipulation and still serve as an inspiration. Both these exam-
ples show that Lothar, in his chairman-like role, preserves an open mind
and is influenced here by the weight of the collective arguments, even in
areas where he — the chief practitioner of the Märchen — has considerably
more experience than his colleagues.
 FRAME NARRATIVE AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE
133

Finally, a glance at the brief section that serves as an epilogue to the

entire collection (HSW/SB, 1197–99) shows Hoffmann reducing the
number of voices by half — to Lothar, Theodor, and Ottmar. The absence
of Cyprian, who had played a big part in narrative and discussion is puz-
zling; less so that of Sylvester and Vincenz, who, as we saw, were more
like “Hilfskonstruktionen” brought in to fill in some gaps in the range
and expertise of the brotherhood. It seems that the Serapionsbund is
breaking down visibly. In this nostalgic and valedictory conclusion each of
the remaining members selects one salient feature of the principle that
he feels has contributed to the value and success of the enterprise.
Interestingly, it is Theodor, not Lothar, who has the last word. For his
part Lothar picks out as the important Serapiontic feature that of resolu-
tion, the structural arrangement that had enabled the dark moods pro-
duced by tales that emphasized the “Nachtseite der Natur” to give way to
bright hopeful ones (the Märchen, as we have seen, play an important part
in contributing to this transition from “Ernst” to “Scherz,” which
Hoffmann had tried to maintain within the individual volumes). Ottmar
singles out the quality of cool reflection, “Besonnenheit,” that aspect of
creativity that is a necessary accompaniment to all expressions of fantasy
and that, in the creative process, constitutes the stage that follows on from
the enthusiasm, even exaltation, that may overtake the writer when he
experiences the first thrill of inspiration. Finally, Theodor testifies to the
importance of a genuine commitment to the task of creative writing and
the sociability and sense of communality with like-minded spirits (there
are echoes here of the notion of the “Geistergemeinschaft”), which, to his
mind, had been a guiding principle. The purposefulness of the frame dis-
cussion has served to reinforce this very constructive message, but the
conclusions, typically, leave open some issues that have defied resolution
and underline the ephemeral, fragile nature of the whole enterprise, a
feature that it shares with the human condition. The last thing Hoffmann
would wish for is to have laid down a dogmatic rule book engraved
in stone, though given the trouble he has taken to air his views and the
range and quality of the critique it would be surprising if he had not
meant to add to the enjoyment and stimulate the critical acumen of his
readership.

Notes
1
Friedrich Schnapp, “Der Seraphinenorden und die Serapionsbrüder E. T. A.
Hoffmanns,” Literaturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch der Görres-Gesellschaft, new series
3(1962): 99–112.
2
See Ulrich Mückenberger, “Phantasie und Gerechtigkeitssinn: Der Dichter und
Jurist E. T. A. Hoffmann,” Neue Rundschau 100(1989): 163–86.
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FRAME NARRATIVE AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE

3
See Georg Ellinger, E. T. A. Hoffmann: Sein Leben und seine Werke (Hamburg
and Leipzig: L. Voss, 1894), 145.
4
Note that Hoffmann himself does not use the term “Märchen” for his works in
this mode. He therefore draws a clear distinction between the benign and the ter-
rifying manifestations of “higher” or supernatural powers.
5
Hoffmann’s admiration for his fellow Prussian is well documented. The
Serapionsbrüder also express high praise for Michael Kohlhaas; see HSW/SB, 639.
8: From Visual to Verbal: Three
Serapiontic Tales

Introduction

A RTISTIC INSPIRATION FOR HOFFMANN DERIVES from many sources. The

origins of a process that he sometimes metaphorically terms “kind-
ling” (“entzünden”), and the spark that ignites the imaginative faculties,
may be traced to random associations formed between things seen and
things interpreted, visual perceptions and mental transformations. As we
have observed, the supremacy of visual perception in Hoffmann’s time is
rapidly being challenged by other faculties that are less easy to identify pre-
cisely — hence Hoffmann’s portmanteau term “inneres Schauen” to
describe the one to which he attaches special importance, a term that
makes it clear that his aesthetic aim has to be distinguished from mimesis.
One of the most interesting features of this approach is the fact that every-
thing observed — the entire world, whether in the raw state or “gedeutet”
— is a candidate for further transformation, and that this principle applies
as much to artworks created by others, which themselves may have been
the finished product of similar transformations, as it does to straightfor-
ward, unprocessed material. In order to make his position abundantly
clear, Hoffmann himself will regularly point the reader in the direction of
his source material, whether this be an anecdote by G. H. Schubert (as in
the case of Die Bergwerke zu Falun) or, as in the case of the three tales from
the Serapionsbrüder that are based on contemporary paintings, by giving
details in two of the three cases about the date and place of the exhibitions
in Berlin at which the works were displayed, the names of the artists, and
their titles. There is nothing extraordinary to a modern reader about the
transposition of works from one genre into another; the advent of film has
made the adaptation of novels and short stories, for instance, a common-
place practice. In Hoffmann’s day, however, movement between genres
was less common, and to some extent he is pioneering this extension of the
range of source material for the tales into uncharted realms, and at the
same time self-consciously drawing attention to the new aesthetic possibil-
ities that this affords.1
As was seen above, the Jacques Callot preface to the Fantasiestücke sets
out a Romantic program for the literary arts that is based on principles
derived from the work of a seventeenth-century graphic artist and that
demonstrates the ease by means of which there can be transposition from
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FROM VISUAL TO VERBAL: THREE SERAPIONTIC TALES

a visually to a verbally based art form. To establish the now much-developed

program, based on the Serapiontic Principle in the Serapionsbrüder, and
include its connection with the visual arts, Hoffmann is drawing this time
on the work of contemporary German artists. The first of these is Karl
Wilhelm Kolbe (1781–1853), a student of the famous virtuoso print artist
Daniel Chodowiecki (1726–1801), and at the time a leading representa-
tive of Romantic painting, whose reputation has nowadays fallen by the
wayside in favor of his more genial contemporaries, Ph. O. Runge and C.
D. Friedrich. Two Kolbe paintings inspire tales: Ottmar’s Doge und
Dogaresse and Sylvester’s Meister Martin der Küfner und seine Gesellen. A
painting by the second artist, Johann Erdmann Hummel (1769–1852), is
the inspiration for Theodor’s tale, Die Fermate. All these works had been
seen by Hoffmann at exhibitions in the Berlin Gallery.
To enhance the significance of the art works and prepare the ground
for a detailed examination of the processes by means of which the pictor-
ial work can metamorphose into a narrative, Hoffmann is able to draw on
a specialized literary form fashionable at the time, the gallery dialogue.2
The popularity of this form in Germany harks back to the influential salons
associated with Diderot several decades earlier. It reflects the new function
of art galleries in Germany, many of them originally private or royal col-
lections that were now made available to the general public and that
became a meeting place for cultured citizens and travelers. The German
Romantics were to cultivate this form extensively, starting with the
Frühromantik (A. W. Schlegel and Caroline Schlegel, “Die Gemälde,”
published in the Athenäum, 1799) and, more famously, the witty piece by
Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim (published in the Berliner
Abendblätter 3) apropos Caspar David Friedrich’s “Mönch am Meer,” a
painting from the royal collection, which caused a sensation when it was
first exhibited at the Berlin Royal Academy in 1810; even more famously,
Brentano’s and Arnim’s dialogue sparked off a counter-piece from the edi-
tor himself, Heinrich von Kleist, namely “Empfindungen vor Friedrichs
Landschaft,” which, however, pointedly divests itself of the original dia-
logue form.4 These examples could be viewed, perhaps, as early forms of
art criticism, but Hoffmann has more ambitious ideas: for him the expos-
ition of the creative process of transposition from one medium to another,
itself an extension of the Serapiontic Principle, is more significant than any
critique or appraisal of the art works themselves.

Doge und Dogaresse

Among the following three examples of transposition from the visual to
the verbal medium, Doge und Dogaresse, a tale which in itself is not one of
Hoffmann’s most remarkable, is given added significance by its being
 FROM VISUAL TO VERBAL: THREE SERAPIONTIC TALES
137

Disclaimer:
Some images in the printed version of this book
are not available for inclusion in the eBook.

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the printed version of this book.

Doge und Dogaresse. Copy of oil painting by

K. W. Kolbe. Staatsbibliothek Bamberg.

enclosed within a complex inner frame, complete with a second narrator,

who adds another level of fictionality. The first narrator, Ottmar, introduces
his tale by giving a brief description of the subject matter of Kolbe’s paint-
ing on which the tale is based, focusing on the main figures, the old Doge,
the young woman, two retainers, and a young man, all grouped before the
glittering spectacle of Venetian palaces and towers that line the Grand
Canal. Numerous flotillas on the waters point to the preparations for an
important forthcoming ceremony: as we learn, it is the symbolic marriage
of the Doge of Venice to the sea. Ottmar’s introductory description
inevitably becomes in itself an interpretation. Especially his character sum-
mary of the Doge is double-edged, as he points to his “sonderbare gemis-
chte Züge, die bald auf Kraft, bald auf Schwäche, bald auf Stolz und
Übermut, bald auf Gutmütigkeit deuten” (HSW/SB, 429). This mysteri-
ous formulation — which shows Ottmar sharing the puzzlement exhibited
by the gallery audience towards the picture — immediately whets the
reader’s appetite for more information. An important adjunct to the inter-
pretation of the picture, one on which Ottmar also comments, is an
inscription written into the frame,5 a four-line verse in the form of an ele-
giac lament, pointing to the incompatibility between the Doge and the
young woman whom we presume to be his wife, and presaging some dis-
astrous sequel.6 The key point in the verse is the allusion to the Doge’s
marriage with the sea, the cause of the celebrations depicted in the
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FROM VISUAL TO VERBAL: THREE SERAPIONTIC TALES

background, for this immediately throws into question the status of his real
marriage. From the outset, Hoffmann is presenting both the picture and
its frame, the visual and the verbal, as one meaningful unit, which serves as
a kind of overture to the tale which will follow. The verbal “clue” that is
offered could be said almost to invite a response in kind, and provides an
elegant transition between the picture and the tale. Building on the
resources of the gallery dialogue, Hoffmann can present a couple of indi-
vidual gallery viewers, cognoscenti, who tire of the idle chatter of the
crowd, and are suddenly joined by a mysterious stranger of noble appear-
ance and with a painter’s cloak draped over his shoulders. This individual,
as it turns out, is intimately connected with the subject depicted in the
painting. The tale that he proceeds to narrate is a re-creation of a series of
pseudo-historical events that fit the situation depicted in the picture. We
shall have occasion to draw attention again to the fact that in working this
material the narrator proposes to carry out to the letter the process of
internalization (“erschauen”) associated with the Serapiontic technique.
In its transposed narrative version the picture acquires various complex
strands. In particular Hoffmann imposes on it a German-Italian plot, echo-
ing his own personal fascination with this theme. Into an authentic Italian
milieu (and Hoffmann researched both the historical and topographical
background for the tale meticulously) his narrator inserts an invented
German character, Antonio Dalbirger, whose own story provides love
interest and intrigue as he plots to elope with the Doge’s young wife —
once his playmate in Germany — but only manages to achieve with her a
union in death under the waves off the coast of Venice. In a postscript
Ottmar resumes his role as frame narrator, taking over from the mysteri-
ous stranger who had been responsible for creating the tale, and bringing
the two gallery friends and the reader back to the starting point, that is,
the picture itself. As a result of its “narrative realization,” the reception
process has now altered and the two cognoscenti are aware of new dimen-
sions to the picture. Details that they had not noticed in the depiction of
the two main figures emerge sharply: to the observers the old Doge’s rich
apparel now appears as a sign of excessive vanity (“in törichtem Prunk und
faselnder Eitelkeit,” 482), while the Dogaressa presents a picture of tragic
melancholy (“wie die Schatten eines unbekannten, nur geahnten
Schmerzes,” 482). The elements themselves now seem threatening, as
storm clouds, previously unnoticed, are discerned on the horizon (“aus
dem fernen Meer, aus den duftigen Wolken, die San Marco einhüllten,
schien die feindliche Macht Tod und Verderben zu drohen” [HSW/SB,
482]). This new, “enhanced” reading of the situation depicted — entail-
ing switches of focus from picture to tale and from tale to picture — pro-
duces in the two viewers a “more profound” insight into its meaning (a
“tiefere Bedeutung,” 482). The carryover of impressions from the narra-
tive to the picture identify the factor that brings them most closely
 FROM VISUAL TO VERBAL: THREE SERAPIONTIC TALES
139

together aesthetically, namely, the mixed feelings of pain and pleasure, the
bitter-sweet quality that features in so many of Hoffmann’s literary works
and that, as the cognoscenti testify, can in certain circumstances apply also
to the visual arts: “Die tiefere Bedeutung des anmutigen Bildes ging ihnen
klar auf aber auch alle Wehmut der Liebesgeschichte . . . kehrte sooft sie
das Bild auch noch anblicken mochten, wieder und erfüllte ihr innerstes
Gemüt mit süßem Schauern” (482). In all this it seems that the full expres-
sive power of the visual source can be fully realized by an imaginative
reconstruction in narrative form.
This raises questions about the status of the two respective art forms
and the treatment of the same theme in each. For if the “meaning” of the
picture is enhanced (“potenziert”) by its being juxtaposed with the tale,
surely that suggests the superiority of the latter as an expressive art form.
Similar problems had arisen from the coming together of literary and
musical forms in Der Dichter und der Komponist and the argument about
status that was sparked off by the insistence of each of the respective prac-
titioners, the poet and the composer, that his art form should play the lead-
ing role in the alliance. Might it not seem that in this example too
Hoffmann is utilizing the pictorial medium as a starting point only, and
focusing on an ambiguity in the picture that does not relate to any of its
painterly or technical features, but rather to matters touching on the
human relations and human psychology of the figures depicted, matters, in
short, that are, more properly, at the very center of literary concerns? The
bittersweet quality that Hoffmann regards as such an important feature of
the narrative replaces the mystery and uncertainty that had been foremost
in the original painting. Arguably, this feature could have been left implicit
and the viewer (like Hoffmann) encouraged to make his own speculations,
or alternatively to concentrate on more technical aspects of the painting
itself. But Kolbe himself, it seems, had pointed the way to a narrative trans-
position by having recourse to the verbal clue contained within the pictor-
ial frame. This gives Hoffmann more than a head start in his enterprise!
What, then, of the role of the second narrator? Why cannot Ottmar —
who himself has done all the spadework in researching the historical and
topographical material, to the point where, as Lothar puts it, he became
“fed up” while engaged in writing it (“ließ es sich aber sauer werden,”
482) — join his two cognoscenti and present the narrative as his own
work, which it effectively is within the terms of the fictional framework?
Instead, we have as narrator and creator of the tale a substitute figure, an
exotic stranger who looms up in the art gallery: “Von den Freunden
unbemerkt hatte sich hinter ihnen ein Mann hingestellt von hohem edlen
Anssehn, den grauen Mantel malerisch über die Schulter geworfen, das
Bild mit funkelnden Augen betrachtend” (HSW/SB, 430). This descrip-
tion reminds one of the “alter Maler” in Die Elixiere des Teufels, who looms
up equally suddenly and who, like this figure, is a kind of “revenant” and
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FROM VISUAL TO VERBAL: THREE SERAPIONTIC TALES

sage who makes important general observations.7 In this case the master-
ful figure identifies himself as a historian, and the subject on which he pro-
fesses himself to be an authority is authenticity in the recovery and
representation of past events. However, it is made quite clear that this
“authenticity” has more to do with poetry and, specifically, with the
Serapiontic program: “denn anders mag ich nicht von Dingen reden, die
mir so lebendig vor Augen stehen, als habe ich selbst erschaut.” The sug-
gestion is that in creating a historically based narrative, such a “redendes
Gespenst” is not concerned with the mere reproduction of facts but rather
with an imaginative or poetic recreation of these. That is what lies behind
the remark, at first sight astonishing, of this timeless figure, that Kolbe, the
painter, had, without realizing it, created a visual scene involving historical
figures with such a degree of conviction and vividness that they assume the
same (or similar) level of authenticity or verisimilitude as historical events:

Es ist ein eignes Geheimnis, daß in dem Gemüt des Künstlers oft ein Bild
aufgeht, dessen Gestalten, zuvor unkennbare körperlose im leeren
Luftraum treibende Nebel, eben in dem Gemüte des Künstlers erst sich
zum Leben zu formen und ihre Heimat zu finden scheinen. Und plöt-
zlich verknüpft sich das Bild mit der Vergangenheit oder auch wohl mit
der Zukunft, und stellt nur dar, was wirklich geschah oder geschehen
wird. (HSW/SB, 430–31)

There are overtones here of the debate in Der Einsiedler Serapion regard-
ing the imaginative suspension of the boundaries of time and space during
the creative process.8 Even more striking is the formulation that in this case
Kolbe, the painter, was probably unaware of the precise identities of the
figures depicted: “Kolbe mag vielleicht selbst noch nicht wissen, daß er auf
dem Bilde dort, niemanden anders darstellte als den Dogen Marino Falieri
und seine Gattin Annunziata” (431).
Hoffmann is here, it seems to me, underlining a point emphasized else-
where in the frame discussion relating to the use of historical sources, and
the liberty that the poet may take in applying them as a starting point for
imaginative re-creations of an event or period.9 This is what might be
termed “die Poetisierung des Historischen.” Such historical material is
often used in the Serapionsbrüder collection, as we shall see again in Das
Fräulein von Scuderi; like everything else, it is grist to Hoffmann’s mill and
an excellent jumping-off point for the kind of imaginative transformation
associated with the Serapiontic Principle. However, I believe it is important
to distinguish Hoffmann’s utilization of such material from what Kremer
terms “eine starke Tendenz zur Historisierung,”10 an approach that aims
for historical accuracy, and local and period “color,” and which is a feature
of the general movement towards realism in nineteenth-century literature
that we identify with the period broadly described as “Restauration” and
that is associated with late Romanticism. It is misleading to associate the
 FROM VISUAL TO VERBAL: THREE SERAPIONTIC TALES
141

process that Hoffmann describes, which is the imaginative transformation

of the bare facts and the achievement of “Wahrscheinlichkeit,” with such
forms of realism (for which the term “Biedermeier” is sometimes also used
pejoratively).11 Hoffmann’s mouthpiece, the mysterious stranger, is careful
to match his case for historical reconstruction with the full imaginative
resources associated with the Serapiontic Principle. In this case the histor-
ical material provides an interesting subtheme, but the creative heart of the
story derives from the challenge involved in the process of transposition
from the visual to the verbal medium and from the relationship of the his-
torical facticity of the source material to its imaginative, poetic possibilities.

Meister Martin der Küfner

The second Kolbe picture (originally entitled “Die Böttcherwerkstatt”)
reveals further variations on this theme. It presents a typical nineteenth-
century variant on the genre picture, beloved of seventeenth-century
artists, here a scene described in pictorial detail depicting the coopering
process (the fashioning of wine barrels), and featuring a master cooper,
two apprentices, a young woman, and an couple of small children playing
with hoops in the workshop. However, the narrator, unlike the one in
Doge und Dogaresse, does not immediately describe or interpret the picture
— though some details (such as the children playing with hoops in the
foreground) will occur in the tale itself, and it will make an important
appearance at the very end. From the reader’s point of view, therefore,
Sylvester’s narrative is a less self-conscious type of transposition, and it does
not bring the idea of its own provenance so obtrusively to one’s notice.
That point is addressed instead, however, at the close of the narration in
the context of the frame dialogue and the ensuing discussion.
For in this tale Hoffmann has other purposes in mind than immediately
drawing attention to the mechanics of the process of transposition.
Sylvester appeals instead to the reader (as if he, or Hoffmann, has forgotten
that it is being delivered orally to the members of the Serapionsbund),12
enjoining him to participate in his nostalgic evocation of the charms of
Olde Nuremberg (rather like a parody of the style of Tieck’s and
Wackenroder’s “Klosterbruder”). It is appropriate that Sylvester should
strike this note since, before launching into his narration, he had almost
immediately revealed his conservative hankerings for past cultural glories (in
that particular case “alte Kirchenmusik” and the Latin text of the Mass).
From there to “altdeutsche Kunst” is but a short step. The picture conjured
up in the description of Nuremberg is presented in two installments. The
first features an interior, the second an exterior vignette, but this scene
painting has little in common with that depicted in Kolbe’s picture, which
is down to earth, emphasizing honest toil on the part of the coopers as they
 Disclaimer:
Some images in the printed version of this book
are not available for inclusion in the eBook.

To view the image on this page please refer to

the printed version of this book.

Meister Martin und seine Gesellen von E. T. A. Hoffmann,

etching by H. Schmidt after a painting by K. W. Kolbe.
Courtesy of Staatsbibliothek Bamberg, sign. L.g.d.20 g/29a.
 FROM VISUAL TO VERBAL: THREE SERAPIONTIC TALES
143

go about their work (a toil which, it seems, is about to be alleviated by the

administration of some refreshments by the young Rosa but to a
bystander). To a modern viewer the picture could perhaps seem to lack
charm but to have, by way of compensation, a kind of vigor and crude
energy. Instead of this scene, Sylvester gives us a stylized narrative descrip-
tion of a typical family interior, but devoid of human beings, emphasizing
the museum-like display of objects and artifacts, which have been carefully
selected almost on the basis of their instantly recognizable characteristic
qualities: the family Bible, the home-spun tapestry, and so on. Some com-
mentators have complained about the lack of vivid detail and the use of trite
adjectives (“fromm,” “reich,” “bunt,” “köstlich,” and so on), seeing this as
a deficiency in Hoffmann’s technique, but that would be to misunderstand
his purpose. It is precisely the stereotypical features that he wishes to bring
out; his “picture” of Nuremberg is not meant to be photographic but draws
out its essential qualities — as viewed though self-conscious nineteenth-
century eyes and perceptions of this world as a kind of reverse-idyll (or
“eine rückgewandte Utopie”).13 At the same time there is an awareness of
the artificiality of such images, and despite the emotionalism of Sylvester’s
appeal to nostalgic feelings and reminders of the irretrievable loss of these
past emblems of a more stable, less problematic world at a point in time
when Germany was poised on the verge of industrialization, here the slight
distancing in his technique conveys an unmistakable dash of irony. That
impression is reinforced by the awareness that the image conjured up is but
a “süßer Traum,” which immediately points to its transience. But the
involvement with the reader in this process of induction to Nuremberg is
not without some compensations. Most important, the effort involved in
attaining it, including first-hand experience and familiarity with pictorial
representations in the works of the Old Masters, can help in the process of
reconstructing the particular historical complexion of those far away times:
“Und nun verstehst du erst den tiefen Sinn ihrer [der alten Meister] Werke,
denn du lebst in ihrer Zeit und hast die Zeit begriffen, welche Meister und
Werk erzeugen konnte” (HSW/SB, 502). But all the time there is this sense
of double vision: in transposing oneself into the spirit of a past age, one is
aware that it is past and can never be recovered. The noise and bustle of
nineteenth-century urban life soon reasserts itself (“die holde
Traumgestalt . . . auf lichten Morgenwolken scheu entflieht vor dem
polternden Treiben des Tages und du, brennende Tränen im Auge, dem
immer mehr verbleichenden Schimmer nachschauest,” 502).
To some extent the deficit felt in the first image of Nuremberg pro-
jected in Sylvester’s narrative — the museum-like family interior — can be
compensated for by pictorial representations by Old Masters. None are
mentioned specifically, but Dürer’s name occurs in the second installment
of the presentation. This section consists of exteriors, topographical
details, again carefully selected for their almost formulaic familiarity as
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FROM VISUAL TO VERBAL: THREE SERAPIONTIC TALES

landmarks: the fountain at the marketplace, the cemetery at St. Sebald,

Dürer’s house near the Town Hall — it is rather like a guidebook of lead-
ing sights, all outstanding in their contribution to the prestige of
Nuremberg’s reputation in the public consciousness. Sylvester’s carefully
arranged details and evocation of the past remains, however, at the level of
a series of vignettes: “Manches Bild des tüchtigen Bürgerlebens zu jener
Zeit, wo Kunst und Handwerk sich in wackerm Treiben die Hände boten,
stieg hell empor und prägte sich ein dem Gemüt mit besonderer Lust und
Heiterkeit,” (503). The fact that Hoffmann seems to be prescribing reac-
tions such as “Behaglichkeit” and “Gemütlichkeit”14 as appropriate
responses to the ensuing narrative strikes a discordant note with many
present-day commentators, but once more, to take that view is to fall into
the trap of literalism and to ignore the Serapiontic distancing and irony.
The tone struck in this introduction is fulsome, even slightly patronizing
in its expectations of reader-response, but deliberately so, since once more
Hoffmann is bringing into play a set of assumptions about present-day per-
spectives on the past and setting them sharply against a tale that turns out
to be anything but a reinforcement of a bourgeois idyll. The historical past
can never be restored — it is subject to “das ewig rollende Rad der Zeit”
(HSW/SB, 502) — and thus invokes melancholy. It can only be “recovered”
through the application of imagination and by means of artistic processes
(specifically those outlined in connection with the Serapiontic Principle),
and when this happens the only compensation for the reader is an aesthetic
enjoyment compounded of bitter-sweet emotions: “tiefe Sehnsucht,
welche mit süßem Schauern deine Brust durchbebt,” (502). Hoffmann’s
ironic purpose and awareness of disparities between idyll and reality, art
and life, are as clearly evident as they are elsewhere. Far from himself
adopting a “Biedermeier” perspective, it seems to me, through his narra-
tor figure he is setting up such a perspective, while simultaneously demon-
strating its limited horizons, just as his narrators sometimes adopt clichés
in landscape descriptions or present stereotypical characters in his Märchen.
There is little difference between the technique used in Meister Martin to
evoke Olde Nuremberg and those of his mannered evocation of, say, the
commedia dell’arte world in Prinzessin Brambilla, or of the fantasy world
of childhood in Nußknacker und Mäusekönig. All of them function self-
consciously as theatrical sets.
When we examine the style and presentation adopted in the main nar-
rative, the use of chapter headings, interpolated songs and rhymes, and lin-
guistic archaisms immediately stand out. Chapter headings are common in
Hoffmann’s work15 and normally are reserved for longish narratives, mostly
Marchen, but almost exclusively in humorous or ironic vein (thus, for exam-
ple, they are used in Der goldene Topf but not in Der Sandmann). They can,
as here, impart a mock-heroic tone: “Wie Herr Martin zum Kerzenmeister
erwählt wurde und sich dafür bedankte” strikes a pompous note, the
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145

expression of thanks just a shade incongruous in its triviality. Even when the
content of the chapter headings does not suggest any ironic incongruity,
phrases like “und was sich darauf weiter begab” carry overtones of parody of
older forms of narrative. Other archaisms include the text of Reinhold’s song
(“wo steht das Brünnelein”), which pays lip service to medieval forms (“Da
kunt/Ihr fröhlich schaun”) or the traditional inscription hanging over the
door of Meister Martin’s house (“Wer treten wil die Stiegen hinein/Dem
sollen die Schuhe fein sauber seyn/Oder vorhero streiffen ab,/Daß man nit
drüber zu klagen hab”). Most extravagant of all, however is the description
of Rosa, Meister Martin’s daughter, which adopts so many superlatives that
the narrator feels moved to make a personal address to the reader. To cap his
verbal description he also needs reinforcement from the visual arts and
makes a significant allusion to a well-known source: the Nazarene painter
Cornelius’s illustrations to Goethe’s Faust.16 This enables him to present
Rosa as a Gretchen figure: “so wie in Cornelius’ Zeichnungen zu Goethes
gewaltigen Faust Margarethe anzuschauen ist, als sie diese Worte spricht, so
mochte auch wohl Rosa anzusehen sein, wenn sie in frommer züchtiger
Scheu übermütigen Bewerbungen auszuweichen sich gedrungen fühlte”
(508). This narratorial intrusion once more jolts the reader back to nine-
teenth-century perspectives and above all to the reception of the late-
medieval world in the contemporary nineteenth-century art world in
Germany (and doubly so, that is, both Goethe’s and Cornelius’s).
The narrative in Meister Martin is spaced out and might strike a mod-
ern reader as being on the self-indulgent side. It dwells lovingly in the early
stages on the scenes of Meister Martin’s hospitality (special emphasis being
laid on the excellent hocks which “in den Gläsern perlten” and the mate-
rial opulence of the “burgerlich” surroundings). But the pace quickens a
little when it switches to the main story line, that is the arrival on the scene
of the two hopeful suitors for Rosa’s hand, Reinhold and Friedrich, Since
her grandmother’s prophecy is interpreted (wrongly, as is often the case in
a fairy tale) to mean that she can only marry a master cooper, both young
men are prepared to learn coopering and sacrifice their true métiers
(Reinhold, who is really of noble birth, is a painter of German origin, like
a Nazarene, but trained in Italy; Friedrich had been apprenticed to a sil-
versmith in Nuremberg). While competing for Rosa’s hand in their
apprenticeship to her father, they both strive to satisfy him in the cooper-
ing business, but nonetheless manage to maintain a close and ideal friend-
ship. Conrad, a third suitor of mysterious origin, also appears on the scene
and all three are on constant parade and competition in the presence of
Rosa: the new recruit displaying his chivalric skills in jousting, while
Friedrich and Reinhold strive to satisfy the rigorous rules of the
Meistersinger in performance of their songs.
Underlying these pastiche-like episodes, however, a more serious
theme emerges. Reinhold, the Italian-trained painter, has been secretly
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FROM VISUAL TO VERBAL: THREE SERAPIONTIC TALES

completing a masterpiece in the form of a portrait of Rosa, and his grow-

ing involvement in this enterprise is in inverse proportion to his interest in
the coopering business. Is this a rift between “Handwerk” and “Kunst,”
art forms that the narrator had informed us went hand in hand in Olde
Nuremberg (“sich in wackerem Treiben die Hände boten”)? We now hear
that, as a celebrated painter who had originally despised the work of his fel-
low Germans and built up a reputation in Italy, Reinhold had returned
home to Nuremberg in order to study the German masters, having been
inspired by the sight of a Dürer painting of the Madonna. His return to
Nuremberg is fueled by a mission to participate in a German school of
painting, and that leads him to the Gretchen-like Muse figure of Rosa.
Here a typical Pygmalion-like confusion has been created by the striking
similarity between his Madonna-like portrait and Rosa herself: “oft
war . . . mir zumute, als sei Rosa nun das Bild, das Bild aber die wirkliche
Rosa.”17 Having now through his own re-creation of Rosa in pictorial
terms become aware of this artistic “Täuschung” (an example of
“Erkenntnis der Duplizitat des Seins”?) he is able to renounce all desire to
possess the original. This realization sparks off a similar process in
Friedrich, who feels an overpowering urge to return to his silversmith ori-
gins,18 a craft in which he experiences infinitely more satisfaction than he
can ever expect to do in completing a giant wine barrel for the Bishop of
Bamberg: “Er wußte es nun, daß er untergehen werde in Schmach bei
einem Handwerk, das seinem von der Kunst ganz erfüllten Gemüt von
Grund aus widerstrebte” (HSW/SB, 559) and “Ich kann nicht mehr
arbeiten im schnöden Handwerk, da es mich hinzieht zu meiner herrlichen
Kunst mit unwiderstehlicher Gewalt” (HSW/SB, 561). His creation of an
intricate goblet in which the features of the beloved can be engraved is
clearly meant to equate to Reinhold’s portrait.19 Neither artist can be sat-
isfied with a craft like coopering, which offers no such opportunity for
transforming a human source of inspiration, a muse figure, into art.
The final denouement greatly resembles a fairy tale, and it is achieved by
the unraveling of the meaning of a mysterious prophecy. If love and art must
remain separate for the idealistic painter, Reinhold, a happier solution is
found for the silversmith and craftsman, Friedrich. Meister Martin’s two fel-
low masters, Paumgartner and Holzschauer, intervene on Friedrich’s side.
The latter is his former master in the silversmith workshop, who takes him
on again and presents Meister Martin with the wondrous goblet that has
been wrought there. Its figurations and motifs are such that a reinterpret-
ation of Rosa’s grandmother’s prophetic verse can now be made and the
terms laid down for her marriage can be seen to apply after all, not to the
coopering business and its barrels, but to the product of the silversmith’s art,
that is, the goblet, its motifs, and its usage. A nice final touch and rounding
off occurs when Reinhold appears as a guest at the wedding of Rosa and his
friend Friedrich, bearing as a wedding present a new picture he has created,
 FROM VISUAL TO VERBAL: THREE SERAPIONTIC TALES
147

which is clearly a replica of Kolbe’s “Böttcherwerkstatt” (except for Conrad,

who had not appeared in that picture): “. . . ein großes Bild in einem
prächtigen goldnen Rahmen . . ., das den Meister Martin in seiner Werkstatt
mit seinen Gesellen Reinhold, Friedrich und Conrad darstellte, wie sie an
dem großen Faß arbeiten und die holde Rosa eben hineinschreitet. Alles
geriet in Erstaunen über die Wahrheit, über die Farbenpracht des
Kunstwerks” (HSW/SB, 567).20
How is this to be construed? The two artists, Friedrich and Reinhold,
had found the coopering work frustrating and unfulfilling; both had
returned to their artistically more satisfying professions. By comparison
Meister Martin and his world had not been seen to offer compensations
and Hoffmann provides no engaging features in his character that might
gain the sympathy of the reader, nor does he seem to inspire affection in
his apprentices. Where art is concerned he scores very poorly; he tells
Friedrich that he could not even make it as a Meistersinger, as a really
gifted guildsman would have done. He — and his craft — come across as
dull, unexciting, and mediocre (except for his taste in wine) and Hoffmann
cannot be said to be making the case for this kind of philistine
“Gemütlichkeit” any more than he does in the case of Registrator
Heerbrand and Konrektor Paulmann. It seems ironic, then, that Friedrich
should be saddled with a wedding present that will remind him of wasted
effort spent in a pursuit to which he was not temperamentally suited, but
which he simply adopted in order to get the girl he loves. Is Reinhold rub-
bing this point in? Or celebrating his friend’s ability successfully to achieve
a balance between his life (and personal happiness) and his art, which he
himself has elected to forego?
The narrative has returned at this conclusion to its pictorial source,
moving back from the verbal to the visual. But the perspective of a her-
metic, museum-like Olde Nuremberg is deliberately shattered by the juxta-
position of the narrative with a picture that most of Hoffmann’s readers
would have realized was of their own age, not that of the Dürer period.21
The subjective overlay in our perception of the past, it seems, is unavoid-
able, and so too is the blurring of fact and fiction.
Despite its almost uniformly negative reception since the nineteenth
century and complaints about its simplistic adoption of Biedermeier values,
this tale has a deceptive quality and reveals the self-conscious artist,
Hoffmann, reflecting on the relationship between historical and poetic
authenticity. In the place of a complete recovery of the past, he offers an
approach similar to that which he presents through the forms of myth or
Märchen. And as with those familiar modes of narrative in his works, the
invented story line in Meister Martin traces a pseudo-allegorical theme of
a kind familiar to us from those sources, namely, the pursuit of the imagin-
ative life in art, and the false twists and turns to which the creative mind
lies open in its interaction with the real world.
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FROM VISUAL TO VERBAL: THREE SERAPIONTIC TALES

The frame dialogue, of course, does not raise issues of this kind; nor
can it, by virtue of its own time-restricted horizons. There is general
agreement that the tale does conform to basic Serapiontic principles but, as
is not unusual, consensus is broken by the one dissenting voice, that of
Lothar. His first objection seems on the face of it reasonable: the eponym-
ous hero is too closely modeled on his visual counterpart in the picture.
This means that the Serapiontic process of transformation has not fully
taken place. As for the other characters, it is conceded that they are “eine
feine Gallerie anderer Gemälde” and presented in vivid colors (“mit leb-
haften Farben,” 568) but the effect is, as with the visual arts, a static one,
and the dynamic quality demanded in both narrative and dramatic form (as
Sylvester, the dramatist, of all people should know), is lacking. Lothar’s
criticism is, significantly, focused chiefly on formal matters. His other
objection is interesting in the light of the theme of nineteenth-century
taste in the arts that was raised above. He singles out for criticism the com-
paratively unimportant character, Conrad, as a typical swash-buckling
pseudo-chivalric figure reminiscent of contemporary “gothic” fiction, the
“Ritterromane”: “ein Gemisch von Tölpelei, Galanterie, Barbarei und
Empfindsamkeit” (568). That ironic distancing seems to reinforce the sig-
nificance of other examples of nineteenth-century overlay to which
Hoffmann draws our attention in Meister Martin der Küfner.

Die Fermate
Die Fermate, the third tale based on a contemporary picture (whose ori-
ginal title was “Gesellschaft in einer italienischen Lokanda”), involves a dif-
ferent artist, Johann Erdmann Hummel (1769–1852). Hoffmann must
have seen it at the Berliner “Kunstausstellung” in the autumn of 1814, as
his narrator, Theodor, obligingly gives us these details in the first sentence.
Standing in the “outer frame,” Theodor immediately presents his audience
of Serapionsbrüder (who may or may not also have seen it) with a descrip-
tion of the work that amounts to a highly personal interpretation of the
scene depicted. One notes that, in all three of the cases of transposition
from the visual to the verbal medium we have examined so far, Hoffmann
is attracted to paintings that involve groups of characters: these are, obvi-
ously, the most likely candidates for an easy transposition into the narrative
medium. In this case the audience may be puzzled by the assurance with
which Theodor is able to give a precise identity to each figure and to elab-
orate on the situation, but this is a deliberate ploy on the author’s part to
prepare the ground for an unraveling through narrative. In Doge und
Dogaresse the inherent contrast between the old Doge and his young wife
is the natural focus of attention for a writer who is transposing a picture
into a narrative, and in providing the (verbal) clue in the frame, the artist
 FROM VISUAL TO VERBAL: THREE SERAPIONTIC TALES
149

Disclaimer:
Some images in the printed version of this book
are not available for inclusion in the eBook.

To view the image on this page please refer to

the printed version of this book.

Gesellschaft in einer Römischen Locanda (Die Fermate).

Oil painting by J. E. Hummel, by kind permission of the
Neue Pinakothek Munich, inv. no. 9263.

aids in this process. The general situation of tension and potential conflict
can, on this basis, be developed into a specific and complex narrative. In
Meister Martin the focus in the picture comes on the central figure, the
younger apprentice cooper who is completing the large barrel under
scrutiny from the two men; rather than producing tension, this scene
might come across as a celebration of honest toil and applied skill,
However, it could be construed differently; it could suggest a love interest
and the possibility of social inequalities; the lack of direct involvement on
the part of the onlookers and the fact that the incoming tray of refresh-
ments only contains one glass could, to some minds, suggest a rather
pointed class difference, and, to politically and socially minded latter-day
commentators, even exploitation of honest toil. In Die Fermate the title
points to a highly charged “pregnant moment” in music: the climactic
point at which the conductor and orchestra (or accompanist) pause (normally
on the dominant chord); this may enable the soloist among other possibilities
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FROM VISUAL TO VERBAL: THREE SERAPIONTIC TALES

to perform or extemporize a trill “out of time” on the chord before its final
resolution in the tonic.22 Because of the element of improvisation involved,
the precise moment at which resolution takes place is a matter of intuitive
rapport between the conductor and the soloist. It is always an exciting
moment for a listener, whose emotions can be stretched to the limit, only
to be assuaged and restored to the equilibrium state upon the harmonic
resolution. However, there is nothing in Hummel’s delightful picture that
points in the direction of a failed resolution, nor, interestingly, does
Theodor impose such an interpretation immediately.23 Instead he lingers
on the sense of drawn-out tension that this device produces, dramatizing
the role of the conductor, an Italian abbot, and presenting the moment of
high tension before the resolution through his gestures:

Mit aufgehobener Batutta paßt er auf den Moment, wenn Signora die
Kadenz, in der sie mit himmelswärts gerichtetem Blick begriffen, endigen
wird im langen Trillo, dann schlägt er nieder und die Chitarristin greift
keck den Dominanten-Akkord.- Der Abbate ist voll Bewunderung — voll
seligen Genusses — und dabei ängstlich gespannt. — Nicht um der Welt
willen möchte er den richtigen Niederschlag verpassen. Kaum wagt er zu
atmen. Jedem Bienchen, jedem Mücklein möchte er Maul und Flügel
verbinden, damit nichts sumse. (SB/HSW, 71–72)

One senses that any interruption at this crucial moment may be disastrous
and that everything is poised on a knife’s edge: the conductor’s baton is
raised, the prima donna’s head slightly tilted as she trills away, and the gui-
tarist has paused and is looking over to the singer for the cue to enter with
the final chord. The innkeeper is a slightly awkward figure: can he be aware
of the significance of the fermata and keep still? Theodor’s initial colorful
introduction for the benefit of his friends focuses on the climactic moment
itself, leaving open at this stage the possible follow-up. Such an approach
still defers to the self-containment and integrity characteristic of the visual
medium, which can suggest to the viewer a whole range of meanings but
whose business it is to “freeze” the moment, without drawing attention
explicitly to anterior or posterior events. But his presentation does imply
already the specific performance of a fermata. What Hoffmann does with
this material is to subtly suggest that there is more here than meets the eye
and to create the expectation that the mysteries inherent in the situation
Theodor has presented are going to be clarified. This is the point where
the visual will be turned into a truly verbal presentation. He will build up
an imaginative sequence of events leading up to and following on from
that frozen “moment,” thus transforming it, in Serapiontic fashion, into
the a full-scale prose narrative. In the process of doing so he will also give the
reader an insight into how this is being achieved, step by step.
Skilful artist that he is, Hoffmann will reveal the connections between
this narrative sequence and the picture only gradually. Using the gallery
 FROM VISUAL TO VERBAL: THREE SERAPIONTIC TALES
151

dialogue to create a second frame, he introduces as Theodor’s interlocu-

tor, Eduard, whose contributions to art criticism as such may lack acuity,
but whose reactions to the picture nevertheless also reveal some tendencies
towards converting its visual appeal into a literary theme. His appreciation
of the atmosphere of conviviality suggested by the fruit and wine on the
table of the arbor in which the characters are placed, and especially his
enthusiastic response to the associations with Italy that this conveys, trig-
ger that potent and eternally fruitful theme for the German creative artist,
whether poet, painter, or composer, “Sehnsucht nach dem Süden” and the
cultural contrast between Germany and Italy: “Dem herrlichen Bilde, der
Kunst, dem heitern Italia, wo hoch die Lebenslust aufglüht, zu Ehren, laß
uns hingehen und eine Flasche italienischen Weins ausstechen” (HSW/SB,
72). Eduard testifies to experiencing a kind of inspiration, and an enhanced
understanding of the picture: “je mehr mich der höchst vortreffliche
Abbate belustigt, desto freier und stärker tritt mir das Ganze ins wirklich
rege Leben” (72). This, it is suggested, can possibly be further fostered by
the two friends repairing forthwith to an nearby Italian restaurant and sur-
rendering to the illusion of Southern warmth and hedonism exuded by the
picture. Already the pictorial image is on its way to being appropriated by
the narrative and there is a sense of creative anticipation, although typically
at this stage in the process the inspiration takes a vague and unfocused
form: “Nein, diese Anregung darf nicht verhauchen in der kalten nüchter-
nen Luft, die uns hier umweht” (72).
Theodor’s own response to the picture on the occasion of his first see-
ing it in the gallery is complex: he is taciturn, “still und in sich gekehrt”
(72) to the point where Eduard thinks he has not found it stimulating.
However, it comes to light that the reverse is true and that the picture has
in fact had an overpowering effect because of associations and memories it
has triggered and the fact that the situation and characters it depicts cor-
relate with two “scenes” from Theodor’s own life. On the basis of these
complex strands of memory he will narrate the circumstances leading up
to and beyond the moment. On one level — the level of what Lothar Köhn
has helpfully called “Rahmenwirklichkeit”24 — this could be regarded as
providing an insight into the functioning of memory in the reconstruction
of someone’s past. But at another — that of “erzählte Realität” — this
almost archaeological recovery process can be regarded as a metaphor for
the functioning of the creative process itself. Later, when the frame dia-
logue resumes and the Serapionsbrüder deliver their collective verdict on
Theodor’s tale and deliberate on its Serapiontic status, doubts will be
raised about the nature of the treatment of the starting material. The fact
that the teller of the tale is so closely involved at a personal level with the
material makes it seem as if the normal Serapiontic process of transforma-
tion and “inneres Schauen” have been replaced by personal reminiscences,
suggesting a replication of “real” events and characters whom the teller has
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FROM VISUAL TO VERBAL: THREE SERAPIONTIC TALES

merely “mit leiblichen Augen geschaut,” (92). This would fall completely
foul of the basic rules. Of course, this is an ironic game that Hoffmann can
play with his reader, who is fully apprised of all aspects of the Serapiontic
Principle and who is expected to read from “Rahmenwirklichkeit” to an
overarching “Realität.” The telltale sign here is that despite the technical
disqualification the members agree to allow the tale to pass as Serapiontic:
“und sie daher des Serapionsklubs nicht ganz unwürdig zu nennen sei.”
The same double standard of judgment had been applied to Meister
Martin, possibly with a shade more justification.
Two themes run through Theodor’s tale: one, by far the lesser, is sub-
sumed into the larger, familiar one of German-Italian cultural relations,
which had already been sounded by Eduard; the other is the pattern of his
own development as an artist. This is to be discerned in the description of
his solid but unexciting musical training in a provincial town (based, as has
been suggested, on Hoffmann’s own in Königsberg) and the coup de
foudre provided by two visiting Italian singers, Lauretta and Theresina,
who introduce him not only to new-style Italian music but also, with their
coquettish blandishments and rivalry, simultaneously exert a strong erotic
appeal. The raw provincial ingenu is easily manipulated by the pair, who
know exactly how to flatter him so that he can be useful as an accompanist
and even compose pieces especially for them. Their explosive effect on
small-town musical life is deliciously portrayed, but the chief beneficiary is
Theodor himself, for whom a completely new musical life is opened up. It
is a tangible example of the fruitful encounter of Italian and German musical
culture, and immediately shows in Theodor’s new style of composition:
“Ich schreibe unbekümmert um kontrapunktische Künste, allerlei
Kanzonetten und Arien” (83). The business of composing to the require-
ments of an Italian muse (or muses) opens up completely new possibilities
in composition (although the vanity and showy performing style favored
by the soprano, Lauretta, is less to his liking than that of the more serious-
minded alto, Theresina). In a benefit concert for the two singers on tour,
Lauretta’s over-indulgent trills draw the musical ire of Theodor, who is
accompanying them. It is here that we have the second iteration of
Hummel’s picture, now for the first time transposed into a situation where
the fermata goes badly wrong.
On this occasion Lauretta’s cadenza trill reaches preposterous length
and proportions: “bunte krause Rouladen, ein ganzes Solfeggio,” (83). It
seems to the young German musician that the musical side of the perform-
ance is being seriously compromised. As Lauretta draws a deep breath
before attacking the final section of the trill, a demon within Theodor pro-
vokes him, as he is directing from the keyboard, to bring in the orchestra
for the concluding tonic chord before the singer has finished her fermata:
“Der Satan regierte mich, nieder schlug ich mit beiden Händen den
Akkord, das Orchestere folgte, geschehen war es um Laurettas Triller”
 FROM VISUAL TO VERBAL: THREE SERAPIONTIC TALES
153

(HSW/SB, 83). Needless to say, this particular and disastrous execution of

a fermata, together with the ensuing recriminations, spells the end of this
musical relationship between the accompanist-composer and the two
singers.
The third and final iteration is set at a considerable remove in time
(fourteen years) when Theodor’s perspective on life and art have changed
radically and he is now a well-established composer. The account of his
meeting up in a Locanda near Rome with what he assures his audience are
the original two Italian singers, who are performing a canzone and being
conducted by an abbot, presents the reader with an extraordinary coinci-
dence. This is compounded by the fact that the soprano is once more
engaged in a fermata trill (“in einer bunten krausen Fermate begriffen,”
88) and once more foiled in her self-indulgent decorative flourishes by the
premature intervention of the conductor (who admits after the fiasco: “ich
schnitt ihr den Trillo ab,” 89). Another remarkable feature of this incident
is the perspective from which Theodor perceives it, for this is very differ-
ent from that of a gallery observer. In fact he hears rather than sees the per-
formance, as he has arrived on horseback and is being served with a drink
of “noble wine” (88), positioned behind the Locanda at a point that can
just be discerned in the far background of Hummel’s picture. Hoffmann
has picked up this tiny pictorial detail and placed Theodor in the scene as
auditor of the musical performance (which is a work by Anfossi known to
Hoffmann).25 The reunion that follows furnishes insights that Theodor, as
he presents it as part of his tale, is now able to bring to the matter of his
erstwhile musical and amorous involvement with the two prima donnas.
All this is made explicit in the resumed post-gallery discussion between
Eduard and Theodor; they can now evaluate the significance of the affair
in terms of the course of Theodor’s development as a musician. Now it is
clear to him that the eruption of Lauretta and Theresina onto the provin-
cial scene some years before had had a galvanizing effect on his musical
education, extending his horizons and bringing about an awakening of his
dormant imaginative powers that otherwise might not have taken place.
The episode had in fact precipitated him into his chosen vocation as a com-
poser and musician: “Der im Ton lebende Geist sprach und das war das
Schöpfungswort, welches urplötzlich den ihm verwandten im Innern
ruhenden Geist weckte” (HSW/SB, 91). Theodor in other words, can now
see the role of the two siren figures as muses on his path to a non-material
approach to musical composition. And in retrospect he can distinguish
clearly between the lowly earthbound qualities that the pair may have
exhibited and this higher level of creative artistry. The distinction between
eros and art is crucial, as Eduard recognizes when he observes that it is
painful to retrace one’s steps and confront a ghost from the past:
“die . . . die mit geheimnisvoller Kraft seine innere Musik zu entzünden
wußte,” (92). This echoes the requirement of recognizing the “Duplizität
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FROM VISUAL TO VERBAL: THREE SERAPIONTIC TALES

des Seins” as Lothar had prescribed it in his initial formulation of the

Serapiontic Principle. And of courses the principle itself is continually
being exemplified by Hoffmann’s thematization of the workings of the
creative process in the conversion from picture to narrative that is at the
heart of Theodor’s tale.
Despite the general neglect of this tale in the critical literature, Wulf
Segebrecht’s excellent commentary rightly stresses its virtuoso quality as a
work that articulates “auf höchst kunstvolle Weise” material that was beyond
the remit of the original artist who created the picture. As Segebrecht pith-
ily puts it, Hoffmann’s starting point is the picture, its theme is music, and
its interpretation becomes “Poesie.”26 To which I would add two points:
first, that the theme of memory that is built in to Theodor’s process of
reconstruction of the past is itself a symbol to denote the creative process
itself and second, that the processes involved in the transposition from the
pictorial to the literary medium via the theme of music are paradigmatic for
the operation of the Serapiontic Principle in the genesis of a work of art.

Notes
1
See Detlef Kremer, E. T. A. Hoffmann: Erzählungen und Romane (Berlin: Erich
Schmidt, 1999), who (rather wordily) describes this process as “eine ausgeprägte
selbstreflexive Spiegelung des metamorphotischen oder anamorphotischen Über-
setzens von pikturaler Räumlichkeit in einen literarischen Prozess,” (168). See also
Gerhard Neumann, “Romantische Aufklärung: Zu E. T. A. Hoffmanns
Wissenschaftspoetik,” in Aufklärung als Form, ed. Helmut Schmied and Helmut
J. Schneider (Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 1997), 143, who had
adopted the term “Anamorphose” two years previously.
2
See Theodore Ziolkowski, “The Museum: Temple of Art,” in German
Romanticism and its Institutions (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1990) 309–77; see also
Ziolkowski, “The Gallery Dialogue as Genre,” in German Romanticism and Its
Institutions (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1990), 355–72.
3
Berliner Abendblätter, 13 October 1810; for the complete text of Brentano’s and
Arnim’s dialogue, see Clemens Brentano, Gesammelte Schriften (Frankfurt am
Main: 1852), 4:250–59.
4
See H. M. Brown, Heinrich von Kleist: The Ambiguity of Art and the Necessity of
Form (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998), 85–86.
5
The annexation of the frame itself as a semantic ingredient and component in the
composition of a picture is a particularly Romantic innovation and much favored
by artists like Ph. O. Runge (“Der Morgen”) and Caspar David Friedrich (the
“Tetschener Altar”) whose frame caused a controversy in the art world of the day.
6
Ah senza amare/Andare sul mare/Col sposo del mare/Non puo consolare”
(When the loveless go out on the sea with the mate of the sea they bring their
distress). The picture (together with its frame) is itself lost, but was known and
available to the editor von Maassen, to whose edition we owe the transposition of
 FROM VISUAL TO VERBAL: THREE SERAPIONTIC TALES
155

the words of this inscription. See E. T. A. Hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke, historisch-

kritische Ausgabe mit Erläuterungen, Anmerkungen und Lesarten von Carl Georg
von Maassen (Munich and Leipzig: Georg Müller, 1908–28), vols. 1–4 and 6–10.
Despite von Maassen’s heroic efforts to complete vol. 5 (the Erläuterungen to Die
Serapionsbrüder), this particular text seems to have presented too great a challenge
to its (sole) editor. However, his pioneering historical-critical edition is still valu-
able for his introduction to vol. 6, the one completed volume of Die
Serapionsbrüder. On von Maassen, see Cornelia Töpelmann, “Die bibliophile
Sammlung Carl Georg von Maassens,” Imprimatur, NF 16(2001): 122–33.
7
He describes himself as a “redende Gespenst der Vorzeit.” His costume suggests
that he might belong to the period of the scene depicted in the picture and there-
fore be an eye-witness to the events he recounts.
8
See chapter 2 in this volume, “Der Einsiedler Serapion.” Ariosto, according to
the hermit, had denied this possibility, insisting on the distinction between
“poetic” and “historical” truth.
9
See discussion on historical sources and chronicles, HSW/SB, 622–25.
10
See Kremer, “Die historisiernden Erzählungen der Serapionsbrüder,” in E. T. A.
Hoffmann: Erzählungen und Romane, 164–70.
11
See discussion of Des Vetters Eckfenster in chapter 6 of this volume.
12
The tale did, of course, start life in a literary journal.
13
See B. Feldges and U. Stadler, E. T. A. Hoffmann: Epoche — Werk — Wirkung,
(Munich: C. H. Beck, 1986), 175.
14
The word “Gemütlichkeit,” as ever, is used ambiguously throughout
Hoffmann’s works and in a much more positive sense than nowadays. See chapter
5 in this volume, “Prinzessin Brambilla” (n. 25).
15
See Ingrid Strohschneider-Kohrs, Die romantische Ironie in Theorie und
Gestaltung, 2nd ed. (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1977), 382, where she comments on
Hoffmann’s use of this narrative device in his Märchen; as I shall suggest, Meister
Martin, surprisingly, itself contains Märchen elements.
16
The Faust illustrations were published in 1816; Hoffmann is referring to the
incident when Gretchen, on leaving church, is accosted by Faust, who offers to
accompany her home (v. 2607).
17
A similar motif occurs in Die Elixiere des Teufels, where Medardus and his ances-
tors continually confuse pictorial images of saints with real women, for example,
Aurelie and Rosalia.
18
The point has not always been taken by commentators that the craft of silversmith
was very highly regarded in Dürer’s day and that he himself was trained as a goldsmith.
19
The difference in size of the artifacts — the gross barrel and the tiny goblet —
underlines the contrast ironically.
20
For a fascinating account of Hoffmann's relationship to the two pictures exe-
cuted by Kolbe on the Meister Martin theme and the recent discovery of the orig-
inal version, see Klaus Türk, “E. T. A. Hoffmann: Meister Martin der Küfner und
seine Gesellen,” E. T. A. Hoffmann-Jahrbuch 11 (2003): 134–37. The engraving
by H. Schmidt reproduced on p. 142 above alone features Rosa and this was the
156
FROM VISUAL TO VERBAL: THREE SERAPIONTIC TALES

version Hoffmann used as an illustration for the first edition of Die Serapionsbrüder.
It is unclear whether Kolbe recreated the scene at Hoffmann's behest or after hav-
ing read his tale.
21
Kolbe added the date “1568” to his initials, referring to a significant year in the
annals of Nuremberg craftsmanship.
22
Chords of the diminished and dominant seventh were regarded as controversial
dissonances in the harmonic language of Hoffmann’s day (he himself used the
phrase “Dolchstiche der Septime” to describe the latter in Kater Murr). See
Werner Keil, “E. T. A. Hoffmanns Beitrag zur Entstehung der musikalischen
Romantik,” ETAHJb 1 (1992): 119ff.
23
Hummel did not even supply the title “Die Fermate” himself, which was only
introduced later. His own title was simply “Gesellschaft in einer italienischen
Lokanda” (HSW/SB, 1289).
24
Lothar Köhn, Vieldeutige Welt: Studien zur Struktur der Erzählungen E. T. A.
Hoffmanns und zur Entwicklung seines Werkes (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1966).
25
Pasquale Anfossi (1727–97) was an opera composer, known for his long drawn-
out finales.
26
Wulf Segebrecht, “Stellenkommentar” (HSW/SB, 1292).
9: The “Nachtseite der Natur” and the
Serapiontic Principle

Introduction

A S WE HAVE ALREADY NOTED, topical issues such as magnetism and som-

nambulism play an important part in Hoffmann’s thinking, and link
up with the fundamental mind-body question that was being formulated
at the time in terms of the relationship between “Geist” and “Natur.”
Hoffmann had followed debates about these topics in contemporary
thinking at a theoretical level, in the writings of Schelling and Schubert,
and at a more practical, psychological level in the influential treatises of
Reil and Pinel. His close personal acquaintance with the influential med-
ical director of the Bamberg hospital, Adalbert Friedrich Marcus, suggests
that he had plenty of direct access to authoritative sources of information,
and enough certainly to have formed his own opinions.1
After the carefully planned first volume of the Serapionsbrüder tales,
themes relating to the Occult occur more and more frequently: the third
“Abschnitt” for example, contains two such tales (Die Automate and the
untitled Eine Spukgeschichte) as well as an introduction to this entire sec-
tion in which there is lengthy discussion about the Occult among the
members of the Bund; this is then followed by two anecdotes by Theodor
that are presented as illustrations. Hoffmann clearly intends — in his typ-
ically undogmatic way — to provide his readers with an introduction to
these topics as preparation for the subsequent tales in the collection that
will draw on these areas to which Schubert had given the useful portman-
teau term “Die Nachtseite der Natur.” Hoffmann seems particularly anx-
ious to present a wide cross-section of opinion and a thorough discussion
on what was clearly a controversial topic.
Reviewing the entire range of tales in the Serapionsbrüder that feature
the Occult and the Supernatural, one is aware of two different forms in
which supra-rational, or inexplicable, happenings are described. To the first
category belong, in addition to the two mentioned above, Der unheimliche
Gast, Der Baron von B., Erscheinungen, and Vampirismus. Die Bergwerke
zu Falun presents the Supernatural in the form of a dream-world in which
the hero’s experiences take on the quality of hallucinations, while Das
Fräulein von Scuderi also reveals an exploration of the darker, destructive
forces that take hold of the mind, this time that of the creative artist; to
this a kind of “therapy” through a kindly human agency is applied, albeit
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“NACHTSEITE DER NATUR” & SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE

unsuccessfully. Such tales, according to the frame characters, evoke

“Grausen und Entsetzen,” and are to be distinguished from the second
category, which is represented by the three designated Märchen in the col-
lection: Nußknacker und Mäusekönig, Das fremde Kind, and Die
Königsbraut. These too draw on the magical and mysterious but are pre-
sented in such a way that the reader is prepared and willing to suspend dis-
belief, to enter into the conventions of the form and contemplate the
prospects of the resolution of conflicts and uncertainties that are such a
predominant feature of the Märchen tradition. The first category may tend
to be more interpretatively ambiguous than the second, the boundaries
between real and unreal more fluid, and inexplicable incidents may invite,
but not permit, explanations. Needless to say, however, the two categories
are not always kept entirely distinct; both destructive and benign aspects of
the Supernatural exist in all the Märchen, presenting conflicts which, in
these particular cases, may achieve different degrees of resolution.
Hoffmann’s detailed introduction of the theme of the Occult in the
third “Abschnitt” gives the reader useful background insights into the dis-
turbing themes that will form an important part of this strain in his fiction.
In earlier times this was the only side of his work that attracted the atten-
tion of his broad readership, and it would define his image for over one
hundred years. Above all it charts areas that display human beings in vul-
nerable situations and open to forces beyond their control; it considers
the possibility that they may be guided or manipulated by other, often
unscrupulous, human agencies or by higher powers, and in general leaves
ambiguous any definitive view of whether the destructive elements derive
from within or without. The popular topic of “magnetism” (by which is
usually meant hypnosis) serves as an example. The proposed introduction
to the group of Serapionsbrüder of a new member, Vinzenz, is opportune
at this point, since he is described as “der eifrigste Verfechter des
Magnetismus” and deemed to have a special insight into the depths of the
human mind, thanks to his “hellen Blick” (315). In the discussions of
cataleptic, hypnotic, and somnambulistic states, attention is given to the
ethical issues involved in medical experimentation with human subjects,
the group members being more favorably inclined to genuinely therapeu-
tic applications and distrustful of random interventions of a sensationalist
or voyeuristic nature. In all this discussion emphasis is laid on the mind-
body question, and manifestations of the unconscious are seen by some as
the surrender “des eigenen Ichs” to an alien “geistiges Prinzip” (319),
thus throwing into uncertainty the much-vaunted superiority of mind over
body that had been constantly emphasized in earlier discussions, for
instance, in Der Einsiedler Serapion. But there is also much uncertainty and
even inconsistency in the attitudes of the members, as can be seen from the
skeptical Lothar’s disapproval of “magnetism” in theory while, as Theodor
points out, when himself in some physical straits, he was not averse to
 “NACHTSEITE DER NATUR” & SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE
159

trying out self-hypnosis. It might be expected that members of the group

would warm in principle to a process in which the imaginative, creative
side of the mind, or “Geist,” is given access to higher or spiritual levels of
experience. This, after all, is at the heart of the Serapiontic Principle. The
dream state, of which somnambulism, as they see it, is an extreme form, is
immediately fruitful to the artist, and yet this manifestation of what is
termed “potenzierte Geist” will generally be based on a pathological con-
dition, some “krankhafter Zustand des Körpers” (318). Thus Lothar
has reluctantly to concede, in theory, the value of such a state of height-
ened perception (“das willkürliche Hervorrufen jenes potenzierten
Seelenzustandes,” 319). But at the same time he admits to consider-
able anxiety about the possible danger of interfering with complex, ill-
understood psychological processes. He believes, it seems, in the powers of
magnetism but is strongly against the idea of intervention and, as his
friends assert, would never permit his own ganglia to be manipulated. Such
ambivalent views as Lothar’s must have been widespread at a time when
the craze for séances and for medical experimentation was at its height,
much as in our own time the ethical implications of medical advances are
a source of divided opinion and debate.
Theodor’s skepticism is also fully aired, and is well-illustrated by his
two anecdotes, the first describing a bogus séance featuring an amateur
“Magnetiseur” and “eine feine Dame,” who appears to go into an ever-
deeper trance, reaching the “fifth stage,” only to quickly return to con-
sciousness when the hypnotist proposes to burn the soles of her feet. His
skepticism is reinforced by a reputable medical expert, who confirms that
the “Erweckung jener Naturkraft” is a most dangerous experiment and
should be reserved for responsible doctors who can take a professional
distance on the matter and are not prone to “Selbsttäuschung,” self-
deception (327). Theodor’s second anecdote features just such an example
of a responsible application of hypnosis to physical symptoms that seem to
defy explanation. His case involves a peasant girl who seems to be suffer-
ing from an extreme form of what at the time (for want of a better term)
was called asthenia, a kind of general lassitude. There is general consensus
among Lothar, Theodor, and Ottmar, who testify to the ambiguity of the
phenomenon and are disposed to caution. Cyprian, however, who is con-
stantly teased by Lothar for his “mystische Schwärmerei” and is more
inclined than the others to enthuse unreservedly about “die potenzierte
Kraft des psychischen Princips,” seems to approve of unrestricted access to
supra-rational phenomena, since this puts human beings in touch with the
mysterious forces governing the universe, which he defines as “das große
unwandelbare Lebensprinzip der Natur” (HSW/SB, 318).2 At the conclu-
sion of the discussion, and irritated by the negative tenor of the preceding
exchange among his colleagues, he urges a change of topic and the narra-
tion of a new tale.
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“NACHTSEITE DER NATUR” & SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE

But general consensus among all four members involved is reached in

one sense and in terms defined by Ottmar, and it is here that the connec-
tion with the Serapiontic Principle is made explicit. Even if the group
members have misgivings at various levels about the possible misapplica-
tion of hypnosis and such techniques, they are unanimous in believing that
the subject of the Occult offers a plethora of potential themes for the artist,
which is an interesting distinction: “Doch wollen wir nicht vergessen, daß
wir dem Magnetismus schon deshalb nicht ganz abhold sein können, weil
er uns in unseren serapiontischen Versuchen sehr oft als tüchtiger Hebel
dienen kann, unbekannte geheimnisvolle Kräfte in Bewegung zu setzen”
(HSW/SB, 331). In other words the artist’s repertoire can be immensely
enriched by his tapping into themes related to the unconscious, although
caution is advised in real-life contexts.
Furthermore — and here a link is established with the double aspect
of the Occult, that is, the sinister and the benign — Ottmar cites an exam-
ple of how this applies to Lothar’s own narrative practice when he had
brought into play the force of the “Hebel” in creating his Märchen
Nußknacker und Mausekönig. In this work, as he puts it, the child Marie
— dreaming of her Christmas toys in front of the glass case — is “nichts
anders als eine kleine Somnambule” (HSW/SB, 274).

Die Bergwerke zu Falun

Both the tales to be considered here that present supernatural forces in
their malevolent form are based on firm documentary source material. On
this carefully researched base Hoffmann builds, in true Serapiontic fashion,
a fantastic structure. The juxtaposition of real and fantastic in Die
Bergwerke zu Falun is skillfully organized to create the kind of horrific
effects that he had so admired in Kleist’s Das Bettelweib in Locarno and
that were mentioned above. The tale has several sources: a five-volume
account of travel in Sweden (by J. F. L. Hausmann) and one by Ernst
Moritz Arndt provided him with topographical details as well as informa-
tion about mining. This latter motif is supplemented by a literary source,
Novalis’s Heinrich von Ofterdingen, where, in the “Bergmann” episode,
the hero encounters an old miner and is initiated into an underworld that
exerts a strong fascination on him. Onto these sources Hoffmann has
grafted a sensational account by G. H. Schubert in his Ansichten von der
Nachtseite der Natur of the discovery by his fiancée of the perfectly pre-
served corpse of a young miner who had died 50 years previously (this
theme had already been used by J. P. Hebel and Achim von Arnim). This
forms an extraordinary climax to his tale. In its bare bones Schubert’s
account is shocking: the appearance of the young man’s body in the full-
ness of youth is transformed into the horror of its disintegration as soon as
 “NACHTSEITE DER NATUR” & SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE
161

it is exposed to the air. Opinions about this ending among the members of
the group differ greatly. Provocatively, Ottmar argues that Schubert’s bald
account makes a greater impression than Theodor’s carefully composed
narrative. That would seem to be a most unserapiontic response, as
Theodor confirms: “Ich flehe unsern Patron den Einsiedler Serapion an,
daß er mich in Schutz nehme, denn wahrlich, mir ging nun einmal die
Geschichte von dem Bergmann mit den lebendigsten Farben gerade so auf
wie ich sie erzählt habe.” And surely one would agree that, building on
these bare bones in Schubert’s account, Hoffmann has transformed and
deepened the sensational event so that the background to the young man’s
premature death is reconstructed and a sense of the mysterious workings
of malign forces is created through the subplot concerning the
Mephistophelian figure of Torbern, the tempter. In fact Hoffmann has
retained the shock effect of the discovery of Elis Fröbom’s body at the end,
even developed its significance considerably by producing a sequence of
events leading up to it, and also taken the event itself a stage further in that
the shock experienced by the reader is paralleled by that of Elis’s fiancée,
Ulla, who expires with grief and is then buried alongside Elis in the nearby
churchyard. Placed in the context of the deliberate and relentless unfold-
ing of the antecedents to this denouement and the forces of destruction to
which the hero falls victim, together with the rich texture of character and
situation that is built in to the story line, any suggestion of sensationalism
— which is not entirely lacking in Schubert’s account — is tempered.
While startling, the final revelation seems yet to form a fitting climax and
conclusion to the events in the tale and to maximize its intensity.
The tale’s significance is indeed given added depth from Hoffmann’s
imaginative reconstruction and the build-up of the narrative to its horrific
conclusion. He has added a complex psychological dimension to its tex-
ture, focusing attention on the obsessive nature of the main character, Elis
Fröbom — a figure who has haunted German literature in later times (see
Hofmannsthal’s drama based on Hoffmann’s tale and Georg Trakl’s poem
“Elis”). This introspective character is obsessed by the death of his mother,
and is prey to depression and despondency. He is dissatisfied with his life
as a seaman, and is looking for a new start. Just when he has reached his
lowest ebb, he is accosted by the Mephistophelian Torbern, who appears
in the guise of an old miner and paints an alluring picture of the mysteri-
ous underworld of the mines (copper and lead), which produce curious
fossils and minerals. He urges Elis to renounce the world of daylight in
favor of this dark kingdom. The temptation is underlined by an elaborate
symbolism that is presented in the form of a dream. It features a subter-
ranean world full of exotic plants in fossilized forms, imagery that is not
without erotic overtones, for this alternative world is presided over by an
overwhelmingly beautiful and powerful female figure, the queen. A tug-of-
war ensues in Elis’s mind between his allegiance to his mother (who is
162
“NACHTSEITE DER NATUR” & SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE

identified with the “Oberwelt”) and the masterful, erotically compelling

figure of the queen. It is a battle that will never be resolved during his life.
The compulsion to follow the allure of the world of darkness and its pre-
siding monarch proves too strong — a situation reminiscent of the com-
pulsive tendencies evident in a number of Hoffmann’s characters, for
example Nathanael in Der Sandmann and Medardus in Die Elixiere des
Teufels. As though driven by external forces (“von unbekannter Macht
getrieben”) he determines to settle in the mining town of Falun, there to
spend his life in the mysterious depths that have captured his imagination.
At one and the same time repelled and attracted by the dark world, he
quickly finds success and favor with the mine-owner, and is promised the
man’s daughter, Ulla, in marriage.
But the marriage is blighted by his strange compulsion on his wedding
day to descend into the depths of the mine, where he once more has con-
tact with the satanic Bergmann, and again is reminded of his loyalty to the
queen (we find here a familiar pattern in Hoffmann’s works — a male char-
acter torn between the rival attractions of two contrasting types of women,
for example, Anselmus’s oscillation between Veronika and Serpentina in
Der goldene Topf, Nathanael’s between Klara and Olimpia, Medardus’s
between Aurelie and Euphemie). Elis’s pretext for making the descent at
this crucial point is that he wishes to present his bride with a slab of alman-
dine, a precious stone, with his life’s history inscribed on it. However, he
never returns from this mission: a fall of rocks engulfs him. The striking
and horrific ending culminates in the scene already mentioned, in which
Elis’s body crumbles to dust before Ulla’s eyes when she embraces him.
The frame discussion, as we saw, produces polarized reactions from the
group, and Ottmar and Theodor spar on the issue of the Serapiontic sta-
tus of the tale. The others make additional points. Cyprian (the expert on
the Occult and the Supernatural) is the most perceptive in his assessment.
The others criticize the detailed descriptions of the mine and the processes
of mining (for which Hoffmann had used authentic Swedish sources).
Cyprian, as we might expect by now, is alert to the question of
“Zerrissenheit” and the problems of the divided personality: “wie oft stell-
ten Dichter Menschen, welche auf irgendeine entsetzliche Weise unter-
gehen, als im ganzen Leben mit sich entzweit, als von unbekannten
finstern Mächten befangen dar” (240). And he develops the point, sug-
gesting that such psychological types can be identified in real life too: “Ich
habe Menschen gekannt, die sich plötzlich im ganzen Wesen veränderten,
die entweder in sich hinein erstarrten oder wie von bösen Mächten rastlos
verfolgt, in steter Unruhe umhergetrieben wurden und die bald dieses,
bald jenes entsetzliche Ereignis aus dem Leben fortriß” (HSW/SB, 240).
The entire setting of the mine as the scene of Elis’s temptation and
destruction lends itself readily to its interpretation in modern terms as a
mindscape, possibly with Freudian overtones, in which the inward-looking,
 “NACHTSEITE DER NATUR” & SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE
163

self-absorbed individual and his self-destructive tendencies are externalized

through the operation of forces within and without. Typically, Hoffmann
leaves it open as to how far such individuals are responsible for their own
undoing and how far there really are hostile forces lurking and ready to
destroy vulnerable minds. Added to this, one could point to the clear
mother-fixation and the traumatic effects of Elis’s separation from a much
loved parent at an impressionable point in his youth.
All in all, Hoffmann has performed a highly imaginative and thor-
oughly Serapiontic feat in grafting this complex, modern-looking psycho-
logical scenario onto Schubert’s bald account. The reservations expressed
by some members of the group stem from the alarm that they may feel
in the face of matters such as disturbed or obsessional personalities
(Der Einsiedler Serapion and Rat Krespel had produced similar reactions).
Their critical stance may well be colored by their own repression on such
matters. Certainly the criteria that had been used in connection with
“magnetism” as a theme with Serapiontic potential have been amply borne
out in this tale that so brilliantly analyzes the effect of “unbekannte
geheimnsvolle Kräfte” on the mind of a vulnerable individual.

Das Fräulein von Scuderi

Unlike Die Bergwerke zu Falun, Das Fräulein von Scuderi earns unanimous
praise from the Serapionsbrüder: “Man nannte sie deshalb wahrhaft sera-
piontisch, weil sie auf geschichtlichen Grund gebaut, doch hinaufsteige ins
Fantastische” (853). Perhaps to an even greater degree than with Die
Bergwerke, Hoffmann had made use of a range of documentary sources
and, as is often his wont, is at some pains to inform his readers precisely
about these: first, at the point when Sylvester, the narrator, is introducing
his tale, we are informed that he has employed Voltaire’s Siècle de Louis
XIV, then, after the narration is complete, Sylvester discloses the identity
of another major source, which, it is believed, was Hoffmann’s chief inspir-
ation and on which he drew for several of his other tales, including Meister
Martin, namely, Wagenseil’s Chronik von Nürnberg. As Theodor points
out, to locate source material referring to an obscure seventeenth-century
French poetess in a German chronicle is an extremely lucky break for
Sylvester. Sylvester for his part points out apropos this source that the two-
line epigram (“Un amant qui craint les voleurs/ N’est pas digne d’amour”
[a lover who fears thieves is not worthy of love]) that plays such a crucial
part in the plot of his tale is authentic and that it was used by the poetess
and had been: “beinahe auf denselben Anlaß, wie ich es erzählt,
gesprochen worden”(SB/HSW, 854).
Hoffmann’s almost obsessive insistence on drawing his readers’ atten-
tion to his source material is in itself a reflection of his devotion to the
164
“NACHTSEITE DER NATUR” & SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE

Serapiontic Principle. The need to make a distinction between the imagin-

ative and the plagiaristic use of sources in fiction and the employment of
historical source material as a firm basis on which to build an imaginative
and wholly original construct is of primary importance to his aesthetic
program. To avoid confusion on this matter, it is clearly best to show all the
workings behind the tale, tracing it back to its origins. The reader can then
concentrate on and enjoy the creative resourcefulness that the author has
brought to bear on his material and avoid going on the hunt for sources
himself. Hoffmann’s intention — which shines through many of his expo-
sitions of the principle — is to educate the reader to follow him into the
realms of the imagination rather than getting bogged down in pedantic
detail. The frame clearly also offers an excellent means of achieving this end.
However, the popular view of this story — which enjoyed huge
acclaim from the moment of its first publication and earned for Hoffmann
a much appreciated gift of fifty bottles of the finest Rhine wine from his
publisher — tends to draw the reader away from a view of it as an imagina-
tive tale in which he is being hoisted into higher realms of fantasy. This is
because, sources or no sources, it has been seen as a forerunner of one of
the most persistently popular forms of modern fiction, the detective story:
“die erste Kriminalgeschichte von Rang.”3 As is well-known, this genre is
rooted in the world of cause and effect and, in its distinctive structure as a
“whodunit,” it conforms to principles of rationality more than, possibly,
any other branch of fiction. The detective story (or “Krimi”) is essentially
concerned with problem-solving and, at the end of the day, all mysteries,
red herrings, and seeming incongruities are subjected to the cold eye of
logic. Additionally, it produces as its main character the stereotypical prob-
lem-solver, an individual who, by definition, stands outside the normal
institutional agencies for crime-solving (which have generally proved inad-
equate). This lynchpin character may vary from the (male) amateur or gen-
tleman detective (Sherlock Holmes, Lord Peter Wimsey) to — in more
recent times — female equivalents (which have developed over time from
Agatha Christie’s genteel Miss Marple to the feisty Lindsay Gordon of Val
McDermid). A feature of virtually all these characters is their possession of
some psychological trait of eccentricity, which often is of advantage to
them over their competitors in the law-enforcement sectors: Miss Marple’s
apparent dottiness, Inspector Morse’s melancholy and fondness for the
music of Wagner, George Smiley’s self-deprecation and low-key appear-
ance all spring to mind. Hoffmann’s “pioneering” female equivalent, “Das
Fräulein von Scuderi” (Mlle. Madaleine de Scudéry [1607–1701]), shares
the eccentric quality of these stereotypes. The highly cultivated, précieuse,
aristocratic court poetess presents an incongruous image alongside the vio-
lence and hysteria on the streets of Paris that Hoffmann so carefully
described in the opening pages of the tale, and the brutality of the mea-
sures being taken. For at the behest of the king (Louis XIV), a special body
 “NACHTSEITE DER NATUR” & SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE
165

(which is later compared to the Inquisition), the “Chambre Ardente,” is

set up, presided over by la Régnie, who has been given the task of getting
to the bottom of the spate of poisonings and murders, which so far have
resisted detection: “Der König . . . ernannte einen eigenen Gerichtshof,
dem er ausschließlich die Untersuchung und Bestrafung dieser heimlichen
Verbrechen übertrug” (HSW/SB, 788). Ironically, far from becoming an
instrument of the law, this body itself becomes an instrument of terror (it
is not difficult to imagine that Hoffmann is here inferring a parallel with
the lawlessness associated with the Terror during the recent French
Revolution): “Gewiß ist es, daß blinder Eifer den Präsidenten, la Régnie zu
Gewaltstreichen und Grausamkeiten verleitete” (789). Continued lack of
success in catching the perpetrators of the newest wave of robberies with
violence involving jewelry leaves room for an amateur detective, certainly.
Scuderi, however, is drawn into the fray entirely for personal reasons: first,
she is disconcerted by the abuse of her famous couplet by the perpetrators,
with its trite message that lovers should stand their ground in the face of
all danger, which is interpreted as a justification for violence; second, she
has a close family involvement with the accused perpetrator of Cardillac’s
murder, Olivier Brusson, whom she believes, instinctively, to be innocent.
I shall return to the matter of how far Scuderi’s achievements to secure
justice and truth in these difficult circumstances can be attributed to her
forensic skills and how far other factors are involved. For the tale does not
focus just on this sympathetically drawn, clear-thinking champion of young
love and fair play, to whose character Hoffmann had been attracted in
Wagenseil’s Chronicle. It includes a subplot that Hoffmann grafts onto
his source material (based on a character he has himself created, René
Cardillac, the other artist in the tale), which deals with a criminal who is
an undisputed genius in his particular art form of jewelry-making, not only
in Paris but beyond.
Hoffmann is probing here into the darkest, most obsessive side of the
creative artist’s psyche. For Cardillac is a Pygmalion-like creator who falls so
much in love with his creations (and the motif of jewelry, as we find in the
tale of his mother’s obsession, has strong links with the erotic and the for-
bidden) that he is driven to repossess them with violence from his clients.
Clearly, this demonic trait is a foil for the well-bred, mannered, but routine-
and convention-ridden art works of a courtly society of which Scuderi is a
representative. But the empty, witty badinage of such a society — in which
the king’s mistress, Madame de Maintenon, reduces all serious discussion
to flippancy and innuendo — though it seems to affect the depth of
Scuderi’s art, does not fit her character completely. She undergoes a crisis
surprising in its intensity and reminiscent of that of a Kleistian character
whose instinctive “Gefühl” is at loggerheads with events unfolding around
her. Someone who has hitherto been living in a protected environment,
shielded from all the unpleasant aspects of life, and believing optimistically
166
“NACHTSEITE DER NATUR” & SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE

and naively in the goodness of man, is suddenly pitchforked into a chaotic

world. Her protégé, Olivier Brusson, in whose truthfulness and innocence
she believes, stands accused, and all the evidence seems to point to his guilt:
“[Die Scuderi] verzweifelte an aller Wahrheit. Ganz zerrissen im Innern,
entzweit mit allem Irdischen, wünschte die Scuderi nicht mehr in einer Welt
voll höllischen Truges zu leben” (HSW/SB, 818). Fate, it appears, has
destroyed “das schöne Bild, das ihr im Leben geleuchtet.” Now the
demonic side of life — which her opposite number, Cardillac, inhabits
through his art — is clear to her and seems capable of destroying her.
Once the reader has focused on these two contrasting figures whom
Hoffmann is placing at the forefront of the tale, and who are both aware
of the operation of malevolent forces at work in the world, his concern
about the causal aspects in terms of the mechanics of plot ceases to be of
primary importance.4 The sense of mystery and terror that had been so
prominent in the earlier part is replaced by our fascination with the inter-
play of these two characters as artists and human beings. The Brusson sub-
plot, which will not be fully resolved until a late deus ex machina confession
by Graf Miossens that he was responsible for the killing of Cardillac, is only
important in the sense that its solution remains a pressing matter for the
main character and a test of her belief in “Wahrheit.”
The most telling and vivid scene — full of dramatic verve and brio —
occurs towards the end, when the elderly poetess appears before the king
to intercede on behalf of Brusson. Clad in her best attire, all in black silk,
and embellished with Cardillac’s jewelry (which she had told Maintenon
she would never wear), she cuts a distinctly queenly figure. It is she who
possesses true “Majestät” and before whom all the courtiers fall back in
awe: “Alles wich scheu zur Seite, und als sie nun eintritt, stand der König
ganz verwundert auf und kam ihr entgegen” (HSW/SB, 847). Whether
Scuderi intends her studied appearance to suggest the idea that she had
enjoyed some kind of special relationship with Cardillac, as the king’s
rather tasteless joke suggests (“seht . . . wie unsere schöne Braut um ihren
Bräutigam trauert,” 847), she enters into the spirit of banter with some
self-irony, presumably to humor the capricious monarch. Her real artistry,
however, consists in the verbal dexterity (comparable to that of a skilful
barrister) and the sense of the dramatic with which she conveys to the king
all the facts about Cardillac’s murder, of which she is now fully informed.
There is still something to be fought for, despite all the unraveling, because
of the arbitrary nature of the judicial system — which can only be replaced
by an act of grace (“Gnade”) on the part of the absolute monarch.
Scuderi’s rhetoric, together with her suitably obsequious gestures, reach
their target and all is saved. But only on a whim, for the king’s favor is cap-
tured by the resemblance of Madelon, Brusson’s inamorata (whom Scuderi
has thoughtfully brought along as a witness) to one of the king’s previous
mistresses: “Der König schwelgt in den süßesten Erinnerungen.”
 “NACHTSEITE DER NATUR” & SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE
167

Scuderi’s great and glorious moment has no counterpart for her oppo-
site number, Cardillac, who is dispatched early in the tale and about whose
background and activities we hear almost entirely through third persons
and in the form of reports. For this narrative is unusual within Hoffmann’s
oeuvre and is possibly more indebted to the style of Heinrich von Kleist,
whom he much admired, than any other.5 It plunges, as Kleist’s often do,
in medias res with the dramatic and mysterious break-in to Scuderi’s house
by Olivier as he tries to deliver Cardillac’s present of jewelry to her. Then,
in a series of reconstructions, we are taken through the events leading up
to that point: the violence on the streets of Paris and elsewhere caused
by the mysterious poisonings, and the retaliatory measures taken.
Interpolated reports and narratives follow (for example, Desgrais and La
Régnie) with some direct dialogue. This exposition section, unusually for
Hoffmann, occupies fully one quarter of the entire text. At the point of
resumption the plot is moved forward by Scuderi’s receiving news that her
innocent couplet, taken out of context, has fueled and strengthened the
resolve of the miscreants. That gives a new twist to her own involvement
as a responsible citizen. A number of crucial scenes, often containing
direct speech, carry the tale forward: Scuderi and Maintenon meet with
Cardillac; later Scuderi tries to persuade him to take back the jewels, only
to find, in a melodramatic scene, that he has been murdered.
A remarkable feature in all this is that Cardillac, arguably the most inter-
esting character of them all, rarely appears in person in the tale. To gain an
impression of him and to try and understand his motivation we are depen-
dent entirely on third parties and reportage. This greatly adds to the sense
of mystery that Hoffmann has been cultivating. The most illuminating
example is his confession to Olivier about his obsession and the self-analysis
that accompanies it. We had been told of the paradox of his personality. Like
Michael Kohlhaas6 he is described by the narrator as a model citizen (“der
rechtlichste Ehrenmann”). But he also has deceptive, deep-set green eyes
that might betray “Tücke und Bosheit.” Olivier talks of the secrets “des ver-
ruchtesten und zugleich unglücklichsten aller Menschen.” In his important
confession to Olivier, Cardillac frequently presents himself as one driven by
an evil fate, a “böser Stern” (831), and his compulsion to steal and kill as an
inborn impulse; “eine Periode, in der der angeborene Trieb . . . mit Gewalt
empordrang und mit Macht wuchs” (833) as if this is something altogether
outside the realm of his control. As an explanation for his deviant behavior
he points to the prenatal influence on his mother of a strikingly handsome
cavalier who had sexual designs on her but whose evil intent was foiled by
her suddenly seizing his bejeweled chain, which mysteriously led to his drop-
ping dead on the spot. On little medical evidence Cardillac attributes his
own obsession with jewelry entirely to this prenatal source: “Mein böser
Stern was aufgegangen und hatte den Funken hinabgeschossen, der in mir
eine der seltsamsten und verderblichesten Leidenschaften entzündet”
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“NACHTSEITE DER NATUR” & SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE

(832).7 This disturbing insight into Cardillac’s psyche is a matter about

which the reader is left to speculate.
One can certainly agree with the Serapionsbrüders’ verdict once one
has sorted out the different strands of this complex tale and seen where
Hoffmann is placing the emphasis. The detective-story analogy has only
been of limited usefulness, its range of reference restricted to plot move-
ment rather than the more substantial issues relating to the two artist char-
acters and most particularly the issue of “Zerrissenheit,” which is at the
root of Cardillac’s behavior and which, for a brief moment, even Scuderi
herself succumbs to. These are the important added ingredients by means
of which Hoffmann has raised his tale — Serapiontically — from the pro-
saic level of historical reportage with overtones of a detective story to one
that offers a disturbing glimpse of demonic possession, the operation of
malevolent powers, and the vulnerability of the artistic temperament,
issues that do not yield to any clear-cut explanation.

Notes
1
Additional sources mentioned by Hoffmann’s characters include Ernst Daniel
August Bartels, Gründzüge einer Physiologie und Physik des animalischen
Magnetismus (Frankfurt am Main: 1812) and Carl Alexander Ferdinand Kluge,
Versuch des animalischen Magnetismus als Heilmittel (Berlin: 1811).
2
The term “unwandelbar” is a variant on the more familiar “immer waltender
Weltgeist” and may have Schellingian overtones.
3
W. Müller-Seidel, “Nachwort to E. T. A. Hoffmann, Die Serapionsbrüder”
(Darmstadt: Winkler Verlag/Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1978), 1014.
4
Die Kunst der Scuderi und ihre Existenz als Künstlerin werden . . . nicht nur am
Ende der Erzählung bedeutsam, sie spielen durchgehend eine so wichtige Rolle,
daß man von der Erzählung als einer Künstlergeschichte sogar mit mehr Recht
sprechen kann also von einer Kriminal- bzw. Detektivgeschichte” (Wulf
Segebrecht, “Kommentar,” HSW/SB, 1515).
5
See Lothar Pikulik, “Das Verbrechen aus Obsession: E. T. A. Hoffmann: “Das
Fräulein von Scuderi,” in Deutsche Novellen, ed. W. Freund (Munich: Fink, 1993),
47. Pikulik is aware of the echoes of Kleist’s Michael Kohlhaas.
6
Hoffmann refers to this Kleist tale in the Serapionsbrüder discussion (HSW/SB
638–39).
7
It has been suggested that the notion of prenatal influence was much discussed
in medical circles in Hoffmann’s day. A possible source might have been the work
of Johann Theodor Pyl, Aufsätze und Beobachtungen aus der gerichtlichen
Arzneiwissenschaft, 8 vols. (Berlin: 1783–93). The idea of hereditary influence as a
determining force is also suggested in Die Elixiere des Teufels.
10: The Märchen and the Serapiontic
Principle

Introduction

H OFFMANN’S SERAPIONSBRÜDER ARE in agreement about the general

suitability of the Supernatural — whether malign or benign — as mate-
rial for the imaginative processing of sense data, which is a characteristic
feature of the Serapiontic principle in art, while being sharply divided on the
question of the extent to which malign forces can be in control of human
destiny. This distinction between the different functions of the Supernatural
was, of course, also discernible right from the start of the Serapionsbrüder
collection in the members’ various interpretations of the complex signals
emanating from the Einsiedler tale, in which the hermit’s success as a teller
of tales was bought at the price of recognition or acceptance of the funda-
mental dichotomies that characterize human life. The tales associated with
the “Nachtseite” featured, through their main characters Elis and Cardillac,
the tortured psychology of characters whose subconscious urges — trig-
gered by external circumstances — would dominate their lives and in each
case lead to their destruction, albeit in Das Fräulein von Scuderi the misery
of Cardillac’s situation is partially counterbalanced by the reassuring image
of the court poetess. This character, the précieuse Mlle de Scudéry, is treated
sympathetically, though not without irony, and reveals courage and
resourcefulness in helping, at one level of the tale, to bring about a happy
end culminating in the union of the young lovers.
As for the Märchen, Hoffmann makes it clear from the frame discus-
sions that he is working with a form that is well-established in the
Romantic tradition but that he intends to develop very much in the spirit
of the Serapiontic program. This means that he can allude to and treat its
conventions playfully in the knowledge that the reader comes to the tale
with a set of prior expectations. It is noticeable that in Die Serapionsbrüder
he reserves the Märchen entirely for explorations of the benign side of the
Supernatural; indeed, it is usually presented as a force for positive trans-
formation and reserved for situations in which the characters are ultimately
extricated from dilemmas, as it were, by magic. Its other role is an alle-
gorical one1 in which it may represent or reinforce certain values — all of
them identified with the creative spirit — that have been endangered and
require reinstatement (for example, freedom of the imagination, the need
to look beyond appearances, the importance of the retention of a childlike
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THE MÄRCHEN AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE

disposition in adult life, and so on). Hoffmann, on balance, would seem to

be more optimistic about the chances of benign forces prevailing over the
malevolent — at least in the context of art, for, as we have previously
noted, his original intention in the Serapionsbrüder collection was that
each of the four volumes should conclude with a Märchen and that any dis-
sonances created among the group by a particular tale narrated in the
course of the evening could thereby be harmoniously resolved.
These tales share the characteristic chapter headings that Hoffmann
adopts for all of his Märchen. Lothar’s register what is going to happen at
a basic level in a particular section of the Märchen, much in the style of a
“Volksmärchen,” but sometimes slipping in an editorial coloring, normally
in ironical or humorous vein. Vincenz’s, by contrast, are quirkier and more
self-conscious, in tune with his character. The first and final chapter head-
ings of Die Königsbraut, for instance, register a subjective response to the
subject matter. We are told to expect that “alles Erstaunliche und höchst
Wunderbare” (1138) will be presented in an “agreeable” manner and,
finally, that the last chapter will be the most edifying (“erbaulichste”) of all
— a spelling-out of the allegorical implications within the tale, a device
that could equally well have been presented through subsequent discussion
among the members of the group. Here the ironic voice is evident, reflect-
ing the self-consciousness that makes the Kunstmärchen differ so substan-
tially from its folk counterpart.
The two Märchen attributed to Lothar — whose views carry special
authority in his role as leader of the group — are accompanied by sub-
stantial discussions.2 Topics raised include the question of narrative per-
spective in the Märchen and, by implication, the role and status of the
form. Several members are troubled by the fact that an adult perspective is
often imposed on a simple, naive form, this being made particularly man-
ifest through irony. The need to clarify this point is especially important in
view of the centrality of the Märchen form throughout Hoffmann’s works
and his continued exploitation of it in late examples such as Klein Zaches,
Meister Floh, and Prinzessin Brambilla. The programmatic role of the
frame discussion as a means of setting out Hoffmann’s position on the
Märchen within Romanticism is also important. He is clearly aware of
the canonical significance of the form and takes this opportunity to add his
own distinctive voice to the current ideas that had been proposed, such as
those of Novalis (“Das Märchen ist gleichsam der Kanon der Poesie”) to
which Tieck had added some points in his Phantasus to which Hoffmann
alludes.3 Disarmingly, Hoffmann invites comparisons to be drawn between
different Märchen, not only within the Serapionsbrüder (Das fremde Kind
is explicitly compared with Nußknacker und Mäusekönig); with con-
siderable self-irony he refers to his Märchen Der goldene Topf and its
“author” without name and thus extends the range of the comparison by
including the evidence from the Fantasiestücke in the discussions of the
 THE MÄRCHEN AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE
171

Serapionsbrüder. Here we have an example of Hoffmann’s almost unstop-

pable appetite for analysis and critique, which he applies retrospectively
even to his own earlier creations. Humor is another important ingredient
of his Märchen program. The relaxed and detached state of mind engen-
dered in the listener or reader by the witty and humorous narrative voice,
together with the expectations inherent in the Märchen form that all will
end in a harmonious resolution, acquire an important structural function
within the collection as a whole through the strategic placing of the
Märchen at the end of the books, which we have already noted. Finally, and
importantly, the discussion gives members an opportunity to comment on
and analyze the operation of the Serapiontic Principle with specific refer-
ence to the Märchen at the point of intersection between the real and the
fantastic worlds and as a thematization of the workings of the creative
process itself. In the critical frame discussion, therefore, a fairly compre-
hensive, up-to-date coverage of leading aspects of Märchen theory
and practice is offered to the reader — mainly by three members, Lothar,
Theodor, and Ottmar.

Nußknacker und Mausekönig

Posterity would seem to have passed its verdict on the Märchen in the
Serapionsbrüder, privileging Nußknacker und Mäusekönig and virtually
ignoring the others. This overwhelming vote of confidence does not, how-
ever, conform to that delivered by the members of the group, who on the
whole criticize its ironic tone and compare it adversely with Der goldene
Topf. To what extent the high reputation enjoyed by the Märchen today
has to do with Tchaikovsky’s perennially famous ballet rather than with any
true appreciation of its literary excellence is a moot point. Identifying the
“Serapiontic” features in all three tales and comparing their function as
Märchen alongside the points raised in the frame discussions can at least
help to focus attention on the literary rather than the visual qualities of this
text, though it has to be said that Hoffmann himself set the ball rolling
away from its literary features by producing six highly expressive drawings
to illustrate the original version of Nußknacker und Mausekönig. The
Märchen started as an occasional piece, a tale written by him as a Christmas
present for the children of his friend Julius Hitzig.4 It is not unlikely that
Hoffmann identified with his character Drosselmeier (who, like Hoffmann
at the time of writing, is an “Obergerichtsrat”), a physically grotesque but
benign wizard figure whose role resembles those of other Hoffmann char-
acters (such as Archivarius Lindhorst and Celionati) who act as masters of
ceremonies. This is a kind of parallel role to that of the artist-creator, who
here seems to overlap with the teller of the tale. Like other Kunstmärchen
this one still retains a few of the basic conventions of the simpler folk form,
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THE MÄRCHEN AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE

for example, in its acceptance of the principle according to which the

human and the non-human world of plants, animals, and inanimate objects
are subject to transformations, so that a nutcracker, for instance, can be
translated into a handsome prince, or a beautiful princess can turn into an
ugly deformed creature with a white beard.
However, it is in the narrative perspective that the skill and artistry of
Hoffmann the writer is fully displayed, an aspect that finds no adequate
counterpart in the ballet version. For part of the narrative we are invited to
view the magical events from the perspective of the imaginative child
Marie; but for the main narration, the scene setting and unfolding of the
narrative, we have a typically intrusive narrator, who also relates directly to
his readership, both adults and children (he even addresses the children,
Marie and Fritz, from time to time), and who moves the narrative back-
wards and forwards between the real and the fantastic worlds. The setting
of the tale is very precisely described, being anchored in the well-furnished
drawing room of a comfortably placed professional middle-class family.
This will provide Hoffmann with his familiar solid foundation on which, in
true Serapiontic fashion, he can set down the “Himmelsleiter” whose
rungs lead up to the higher levels of fantasy. However, the timing of
events, Christmas Eve, and the various preparations and sense of anticipa-
tion that these entail, permit the narrator to draw on an atmosphere of
heightened tension bordering on the sinister, at this point entering into
the minds of the children, whose excitement at the prospect of new toys,
special food, and all the excitements of Christmas can scarcely be con-
tained, yet is mixed with feelings of terror as they wait expectantly in a
darkened room. This tension reaches a climax as Marie is allowed by her
mother to stay on transfixed and daydreaming in front of the glass cup-
board containing its special toys, which are connected with the mysterious
figure of Drosselmeier, a family friend and her godfather, with whom the
child has an ambiguous love-hate relationship. For on the one hand, he
constructs the most original toys for her and her brother, such as a minia-
ture castle complete with revolving figures, but on the other he is physi-
cally repulsive and pulls grotesque faces that frighten her. The gazing child
falls asleep in front of the cupboard and has an elaborate dream based on
her observations and imaginings in front of the case of toys, but instead of
announcing this prosaic fact the narrator presents the contents of her
dream as part of the Märchen narrative. It is a description of a battle5
between an army of mice, led by a seven-headed mouse-king, and the toys,
including a nutcracker — a Christmas present from her father — that has
caught Marie’s attention. This battle is described in technical terms (for
example, “herausdebouchiert,” “en quarré plain”) that would not be out
of place in a military manual, such as Clausewitz’s famous Vom Krieg, but
seem unlikely to be available to a seven-year-old girl. The point of inter-
section between the dream world and reality comes when Marie tries to
 THE MÄRCHEN AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE
173

intervene to assist the nutcracker and feels pain because in doing so she has
broken the glass and cut herself. Narrator and narrative move firmly back
to the everyday world and to a description of Marie’s illness and convales-
cence after a considerable loss of blood.6 But a visit from Drosselmeier
confuses her; he had played an important part in her dream battle and had
been linked in her mind to the sinister aspects and connected with the fig-
ure of an owl that adorns the top of a clock in the drawing room. This sin-
ister persona gives way to a benign force as Drosselmeier proceeds to tell
Marie a tale — it is really a Märchen within the larger Märchen entitled
“Das Märchen von der harten Nuß.”
This interpolation carefully parallels the larger Märchen and is pre-
sented in three installments, presumably a concession to the limited atten-
tion span of young listeners. It is different again in tone from what has
gone before, being stamped with the personality of its teller,
Drosselmeier, its grotesque features, however, inclining more to the
comic than (as the account of Marie’s dream had been) the terrifying
mode. For in this development of the tale of the vicious seven-headed
mouse-king, the crime of his descendant, Frau Mauserinks, is to eat the
bacon that is an important ingredient in the king’s favorite delicacy,
Leberwurst, despite the invention and application of a mouse-trap by an
ancestor of Drosselmeier’s. A major outcome of the ensuing warfare turns
out much more happily than in the earlier dream version. The beautiful
princess, transformed, as is common in the Märchen world, into an ugly,
deformed creature, is set the task of eating the kernel of the hardest nut
ever known (called Krakatuk) which must be cracked and presented to her
by a beardless young man of unsullied reputation. This task will be
entrusted to the young Drosselmeier, who duly returns to the court after
a fifteen-year search, cracks the nut, and restores the princess to full
beauty. But this is at some personal cost, since the still venomous Frau
Mauserinks uses comparable powers, which turn the young hopeful into
an ugly nutcracker. Now the hero is set the task of exterminating the
Mauserinks clan and attracting the love of a girl despite all his deformities,
whereupon he will regain his dashing good looks.
This final twist to the Märchen has direct bearing on the outcome
of the main story line. In essence, the injunction to show love and stead-
fastness to fellow creatures, however ugly, has been allegorically spelled
out and the trials successfully overcome. The small Marie, using her
“inner eye” and imagination, can distinguish true beauty of mind within
an seemingly ugly exterior, a distinction that can also be applied to
godfather Drosselmeier himself, Because of her steadfastness and imagi-
nation she is able to bring about the transformation of the nutcracker into
a dashing prince whenever she switches into dream mode and travels
to the realm of the “Puppenreich,” a Konditorei-Paradise, which he
inhabits.
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THE MÄRCHEN AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE

Disclaimer:
Some images in the printed version of this book
are not available for inclusion in the eBook.

To view the image on this page please refer to

the printed version of this book.

Hoffmann’s sketch for Das fremde Kind, by kind permission of

Staatsbibliothek Bamberg.

The finale of Nußknacker und Mäusekönig brings the reader back to

earth with a bump as Marie awakens in her bed and her prosaic mother
tells her: “du hast einen langen sehr schönen Traum gehabt, liebe Marie,
aber schlag das alles nur aus dem Sinn” (301–2).7 However, no real end-point
is reached, since a trophy of the final battle in the form of the toy version
of the Mouse-King’s seven-headed crown carries over into (fictional) real-
ity and Marie plights her troth to Drosselmeier’s young nephew in front of
the glass case (that is to say, precisely at the point of intersection between
the real and the fantastic worlds). This could be interpreted as a symbolic
gesture to underline the extent to which she is expected to continue in her
adult life to harness her powers of imagination to the task of distinguish-
ing between what is true and false, as she had done intuitively as a child
but, given the relic of the crown, possibly at the same time a reminder that
sources of opposition will always be lying in wait.
 THE MÄRCHEN AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE
175

Das fremde Kind

The suitability of the Märchen as an exemplary form to accommodate the
Serapiontic Principle is fully evident in this second example, which app-
ropriately concludes the second volume of the Serapionsbrüder. Like
Nußknacker und Mausekönig it touches on the mysterious workings of the
imagination and the paradox that the naive spontaneous relationship of the
child’s mind to the world of magic that it can so naturally evoke, when
described from the sophisticated standpoint of an adult narrator will
necessarily acquire meaning and be subjected to interpretation rather than
existing as pure narrative. In the process it will, furthermore, become
allegorical, or ironical, suggesting to the reader that “Duplizität des
Seins” that Lothar had identified as a major feature of the principle and
whose philosophical origins Hoffmann had located in Schelling’s
Naturphilosophie.
The limpid style of Das fremde Kind could at first sight deceive, recap-
turing as it does liberally the directness and simplicity of speech forms typ-
ical of young children. That register is sharply contrasted with the voice of
the narrator, who demonstrates his omniscience by hinting, at an early
stage in the narrative, for example, at the deeper level of involvement in
the supernatural events on the part of the father of the children. “Weder
die Frau von Brakel noch die Kinder wußten, was der Herr von Brakel mit
diesen Worten eigentlich sagen wollte” (HSW/SB, 584). In fact this hint
throws once more into relief the dichotomy between child and adult, since
we are informed later that the father himself had had similar confrontations
with the Supernatural at roughly he same age as his children have reached,
but that these had been almost completely suppressed thereafter in his
adult life. And in addition the narrator will throw out further hints to the
reader by adding little touches that color his narrative; for example, the use
of the adjective “vornehm” in a chapter heading to describe the visit from
the family’s awful relations, a reference to social position that will receive
more underlining throughout that chapter as the contrast between the two
families is presented in terms of one between artificiality and artlessness in
manners, behavior, and values.
The entire episode of the visit in fact presents a detailed mise en scène
that is based on solid social foundations: the laid-back unpretentious
lifestyle of the genuine but déclassé aristocrat, Thaddäus von Brakel and his
wife and two children on the one hand, living in a simple house at the edge
of a wood, contrasts with the pretentious manners of his cousin, who has
inherited the family title and fortunes and brings with him a like-minded
snobbish entourage of wife and children. The narrator’s lack of impartial-
ity can perhaps also be detected in the way he emphasizes how the visiting
children reel off lists of useless facts that they have committed to memory
and to which the adults attach the label of “Wissenschaften,” marking this
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THE MÄRCHEN AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE

particular type of aristocratic education as immediately identifiable with

inflexible “Aufklärung” principles. The mechanical toys with which
Christlieb and Felix are presented by their cousins — and of which they
will soon tire — are clearly to be seen as manifestations of the same unnat-
ural and unfulfilling approach to life that is imposed on children and their
upbringing.
By such means the narrator is pointing his reader towards the terms of
reference in what is to become an allegorical fairy tale. The theme of con-
flict between two “principles” on which the tale is structured is already set
out in this realistic vignette of the meeting between the two families, and
this, in true Serapiontic fashion, will serve as a jumping-off point for the
increasingly fantastic episodes that follow. These start with the first
encounter with “das fremde Kind” in the wood, followed by elaborations
on the children’s reactions and their utter rejection of the mechanical toys,
which they throw away in favor of the child’s alternative, less tangible,
offerings, namely, access to a wondrous world of nature: “Ihr seid ja beide
ganz umgeben von dem herrlichsten Spielzeuge, das man nur sehen kann”
(586), including an ability to defy gravity: “Die Kinder schwebten im
leichten Fluge durch Wald und Flur” (587); in short, by using their imagin-
ation they can be directed towards what the child calls “meine lieben
Luftschlösser” (592). The allegorical significance of this alternative to the
dingy “Aufklärung” modalities and its meanness of spirit becomes ever
clearer. The rich alternative world is identified in various ways, such as, for
example, a canopy of flowers, or again a royal palace and kingdom in the
clouds that is only accessible through flight. This realm is presided over by
a benign queen, but as always in these situations she has as an antipodal
equivalent, “ein fremder Geist,” named Pepasilio, whose real identity is
“der finstere murrische Gnomenkönig” and who later metamorphoses into
“eine ungeheuere Fliege.” This is a manifestation of a hostile force that
had succeeded in inveigling himself into the queen’s court, there to wreak
havoc. The ensuing disruption of what had unmistakably been a Golden
Age is attributed entirely to what is clearly the spirit of Aufklärung (“er
behauptete, er sei ein großer Gelehrter, er wisse mehr und würde größere
Dinge bewirken als alle übrige” [597]).
We have here a variant on the equally allegorical adaptation of the
Genesis story as outlined in Der goldene Topf.8 As with that Märchen and
also Nußknacker und Mäusekönig the story switches back and forth
between the fantasy and the real worlds, between the wood and the fam-
ily house, but more and more these two worlds take on similar features,
since parallel conflicts between the benign and the hostile principles can be
discerned in each realm. Eventually a crisis point is reached in the house-
hold. In a last-ditch attempt to gain ascendancy over the children, who
have resolutely withstood all pressures, including the reappearance of the
“entsetzlicher Spuk” (as they describe the hated mechanical toys, which
 THE MÄRCHEN AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE
177

had been thrown away, but which, as if self-propelled, reappear to haunt

them), the “böser Geist” insinuates himself into their home in the form of
the children’s Hofmeister, or private tutor, Magister Tinte, but eventually
comes to blows with the children’s father, who has finally woken up to the
damaging effects of what clearly amounts to an attempt to indoctrinate his
children through rationalist pedagogic methods.
The Märchen does not have an unequivocally happy end, since the
father has received some deadly blow while swatting the giant fly. Before
his death — which will lead to the eviction of the family from their tied
cottage on the estate — he confesses his own allegiance in childhood to
the “fremdes Kind,” which he appeared to have subsequently forgotten or
suppressed from his memory, but to whose allegiance he now strongly
encourages his children to remain steadfast. The child itself is finally
evoked in a kind of glorified form that touches even the formerly skeptical
Mother, who confesses to having seen the transfigured image of her chil-
dren in a dream and now believes in their “Märchen” concerning the child:
“Die Frau von Brakel richtete sich nun auch langsam empor und sprach:
“Kinder! Ich habe euch im Traum gesehen, wie ihr wie in lauter funkeln-
dem Golde standet und dieser Anblick hat mich auf wunderbare Weise
erfreut und getröstet” (HSW/SB, 615). The fleeting appearances of the
child, as we can now see, suggest an all-enveloping, benevolent presence,
but one whose physical appearance can only be triggered by the intermit-
tent imaginative intuitions, or “Ahnungen” of gifted humans. Its location
and identity in the minds of the little boy and girl who see it, respectively,
as a male and a female figure, makes clear the personal and subjective
nature of its origins. This allegorical denouement is very much in line with
the notions of creativity embodied in the Serapiontic Principle, according
to which the “lever” or kindling spark has to be operated within the con-
text of a reality that is often hostile to such flights and whose deeper sig-
nificance can be elicited only with effort and imagination. It is clear that at
another level the allegorical meaning can be broadened to include the cre-
ative process in general and the difficulty in adult life of recapturing that
easy relationship with the sources of inspiration that is a feature of child-
hood.
Much of the debate about this tale in the frame discussion focuses on
the question of whether it succeeds as a Kindermärchen. A similar debate
had been sparked off by Nußknacker und Mäusekönig, which the members
regard as a “Gegenstück” and which they now use as a measuring rod for
comparison. Hoffmann commented that Das fremde Kind had struck read-
ers as “wunderbar kindlich und fromm”9 — not necessarily agreeing with
this view, as he himself more guardedly estimated it to be “reiner,
kindlicher” than its counterpart. That view is echoed by Ottmar: “ein reineres
Kindermärchen als dein Nußknacker” (615), while Cyprian prefers
“Märchen für kleine und große Kinder” to the term “Kindermärchen.” The
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THE MÄRCHEN AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE

contemporary reviewer Konrad Schwenck (1823) was closer to the mark in

describing it as “eine ironische Allegorie” which of course points away com-
pletely from the genre of the “Kindermärchen” as represented by the
Grimm brothers. The way the tale operates as an allegory on two levels, that
of the simple childhood narrative and the allegorical meaning, is perhaps
best summed up by Vincenz, when he presents as a variant to Cyprian’s for-
mulation the phrase “Märchen für Kinder und für die, die es nicht sind”
(615) since this points to its suitability for both adults and children and
implies the inclusion of the self-conscious level of irony and allegory.
It is interesting that all three of Hoffmann’s Märchen discussed in this
chapter — Der goldene Topf, Nußknacker und Mausekönig, and Das fremde
Kind — share as an underlying theme the power and centrality of the
imagination. In fact, building on his inheritance from Tieck’s Phantasus,
Hoffmann has developed the Märchen form into a prime means of defin-
ing and analyzing the mysterious workings of the creative faculty, a con-
stant source of fascination for him. In the latter two cases the Märchen
enables him to highlight two issues: first, the specific dangers that lurk in
an age dominated by the rational and the pragmatic, such as the
Aufklärung (whose influence, it seems, still looms large in the early 1800s)
and, more generally, the obstacles that appear in the process of transition
from childhood to adult life and that disrupt the continuation of the par-
adigmatic status and centrality that the faculty of imagination enjoys in
childhood. The Serapiontic Principle as a narrative procedure involving
both spontaneity and self-consciousness in the creation of a sophisticated
artistic product lends itself particularly well to such a development of the
scope of the Märchen. The openness of the “Geist” in responding to a
broad range of stimuli in the world around is fundamental if there is to be
that spark or trigger that leads on to the creation of what “das fremde
Kind” (which is surely the embodiment of the faculty of imagination)
describes as castles in the air.
To complain of a lack of psychological realism or about the stylization
of Das fremde Kind or the “kitschy” descriptions of the natural world is
to apply the wrong critical yardsticks. Hoffmann’s contemporaries were
closer to understanding his intentions. The modern reader would be well
advised not to ignore Hoffmann’s aims in using the Märchen form as an
allegorical tool (in the positive sense of the word) or his “Serapiontic”
method of constructing a fantastic edifice on what is a very down-to-earth,
unpretentious foundation in domestic life.

Die Königsbraut: The Final Märchen

A certain degree of expectation accompanies this, the final Märchen and
conclusion to the whole collection, since Vinzenz — to say nothing of its
 THE MÄRCHEN AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE
179

creator, Hoffmann — had experienced difficulties and delays in producing

it and attention had been drawn to this fact on several occasions (it should
really have concluded the third volume but Hoffmann could not meet his
publisher’s time-table and so he conveniently attributed blame for this to
his character!). When the Märchen is finally delivered some might be
inclined to view it as a damp squib: far-fetched, wordy, and long-winded,
and lacking the engaging mixture of humor and profundity that character-
izes Nußknacker und Mäusekönig and also, though to a lesser extent per-
haps, Das fremde Kind. Is this the result of a more labored approach on
Hoffmann’s part to the handling of the Kunstmärchen form? The work
testifies to his stupendously wide range of source material, from the
obscure “cabbalistic” literature of Gabalis, through Voltaire (Candide)
Tieck (Der Runenberg) to Walter Scott (Guy Mannering or the Astrologer)
with many other names besides dropped en passant (including those of
Calderón and Molinos). These are widely scattered over the tale but none
is probed deeply or is sufficient to provide a clear foundation on which to
erect the “edifice of the fantastic” or the “Himmelsleiter” that is de rigeur
in Hoffmann’s quintessentially Serapiontic Kunstmärchen. The short shrift
with which the work is received by the members of the brotherhood and
their move to more general topics of discussion as Hoffmann draws the
threads of the whole collection together may point to a downgrading
of Die Königsbraut as a Märchen, though it is conceded to have been
helpful in lightening the spirits of the group, which had been becoming
over-serious.
Various features give the reader the impression that we are dealing
with a different type of Märchen — a feature that, in itself, would not nec-
essarily point to a falling-off in quality — one that, one might argue, is
bound to stand out from the others because of the stress that has been laid
on its narrator, the scurrilous and sardonic latecomer, Vincenz. At the lit-
eral level the detailed chapter headings convey the usual moral aspect that
is built in to the Volksmärchen and taken over, in adapted forms, by its
sophisticated cousin, the Kunstmärchen; that is, the pattern of the good
triumphing over the bad and all ending happily ever after. But here this fea-
ture in itself is treated with ruthless self-irony, to the extent that these
headings virtually become a kind of oblique substitute for the group
appraisals. Thus we read in the sixth chapter heading: “welches das letzte
und zugleich das erbaulichste ist von allen.” In fact all six chapter headings
focus self-consciously on some aspect of the style and content of the
Märchen form itself: the reader is promised in the first that the content to
be delivered shall be “alles Erstaunliche und höchst Wunderbare” and fur-
thermore it is presumed that the style of the delivery will be congenial
(“auf eine angenehme Weise”), an amusing pre-judgment of the situation.
The narrator’s pedantic voice insists further on picking out the main aspects
of the second chapter as if slavishly following a blueprint for writing
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THE MÄRCHEN AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE

Märchen (“welches andere lesenswerte Dinge enthält, ohne die das ver-
sprochene Märchen nicht bestehen kann”), while for the fifth we are
informed in mock heroic vein “von einer fürchterlichen Katastrophe”; and
finally, as already noted, we are told that the last chapter will be the most
edifying (“erbaulichst”) of all. But possibly the most devastatingly ironical
tag is the one applied to the work as a whole, which is described as “ein
nach der Natur entworfenes Märchen,” which implies a feature of the
genre that would normally be taken for granted, for what, after all, would
be the point of one that was not based on natural foundations? The enig-
matic nature of this particular appraisal will be examined further below. In
general these ironical and highly self-conscious, manipulative directives to
the reader about expectations and responses to the work stand comparison
with the “Spruchbänder” of a Brecht drama (or of a “Hauspostille”).
So is Hoffmann in this, his final Märchen of the collection, adopting
an even more manipulative narrative stance than we have come to expect
from him by now? And for what purpose? We had seen in the other two
Märchen that the child’s perspective on reality and its imaginative trans-
formations loomed large but were contrasted with those of the adult
observer. The child-adult dichotomy is not an issue at all in Die
Königsbraut; indeed the high degree of irony that immediately confronts
the reader on the page points away from all naivety or spontaneity. The
general garrulousness of the narrator throughout reinforces this impres-
sion of playful complicity, as do his jokey invitations to his reader to join
him as an almost voyeuristic observer of the weird goings-on in Dapsul von
Zabeltau’s and his daughter Ännchen’s household arrangements.
Indeed, the creative and imaginative faculties are not invoked themat-
ically in this Märchen. The starting point is the eccentric, obsessive life-
styles of these two individuals (it is intriguing that as in Das fremde Kind
we are dealing with a déclassé aristocratic — and, as it turns out, dysfunc-
tional — family, but one consisting of only two people (“ein ererbtes ärm-
liches Besitztum”). The father is virtually a recluse who spends his days in
a ruined tower on his decaying property, engaged in dabbling in “die
geheimen Wissenschaften,” the details of which are not divulged but seem
focused on astrological observations based on the writings of mystics. He
is a man of few words, without a shred of practicality, preferring his own
company in the tower and communicating with all, including his daugh-
ter, by means of a speaking tube. Little wonder that the daughter has
polarized into ultrapracticality, having turned herself into an expert in horti-
culture and animal husbandry. She has developed these skills to the point
where they have taken over her entire life, leaving little time for the search
for a soul mate who might provide her with an escape from this dull, ritu-
alistic routine, which is based on maximizing the vegetable yields — except
in the (unsuitable) form of a mad, infatuated student poet, Amandus von
Nebelstern. Amandus regards himself as a genius and woos Ännchen with
 THE MÄRCHEN AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE
181

atrocious sonnets to which she replies in kind (Hoffmann’s parodies have

been linked to those he concocted for Kater Murr, which explore a simi-
lar repertoire of clichés).
From this brief summary it can be seen that the “reality” occupied by
father and daughter (and also her lover) is of a problematic nature. Its com-
mon feature is its unnaturalness: the father’s manic pursuit of the occult
“Wissenschaften,” the daughter’s overzealous attempts to regiment the
vegetable and animal worlds within the confines of her garden and her own
poor powers of communication, and the poet-lover’s vapid, cliché-ridden
verse. Hoffmann’s typical Märchen (and Serapiontic) device of overturning
the given situation and opening up new vistas for the imagination does not
operate in the manner previously explored, which depends on characters in
the first place being either themselves children with wide-open minds, or
else childlike and impressionable adults (that is, like Anselmus) possessed of
a “kindliches Gemüt”). In Die Königsbraut, however, father and daughter
seem fixed in mental grooves.10 The event that throws their world into
chaos revolves around the discovery by Ännchen when she is digging in the
garden one day of a beautiful topaz ring through which a carrot has grown.
The motif suggests a parody of the “Karfunkelmotiv,” a motif much
beloved of Romantic writers such as Tieck (Der Runenberg), who often
draw the inorganic world of nature into their worldview by featuring the
magic properties of precious stones. The juxtaposition of the beauty of the
artifact and the crudity of the carrot is richly suggestive. Its effect on the
father is dramatic: he interprets the find as a sign of the working of higher
powers, in particular of the operation of “Elementargeister,” (that is, spir-
its of earth, air, fire, and water), specifically here the intervention of a
gnome (an earth spirit) to claim Ännchen as his bride. This prophecy is
almost fulfilled when the gnome king (who is basically a carrot and is given
the Linnean appellation of Daucus Carota) duly appears in person, com-
plete with a vast entourage of animated vegetables, and encamp on
Ännchen’s prize vegetable garden, from which vantage point he intends to
conduct his campaign of serious wooing. Opinions at first seem to differ on
the crucial point as to whether the gnome king is benevolent or malevolent,
and Dapsul von Zabelthau, drawing on current Romantic theories derived
from (popularized) versions of Schelling’s “Naturphilosophie,” theorizes
about his “höhere Natur,” but later, when Daucus Carota’s true intentions
come to light, switches to seeing him as an imposter, while Ännchen her-
self becomes enamored of the idea of attaining the status of a queen and
writes to her former lover, Amandus, of her changed affections, dismissing
him for ever in favor of Daucus Carota. The truth comes out when Ännchen
is subjected to a hideous transformation in the form of a “Gnomenkönigin,”
presumably instigated by the Gnomenkönig: “viel dicker war Ännchens
Kopf geworden und safrangelb ihre Haut, so daß sie jetzt schon hinlänglich
garstig erschien” (HSW/SB, 1186–87). Her father, showing unusual presence
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THE MÄRCHEN AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE

of mind, plans to get rid of the scourge of the vegetable hordes and their
obnoxious monarch by putting them all into cooking pots and boiling them
up — but led by the king Carota, who prizes the pan lid open, they escape,
having first almost succeeded in retaliating by trying to cook their host,
Dapsul, himself.
The effect of this upheaval could be described as a raising of con-
sciousness on the part of father and daughter and a return to their fold of
the original suitor, the poet Amandus. It is as if the shock of it all has
brought the family to their senses. The poet too seems somehow to have
become enlightened: he rejects his pompous poetry and his “poetic delir-
iums” and decides to model his writing in future on the great classics
instead, which can only, one would imagine, reap benefits.
The transformations and denouements in this tale are, according
to several members of the Serapionsbrüder, lacking in invention
(“Erfindung”), and admittedly there is an arbitrariness about the move-
ment of the plot that reminds one of the caprices (or “arabesques”) so
much vaunted by Friedrich Schlegel. It is not beyond the bounds of prob-
ability that Hoffmann is deliberately trying out a different approach to the
Märchen and is even mindful of the theories of Schlegel and Novalis here,
according to which “Willkür” is a key element, but however that may be,
the Märchen is riotously funny with many delicious and witty touches, and
one can well understand why, in an essay entitled “De l’Essence du
rire,” Baudelaire, a well-informed Hoffmann admirer, could regard Die
Königsbraut, along with Prinzessin Brambilla, as examples of “comique
absolu.” The physical descriptions of the carrot king, half human, half veg-
etable are sharply vivid and reminiscent of Callot’s art of the grotesque as
presented in Jacques Callot: “Denn außerdem, daß er keine volle drei Fuß
maß, so bestand auch der dritte Teil dieses kleinen Körpers aus dem offen-
bar zu großen dicken Kopfe, dem übrigens eine tüchtige lang gebogene
Nase, sowie ein Paar große kugelrund hervorquellende Augen keine üble
Zierde war. Da der Leib auch etwas lang, so blieben für die Füßchen nur
etwa vier Zoll übrig” (HSW/SB, 1161).
It is surely remarkable that in the ensuing frame discussion not one
member of the brotherhood mentions the Serapiontic Principle. For, as
with the Callot example, operating on its two levels of the real and the
fantastic-grotesque, the Märchen would surely satisfy the criteria.
Furthermore, viewed strategically, from the perspective of its position
within the final book, and by virtue of its sheer frivolity, it does at least act
as a counter-balancing element to the almost uniformly dark tales that have
made up this final section. And that too was always regarded as a desirable
goal for each evening’s program of storytelling. Lothar can round off the
collection by making this point: “Gut ist es aber, daß wir aus dem
graulichen Dunkel in das wir, selbst weiß ich nicht wie hineingerieten, uns
wieder hinausgerettet haben in den klaren heitern Tag” (HSW/SB, 1198).
 THE MÄRCHEN AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE
183

And Theodor has the last word, a summing up of the joint endeavors of
the group and the totality of their achievement in terms of the program
they have set themselves and have fulfilled:
Frei überließen wir uns dem Spiel unserer Launen, den Eingebungen
unserer Fantasie. Jeder sprach wie es ihm im Innersten recht aufgegangen
war, ohne seine Gedanken für etwas ganz Besonderes und
Außerordentliches zu halten oder dafür ausgeben zu wollen, wohl wissend,
daß das erste Bedingnis alles Dichtens und Trachtens eben jene gemütliche
Anspruchlosigkeit ist, die allein das Herz zu erwärmen, den Geist
wohltuend anzuregen vermag. (HSW/SB, 1199)

This brings the wheel full cycle and terminates the collection on a note of
harmony for the achievement as a whole, tinctured with the sadness of
imminent parting and the prospect of permanent closure.
It would have been incongruous for Hoffmann to have turned
Vincenz into a spokesman for the Serapiontic Principle, which, as we saw
earlier, he was prone to mock. Instead his Märchen presents us with the
ironic situation of an a narrator who is ironizing the very form that has
been a lynchpin, and an author who is prepared to laugh at his own pet
ideas, even prepared to travesty Schelling’s Naturphilosophie — the foun-
dation for his own poetics — in the words of Dapsul von Zabelthau, when
defining what the narrator terms “das gnomische Prinzip”:
Was das Gemüse betrifft, meine liebe Tochter, so weiß ich längst, daß die
diesjährige Zusammenwirkung der Gestirne solchen Früchten besonders
günstig ist und der irdische Mensch wird Kohl und Radiese und Kopfsalat
genießen, damit der Erdstoff sich mehre und er das Feuer des Weltgeistes
aushalte wie ein gut gekneteter Topf. (SB/HSW, 1146)

Notes
1
See Ingrid Strohschneider-Kohrs, Die romantische Ironie in Theorie und
Gestaltung, 2nd ed. (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1977), 350 (apropos Der goldene Topf):
“Hier geschieht eine Selbst-Spiegelung von Dichtung und Poesie in einer Dichtung,
die ihre Aussage und Darstellung, reflektierend und gestaltend, ineins bindet. Die
Aussage, die Reflexion, die Allegorie: sie weisen zurück in das Märchengeschehen,
und sie verweisen zugleich auf einen allgemeinen, übergreifenden Sinn von Poesie.”
2
This applies also to Lothar’s Die Brautwahl, which bears some resemblance to
the Märchen form.
3
See Manfred Frank, ed., Ludwig Tiecks Phantasus, vol. 6 of Ludwig Tieck,
Schriften (Frankfurt am Main: DKV, 1985), frame discussion 105–8 and commen-
tary, 1243–44.
4
See Die Serapionsbrüder in HSW, 1341. Hitzig reported that his children were
especially delighted “unter ihren Namen zu erscheinen.”
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THE MÄRCHEN AND THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE

5
Hoffmann was congratulated on his knowledge of military maneuvers by the
great hero of the Napoleonic Wars, Graf Neidhardt von Gneisenau; see his letter
to Hippel (15 Dec. 1817, HSW vol. 6, 130): “Gneisenau sagte mir, daß in mir ein
FeldherrnTalent stecke, da ich die gewaltige Schlacht so gut geordnet und
Nußknackers Verlieren vorzüglich von der Eroberung der auf Mamas Fußbank
schlecht postirter Batterie abhängig gemacht.”
6
Much has been made of the blood motif, Marie’s “initiation” being read as her
progress towards sexual maturity. Even the “hard nut Kratakuk” has been subjected to
a Freudian interpretation; G. Neumann comments: “Das vom Paten erzählte Märchen
vom harten Nuß, stellt ein Erlösungsritual in den Mittelpunkt, das zugleich auf die
Initiation des Mädchens in die Geschlechterrolle hinweist” (“Puppe und Automat:
Inszenierte Kindheit in E. T. A. Hoffmanns Socialisationsmärchen Nußknacker und
Mäusekönig,” in Jugend — Ein romantisches Konzept? ed. G. Oesterle [Würzburg:
Königshausen und Neumann, 1997], 135–60; here, 147).
7
Surely there is an echo here of Novalis’s Heinrich von Ofterdingen, when
Heinrich’s mother dismisses his dreams in prosaic terms: “Lieber Heinrich . . . du
hast dich gewiß auf den Rücken gelegt” (Heinrich von Ofterdingen, ed. Paul
Kluckhohn [Stuttgart: Port Verlag, 1949], 25).
8
“Der Geist schaute auf das Wasser,” 3rd Vigilie, HSW/FS, 244.
9
Letter to Hippel, 15 Dec. 1817, HSW vol. 6, 130.
10
This seems to me to be comparable with the “Starre” in which Peregrinus Tyss
is caught up in Meister Floh.
11: The Serapiontic Principle:
The Wider Critique

Introduction

T HE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE has revealed itself to be a multifaceted

concept, some of its strands opening out onto issues of a general aes-
thetic nature, others generating specific narrative techniques. Lothar’s
broadly grounded “Erkenntnis der Duplizität,” for example, rooted philo-
sophically as it is in a primary dualism between subject and object, leads
directly, through the Serapiontic artist’s “Erkenntnis” of this dual state of
affairs to his adoption of an ironic stance (what Hoffmann himself termed
“eine durchgehaltene Ironie1). Whether in a humorous or a more serious
vein, this is a hallmark of virtually all Hoffmann’s literary oeuvre. Once
more deriving from this fundamental dichotomy and starting point for his
“poetology,” the creative “directive” suggested by the “Himmelsleiter”
metaphor determines a pattern of two contrasting levels — earthbound
and heavenbound, the one giving access to the other — over which the
Serapiontic artist can range, thus potentially covering the entire scale of
human experience. Hoffmann is the only Romantic artist who insists on
treating both these levels evenhandedly. Scrupulous attention to his source
material, to the vivid presentation of character traits and personal manner-
isms (though not, however, pictorial description) together with an unerr-
ing ability to bring the two levels into a convincing juxtaposition is, in his
finest works, so perfectly matched that the higher world of fantasy actually
gains credibility from its relationship to the lower level and the reader has
no problem in suspending disbelief.
It remains, finally, to test out the operation of the principle in two of
Hoffmann’s finest tales, Der goldene Topf and Der Sandmann, both of
which antedate the Serapionsbrüder collection and the formulation of the
principle. The framework technique has been seen to fully support both the
presentation and application of the principle in Die Serapionsbrüder. How
does it fare in these different narrative situations in which the opportunity
for an all-embracing irony or a “polyphonic” perspectivism might seem not
to exist? For, as we have seen, in the Fantasiestücke and Nachtstücke only a
vestigial frame exists, implied by the character of the traveling enthusiast. A
brief examination of both these masterpieces — which makes no claim to
be a definitive interpretation of either — is particularly appropriate in that,
respectively, they serve as paradigmatic examples of the two opposing
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aspects of the Supernatural, the benign and the destructive, that were con-
sidered in separate chapters above. It has, moreover, been suggested that
they stand in a polar relationship to one another.2

Der goldene Topf

Hoffmann’s most famous Märchen is one of his earliest works, and its gen-
esis follows in copybook fashion the various phases of the Serapiontic cre-
ative process as outlined in the Serapionsbrüder. It was certainly begun in
Bamberg, as we know from his detailed correspondence with his friend
Kunz, owner of the extensive lending library, claimed to be the largest of
its kind in Bavaria, that furnished Hoffmann during his unsettled Bamberg
years with a steady supply of books, some old, some new, and in various
languages. It seems likely that the initial kindling (“entzünden”) of his
inspiration — a phase which, as he would later describe, is marked by the
focus on a compelling, but as yet indistinct image — was, as so often with
Hoffmann, sparked by his reading of a book from Kunz’s library, one by
James Beresford, which features a gauche young man who gets into comic
scrapes — a forerunner of Anselmus.3 An early plan was duly followed after
some delay by the next stage in the creative process, namely, the refining,
amplifying, developing, and connecting of these first vague beginnings to
the requirements of a story line, and the disciplined drawing out and shap-
ing of the literary possibilities of the material.4 In the Serapionsbrüder
Hoffmann’s frame characters will from time to time enlarge on the specific
conditions in which creativity flourishes; in one case (see above, p. 129)
Sylvester suggests that this part of the process can most successfully be car-
ried out in a different environment, far from the excitement and stimulus
of boon companions or indeed any social setting typical of an urban envi-
ronment, whether a wine house or an art gallery. Sylvester goes so far as to
record that for him the most effective policy for the completion of a cre-
ative project is to move from the frenetic urban scene to the seclusion of
the countryside. In the case of Der goldene Topf the gap in the “process-
ing” procedure was matched by a more dramatic contrast with Hoffmann’s
normal surroundings. While living in Dresden at the time of its serious
bombardment, he records that the creative urge came upon him to the
extent that he was able to shut out the noise and terrifying circumstances
of his “trübe Umgebung” and retreat into his own alternative private
world, by settling down to complete a first draft of the tale.5 Total con-
centration and immersion in writing on this project could, it seems, be
facilitated by the most unpropitious, even anarchic circumstances, and
mind could triumph over physical discomfort and limitations.
Thus far the genesis of the work follows the general pattern of the cre-
ative process outlined later by Hoffmann through his frame characters in
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187

the Serapionsbrüder and implicit in the Serapiontic Principle itself.

However, there are obvious differences in the reception process of this first
Märchen and that of the later Serapionsbrüder. For we are reduced to
one highly manipulative narrator-figure instead of the “polyphonic” multi-
perspectival role of the frame narrative. This means that instead of the
empirical reader being confronted by a group of frame characters who stand
between him and the author, each individually usurping the reader’s nor-
mal position of being “first on the scene,” in Der goldene Topf this narrator
sets up — and actively engages with — a fictitious reader, cajoles and bul-
lies him, now flattering him and assuming his erudition and sophistication,
now attributing to him ideas or interpretations of the events in the narra-
tive by planting his own readings in his mind. Much attention has been paid
to this narrator’s seeming change of tack in the final Vigilie and his appar-
ent loss of confidence in his own ability to control the narrative or bring it
to a satisfactory conclusion.6 This has been interpreted as a typical example
of deconstructive manipulation on Hoffmann’s part, introduced deliber-
ately to throw doubt on the validity of the whole Märchen sequence, the
Creation myth, the struggle over and recovery of the golden pot and the
reactivation of its potency in the form of the imagination and higher calling
to poetry of Anselmus, whose development as a poet has been a theme
throughout. But one could equally well read this piece of narratorial intru-
sion in terms of Friedrich Schlegel’s theory of irony, according to which, as
has been pointed out,7 the constant alternation of self-creation and self-
annihilation, enthusiasm and skepticism, that is its central feature, does not
cease or become resolved on one of these two positions. Thus the conclu-
sion of Hoffmann’s Märchen on a note of self-irony on the part of the nar-
rator does not signal closure, but rather a temporary stopping point.
Hoffmann, the author, could surely, if pressed, invoke the wider context
implied by the “immer waltende Weltgeist.” But to pursue these philo-
sophical niceties further would have been misguided. The tongue-in-cheek
humor suggested by the narrator’s intrusion, with its understatement and
bathos, cannot go unnoticed (though it often seems to be endangered by a
plethora of theorizing on the part of commentators).
However, the text scarcely requires this kind of apologia in any case, as
a careful reading will reveal. Yes, the narrator is forced back eventually to
his normal life, his “Dachstübchen” — but, as the Archivarius points
out, thanks to his own good offices and after a visit to his stimulating
“Palmgarten” following Anselmus’s footsteps, the narrator too has been
privileged to visit Atlantis and has been presented with some real estate —
not a “Rittergut,” to be sure, like his character, but nevertheless “einen
artigen Meierhof.” The tale in fact ends on a light-hearted note, as both
the self-pitying narrator and his character have been rewarded for embrac-
ing “das Leben in der Poesie, der sich der heilige Einklang aller Wesen als
tiefstes Geheimnis der Natur offenbaret” (HSW/FS, 321).8
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Bringing the Serapiontic Principle into proximity with Der goldene

Topf highlights another major issue, namely, Hoffmann’s use of allegory.
He employs allegory — which by definition implies two levels of presenta-
tion and permits irony — more clearly, perhaps, than any other device, as
we have seen, in order to express the dual-stranded implications of the
Serapiontic Principle. This has already been seen in connection with
Prinzessin Brambilla where Celionati, the Italian Germanophile, and
Reinhold, who is part of the German community of artists in Rome, clash
on the status of allegory, the first approving, the second disapproving of it
(see above, chapter 5, “Prinzessin Brambilla”). I have argued above that
Hoffmann is playing with the different definitions of allegory that were
evident at the time and have suggested that he favors it not as a reductive
“key” but something closer to a symbolic extension of the idea of two par-
allel but interconnected worlds, an idea that forms the basis of his
Weltanschauung and its debt to Naturphilosophie.
In Der goldene Topf there are several layers of fabricated, mythical
interpolations, and it is these which can be accorded allegorical meaning in
Hoffmann’s positive sense: the first focuses on the family story and rela-
tionships of Serpentina, the green snake, the Archivarius Lindhorst, and
the Salamander (there are echoes here of theories of “Elementargeister”
deriving from such sources as Paracelsus and Gabalis). The second projects
us even further back in the Märchen scale of time to the origins of
the world, and is heavily indebted to motifs deriving from the
Naturphilosophie of Schelling and his popularizer Schubert; it presents an
account of the Creation in solemn biblical language reminiscent of Genesis
and is recounted by the Archivarius. The third, which can also be linked to
Naturphilosophie, relates to the ongoing “Weltprozess,”9 the meaning of
which can be elucidated through the interpretation of the hieroglyphs in
Lindhorst’s manuscript collection (essentially this rather academic study
parallels Hoffmann’s own tendency to search for a philosophical under-
pinning for his theories). This layer is presented as a battle between the
“gute und böse Prinzipien,” which is played out in struggles to gain
Anselmus’s allegiance by the respective sources of the Supernatural — the
black variety (represented by the Doppelgänger witch and the Apfelweib)
and the white (represented by the Doppelgänger Archivarius Lindhorst
and Salamander). Finally, after the resolution of these conflicts, the reader
is granted a glimpse of the mythical realm of Atlantis, whose allegorical
meaning is made explicit by its being described by Archivarius Lindorst as
the “Land der Poesie,” complete with topographical features (for example,
Anselmus’s manor).10 The meaning of the other allegorical interpolations
emerges alongside the progression or quest of the main figure, Anselmus,
whose divided state and confusion of allegiance between the mundane and
the poetic parallels the Archivarius’s fall from paradise, a serious lapse that
he is now, in a state of growing self-awareness (“Erkenntnis”), attempting
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189

to make good in the hope of returning to a higher estate. Chief of his var-
ious strategies to achieve this is the recruitment of Anselmus, the budding
poet, to assist with the transcription and interpretation of the manuscript
collection, the repository of higher mysteries. Lindhorst’s grand plan
includes marrying Anselmus to his daughter Serpentina, once he has
achieved full status and gained the golden pot.
In its allegorical conversion of these various myths, the Classical, the
Oriental, and those based on contemporary Naturphilosophie, the
Märchen draws most heavily on current ideas about creativity and the rela-
tionship between “Geist” and “Natur” derived mainly from Hoffmann’s
reading of Schelling11 and Schubert,12 connecting these up with Anselmus’s
progression toward the ultimate goal, the attainment of an artist’s paradise.
It is impossible to disentangle Hoffmann’s debt to these twin sources,
though many individual motifs have been traced to Schubert’s door (for
example, the “Feuerlilie” and “Phosphorus”), since the Schubert borrow-
ings themselves are often underpinned by the philosophical premises on
which Schelling’s Naturphilosophie is based, and, as we know, Hoffmann
had taken the trouble to read Schelling’s key texts systematically before
proceeding to his reading of Schubert. His skill in weaving together all
these mythical strands and at the same time developing and gently draw-
ing out interconnections between them and the main narrative line is a
truly original contribution to the development of the Märchen genre in
German literature and its symbiotic relationship with allegory. Goethe’s
Märchen (1795), which Hoffmann certainly knew and from which he had
borrowed the motif of the green snakes, although fascinating, presents an
almost impenetrable aspect to the reader by contrast. Its hermetic figures
and motifs — which could be described as the opposite of allegorical since,
like Kafka’s parables, they do not open out onto any identifiable system of
thought or any clear reference point — might almost seem to reflect
Goethe’s determination not to write anything that might be remotely
interpreted as allegorical (in his own narrower sense of the term). Novalis’s
achievement with Klingsohr’s Märchen in Heinrich von Ofterdingen bears
closer comparison with Hoffmann’s. Like Hoffmann’s the work owes a
debt to the ideas taken from contemporary philosophy (especially that of
Fichte), but while poetically rich, it does not present the two main levels
on which it operates, that is the “Zuhause” and the world of Arcturus, the
empirical/prosaic and the ideal/fantastic, with an equal sharpness of
focus.13 These two Märchen do share the idea of the triadic
“Geschichtsbild” mentioned in chapter 2, “Der Einsiedler Serapion,” and
the notion of a general progression of mankind from the Golden Age to
the return to paradise via the fallen state (which Novalis explicitly links to
the Aufklärung). In the case of Der goldene Topf, however, much attendant
detail is supplied through the various sub-myths and, above all, by the
juxtaposition throughout of two contrasting levels of reality, which gives
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THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE: THE WIDER CRITIQUE

substance to the nature of the poet-hero’s quest, and its starting and fin-
ishing points.
As we have seen, the Märchen is a key form in Hoffmann’s armory for
putting into practice his theory of the Serapiontic Principle as formulated
in the Serapionsbrüder. The new, self-conscious structure (“ein Märchen
aus der neuen Zeit”) that Der goldene Topf incorporates reflects
Hoffmann’s desire to create two distinct, equally credible levels, or paral-
lel worlds, between which the major protagonist moves and whose inter-
dependence is crucial. This dualism of outlook suggests that any
Hoffmann Märchen will display in abundance Serapiontic features, as out-
lined in Lothar’s formulation, and almost inevitably will incorporate an
allegorical level. Der goldene Topf is no exception, but more than that it
could be said to exemplify all the best features that the Serapiontic pro-
gram can bring out. For quality does not go unnoticed among the
Serapionsbrüder and not all Serapiontic writing will automatically reach
the same heights. For the Serapiontic Principle to work most effectively
several criteria must be met: above all, the transitions between the lower
and higher levels must in no way be contrived or obvious. The reader must
be able to “suspend disbelief.” Der goldene Topf fulfils this requirement
brilliantly and in such a way that, while Hoffmann normally keeps the two
levels quite distinct from one another, sometimes for comic purposes he
will carry over a character’s day-dreaming fantasy into the real world. For
example, Veronika’s vision of Anselmus as Hofrat in their “spießbürger-
lich” married state is transposed to the sight of the real-life-student
Anselmus, who suddenly appears, as she believes “transformed” (HSW/SB,
260). Additionally, it is imperative that the allegorical meaning that under-
pins the Märchen structure should not obtrude, or have the unfortunate
effect often associated with allegory of reducing the meaning of the work
as a whole to the level of a bare formula.14 In this respect too Hoffmann’s
first Märchen scores highly, being greatly helped by the subtle, allusive way
in which the separate strands, at first dispersed, finally run together to form
one unifying principle, which, based on the interaction of benign and
negative forces in the natural world (that is, as a manifestation of the
“Weltgeist”), provides a suitable context into which the hero’s own strug-
gles and progression can be positioned.
It is no coincidence that Der goldene Topf is constantly held up in the
discussions of the members of Serapionsbund as a shining example by
which to measure their own three Märchen specimens. Of these
Nußknacker und Mäusekönig would also pass the Serapiontic test with fly-
ing colors — criticism by the group members is confined to what has been
described as the obtrusive, disjunctive presentation of the interpolated sub-
Märchen, “Vom harten Nuß,” which is set apart typographically from the
main narrative, making it seem superimposed. In the case of Das fremde
Kind Hoffmann succeeds in presenting an effective contrast between the
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191

circumstances of the children’s family and the wild untamed world of the
forest, presenting the latter as a kind of natural adventure playground for
the children. It is perhaps the appearance of the magical child, the source
of the family’s salvation from a dreary and limited existence, that is less well
motivated, making it appear as a kind of deus ex machina although it is
clearly identified with the natural world. Finally, Die Königsbraut, as sug-
gested above, also has awkward transitions, and the all-important force for
change and transformation, an indispensable feature of the Märchen and
here represented by the appearance of the carrot-hordes, while amusing, is
a bolt from the blue. But it was also suggested that the jerkiness and arbi-
trariness might be deliberate on Hoffmann’s part and that he might have
been experimenting with the idea of “Willkür,” a more capricious or
whimsical treatment of the form that had been emphasized so much in the
theories of Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel.
To draw a general conclusion from the above, it appears that any
diminution of the degree of (artistic) integration between the main narra-
tive and allegory (such as is created, for instance, by subheadings) tends to
reinforce the reader’s impression that the “two worlds” are not parallel and
instead are being arbitrarily yoked together, in this way tilting the delicate
balance of the allegory form somewhat towards didactic contrivance and
“over-determination.”
To make these criticisms is not original, since they are nearly all
implied by one or other of the Serapionsbrüder as they apply the
Serapiontic Principle as a tool of criticism to particular tales. An exception
here is the theme of allegory itself, which, having been implicit all along in
Hoffmann’s literary practice of the Märchen, only becomes a major subject
of reflection and analysis in Prinzessin Brambilla. The general usefulness
and relevance of these other critiques presented by the frame characters is
beyond doubt. One suspects that it is Hoffmann’s intention that his read-
ers should adopt, or at least consider, them when assessing his works.

Der Sandmann
At various points we have noted the potential confusion of the thematic and
the literary aspects of the principle, the What and the How, the creative
and the critical. In the Serapionsbrüder Hoffmann ostensibly tries to sepa-
rate the theory from the practice to a certain extent15 and calls on a num-
ber of critical perspectives, using his external “polyphonic” technique
extensively throughout this collection. In Der Sandmann, (as in Der gold-
ene Topf) he clearly has to internalize and integrate the narrative voices,
which are fewer in number. By far the most important of these voices is the
narrator’s; others who are presented via this figure include the vox populi,
that is, anonymous voices presumably selected from the circle of friends of
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THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE: THE WIDER CRITIQUE

Clara and Nathanael on the basis of their opposing positions towards par-
ticular issues involving the two lovers. This seemingly neutral device may be
a tactic on the narrator’s part not to show his own hand and thereby delib-
erately to create ambiguity. In addition, by means of his startling opening
gambit of confronting us with three letters before he himself gets going
with the job of telling the tale, the narrator permits the reader to evaluate
the views of the two main protagonists, Nathanael and Clara, as it were,
uncensored. Thus armed, we can more confidently adjudge the judgments
of others.
What links the tale most clearly to Hoffmann’s other work and espe-
cially the Serapiontic Principle is its thematic link with the paradigmatic
tale Der Einsiedler Serapion. The bringing together of the themes of mad-
ness, creativity, and the artistic temperament in the two works draws in
each case on the basic intellectual frame that Hoffmann had derived from
contemporary idealistic philosophy. This philosophy was fascinated by the
questions relating to mind, and by the possibility of absolute (or transcen-
dental) freedom, issues that became transposed by poets (such as
Coleridge and Novalis) from the philosophical to the aesthetic realm, the
faculty of “imagination” being substituted for “mind.” The strong con-
temporary interest in abnormal states of mind, as we have seen, was of
particular interest in this debate. What is different in Der Sandmann, how-
ever, is that all the attendant material and background to the madness of
Nathanael, including, most importantly, details of his family relationships
and childhood, are presented to the reader, not exactly as a clinical case his-
tory in Freudian mode, but in sufficient depth and detail for the reader to
make the connection, if he is so minded, between these adverse circum-
stances and the disastrous outcome. The emphasis here is decidedly on the
psychology rather than on Naturphilosophie. Nathanael’s case would come
under the heading of Schubert’s “Nachtseite der Natur” and as such pro-
vide Serapiontic possibilities, in that the tortured self-projections of
Nathanael and the nightmarish distortions of reality that rack him present
a theme of a kind that the brotherhood had noted as potentially fruitful as
a lever for setting in motion “unbekannte geheimnisvolle Kräfte.”16 The
parallel worlds noted in the other sources of Serapiontic creation, such as
Der goldene Topf, however, are not evident, and there is no mythical equiv-
alent to the world of Nathanael’s tortured imagination, only hallucinatory
and nightmarish visions. Unlike the Einsiedler, who has created an alter-
native world to suits his own requirements, Nathanael is no recluse who
has opted out of normal life and into an alternative life-style, but a young
student, a member of a university community who enjoys good social rela-
tions with his professor, who has warm relations with his family (mother
and brother), and in short would have excellent prospects — were it not
the case that he is still dominated by an idée fixe dating from childhood.
Both hermit and student have artistic aspirations, the former being an
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193

accomplished writer of tales, the latter author of a prolific, though as yet

unpublished and possibly immature output of literary works in diverse
genres.
In their relationship to the world at large they share, however, an
inability to recognize the limits between their over-luxuriant imaginations
and the empirical realities that, as we have seen from Die Serapionsbrüder,
are part of the human condition.17 Hoffmann turns this excessive trait in
Nathanael very occasionally to humorous effect, as, for example, in the
scene where the latter interprets as enthusiasm the automaton Olimpia’s
mechanical reaction (“Ja, ja”) to his reading from one of his literary works.
The anchor point in normality and clear-mindedness and the individual
who more than any other character can analyze and understand the
processes of Nathanael’s mind and diagnose his problems is Clara, but
despite all her efforts he refuses to accept her commonsense arguments
(just as Cyprian fails with the hermit), and after two brief remissions he
soon relapses completely. The few humorous moments (created by the
incongruity of Nathanael’s obsession with and effusions over Olimpia’s
imagined animation in the face of the mechanical monotony of her move-
ments, which is clear to everybody else) are counteracted by the sense of
stark inevitability, which the reader senses by such portents as Nathanael’s
biographical poem anticipating his loss of Clara and his own destruction at
the hands of Coppelius — a self-fulfilling prophesy. The endangered artist,
Graf P. (alias the hermit Serapion) had escaped the humiliation of being
shut up in an asylum because of the liberal attitude of his doctors, for as a
recluse his refusal to recognize the limits of time and space could do no
harm to anybody but himself, and he lived out his life in tranquillity, com-
pletely without any sense that he is being pursued by the equivalent of the
Furies. The basic instability in Nathanael’s condition is rooted in the obses-
sions he has carried with him from childhood and can be traced back to
the “Sandmann” incident. This means that at any given point in time it
only requires one chance external trigger — for example, Clara’s blunt
rejection of his grim, prophetic poem or the distorted image of her that he
imagines he sees when he looks through the eyeglass — for him to tip over
into total madness. The same instability is apparent in Cardillac in Das
Fräulein von Scuderi, who, like Nathanael, makes definite but futile
attempts to curb his obsessive compulsion, acquired, it appears, prenatally,
to repossess his jewelry with violence, and in Elis Fröbohm in Die
Bergwerke au Falun, who, in the grip of a powerfully repressed subcon-
scious and a mother fixation, struggles unsuccessfully between his alle-
giance to the underworld queen and mother-figure and Ulla, his fiancée.
While the Märchen Der goldene Topf cannot establish a completely sta-
ble foundation for the future of the poet-hero Anselmus, it does offer inter-
mittent access to the delights of a higher poetic world, an enhancement of
everyday reality, and a source of aspiration. In addition, by also implying the
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THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE: THE WIDER CRITIQUE

triadic “Geschichtsbild” in the interpolated myths and the Schellingian pos-

sibility of a benign direction to the workings of the “Weltgeist,” arising
from the interaction of benevolent and destructive principles, that tenuous
harmony achieved by the poet can be placed within a wider frame of refer-
ence. But the dark world of Der Sandmann and other works in which the
Supernatural is associated with the “Nachseite der Natur” illustrate how at
the other end of the spectrum the human mind can lose its bearings and
self-destruct. This contrasting position of Hoffmann’s has been described
as “der negative Doppelgänger des Dichters.”18 The basic duality within the
artistic psyche and the two contrasting positions that are explored in these
two works are well served by Hoffmann’s virtuoso application of his
Serapiontic method, though in Der Sandmann it has to be radically modi-
fied in view of the fatalistic19 obsession of the main protagonist, whose (ser-
apiontically) imaginative faculties and ingenuity are channeled into the
process of building up more and more distorted images on the basis of the
one all-embracing childhood tale of the Sandman. For here the benign fig-
ures — in the form of Nathanael’s student friends and Clara — are power-
less to halt the process of his self-destruction, and there is no comparable
master-figure, as is customary elsewhere, who might help to place the con-
trasting levels of reality within the protagonist’s sights as equally powerful
forces, and thus lead him to “Erkenntnis,” as Lindhorst does Anselmus and
Celionati Giglio. Even more significantly, there is hardly any sign of enliven-
ing humor or irony in Der Sandmann that might lessen the sense of horror
which is created. The uniformity of focus on the obsessional strikes the
reader with a terrifying power, and the action unfolds with a sense of tragic
inevitability. This is not a common strain in Hoffmann’s fiction (Die
Bergwerke zu Falun is possibly the nearest equivalent). It could be sug-
gested that the claustrophobic nature of the presentation is pointing away
from the Serapiontic model towards a strain of “gothic” fiction. Even the
novel that Hoffmann was already engaged in writing, Die Elixiere des
Teufels, which gives possibly the fullest expression to this same “gothic”
strain, suggests a measure of resolution for the tortured hero — who is also
the victim of predetermination — through the agency of art. The task
Medardus is set by his prior, Pater Leonardus, namely, that of writing his
autobiography, at least seems to bring him peace of mind (“Heiterkeit”)
and thus ultimately, through this process of creative reconstruction, serves
a therapeutic function unavailable to Nathanael.

Notes
1
See Hoffmann’s letter to Kunz, 4 March 1814, HSW vol. 6, 18.
2
See S. S. Prawer, “Hoffmann’s Uncanny Guest: A reading of Der Sandmann,”
German Life and Letters 18(1964/65): 297–308.
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195

3
See HSW/FS, 756; James Beresford (1764–1840), The Miseries of Human Life;
Or the Groans of Samuel Sensitive and Timothy Testy (London: 1806).
4
In the letter to Kunz of 19 August 1813, HSW vol. 1, 302. Hoffmann describes
the first, somewhat crude, plan, according to which the object that would later be
transformed into the golden pot containing Serpentina’s dowry and given full
Märchen status started life as a lowly “Nachttopf,” a motif that was common in
French fairy tales, especially “contes licencieux” and also occurs in Wieland’s
Geschichte des Prinzen Biribinker. See HSW/FS, 756–57.
5
“In keiner als in dieser düstern verhängnisvollen Zeit, wo man seine Existenz von
Tage zu Tage fristet und ihrer froh wird, hat mich das Schreiben so angesprochen
— es ist, als schlösse ich mir ein wunderbares Reich auf, das aus meinem Innern
hervorgehend und sich gestaltend mich dem Drange des Äußern entrückte” (19
Aug. 1813, HSW vol. 1, 301).
6
See Roland Heine, Transzendentalpoesie: Studien zu Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis und
E. T. A. Hoffmann (Bonn: Bouvier, 1974), who gives a survey of the problems raised
by the narrator’s so-called “Erzählaporie,” his seeming incapacity, that is, to present
in detail Anselmus’s final admission into the transcendental realm of Atlantis, the
“Land der Poesie.” Heine reads the ending as a change of emphasis from the “Was
der Darstellung” (i.e. the poetic epiphany) to “Das Wie des Darstellens,” the formal
problem (i.e. the narrator’s hesitations regarding the business of bringing the tale to
a conclusion), However, he jumps to the conclusion that the switch of direction and
“skepticism” that is suddenly expressed by the narrator persona somehow invalidates
all that has gone before: “Der offene Schluß des Märchen bedeutet daher einerseits
die Zurücknahme des Dargestellten in die künstlerische Autonomie des Darstellens
(Schlegels transzendentalpoetisches Prinzip der Selbstvernichtung)” (196–97). As we
have already seen (see discussion of Prinzessin Brambilla above, chapter 5) the over-
laps between Schlegel’s and Hoffmann’s ideas on irony are often striking. However,
Heine’s one-sided interpretation of Schlegel’s “dialectical” approach is not apt here:
“Die transzendentalpoetische Fragestellung, die das inhaltliche Problem dem for-
malen dialektisch zuordnet, wird im doppelten Sinne durch eine Eingrenzung auf den
Bereich der Kunst beantwortet.” There is no question of one side of the dialectic (i.e.
content) being subjected to the other (form): for Hoffmann the two cannot be separ-
ated and form one seamless whole. Heine’s study would have benefited from a wider
range of reference, that is, inclusion of the Serapionsbrüder discussions and the
Serapiontic Principle as well as an extension of the philosophical horizons beyond
Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel. Other, more basic, reasons (see below) suggest that
this reading is not only misguided but inaccurate.
7
See above, chapter 5, and Ernst Behler, German Romantic Literary Criticism
(Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993), 134; Behler points to the “constant alteration
of self-creation and self-annihilation” in Schlegel’s theory of irony.
8
This formulation spells out the idea of reciprocity between “Geist” and “Natur,”
derived from Schelling’s Naturphilosophie, which has been a thread running con-
sistently through the length and breadth of Hoffmann’s work. Nowhere is it more
evident than in Der goldene Topf, which was written around the time of Hoffmann’s
intensive study of the works of Schelling and Schubert (see above, chapter 2, “Der
Einsiedler Serapion”).
196
THE SERAPIONTIC PRINCIPLE: THE WIDER CRITIQUE

9
Hoffmann refers throughout his works to the “immerwaltender Weltgeist” (and
similar phrases), a concept that derives from the idea of Emanation expounded in
Schelling’s “Weltseele”; see Wilhelm Ettelt, “Philosophische Motive im dichterischen
Werk E. T. A. Hoffmanns,” Mitteilungen der Hoffmann-Gesellschaft 25 (1979):
31–45, esp. 40–41. Ettelt notes Hoffmann’s substitution of “Weltgeist” for
“Weltseele.” See also the discussion on “Der Einsiedler Serapion,” chapter 2 in this
volume.
10
This imagery performs the same function as that of the motif of the “Reich”
used elsewhere by Hoffmann to express the “home” of the imagination.
11
Schelling, “Von der Weltseele,” 1798.
12
The timing of Hoffmann’s initial reading of Schelling and Schubert and his writ-
ing of Der goldene Topf is very close: all within the same year, 1813; see “Der
Einsiedler Serapion,” chapter 2 in this volume.
13
See Todorov’s various criteria for allegory, “La poésie et l’allegorie,” in
Introduction à la littérature fantastique (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1970), 63–79,
and Ingrid Strohschneider-Kohrs, Die romantische Ironiein Theorie und Gestaltung,
2nd ed. (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1977), 350–51 and discussion above, chapter 5.
14
Compare the distinction made above (chapter 5) apropos Prinzessin Brambilla
between “over-” and “under-stated” allegory.
15
As was already noted, however, the frame has its own fictional dimension.
16
See discussion in “The ‘Nachtseite der Natur,’ ” chapter 9 in this volume.
17
Nathanael’s solipsistic self-absorption (like that of the Einsiedler) has been
linked to Fichtean Ich-philosophy, but if this is Hoffmann’s intention then that can
scarcely be described as a liberating force.
18
F. A. Kittler, “ ‘Das Phantom unseres Ich’ und die Literaturpsychologie: E. T.
A. Hoffmann — Freud — Lacan,” in Urszenen, ed. F. A. Kittler and H. Turk
(Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1977).
19
See Lothar Pikulik, “Das Verbrechen aus Obsession: E. T. A. Hoffmann: ‘Das
Fräulein von Scuderi,’ ” in Deutsche Novellen, ed. W. Freund (Munich: Fink, 1989),
who identifies this fatalistic streak in Hoffmann’s work but regards it as the more
derivative side of his work, reflecting popular literary trends of the day: “Ins
Anonyme hüllt Hoffmann das Wunderbare, und vage aus dem kosmischen Über-
bau oder dem seelischen Untergrund wirken läßt er es, wenn er die irdische Welt
einer nicht weiter charakterisierten fremden oder feindlichen Macht oder dem
ewigen Verhängnis, wie es bei ihm häufig heißt, aussetzt. Bei diesem Model ist er
am wenigsten originell. Hier knüpft er an die tradition des Schicksals- und
Sternenglauben an, an fatalistische Vorstellungen, die in älteste Zeit zurückre-
ichten” (28). The strength of Der Sandmann, however, is surely the fact that the
fatalism is internalized and clearly motivated.
Conclusion

T HE ABOVE INVESTIGATION OF Hoffmann’s ideas on aesthetics and their

application to his own works has suggested a rather different image of
the writer from that to which we are accustomed. We have been able first
to identify a persistent undercurrent of reference to the fundamental issues
that were being discussed by thinkers of the day, especially the relationship
between “Geist” and “Natur.” Far from mere name-dropping — which
has hitherto mostly served as an explanation for this phenomenon —
Hoffmann consistently annexes this intellectual framework, which hinges
for him on the centrality of the faculty of imagination, to his more practi-
cal concerns and applications of the creative process and its reception. The
Serapiontic Principle is the chief unifying factor that brings together the
more abstract and theoretical and the genial and inspirational aspects in
this process. As we have seen, it is itself a multifaceted notion composed of
various strands and developed continuously over the entire breadth of
Hoffmann’s career as a prose writer from the Fantasiestücke to Des Vetters
Eckfenster, and it reaches a point of particular intensification, clarity, and
elucidation in Die Serapionsbrüder. As a point of intersection between the
general and the particular the principle serves, as I have demonstrated, to
draw together the many and various insights that have for too long made
Hoffmann’s efforts at theorizing appear to be haphazard.
Hoffmann’s constant, almost obsessive revisiting of the themes of
imagination and creativity links him with the English Romantics such as
Wordsworth and Coleridge. It reveals a writer who is drawn simultan-
eously to critical self-reflection as well as to the genial and spontaneous side
of creativity. Whereas for many of his generation (for example, Friedrich
Schlegel) these seemingly contradictory impulses manifested themselves in
an uneasy relationship between critical analysis and imaginative writing
(see Schlegel’s Lucinde), Hoffmann uniquely and boldly finds the artistic
means of enabling these two contrasting principles to coexist peacefully
and to shed light on one another. His (seemingly opportunistic) creation
of the giant framework in Die Serapionsbrüder and its ingenious applicat-
ion to the narratives in the collection is ample testimony of the importance
Hoffmann attaches to his ambitious program. An appreciation of his
achievement here can enable the reader better to understand his narrative
aims in general and provides a bridge between his earlier and later narra-
tive output. This has been especially apparent in the case of Prinzessin
Brambilla and Des Vetters Eckfenster.
198
CONCLUSION

The recognition of such a unifying principle in no way implies a bland

uniformity in Hoffmann’s praxis. His thematic range extends, as we have
seen, from the lighthearted to the sinister, the two modes sometimes being
combined within one work (for example, Das Fräulein von Scuderi). More
familiarly, in the Serapionsbrüder collection, most especially in the first two
books, they are presented as a progression from the one mode to the other.
The underlying premises and thought structures, which, as I have demon-
strated, he derives from contemporary philosophy, seem, in Hoffmann’s
interpretation, to be predicated on a fundamentally dualistic, but basically
unstable, dynamic world process. This instability lends itself to a highly
imaginative and differentiated exploration of problems involving both the
aspiration towards as well as the loss of an original harmony. Hoffmann’s
awareness of current theories relating to sense perception and its relation
to mind (“Geist”) promote an often profound awareness of the
dichotomies and psychological confusions to which the human mind, and
especially that of the artist, is exposed. In giving expression to these dis-
turbing insights Hoffmann’s self-conscious awareness of the claims of
“inner” and “outer” levels of reality in his fictional work is normally miti-
gated by the faculty of irony. This is possibly a self-defensive strategy, but
is certainly aided by the writer’s ability to view the world from a detached
standpoint, an ability that derives from an awareness and acceptance of its
janus-faced, often contradictory complexion. It has been instructive to
note the respective impressions on the reader created by the two tales in
which the horrific features appear in seemingly unmitigated form: Der
Sandmann and Die Bergwerke zu Falun. In both cases that ironic perspec-
tive is lacking, or more precisely, in the case of the latter, it is not integral
to the tale itself, and can only be partially supplied through the retrospect-
ive debate on the tale’s merits by the Serapionsbrüder. Der Sandmann
stands alone, ungarnished by any Serapiontic frame perspective, though
not entirely devoid of a self-conscious narrative voice, albeit one which
whose neutrality may have the effect of intensifying the horror. But the
iconic status of this narrative for modern readers, much influenced as they
have been by Freud’s analysis, should not obscure the fact that the excep-
tionally dark and powerful vision it presents of mental disintegration rep-
resents but one pole in Hoffmann’s thinking. More familiarly, throughout
his oeuvre this negative focus is counteracted by a complex perspective in
which the two-sidedness, that “Erkenntnis der Duplizität” that is at the
heart of the Serapiontic Principle, prevails.
We have seen how closely Hoffmann’s narrative practice is molded to
meet the demands of his thought process. One can cite here the evidence
of his development of the Märchen form to unprecedented levels of virtu-
osity and as, among other purposes, a vehicle for advancing his triadic
“Geschichtsbild.” Or again, his development of frame narrative to a point
of innovative complexity without parallel in German literature, as a device
 CONCLUSION
199

that not only provides the intellectual underpinning for his developing
ideas about the creative process but also their practical implementation in
the form of literary criticism. I have shown how, deriving from the same
conceptual base, in Prinzessin Brambilla Hoffmann develops, and through
a mouthpiece figure defends, the concept of allegory as a literary device in
the Märchen, giving it a rationale and respectability that Goethe’s more
negative interpretation had not permitted.
Another of Hoffmann’s major innovations is his inventive interdisci-
plinary approach to artistic creation, which, I have argued, is a logical
extension of his theory of the Serapiontic. The two essays on music high-
light the processes involved in the transformation from the verbal into the
musical medium, touching at various points on theories of perception.
Elsewhere in the Serapionsbrüder collection the focus is put on the trans-
formation of the visual into the verbal, whether through a deliberate
emphasis on a verbal clue (for example, the picture frame in Doge und
Dogaresse); a historically resonant image prompted by what is virtually a
genre picture (Meister Martin), which sharpens the viewer’s awareness of
the contrast between past and present; or, as in Die Fermate, the singling
out of the pregnant moment in a pictorial depiction (which the observing
writer chooses to interpret as the execution of a cadential fermata), which
stimulates the writer’s imagination and his desire to explore its dra-
matic/literary implications. The framework for these particular tales, par-
ticularly the last-mentioned, merges conveniently with the gallery dialogue
and once more shows Hoffmann’s virtuosity and originality in his handling
of this popular Romantic device.
It has therefore been possible to demonstrate Hoffmann’s chameleon-
like ability to develop and extend an entirely new range of possibilities for
prose narrative and give the lie to the commonly held view that the short
story or tale is a trivial form, greatly inferior to the novel. The stigma
attaching to the word “tale” in particular has possibly been reinforced by
the domination in the English tradition of the larger prose form, and also
by the knowledge that the origin of many of Hoffmann own works in this
genre can often be traced to their initial appearance in journals. I have tried
to divest Hoffmann of such associations. It is only comparatively recently
that his great compatriot, Heinrich von Kleist, whose Erzählungen
Hoffmann held in enormous regard and for one of which, as I have
demonstrated above, he produced a brilliant analysis, has come to be
regarded primarily as a master of the short prose narrative and only second-
arily as a dramatist. Hoffmann’s narrative genius by contrast has been
under-explored.
As I have argued, this is largely because (unlike Kleist) Hoffmann has
developed elaborate self-reflexive devices both within and without his nar-
rative collections. It is true that the complex, ironic perspectivism of his fic-
tion has now attracted more attention, but the equally important use of
200
CONCLUSION

the framework device in particular, which is surely a spectacular example of

this self-reflexivity, has still not been fully appreciated. Hoffmann cannot
be accused of not having made his position clear, however, nor of having
failed to supply his readers with countless clues as to how he would like his
tales to be read. The apparently modest format of these short narratives
and Märchen belies the sophistication of the literary apparatus that has
been erected around and within them and with which they interact to pro-
duce a complex effect. Of course many of the tales can be read at the more
straightforward level of individual narrative. But that approach has led to
concentration on a very narrow range of exemplary texts that can be
regarded without further enquiry or explanation as “a good read” and no
more. A reductive canon of four or five “tales” does Hoffmann no justice.
An appreciation of his greatest qualities can only be achieved if the reader
is prepared to be guided in the art of reading a Hoffmann text in context
and in the round, allowing the writer occasionally to lead him into his
workshop to share his insight into and fascination with the various
processes and stages by means of which the finished work has come into
being. As I have demonstrated, the thematization of this complex aspect
of creativity is one of Hoffmann’s constant preoccupations.
Select Bibliography

Editions of Hoffmann’s Works

Die Serapionsbrüder: Gesammelte Erzählungen und Märchen. 4 vols. Berlin:

Reimer, 1819–21.
Aus E. T. A. Hoffmanns Leben und Nachlaß. Edited by Julius Eduard Hitzig.
2 vols. Berlin: 1823.
Erzählungen aus seinen letzten Lebensjahren: Sein Leben und Nachlaß in fünf
Bänden. Edited by Micheline Hoffmann, geb. Rohrer. Stuttgart: 1839.
Sämtliche Werke. Historisch-kritische Ausgabe. Edited by Carl Georg von
Maassen. Munich and Leipzig: Georg Müller, 1908–28 [incomplete: vols.
1–4, 6–10. Vol. 5: Die Serapionsbrüder 1 lacking].
Werke. Edited by Georg Ellinger. 5 vols. Berlin-Leipzig-Vienna-Stuttgart,
1912.
E. T. A. Hoffmann im persönlichen und brieflichen Verkehr: Sein Briefwechsel
und die Erinnerung seiner Bekannten gesammelt und erläutert. Edited by
Hans von Müller. Berlin: Gebrüder Paetel, 1912.
Sämtliche Werke. 5 vols. (Based on von Maassen and Ellinger’s outstanding
editions.) Edited by W. Müller-Seidel and W. Segebrecht. Munich: Winkler,
1960–65.
Briefwechsel. Edited by Hans von Müller and Friedrich Schnapp. 3 vols.
Munich: Winkler, 1967–69.
Tagebücher. Nach der Ausgabe Hans von Müllers mit Erläuterungen heraus-
gegeben von Friedrich Schnapp. Munich: Winkler, 1971.
Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden. Edited by Wulf Segebrecht and Hartmut
Steinecke, with Gerhard Allroggen and others. Frankfurt am Main:
Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1985–2003.

Other Primary Texts

Pinel, Ph. Abhandlung über Geistesverwirrungen oder Manie. Aus dem

Französischen übersetzt und mit Anmerkungen versehen von Michael
Wagner. Vienna: 1801.
202
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Reil, Johann Christian, Rhapsodien über die Anwendung der psychischen

Curmethode auf Geisteszerrrüttung. Halle: 1803.
———. “Von den Geisteszerrüttungen: Imagination, Gedächtnis,
Dichtungsvermögen.” In Fieberhafte Nervenkrankheiten, vol. 4 of Über die
Erkenntnis und Cur der Fieber. Halle: 1802.
Ritter, J. W. Fragmente aus dem Nachlasse eines jungen Physikers. Heidelberg:
1810.
Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von. Sämtliche Werke. Edited by K. F. A.
Schelling. Section 1, vols. 1–10; section 2, vols. 1–4. Stuttgart: 1856–61.
———. Von der Weltseele: Eine Hypothese der höheren Physik zur Erklärung des
allgemeinen Organismus. Hamburg: 1798.
———. Ausgewählte Schriften. Edited by M. Frank. 6 vols. Stuttgart: 1985.
———. Werke. Edited by Manfred Durner (with Walter Schieche). Stuttgart:
Frommann-Holzboog, 1994.
Schröter, Manfred, ed. Schellings Werke. Nach der Originalausgabe in neuer
Anordnung. 12 vols. Munich: Beck, 1956–62.
Schubert, G. H. Ansichten von der Nachtseite der Naturwissenschaft. Dresden:
1808.
———. Die Symbolik des Traums. Bamberg: 1814.
Solger, Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand. Vorlesungen über Ästhetik. Ed. K. W. L.
Heyse. Reprint, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1962.

Secondary Literature

Auhuber, Friedhelm. In einem fernen dunklen Spiegel: E. T. A. Hoffmanns

Poetisierung der Medizin. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1986.
———. Hochgebietende Vernunft, mißtönend wie verstimmte Glocken: E. T. A.
Hoffmann und die Psychologie seiner Zeit. Nürnberg: Ellipse Verlag,
1996.
Benjamin, Walter. Gesammelte Schriften. Vol. 1.2. Edited by Rolf Tiedemann
and Hermann Schweppenhäuser. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1980.
Bergström, Stefan. Between Real and Unreal: A Thematic Study of E. T. A.
Hoffmann’s “Die Serapionsbrüder.” New York: Peter Lang, 2000.
Bowie, Andrew. Schelling and Modern European Philosophy: An Introduction.
London: Routledge, 1993.
Deterding, Klaus. Die Poetik der inneren und äußeren Welt bei E. T. A.
Hoffmann. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1991.
Dieterle, Bernard. Erzählte Bilder: Zum narrativen Umgang mit Gemälden.
Marburg: 1988.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY
203

Eilert, Heidi. Theater in der Erzählkunst: Eine Studie zum Werk E. T. A.

Hoffmanns. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1977.
Elling, Barbara. Leserintergration im Werk E. T. A. Hoffmanns. Berne and
Stuttgart: Paul Haupt, 1973.
Ellinger, Georg. E. T. A. Hoffmann: Sein Leben und seine Werke. Hamburg and
Leipzig: L. Voss, 1894.
Ettelt, Wilhelm. “Philosophische Motive im dichterischen Werk E. T. A.
Hoffmanns.” MHG 25 (1979): 31–45.
Feldges, Brigitte, and Ulrich Stadler. E. T. A. Hoffmann: Epoche — Werk —
Wirkung. Munich: Beck, 1986.
Frank, Manfred. Eine Einführung in Schellings Philosophie. Frankfurt: 1985.
Heine, Roland. Transzendentalpoesie: Studien zu Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis
und E. T. A. Hoffmann. Bonn: Bouvier, 1974.
Hewett-Thayer, H. W. Hoffmann, Author of the Tales. Princeton: Princeton
UP, 1948.
Japp, Uwe. “Das serapiontische Prinzip.” In E. T. A. Hoffmann, edited by
H. L. Arnold, 63–76. Munich: Text ⫹ Kritik, 1992.
Jost, Walter. Von Ludwig Tieck zu E. T. A. Hoffmann: Studien zur
Entwicklungsgeschichte des romantischen Subjektivismus. Frankfurt am Main,
1921; reprint Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1969.
Köhn, Lothar. Vieldeutige Welt. Studien zur Struktur der Erzählungen E. T. A.
Hoffmanns und zur Entwicklung seines Werkes. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1966.
Konow, Petra Liedke. “E. T. A. Hoffmanns Rahmenzyklus Die
Serapionsbrüder: Eine Analyse unter zeichen- und kommunikationstheo-
retischen Aspekten.” Ph.D. diss., U of California, Los Angeles, 1991.
———. “Sich hineinschwingen in die Werkstatt des Autors: Ästhetische
Rekurrenzphänomene in E. T. A. Hoffmanns Rahmenzyklus Die
Serapionsbrüder.” E. T. A. Hoffmann-Jahrbuch 2 (1994): 57–68.
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Erzählungen. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1993.
———. E. T. A. Hoffmann: Erzählungen und Romane. Hamburg:
E. Schmidt, 1999.
Küchler, Petra. Sakellarien: Implosion des Bewußtseins; Allegorie und Mythos in
E. T. A. Hoffmanns Märchenerzählungen. Berne: Peter Lang, 1989.
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1996.
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Mückenberger, Ulrich. “Phantasie und Gerechtigkeitssinn: Der Dichter und

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Dichtung.” In Wege der Forschung: E. T. A. Hoffmann, edited by H. Prang.
Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1976.
Müller, Helmut. Untersuchungen zum Problem der Formelhaftgkeit bei E. T. A.
Hoffmann. Berne: P. Haupt, 1964.
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Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1997.
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Potenzbegriff in der Frühromantik.” In Romantik in Deutschland, edited by
R. Brinkmann, 175–86. Sonderband to Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für
Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte. Stuttgart, 1978.
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and Helmut J. Schneider. Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 1997.
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Euphorion 83 (1989): 369–406.
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Novellen des 19. Jahrhunderts, 1:181–220. Stuttgart: P. Reclam, 1988.
———. “E. T. A. Hoffmanns ‘Des Vetters Eckfenster’: Zur Historisierung
ästhetischer Wahrnehmung oder Der kalkulierte romantisiche Rückgriff auf
Sehmotive der Aufklärung.” Der Deutschunterricht 39 (1987): 84–110.
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———. E. T. A. Hoffmann als Erzähler: Ein Kommentar zu den
“Serapionsbrüdern.” Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987.
Preisendanz, Wolfgang. “E. T. A. Hoffmann.” In Humor als dichterische
Einbildungskraft, 47–117. Munich: Eidos, 1963.
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———. Heterogenität und Integration: Studien zu Leben, Werk und Wirkung
E. T. A. Hoffmanns. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1996.
———. “Krankheit und Gesellschaft: Zu E. T. A. Hoffmanns Rezeption der
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The Hague: Mouton, 1976.
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Erzählstruktur. Heidelberg: Quelle und Meyer, 1984.
———. E. T. A. Hoffmanns “Der goldene Topf.” Die Utopie einer ästhetischen
Existenz. Paderborn, Munich, Vienna, Zurich: F. Schöningh, 1988.
Zimmermann, Hans Dieter. “Der Mann leidet an einem chronischen
Dualismus: Zu E. T. A. Hoffmanns Capriccio Prinzessin Brambilla.” In
E. T. A. Hoffmann: Text ⫹ Kritik, edited by H. L. Arnold, 97–111.
Sonderband, Munich: Text ⫹Kritik, 1992.

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Allroggen, Gerhard. “Die Opern-Ästhetik E. T. A. Hoffmanns.” In Beiträge

zur Geschichte der Oper, edited by Heinz Becker. Regensburg: Bosse, 1969.
Charlton, David, ed. E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Musical Writings. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 1989.
Dobat, Klaus-Dieter. Musik als romantische Illusion: Eine Untersuchung der
Musikvorstellung E. T. A. Hoffmanns für sein literarisches Werk. Tübingen:
Niemeyer, 1984.
Haimberger, Nora Elisabeth. Vom Musiker zum Dichter: E. T. A. Hoffmanns
Akkordvorstellung. Bonn: Bouvier, 1976.
Keil, Werner. “Dissonanz und Verstimmung: E. T. A. Hoffmanns Beitrag zur
Entstehung der musikalischen Romantik.” E. T. A. Hoffmann-Jahrbuch
1992 (1):119–32.
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———. E. T. A. Hoffmann als Komponist: Studien zur Kompositionstechnik an

ausgewählten Werken. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1986.
Lichtenhahn, Ernst. “Zur Idee des goldenen Zeitalters in der
Musikanschauung E. T. A. Hoffmanns.” In Romantik in Deutschland,
edited by R. Brinkmann, 502–20. Sonderband to Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift
für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte. Stuttgart, 1978.
Müller-Sievers, Helmut. “Verstimmung: E. T. A. Hoffmann und die
Trivialisierung der Musik.” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für
Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 63 (1989): 98–119.
Rohr, Judith. E. T. A. Hoffmanns Theorie des musikalischen Dramas:
Untersuchungen zum musikalischen Romantikbegriff im Umkreis der
Leipziger Allgemeinen Musikalischen Zeitung. Baden-Baden: V. Koerner,
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Rüdiger, Wolfgang. Musik und Wirklichkeit bei E. T. A. Hoffmann: Zur
Entstehung einer Musikanschauung in der Romantik. Pfaffenweiler: 1989.
Schnapp, Friedrich. Aufzeichnungen seiner Freunde und Bekannten. Munich:
Winkler, 1974.
———, ed. Der Musiker E. T. A. Hoffmann. Ein Dokumentenband.
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Index

Adler, J., 9, 53 n. 5, 55 n. 23, 56 n. Chamisso, A. von, journey round the

29 world, 8, 120; and the
allegory: Goethe’s definition of, Seraphinenorden, 8, 120
103 n. 13; Todorov’s definition Charlton, D., 66, 67, 71 n. 23, 88 n. 9
of, 103 n. 14 Chodowiecki, D., 107, 136
Anfossi, P., 153, 156 n. 25 Coleridge, S. T., ix, 43, 55 n. 27,
Arabian Nights, 132 192, 197
Ariosto, L., 54 n. 22 Conrady, K., 53 n. 5
Arndt, E. M., 160 Contessa, K. W., 120
Arnim, Achim von, 16, 54, 115, Croce, B., 54
136, 154, 160
Aufklärung, 17 n. 31, 87 Dahlhaus, C., 14 n. 3, 70 n. 17,
90 nn. 22, 30
Bach, J. S., 30 n. 2, 80, 81, 89 n. 20 Dante Alighiere, 40, 55 n. 22,
Barthes, R., 4 103 n. 17
Baudelaire, Charles, 13, 182 Derrida, J., 4
Beethoven, Ludwig van, works by: Devrient, L., 120
Mass in C op.86, 73–75, 78, 83, Diderot, Denis, 17 n. 32, 111, 136
86, 87 nn. 6–8, 88, 129; Mass in Dobat, K-D., 55 n. 30, 89 n. 17
D (“Missa Solemnis”) op.123, Dyck, M., 53 n. 10
17 n. 6, 81, 91 n. 33; Symphony
no.5 in C Minor op.67, 22 Eagleton, T., 15 n. 9
Behler, E., 15 n. 16, 30 n. 3, 54 n. “eingeschachte(l)t,” 50, 56 n. 38
22, 55 nn. 3, 5, 104 n. 28 Einsiedler motif, 9, 54 n. 20
Beresford, J., 186, 195 n. 3 Ellinger, G., 120 n. 3
Brentano, Clemens, 16 n. 26,
54 n. 20, 154 n. 3 Fichte, J. G., 5, 34, 39, 49, 52,
Brown, H. M., 32 n. 17, 69 n. 4, 55 n. 30, 56 n. 39, 98, 104 n. 21,
154 n. 4 130, 131, 189, 196 n. 17
Brühl, Graf von, 70 nn. 11, 16 Fink, G-L., 54 n. 20
Fitzell, J., 54 n. 20
Caldara, A., 74, 87 n. 5 Fouqué, F. de la Motte, 31 n. 13,
Calderon de la Barca, P., 60, 165 58, 60, 63, 64, 69 nn. 5, 6,
Callot, J., 21–33, 42, 44, 60, 63, 70 n. 11, 120
92–93, 102, 102 n. 1, 107, framework technique, 11, 51, 99, 185
115 n. 2, 182 Frank M., 17 n. 34, 88 n. 16, 183 n. 3
208
INDEX

Friedrich, C. D., 56 n. 33, 136, Hitzig, J., 15 n. 7, 16 n. 22, 59, 63,

154 n. 5 69 nn. 5, 6, 114, 116 n. 10, 120,
121, 171, 183 n. 4
Gabalis, comte de, 179, 188 Hoffmann E. T. A., as jurist, 8,
“gallery dialogue,” 2, 122, 138, 16 n. 21; and the
154 n. 2, 185 Seraphinenorden, 8, 9, 88 n. 15,
Geck, M., 81, 88 n. 9, 90 nn. 27, 28 120, 121; and the wars of libera-
Geist: “Auge des Geists,” 16 nn. 17, tion, 8; witnesses bombardment
28; Geist/Natur, 36–42, 49, 51, of Dresden and battlefield nearby
77; “geistige Potenz,” 127, 159; (“Die Vision auf dem Schlachtfeld
“höheres geistiges Prinzip,” bei Dresden”), 71 n. 20
52 n. 2; “romantisch,” 28 Hoffmann, E. T. A, works by:
“Gemütlichkeit,” 55 n. 29, 99, Die Elixiere des Teufels, 7, 34, 37,
104 n. 25, 144, 147, 155 n. 14 52 n. 3, 56 n. 34, 139, 155,
“Gesamtkunstwerk,” 12 162, 168 n. 7, 194
Gluck, C. W. Ritter von, 57, Fantasiestücke: Märchen form of,
62, 63 132, 170, 176; and the
Goethe, J. W. von, critique of Serapiontic Principle, 188, 193
Hoffmann, 15 n. 7; Goethe and Die Abenteuer der
Schelling, 53 n. 5 Silvesternacht, 22
Goethe, J. W. von, works by: Don Juan, 7
Egmont, 1; Einfache Nachahmung Der goldene Topf, creation
der Natur, Manier, Stil, 29; Faust, myth of, 95
74, 89; Märchen, 189; Jacques Callot, 5, 7, 21–30
Unterhaltungen deutscher Kreisleriana, 13, 22, 31 n. 6,
Ausgewanderten, 21; Von 33, 58
deutscher Baukunst, 88 n. 13, 89 Der Magnetiseur, 17 n. 33
Görres, J., 16 n. 26 Ritter Gluck, 7, 108
Goya, Francisco de, 28 Lebensansichten des Katers Murr,
Gozzi, C., 62, 71 n. 18 48, 56 n. 39, 123, 156 n. 22,
grotesque, 25, 26, 27, 29, 45, 171, 181
173, 182 Nachtstücke, 14, 185
Grünewald Matthias, 27 Der Sandmann, 4, 14, 34, 37,
144, 162, 185, 191–94,
Handel, G. F., 80, 103 n. 12 196 n. 19, 198
Hardy, B., 14 n. 5 Operas:
Haydn, Joseph, 75, 80, 82 Die Maske, 66
Haydn, Michael, 81 Undine, 12, 35, 58, 59, 60,
Heine, R., 195 n. 6 63, 67, 69 n. 7, 70 n. 11
Herder, J. G., 17 n. 37 Prinzessin Brambilla, 7, 13,
Hindemith, P., on libretti, 66, 71 n. 31 n. 15, 37, 56 n. 39, 86,
22 92–103, 102 n. 1, 104 n. 24,
Hindemith, P., works by: Die 106, 144, 170, 182, 191, 197,
Harmonie der Welt, 90 n. 22 199
 INDEX
209

Die Serapionsbrüder: 101, 102 n. 3; and allegory, 96;

Alte und neue Kirchenmusik, and Novalis, 103; and romanti-
15 n. 10, 54 n. 14, 71 n. 19, cism, 102 n. 3; and Friedrich
72–86, 89 n. 18, 126 Schlegel, 187; self-irony, 101,
Die Bergwerke zu Falun, 109, 166, 170, 179
16 n. 17, 37, 127, 135,
157, 160–63, 194, 198 Japp, U., 6, 10, 14 n. 2, 108
Die Brautwahl, 132, 183 n. 2
Der Dichter und der Kafka, F., and parable form, 189
Komponist, 43–55, 72, 73, Kant, Immanuel, 5, 11, 34, 40, 53,
79, 82, 83, 116 n. 8, 123 70, 90 n. 24
Doge und Dogaresse, 136–41, Kittler, W., 196 n. 18
148, 199 Kleist, Heinrich von, Hoffmann’s
Der Einsiedler Serapion, 19–37 admiration for, 160, 165, 167,
Die Fermate, 45, 46, 122, 168 n. 5, 199
148–54 Kleist, Heinrich von, works by:
Das Fräulein von Scuderi, 140, Amphitryon, 104 n. 22; Das
157, 163–68, 169, 179, Bettelweib von Locarno, 136;
196 n. 19 Empfindungen vor Friedrichs
Das fremde Kind, ix, 10, 123, Landschaft, 122
132, 158, 170, 175–78, Köhn, L., 110, 115 n. 1, 151
179, 180, 190 Kolbe, K. W., 129, 136, 137, 139,
Die Königsbraut, ix, 16 n. 17, 140, 141, 147
158, 170, 178–83, 191 Konow, P., 15 n. 12, 56 n. 35
Meister Martin der Küfner, Koreff, David, 102 n. 1, 120
129, 136, 141–48, 152, Kremer, D., 4, 15 n. 8, 102 n. 2,
155 n. 15, 163, 199 103 n. 9, 104 n. 24, 115 n. 1,
Nußknacker und Mausekönig, 4, 116 n. 9, 154 n. 1, 155 n. 10
123, 128, 132, 144, 158, Kunz, K. F., 30 n. 1, 31 nn. 7–9,
160, 170, 171–74, 175, 176, 195 n. 4
177, 178, 179, 184 n. 6, 190
Rat Krespel, 33, 37, 42, Langen, A., 116 n. 7
44–46, 48, 58, 126, 130, Lessing, G. E., 16 n. 29
131, 163 Lichtenberg, G. C., 2
Hofmannsthal, H. von, 161; and
libretti, 57 Maassen, C. G. von, 154 n. 6
Hogarth, W., 25, 26, 107 Mähl, H-J., 53 n. 9, 103 n. 15
Holbein, F. von, 60 “Manier,” 21, 28, 29, 30 n. 1,
Horn, E., 54 n. 21, 55 n. 24 32 n. 17
Hummel, J., 136, 148, 150, 152, Marcus, A., 53 n. 4, 157
153, 156 n. 23 Martini, F, 115 n. 1
Matt, P. von, 15 n. 11, 102 n. 4,
irony, 4, 6, 15 n. 16, 25, 26, 29, 51, 115 n. 1, 116 n. 5
54 n. 22, 92–93, 98, 99, 100, McDermid, V., 164
210
INDEX

“Metastasian” opera, 64 Prawer, S. S., 23, 24, 29, 31 n. 10,

Mozart, W. A., 30 n. 2, 62, 63, 80, 194 n. 2
82, 89 n. 18
Mückenberger, U., 16 n. 21, Reil, J. C., 17 n. 37, 43, 54 n. 18,
133 n. 2 157
Müller, F., (“Maler”), 68, 71 n. 24, Reimer, 58, 119
132 Ritter, J. W., 17 n. 31, 34, 90 n. 23
Müller-Seidel, W., 16 n. 18, 168 n. 3 Rochlitz, F., 69 n. 1, 73
Myth(ology), 37, 41, 51, 95, 96, Runge, Ph. O., 103 n. 10, 136,
97–98, 100, 102 n. 9, 147, 154 n. 5
188–89, 192, 194 Rusack, H., 71 n. 18

Neumann, G., 12, 17 n. 31, Schelling, F. W.,

115 n. 1, 154 n. 1, 170 n. 6 “Naturphilosophie,” 34, 35, 49,
Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg), 94, 127, 130, 175, 181, 183,
ix, 2, 28, 31 n. 11, 34, 39, 53 n. 9, 188, 189, 195 n. 8
103 n. 10, 170, 182, 191, 192 Schelling, F. W., works by: Erster
Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg), Entwurf eines Systems der
works by: “Die Christenheit oder Naturphilosophie, 34; Ideen zu
Europa,” 36, 68; Heinrich von einer Philosophie der Natur,
Ofterdingen, 104 n. 27, 160, 54 n. 11; Über Dante in philosophis-
184 n. 7, 189; Die Lehrlinge zu cher Beziehung, 103 n. 17; Von der
Sais, 31 n. 16 Weltseele, 34, 56, 196
Schikaneder, E., 59
O’Brien, W. A., 104 n. 19 Schiller, F. von, works by: Über die
Offenbach, Jacques, 8 Ästhetische Erziehung des
opera buffa, 62 Menschen, 11, 16 n. 30, 26, 36,
opera seria, 62 70 n. 17
Schlegel, A. W., 90 n. 22, 136
Palestrina, 15 n. 10, 74, 76–82, Schlegel, F., 2, 6, 15 n. 16, 30 n. 3,
87 n. 5, 88 n. 12, 89 n. 20 51, 94, 102 n. 3, 103 n. 15,
Palestrina, works by: Missa Papae 104 n. 28, 182, 187, 191
Marcelli, 78–79 Schnapp, F., 31 n. 7, 133 n. 1
Paul, Jean (Richter), 21, 23, 31 n. 7, Schubert, G. H., works by:
70 n. 12 Ansichten über die Nachtseite der
Petrarch, 40 Naturwissenschaften, 34, 35, 160;
Pfotenhauer, H., 14 n. 1 Die Symbolik des Traums, 53 n. 2,
Pikulik, L., 16 n. 22, 168 n. 5, 54 nn. 12, 13, 56 n. 40, 102 n. 6
196 n. 19, 214 Scott, Sir Walter, critique of
Pinel, Ph., 54 n. 18 Hoffmann, 15 n. 7
“polyphonic narrative,” 4, 5, 15 n. 6, Scott, Sir Walter, works by: Guy
187, 191 Mannering, 179
Potenzierung, 36, 71 n. 19, 85, Segebrecht, W., 53 n. 4, 56 n. 38,
105 n. 28, 126, 127 115 n. 2, 154
 INDEX
211

Seraphinenorden, 8, 9, 88 n. 15, Töpelmann, C., 155 n. 6

120, 121, 133 n. 1 Trakl, G., 161
Solomon, R., 53 n. 3 Trowell, B., 71 n. 25
Spontini, G., 45, 69 n. 6, 70 n. 14 “der versteckte Poet,” 56 n. 40, 94,
Strauss, R., 57 102 n. 7
Strohschneider-Kohrs, I., 102 n. 7,
104 n. 24, 155 n. 15, 182 n. 13, Vietta, S., 55 nn. 23, 30
183 n. 1
Synesthesia, 13 Wagenseil, J. C., 163, 165
Wagner, Richard, 12, 14 n. 3,
Thalmann, M., 16 n. 24 57, 164
Tieck, Ludwig, works by: Warrack, J., 69 nn. 1, 2, 7
Herzensergießungen eines kun- Weber, C. M. von, 57, 69 nn. 1, 7,
stliebenden Klosterbruders (with W. 70 n. 11
A. Wackenroder), 54 n. 20, 87 n. 3, Weltgeist (“der waltende”),
141; Liebeszauber, 125; Phantasus, 82, 86, 124, 168 n. 2,
7, 10, 21, 119, 130, 132, 183 n. 3; 183, 187, 190, 194,
Der Runenberg, 179, 181 196 n. 9
Todorov, T., 97, 103 n. 14, Wolf Christa, 3, 4, 14 n. 5
104 n. 20, 196 n. 13 Wordsworth, William, 197