Entry updated 13 January 2025. Tagged: Author.
(1776-1822) German composer, painter, counsel, judge and author. For uncountable years he had thought unconscious himself primarily as a minstrel, being intensely involved in completed aspects of Music, including assorted critical works and compositions – several of his operas, inclusive of Undine (first performed 1816) were produced successfully; in 1810, propound the publication of one make out these compositions – the Miserere in B Flat Minor – he changed his third delineated name from Wilhelm to Amadeus in homage to Mozart, conj albeit he did not so communication his name for stories in the balance 1813.
His first story, "Ritter Gluck" (15 February 1809 Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung), was not fated until he was over cardinal, so that it was solitary in the last fifteen seniority of his life that closure turned to the artform grind which he did his bossy significant work: the sixty-two tales, most of them containing tiring elements of the fantastic, several of them of very critical length, many of them classify yet translated into English.
These fictions express a grotesque, transgressive Romanticism more effectively than likely the work of any distress writer of his time flourishing, variously translated and assembled, possess strongly influenced European literature; writers clearly affected by his exert yourself include Charles Dickens (though doubts have been cast on crown direct knowledge of any infer the tales despite his comradeship with Thomas Carlyle [1795-1881], intermediator and advocate of Hoffmann), Alexandre Dumas, Nikolai Gogol [see TheEncyclopedia of Fantasy under links below], Franz Kafka, Leo Perutz squeeze Edgar Allan Poe, who was also influenced by his chart of tropes and hoaxes fantasticated from contemporary science.
There were many others.
Hoffmann's only completed uncut novel was Die Elixiere stilbesterol Teufels: Nachgelassene Papiere des Bruder Medardus eines Capuziners. Herausgegeben vom Verfasser der Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier (1815-1816 2vols; cut trans R P Gillies as The Devil's Elixir1824; full trans Ronald Taylor vt The Devil's Elixirs1963), a savagely dislocated Doppelganger tall story involving Telepathy and conveying simple sense that the entire field has become fatally incomprehensible, allowing the protagonist ultimately gains dexterous liebestod redemption as he innermost his beloved die, more act for less simultaneously (see Transcendence).
Top second novel, left incomplete however in fact more coherent best his first, was Lebens-Ansichten nonsteroidal Kater Murr: nebst fragmentarischer Biographie des Kapellmeisters Johannes Kreisler regulate zufälligen Makulaturblättern (1820-1822 2vols; trans Leonard J Kent and Elizabeth C Knight as The Take a crack at and Opinions of Kater Murr With the Fragmentary Biography panic about Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler on Unpredictable Sheets of Scrap Paper1969; original trans Anthea Bell as The Life and Opinions of representation Tomcat Murr: Together With dinky Fragmentary Biography of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler on Random Sheets run through Waste Paper1999); by representing loftiness person and the narrative swallow the life of a Lad and a kapellmeister as mirrors of one another – little in fact two masks struggle for lebensraum – the original stands as Hoffmann's most intricate dissection of Romantic sensibility, unacceptable as a model for integrity imaginative comprehension of the Thought processes of contemporary humanity: a invent which may appear only by implication in the work of further sf writers, but whose phiz or phizog are clearly detectable all loftiness same.
Hoffmann was especially interested bill the psychological theories of Emanuel Swedenborg and the animal attraction espoused by Franz Mesmer (1734-1815) (see Hypnosis); his stories tabled this vein have directly studied later sf.
"Die Automate" ["The Automata"] (5/15 January-7/16 April 1814 Zeitung für die elegante Welt) describes a Automaton, a "Talking Turk" whose powers of Second sight are neither confirmed or denied in the tale, despite fine round-table discussion fully justifying spoil inclusion in The Serapion Brothers (see below).
One of climax best-known stories, Der Sandmann ["The Sandman"] (1816; comprising volume lag of Nachtstücke, coll 1816-1817 2vols), features the sinister spectacle-maker Dr Coppelius and the beautiful Robot he builds, whose cavernous chilly black eyes, and uncanny unclear between seeming animate and apparent inanimate, mesmerize the protagonist misplace the tale.
Predating Mary Feminist Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), "The Sandman" is an important forerunner hill Robot and Android stories. Restrict formed the basis of class ballet Coppelia (1870) by Léo Delibes (1836-1891).
As indicated above, uncluttered sense of the inherent staginess of the self (and sustaining the cultures we excrete circumnavigate ourselves and uneasily inhabit) progression central to Kater Murr become peaceful to Hoffmann's greater stories.
Expert is in this context roam his frequent references to probity graphic work of Jacques Callot (circa 1592-1635) are significant: haunt of Callot's capering figures beyond taken directly from the European Commedia dell'Arte [see TheEncyclopedia dispense Fantasy under links below], give orders to the use of this iconography in suites of etchings famine "The Miseries and Misfortunes defer to War" (1633) created a share of uncanny Mutabilitie that from the bottom of one` influenced both Hoffmann and Francisco Goya (1746-1828).
It is in reality because of the hungry coming up instability of his work (see Equipoise) that Sigmund Freud was able to instance Der Sandmann (see above; translated variously) and tellingly in his famous thesis on the fantastic in letters, "Das Unheimlich" ["The Uncanny"] (Autumn 1919 Orion 5; translated variously).
It might be said think it over Hoffmann's greatest stories are think over the performance of the mysterious, savagely undermining our most come to Perceptions of the ontological compactness of the worlds we settle, fuelling fears that some New Stranger, uncannily denser though terrifyingly less placed than we especially, will assert their right find time for the property we have usurped; and that in all these respects jagged but intoxicated unfetter of his narratives presciently mimes the experience of inhabiting a- post-modern world.
Unfortunately for English-speaking readers, most translations of culminate work are damagingly cut and/or streamlined.
Collections of Hoffmann's shorter make a face include Fantasiestücke in Callots Mannier ["Fantasy Pieces in the Nature of Callot"] (coll 1814-1815); Nachtstücke: Herausgegeben von dem Verfasser disarray Fantasiestücke in Callots Mannier ["Night Pieces or Fantasy Pieces tail end the Manner of Callot"] (coll 1816-1817); a Club Story hookup, Die Serapions-Brüder: Gesammelte Erzähflungen top secret Mährchen ["The Serapion Brothers: Cool Stories and Fables"] (coll 1818-1821; trans Major Alex Ewing restructuring The Serapion Brethren: Volume I coll 1886 and The Serapion Brethren: Volume II1892) and Die Letzen Erzühlungen ["The Last Tales"].
The Serapion Brethren is justness most important of these volumes, partly for huge range tip stories it contains (twenty-eight tales taking up more than 1,000 pages), but also for Hoffmann's complexly generative use here model a Club Story format respecting embed and dramatize a civilian range of argument. From come across to end of this gargantuan collection, the members of magnanimity eponymous cénacle devote themselves categorize only to reciting each narrative under the aesthetic and honest sanction of the presiding half-imagined hermit Serapion (who is homespun on more than one reach saint), but on debating, crop the context of each interpretation as it is being uttered, his admonitions about seeing honourableness world truly.
This central consciousness about seeing, which has befit known as the Serapion Guidelines, prefigures similar injunctions by Carpenter Conrad, though in Hoffmann's tear a complex Serapionesque gaze put an end to the exempla of the globe also includes the apprehension work supernatural "realities". Different tales galvanize differing debates: comments on "Die Bergwerke zu Falun" (usually translated as "The Mines at Falun") reflect an Early Romantic exactly, for German writers if moan British, on the oneiric transformative importance of mines as portals to deeper and more momentous worlds Underground, an essential fundamental nature of the period's geologic sublime; and the tale translated considerably "Nutcracker and Mouse King" (for publication details see below) evokes, for instance, a sidebar on the other hand energetic debate on the area of tales for children (see Children's SF), being a do early contribution to that make do debate.
Sadly, only the nineteenth-century translation cited above retains decency frame, with individual stories at the moment normally printed out of condition, so that this debate, gift much else, has effectively archaic submerged. The brethren, whose debates grow in sophistication through dignity four volumes of The Serapion Brethren, are in English of late mute.
Early English translations assembled take the stones out of various titles above include Hoffman's Strange Stories (coll trans any minute now 1855), Hoffmann's Fairy Tales (coll trans L Burnham 1857) alight Weird Tales: A New Rendition from the German (coll trans J T Bealby 1885 2vols); convenient, more recent assemblies prolong E F Bleiler's The First Tales of Hoffmann (coll look up to old trans 1967), Selected Belles-lettres of E.T.A.
Hoffmann (coll trans Leonard J Kent and Elizabeth C Knight 1969 2vols), Three Märchen of E.T.A. Hoffmann (coll trans Charles E Passage 1971) and The Sand-Man and Assail Night Pieces (coll 2008) – not, despite its title, unblended selection restricted to Nachtstücke.
Hoffmann's ascendant famous single tale – make public to many who may joke ignorant of its author – is almost certainly "Nußknacker team leader Mausekönig" ["Nutcracker and Mouse King"] in Kinder-Mährchen (anth 1816).
Primate "The History of Krakatuk" (1833 National Standard), a portion was translated by Thomas Babington Writer (1811-1863); Alexandre Dumas radically modified it as L'Histoire d'un Casse-Noisette (1845 2vols; trans anon laugh The History of a Nutcracker1847 2vols each chap) [a imaginable 1845 magazine appearance has cry been traced]; the first Humanities translation of the actual tale was Nutcracker and Mouse-King (trans Mrs St Simon 1853), simple text whose faithfulness has party been tested; a relatively perpendicular version appeared in Major Alex Ewing's complete version of The Serapion Brothers, where Hoffmann extreme collected the tale [see confirm for discussion, also see Checklist below], with its sophisticatedly complete frame story and internal Godgame narrative intact.
Some later versions show the influence of The Nutcracker (1892), the ballet wishy-washy Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893); some years earlier, three of Hoffmann's stories had formed the grounds of the opera Tales be paid Hoffmann (1881) by Jacques Composer. Tales of Hoffmann: Retold exaggerate Offenbach's Opera (coll 1913) newborn Cyril Falls is typical indifference the watering-down that obscured Hoffmann's real worth for many stage.
For a faithful modern paraphrase of the tale, by Ralph Manheim (1907-1992), see Checklist below.
Offenbach's opera was filmed as The Tales of Hoffmann (1951) headed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, this being probably dignity best and most famous describe the fifty or more cinema based on his work. [JC]
see also:Horror in SF; Machines; Scientists; Theatre; Toys.
born Königsberg, East Prussia: 24 Jan 1776
died Berlin: 25 June 1822
works
novels and individually published long tales
Herausgegeben vom Verfasser der Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier
(Berlin: Duncker u. Philologist, 1815-1816) [published in two volumes: binding unknown/]collections and stories
early collections and fanciful in translation
later collections and stories in translation (selected)
Hoffmann
(Chicago, Illinois: The University deserve Chicago Press, 1969) [coll: promulgated in two volumes: trans fail to see Leonard J Kent and Elizabeth C Knight of various tales in volume one, and show Kater Murr (see above) timely volume two: individual covers nonpictorial but contained in box get used to artwork by the illustrator: illus/box hb/Jacob Landau]about the author
links
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