Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann - biography, information, personal life. Mysterious and many-sided E.T.A

Biography

Hoffmann was born into the family of the Prussian royal lawyer Christoph Ludwig Hoffmann (1736-1797), but when the boy was three years old, his parents separated, and he was brought up in the house of his maternal grandmother under the influence of his uncle, a lawyer, an intelligent and talented man, inclined to fantasy and mysticism. Hoffmann showed early talent for music and drawing. But, not without the influence of his uncle, Hoffmann chose the path of jurisprudence, from which he tried to escape throughout his subsequent life and make a living through the arts.

Hoffmann's hero tries to break out of the shackles of the world around him through irony, but, realizing the powerlessness of romantic opposition to real life, the writer himself laughs at his hero. Romantic irony in Hoffmann changes its direction; unlike the Jenes, it never creates the illusion of absolute freedom. Hoffmann focuses close attention on the personality of the artist, believing that he is most free from selfish motives and petty concerns.

Works

• Collection “Fantasies in the manner of Callot” (German. Fantasiestücke in Callot's Manier), contains
  • Essay on “Jacques Callot” (German: Jaques Callot)
  • Novella "Cavalier Gluck" (German: Ritter Gluck)
  • "Chrysleriana" (I) (German: Kreisleriana)
  • Novella “Don Juan” (German: Don Juan)
  • “News about the further fate of the Berganz dog” (German. Nachricht von den neuesten Schicksalen des Hundes Berganza)
  • "Magnetizer" (German: Der Magnetiseur)
  • The story “The Golden Pot” (German: Der goldene Topf)
  • "Adventure on New Year's Eve" (German) Die Abenteuer der Silvesternacht)
  • "Kreisleriana" (II) (German: Kreisleriana)
• "Princess Blandina" (1814) (German: Prinzessin Blandina)
• Novel "Elixirs of Satan" (German) Die Elixiere des Teufels)
• Fairy tale "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" (German: Nußknacker und Mausekönig)
• The collection "Night Studies" (German: Nachtstücke), contains
  • "The Sandman" (German: Der Sandmann)
  • "The Vow" (German: Das Gelübde)
  • "Ignaz Denner" (German: Ignaz Denner)
  • "Jesuit Church" (German: Die Jesuiterkirche in G.)
  • "Majorat" (German: Das Majorat)
  • "The Empty House" (German: Das öde Haus)
  • "Sanctus" (German: Das Sanctus)
  • "Heart of Stone" (German: Das steinerne Herz)
• Novella “The Extraordinary Sufferings of a Theater Director” (German) Seltsame Leiden eines Theater-Directors)
• The story “Little Zaches, nicknamed Zinnober” (German. Klein Zaches, genannt Zinnober)
• "Gambler's Happiness" (German: Spielerglück )
• The collection "The Serapion Brothers" (German: Die Serapionsbrüder), contains
  • "Falun Mines" ((German: Die Bergwerke zu Falun)
  • “Doge and Dogaresse” ((German: Doge und Dogaresse)
  • "Master Martin-Bochar and his apprentices" (German) Meister Martin der Küfner und seine Gesellen)
  • Novella "Mademoiselle de Scudéry" (German: Das Fräulein von Scudéry)
• "Princess Brambilla" (1820) (German: Prinzessin Brambilla)
• The novel “The Worldly Views of Murr the Cat” (German) Lebensansichten des Katers Murr)
• "Errors" (German: Die Irrungen)
• "The Secrets" (German: Die Geheimnisse)
• "Doubles" (German: Die Doppeltgänger)
• Novel "Lord of the Fleas" (German: Meister Floh)
• Novella "Corner Window" (German: Des Vetters Eckfenster)
• "The Sinister Guest" (German: Der unheimliche Gast)

• Opera "Ondine" ().

Bibliography

• Theodor Hoffman. Collected Works in eight volumes. - St. Petersburg: “Printing house of the Panteleev brothers”, 1896 - 1899.
• E. T. A. Hoffman. Musical novellas. - Moscow: “World Literature”, 1922.
• E. T. A. Hoffman. Collected works in seven volumes. - Moscow: “Publishing Partnership “Nedra””, 1929.(under the general editorship of P.S. Kogan. With a portrait of the author. Translation from German, edited by Z.A. Vershinina)
• Hoffman. Selected works in three volumes.. - Moscow: “State Publishing House of Fiction”, 1962.
• THIS. Hoffman. Kreisleriana. Everyday views of the cat Murra. Diaries.. - Moscow.: “Science”, 1972.
• Hoffman. Collected works in six volumes.. - Moscow.: “ Fiction", 1991-2000.
• THIS. Hoffman. Elixirs of Satan.. - Moscow.: “Republic”, 1992. - ISBN 5-250-02103-4
• THIS. Hoffman. Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober. - Moscow: “Rainbow”, 2002 - ISBN 5-05-005439-7

Ballets based on the works of E. T. A. Hoffmann

• Ballet by P. I. Tchaikovsky “The Nutcracker” (first production in 1892).
• Coppelia (Coppelia, or Beauty with Blue Eyes, French Coppélia) is a comic ballet by French composer Léo Delibes. The libretto is based on the short story by E. Hoffmann “ Sandman"Charles Nuitter and choreographer of the performance A. Saint-Leon).
• Ballet by S. M. Slonimsky “The Magic Nut” (first production in 2005).

Film adaptations

• Nut Krakatuk, film by Leonid Kvinikhidze
• The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (cartoon), 1999
• The Nutcracker and the Rat King (3D film), 2010

In astronomy

The asteroid (640) Brambilla is named after the heroine of Hoffmann's work “Princess Brambilla”. (English) Russian , opened in 1907.

• Hoffmann in his name Ernest Theodor Wilhelm changed the last part to Amadeus in honor of his favorite composer Mozart.
• Hoffman is one of the writers who influenced the work of E. A. Poe, H. F. Lovecraft, as well as M. M. Shemyakin. He influenced the work of the Russian rock musician, leader of the groups Agatha Christie and Gleb Samoiloff & the Matrixx Gleb Samoilov.

Notes

Literature

• Berkovsky N. Ya. Preface.//Hoffman E. T. A. Novels and stories. L., 1936.
• Berkovsky N. Ya. Romanticism in Germany. L., 1973.
• Botnikova A. B. E. T. A. Hoffman and Russian literature. Voronezh, 1977.
• Vetchinov K. M. The adventures of Hoffmann - police investigator, state adviser, composer, artist and writer. Pushchino, 2009.
• Karelsky A. V. Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffman // E. T. A. Hoffman. Collection Works: In 6 volumes. T. 1. M.: Khud. literature, 1991.
• Mirimsky I. V. Hoffman // History of German literature. T. 3. M.: Nauka, 1966.
• Turaev S.V. Goffman // History of World Literature. T. 6. M.: Nauka, 1989.
• Hoffmann's Russian Circle (compiled by N. I. Lopatina with the participation of D. V. Fomin, executive editor Yu. G. Fridshtein). - M.: Book Center of the VGBIL named after M.I. Rudomino, 2009-672 p.: ill.
• The artistic world of E. T. A. Hoffmann. M., 1982.
• E. T. A. Hoffman. Life and art. Letters, statements, documents / Trans. with him. Composition K. Gyuntzel.. - M.: Raduga, 1987. - 464 p.

Links

• A. Kirpichnikov.// Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: In 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional ones). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.
• Hoffmann, Ernst Theodor Amadeus in the library of Maxim Moshkov
• Works in Russian and German, music, drawings by Hoffman at etagofman.narod.ru
• Sergey Kuriy - “Phantasmagoria of reality (fairy tales of E. T. A. Hoffmann)”, magazine “Time Z” No. 1/2007
• Lukov Vl. A. Hoffmann Ernst Theodor Amadeus // Electronic encyclopedia “The World of Shakespeare”.

To the 240th anniversary of his birth

Standing at Hoffmann’s grave in the Jerusalem Cemetery in the center of Berlin, I marveled at the fact that on the modest monument he is presented first of all as an appellate court adviser, a lawyer, and only then as a poet, musician and artist. However, he himself admitted: “On weekdays I am a lawyer and perhaps a little musician, on Sunday afternoons I draw, and in the evenings until late at night I am a very witty writer.” All his life he has been a great collaborator.

The third name on the monument was the baptismal name Wilhelm. Meanwhile, he himself replaced it with the name of the idolized Mozart - Amadeus. It was replaced for a reason. After all, he divided humanity into two unequal parts: “One consists only of good people, but bad musicians or not musicians at all, the other – of true musicians.” There is no need to take this literally: lack of ear for music is not the main sin. “Good people,” philistines, devote themselves to the interests of the purse, which leads to irreversible perversions of humanity. According to Thomas Mann, they cast a wide shadow. People become philistines, they are born musicians. The part to which Hoffmann belonged were people of the spirit, not the belly - musicians, poets, artists. “Good people” most often do not understand them, despise them, and laugh at them. Hoffmann realizes that his heroes have nowhere to run; living among the philistines is their cross. And he himself carried it to the grave. But his life was short by today’s standards (1776-1822)

Biography pages

Blows of fate accompanied Hoffmann from birth to death. He was born in Königsberg, where the “narrow-faced” Kant was a professor at that time. His parents quickly separated, and from the age of 4 until university, he lived in the house of his uncle, a successful lawyer, but a swaggering and pedantic man. An orphan with living parents! The boy grew up withdrawn, which was facilitated by his short stature and the appearance of a freak. Despite his outward laxity and buffoonery, his nature was extremely vulnerable. An exalted psyche will determine much in his work. Nature endowed him with a keen mind and powers of observation. The soul of a child, a teenager, vainly thirsting for love and affection, did not harden, but, wounded, suffered. The confession is indicative: “My youth is like a parched desert, without flowers and shadow.”

He considered university studies in jurisprudence as an annoying duty, because he truly loved only music. Official service in Glogau, Berlin, Poznan and especially in provincial Plock was burdensome. But still, in Poznan, happiness smiled: he got married to a charming Polish woman, Michalina. The bear, although alien to his creative quests and spiritual needs, will become his faithful friend and support to the end. He will fall in love more than once, but always without reciprocity. He captures the torment of unrequited love in many works.

At 28, Hoffmann is a government official in Prussian-occupied Warsaw. Here, the composer's abilities, the gift of singing, and the talent of the conductor were revealed. Two of his singspiels were successfully delivered. “The muses still guide me through life as patron saints and protectors; I devote myself entirely to them,” he writes to a friend. But he doesn’t neglect service either.

Napoleon's invasion of Prussia, the chaos and confusion of the war years put an end to the short-lived prosperity. A wandering, financially unsettled, sometimes hungry life began: Bamberg, Leipzig, Dresden... She died two year old daughter, his wife fell seriously ill, and he himself fell ill with nervous fever. He took on any job: a home teacher of music and singing, a music dealer, a bandmaster, a decorative artist, a theater director, a reviewer for the General Musical Newspaper... And in the eyes of ordinary philistines, this small, homely, poor and powerless man is a beggar at the door burgher salons, the clown of a pea. Meanwhile, in Bamberg he showed himself as a man of the theater, anticipating the principles of both Stanislavsky and Meyerhold. Here he emerged as the universal artist that romantics dreamed of.

Hoffmann in Berlin

In the autumn of 1814, Hoffmann, with the help of a friend, obtained a seat in the criminal court in Berlin. For the first time in many years of wandering, he had hope of finding a permanent refuge. In Berlin he found himself at the center of literary life. Here, acquaintances began with Ludwig Tieck, Adalbert von Chamisso, Clemens Brentano, Friedrich Fouquet de la Motte, author of the story “Ondine,” and artist Philip Veith (son of Dorothea Mendelssohn). Once a week, friends who named their community after the hermit Serapion gathered in a coffee shop on Unter den Linden (Serapionsabende). We stayed up late. Hoffmann read them his newest works, they caused a lively reaction, I didn’t want to leave. Interests overlapped. Hoffmann began writing music for Fouquet's story, he agreed to become a librettist, and in August 1816, the romantic opera Ondine was staged at the Royal Berlin Theater. There were 14 performances, but a year later the theater burned down. The fire destroyed the wonderful decorations, which, based on Hoffmann’s sketches, were made by Karl Schinkel himself, the famous artist and court architect, who at the beginning of the 19th century. built almost half of Berlin. And since I studied at the Moscow Pedagogical Institute with Tamara Schinkel, a direct descendant of the great master, I also feel involved in Hoffmann’s Ondine.

Over time, music lessons faded into the background. Hoffmann, as it were, passed on his musical vocation to his beloved hero, his alter ego, Johann Kreisler, who carries with him a high musical theme from work to work. Hoffmann was an enthusiast of music, calling it “the proto-language of nature.”

Being in highest degree Homo Ludens (playing man), Hoffmann, in Shakespearean style, perceived the whole world as a theater. His close friend was the famous actor Ludwig Devrient, whom he met in the tavern of Lutter and Wegner, where they spent stormy evenings, indulging in both libations and inspired humorous improvisations. Both were sure that they had doubles and amazed the regulars with the art of transformation. These gatherings cemented his reputation as a half-crazed alcoholic. Alas, in the end he actually became a drunkard and behaved eccentrically and manneredly, but the further he went, the clearer it became that in June 1822 in Berlin, the greatest magician and sorcerer of German literature died from tabes spinal cord in agony and lack of money.

Hoffmann's literary legacy

Hoffmann himself saw his calling in music, but gained fame through writing. It all started with “Fantasies in the Manner of Callot” (1814-15), then followed by “Night Stories” (1817), a four-volume set of short stories “The Serapion Brothers” (1819-20), and a kind of romantic “Decameron”. Hoffmann wrote a number of great stories and two novels - the so-called “black” or Gothic novel “Elixirs of Satan” (1815-16) about the monk Medard, in whom sit two beings, one of them is an evil genius, and the unfinished “Worldly Views of a Cat” Murra" (1820-22). In addition, fairy tales were composed. The most famous Christmas one is “The Nutcracker and mouse king" As the New Year approaches, the ballet “The Nutcracker” is shown in theaters and on television. Everyone knows Tchaikovsky's music, but only a few know that the ballet was written based on Hoffmann's fairy tale.

About the collection “Fantasies in the manner of Callot”

French artist XVII century, Jacques Callot is known for his grotesque drawings and etchings, in which reality appears in a fantastic guise. Ugly figures on his graphic sheets depicting carnival scenes or theatrical performances, frightened and attracted. Callot's manner impressed Hoffmann and provided a certain artistic stimulus.

The central work of the collection was the short story “The Golden Pot,” whose subtitle is “A Tale from New Times.” Fairytale incidents happen in modern writer Dresden, where next to the everyday world there is a hidden world of sorcerers, wizards and evil witches. However, as it turns out, they lead a double existence, some of them perfectly combine magic and sorcery with service in archives and public places. Such is the grumpy archivist Lindhorst - the lord of the Salamanders, such is the evil old sorceress Rauer, trading at the city gates, the daughter of turnips and a dragon's feather. It was her basket of apples that he accidentally knocked over. main character student Anselm, all his misadventures began from this little thing.

Each chapter of the tale is called by the author “vigilia”, which in Latin means night watch. Night motifs are generally characteristic of romantics, but here twilight lighting enhances the mystery. Student Anselm is a bungler, from the breed of those who, if a sandwich falls, it is certainly face down, but he also believes in miracles. He is the bearer of poetic feeling. At the same time, he hopes to take his rightful place in society, to become a gofrat (court councilor), especially since the daughter of Conrector Paulman, Veronica, whom he is caring for, has firmly decided in life: she will become the wife of a gofrat and will show off in the window in an elegant toilet in the morning to the surprise of passing dandies. But by chance, Anselm touched the world of the wonderful: suddenly, in the foliage of a tree, he saw three amazing golden-green snakes with sapphire eyes, he saw them and disappeared. “He felt how something unknown was stirring in the depths of his being and causing him that blissful and languid sorrow that promises a person another, higher existence.”

Hoffmann takes his hero through many trials before he ends up in the magical Atlantis, where he unites with the daughter of the powerful ruler of the Salamanders (aka archivist Lindhorst), the blue-eyed snake Serpentina. In the finale, everyone takes on a particular appearance. The matter ends with a double wedding, for Veronica finds her gofrat - this is Anselm's former rival Geerbrand.

Yu. K. Olesha, in notes about Hoffmann, which arose while reading “The Golden Pot,” asks the question: “Who was he, this crazy man, the only writer of his kind in world literature, with raised eyebrows, a thin nose bent down, with hair , standing on end forever?” Perhaps acquaintance with his work will answer this question. I would dare to call him the last romantic and the founder of fantastic realism.

“Sandman” from the collection “Night Stories”

The name of the collection “Night Stories” is not accidental. By and large, all of Hoffmann’s works can be called “night”, for he is a poet of dark spheres, in which a person is still connected with secret forces, a poet of abysses, failures, from which either a double, or a ghost, or a vampire arises. He makes it clear to the reader that he has visited the kingdom of shadows, even when he puts his fantasies in a daring and cheerful form.

The Sandman, which he remade several times, is an undoubted masterpiece. In this story, the struggle between despair and hope, between darkness and light takes on particular tension. Hoffman is confident that the human personality is not something permanent, but fragile, capable of transformation and bifurcation. This is the main character of the story, student Nathanael, endowed with a poetic gift.

As a child, he was frightened by the sandman: if you don’t fall asleep, the sandman will come, throw sand in your eyes, and then take your eyes away. As an adult, Nathaniel cannot get rid of fear. It seems to him that the puppet master Coppelius is a sandman, and the traveling salesman Coppola, who sells glasses and magnifying glasses, is the same Coppelius, i.e. the same sandman. Nathaniel is clearly on the verge of mental illness. In vain is Nathaniel's fiancée Clara, a simple and sensible girl, trying to heal him. She correctly says that the terrible and terrible thing that Nathanael constantly talks about happened in his soul, and external world had little to do with it. His poems with their gloomy mysticism are boring to her. The romantically exalted Nathanael does not listen to her; he is ready to see her as a wretched bourgeois. It is not surprising that the young man falls in love with a mechanical doll, which Professor Spalanzani, with the help of Coppelius, made for 20 years and, passing it off as his daughter Ottilie, introduced it into the high society of a provincial town. Nathaniel did not understand that the object of his sighs was an ingenious mechanism. But absolutely everyone was deceived. The clockwork doll attended social gatherings, sang and danced as if alive, and everyone admired her beauty and education, although other than “oh!” and “ah!” she didn't say anything. And in her Nathanael saw a “kindred soul.” What is this if not a mockery of the youthful quixoticism of the romantic hero?

Nathaniel goes to propose to Ottilie and finds a terrible scene: the quarreling professor and the puppet master are tearing Ottilie's doll into pieces before his eyes. The young man goes crazy and, having climbed the bell tower, rushes down from there.

Apparently, reality itself seemed to Hoffmann to be delirium, a nightmare. Wanting to say that people are soulless, he turns his heroes into automata, but the worst thing is that no one notices this. The incident with Ottilie and Nathaniel excited the townspeople. What should I do? How can you tell if your neighbor is a mannequin? How can you finally prove that you yourself are not a puppet? Everyone tried to behave as unusually as possible in order to avoid suspicion. The whole story took on the character of a nightmarish phantasmagoria.

“Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober” (1819) – one of Hoffmann's most grotesque works. This tale partly has something in common with “The Golden Pot”. Its plot is quite simple. Thanks to three wonderful golden hairs, the freak Tsakhes, the son of an unfortunate peasant woman, turns out to be wiser, more beautiful, and more worthy of everyone in the eyes of those around him. He becomes the first minister with lightning speed, receives the hand of the beautiful Candida, until the wizard exposes the vile monster.

“A crazy fairy tale,” “the most humorous of all those I have written,” this is what the author said about it. This is his style - to clothe the most serious things in a veil of humor. We are talking about a blinded, stupid society that takes “an icicle, a rag for an important person” and creates an idol out of him. By the way, this was also the case in Gogol’s “The Inspector General”. Hoffmann creates a magnificent satire on the “enlightened despotism” of Prince Paphnutius. “This is not only a purely romantic parable about the eternal philistine hostility of poetry (“Drive out all fairies!” - this is the first order of the authorities. - G.I.), but also the satirical quintessence of German squalor with its claims to great power and ineradicable small-scale habits, with its police education, with servility and depression of the subjects” (A. Karelsky).

In a dwarf state where “enlightenment has broken out,” the prince’s valet outlines its program. He proposes to “cut down forests, make the river navigable, grow potatoes, improve rural schools, plant acacias and poplars, teach young people to sing morning and evening prayers in two voices, build highways and inoculate smallpox.” Some of these "enlightenment actions" actually took place in the Prussia of Frederick II, who played the role of an enlightened monarch. Education here took place under the motto: “Drive out all dissenters!”

Among the dissidents is student Balthazar. He is from the breed of true musicians, and therefore suffers among philistines, i.e. "good people". “In the wonderful voices of the forest, Balthazar heard the inconsolable complaint of nature, and it seemed that he himself should dissolve in this complaint, and his entire existence was a feeling of deepest insurmountable pain.”

According to the laws of the genre, the fairy tale ends with a happy ending. With the help of theatrical effects like fireworks, Hoffmann allows the student Balthasar, “gifted with inner music,” who is in love with Candida, to defeat Tsakhes. The savior-magician, who taught Balthazar to snatch three golden hairs from Tsakhes, after which the scales fell from everyone’s eyes, gives the newlyweds a wedding gift. This is a house with a plot where excellent cabbage grows, “the pots never boil over” in the kitchen, the china doesn’t break in the dining room, the carpets don’t get dirty in the living room, in other words, a completely bourgeois comfort reigns here. This is how romantic irony comes into play. We also met her in the fairy tale “The Golden Pot,” where lovers received a golden pot at the end of the curtain. This iconic vessel-symbol replaced the blue flower of Novalis, in the light of this comparison the mercilessness of Hoffmann’s irony became even more obvious.

About “Everyday views of Murr the cat”

The book was conceived as a summary; it intertwined all the themes and features of Hoffmann’s manner. Here tragedy is combined with the grotesque, although they are the opposite of each other. The composition itself contributed to this: the biographical notes of the learned cat are interspersed with pages from the diary genius composer Johann Kreisler, which Murr used instead of blotters. So the unlucky publisher printed the manuscript, marking the “inclusions” of the brilliant Kreisler as “Mac. l." (waste paper sheets). Who needs the suffering and sorrow of Hoffmann's favorite, his alter ego? What are they good for? Unless to dry out the graphomaniac exercises of the learned cat!

Johann Kreisler, the child of poor and ignorant parents, who experienced poverty and all the vicissitudes of fate, is a traveling musician-enthusiast. This is Hoffmann's favorite; it appears in many of his works. Everything that has weight in society is alien to the enthusiast, so misunderstanding and tragic loneliness. In music and love, Kreisler is carried away far, far into bright worlds known to him alone. But the crazier for him is the return from this height to the ground, to the bustle and dirt of a small town, to the circle of base interests and petty passions. An unbalanced nature, constantly torn by doubts about people, about the world, about her own creativity. From enthusiastic ecstasy he easily moves to irritability or complete misanthropy over the most insignificant occasion. A false chord causes him to have an attack of despair. “The Chrysler is ridiculous, almost ridiculous, constantly shocking respectability. This lack of contact with the world reflects a complete rejection of the surrounding life, its stupidity, ignorance, thoughtlessness and vulgarity... Kreisler rebels alone against the whole world, and he is doomed. His rebellious spirit dies in mental illness” (I. Garin).

But it’s not he, but the learned cat Murr who claims to be the romantic “son of the century.” And the novel is written in his name. Before us is not just a two-tiered book: “Kreisleriana” and the animal epic “Murriana”. New here is the Murrah line. Murr is not just a philistine. He tries to appear as an enthusiast, a dreamer. A romantic genius in the form of a cat is a funny idea. Listen to his romantic tirades: “... I know for sure: my homeland is an attic! The climate of the motherland, its morals, customs - how inextinguishable these impressions are... Where do I get such a sublime way of thinking, such an irresistible desire for higher spheres? Where does such a rare gift of soaring upward in an instant come from, such envy-worthy, courageous, most brilliant leaps? Oh, sweet languor fills my chest! The longing for my home attic rises in me in a powerful wave! I dedicate these tears to you, O beautiful homeland...” What is this if not a murderous parody of the romantic empyreanism of the Jena romantics, but even more so of the Germanophilism of the Heidelbergers?!

The writer created a grandiose parody of the romantic worldview itself, recording the symptoms of the crisis of romanticism. It is the interweaving, the unity of two lines, the collision of parody with the high romantic style that gives birth to something new, unique.

“What truly mature humor, what strength of reality, what anger, what types and portraits, and what a thirst for beauty, what a bright ideal!” Dostoevsky assessed Murr the Cat this way, but this is a worthy assessment of Hoffmann’s work as a whole.

Hoffmann's dual worlds: the riot of fantasy and the “vanity of life”

Every true artist embodies his time and the situation of a person in this time in the artistic language of the era. The artistic language of Hoffmann's time was romanticism. The gap between dream and reality is the basis of the romantic worldview. “The darkness of low truths is dearer to me / The deception that elevates us” - these words of Pushkin can be used as an epigraph to his work German romantics. But if his predecessors, building their castles in the air, were carried away from the earthly into the idealized Middle Ages or into the romanticized Hellas, then Hoffmann bravely plunged into the modern reality of Germany. At the same time, like no one before him, he was able to express the anxiety, instability, and brokenness of the era and the man himself. According to Hoffmann, not only is society divided into parts, each person and his consciousness is divided, torn. The personality loses its definiteness and integrity, hence the motif of duality and madness, so characteristic of Hoffmann. The world is unstable and the human personality is disintegrating. The struggle between despair and hope, between darkness and light is waged in almost all of his works. Not giving dark forces a place in your soul is what worries the writer.

Upon careful reading, even in the most fantastic works of Hoffmann, such as “The Golden Pot”, “The Sandman”, one can find very deep observations of real life. He himself admitted: “I have too strong a sense of reality.” Expressing not so much the harmony of the world as the dissonance of life, Hoffmann conveyed it with the help of romantic irony and grotesquery. His works are full of all sorts of spirits and ghosts, incredible things happen: a cat composes poetry, a minister drowns in a chamber pot, the Dresden archivist has a brother who is a dragon, and his daughters are snakes, and so on and so forth, nevertheless, he wrote about modernity, about the consequences of the revolution, about the era of Napoleonic unrest, which upended much in the sleepy way of life of the three hundred German principalities.

He noticed that things began to dominate man, life was being mechanized, automata, soulless dolls were taking over man, the individual was drowning in the standard. He thought about the mysterious phenomenon of transforming all values ​​into exchange value, and saw the new power of money.

What allows the insignificant Tsakhes to turn into the powerful minister Zinnober? The three golden hairs that the compassionate fairy gave him have miraculous powers. This is by no means Balzac’s understanding of the merciless laws of modern times. Balzac was a doctor of social sciences, and Hoffmann was a seer, to whom science fiction helped reveal the prose of life and build brilliant guesses about the future. It is significant that the fairy tales where he gave free rein to his unbridled imagination have subtitles: “Tales from New Times.” He not only judged modern reality as a spiritless kingdom of “prose,” he made it the subject of depiction. “Intoxicated by fantasies, Hoffmann,” as the outstanding Germanist Albert Karelsky wrote about him, “is in fact disconcertingly sober.”

When leaving this life, in his last story, “The Corner Window,” Hoffmann shared his secret: “What the hell, do you think that I’m already getting better? Not at all... But this window is a consolation for me: here life again appeared to me in all its diversity, and I feel how close its never-ending bustle is to me.”

Hoffmann's Berlin house with a corner window and his grave in the Jerusalem cemetery were “gifted” to me by Mina Polyanskaya and Boris Antipov, from the breed of enthusiasts so revered by our hero of the day.

Hoffmann in Russia

The shadow of Hoffmann beneficially overshadowed Russian culture in the 19th century, as philologists A. B. Botnikova and my graduate student Juliet Chavchanidze spoke about in detail and convincingly, who traced the relationship between Gogol and Hoffmann. Belinsky also wondered why Europe does not place the “brilliant” Hoffmann next to Shakespeare and Goethe. Prince Odoevsky was called the “Russian Hoffmann”. Herzen admired him. A passionate admirer of Hoffmann, Dostoevsky wrote about “Murrah the Cat”: “What truly mature humor, what strength of reality, what anger, what types and portraits and next to it - what a thirst for beauty, what a bright ideal!” This is a worthy assessment of Hoffmann's work as a whole.

In the twentieth century, Kuzmin, Kharms, Remizov, Nabokov, and Bulgakov were influenced by Hoffmann. Mayakovsky did not remember his name in vain. It was no coincidence that Akhmatova chose him as her guide: “In the evening/ The darkness thickens,/ Let Hoffmann with me/ Reach the corner.”

In 1921, in Petrograd, at the House of Arts, a community of writers formed who named themselves in honor of Hoffmann - the Serapion Brothers. It included Zoshchenko, Vs. Ivanov, Kaverin, Lunts, Fedin, Tikhonov. They also met weekly to read and discuss their works. They soon drew reproaches from proletarian writers for formalism, which “came back” in 1946 in the Resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on the magazines “Neva” and “Leningrad”. Zoshchenko and Akhmatova were defamed and ostracized, doomed to civil death, but Hoffman also came under attack: he was called “the founder of salon decadence and mysticism.” For Hoffmann's fate Soviet Russia the ignorant judgment of Zhdanov’s “parteigenosse” had sad consequences: they stopped publishing and studying. A three-volume set of selected works of his was published only in 1962 by the publishing house “Khudozhestvennaya Literatura” with a circulation of one hundred thousand and immediately became a rarity. Hoffmann remained under suspicion for a long time, and only in 2000 a 6-volume collection of his works was published.

A wonderful monument to the eccentric genius could be the film Andrei Tarkovsky intended to make. Did not have time. All that remains is his marvelous script - “Hoffmaniad”.

In June 2016, the International Literary Festival-Competition “Russian Hoffmann” started in Kaliningrad, in which representatives of 13 countries participate. Within its framework, an exhibition is envisaged in Moscow at the Library of Foreign Literature named after. Rudomino “Meetings with Hoffmann. Russian circle". In September, the full-length puppet film “Hoffmaniada” will be released on the big screen. The Temptation of Young Anselm”, in which the plots of the fairy tales “The Golden Pot”, “Little Tsakhes”, “The Sandman” and pages of the author’s biography are masterfully intertwined. This is the most ambitious project of Soyuzmultfilm, 100 puppets are involved, director Stanislav Sokolov filmed it for 15 years. Main artist paintings by Mikhail Shemyakin. Two parts of the film were shown at the festival in Kaliningrad. We are waiting and anticipating a meeting with the revived Hoffmann.

Greta Ionkis

He graduated from the University of Königsberg, where he studied law.

After a short practice in the court of the city of Glogau (Glogow), Hoffmann successfully passed the exam for the rank of assessor in Berlin and was appointed to Poznan.

In 1802, after a scandal caused by his caricature of a representative of the upper class, Hoffmann was transferred to the Polish town of Plock, which in 1793 went to Prussia.

In 1804, Hoffmann moved to Warsaw, where he devoted all his leisure time to music; several of his musical and stage works were staged in the theater. Through the efforts of Hoffmann, a philharmonic society and a symphony orchestra were organized.

In 1808-1813 he served as conductor at the theater in Bamberg (Bavaria). During the same period, he earned extra money by teaching singing lessons to the daughters of the local nobility. Here he wrote the operas "Aurora" and "Duettini", which he dedicated to his student Julia Mark. In addition to operas, Hoffmann was the author of symphonies, choirs, and chamber works.

His first articles were published on the pages of the General Musical Newspaper, of which he had been an employee since 1809. Hoffmann imagined music as a special world, capable of revealing to a person the meaning of his feelings and passions, as well as comprehending the nature of everything mysterious and inexpressible. A clear expression of Hoffmann's musical and aesthetic views were his short stories "Cavalier Gluck" (1809), "The Musical Sufferings of Johann Kreisler, Kapellmeister" (1810), "Don Juan" (1813), and the dialogue "Poet and Composer" (1813). Hoffmann's stories were later collected in the collection "Fantasies in the Spirit of Callot" (1814-1815).

In 1816, Hoffmann returned to public service as an adviser to the Berlin Court of Appeal, where he served until the end of his life.

In 1816, Hoffmann's most famous opera, Ondine, was staged, but a fire that destroyed all the scenery put an end to its great success.

After this, in addition to his service, he devoted himself literary work. The collection "The Serapion Brothers" (1819-1821) and the novel "The Worldly Views of the Cat Murr" (1820-1822) earned Hoffmann worldwide fame. The fairy tale "The Golden Pot" (1814), the novel "The Devil's Elixir" (1815-1816), a story in the spirit of fairy tale"Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober" (1819).

Hoffmann's novel The Lord of the Fleas (1822) led to conflict with the Prussian government; incriminating parts of the novel were removed and published only in 1906.

Since 1818, the writer developed a spinal cord disease, which over the course of several years led to paralysis.

On June 25, 1822, Hoffmann died. He was buried in the third cemetery of the Church of John of Jerusalem.

Hoffmann's works influenced German composers Carl Maria von Weber, Robert Schumann, Richard Wagner. Poetic images Hoffmann was embodied in the works of composers Schumann ("Kreisleriana"), Wagner ("The Flying Dutchman"), Tchaikovsky ("The Nutcracker"), Adolphe Adam ("Giselle"), Leo Delibes ("Coppelia"), Ferruccio Busoni ("The Bride's Choice") "), Paul Hindemith ("Cardillac"), etc. The plots for the operas were the works of Hoffmann "Master Martin and His Apprentices", "Little Zaches, nicknamed Zinnober", "Princess Brambilla" and others. Hoffmann is the hero of Jacques Offenbach's operas "Fairy Tales Hoffman."

Hoffmann was married to the daughter of a Poznan clerk, Michalina Rohrer. Their only daughter Cecilia died at the age of two.

In the German city of Bamberg, in the house where Hoffmann and his wife lived on the second floor, a museum of the writer has been opened. In Bamberg there is a monument to the writer holding the cat Murr in his arms.

The material was prepared based on information from open sources

Literary life Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann(Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann) was short: in 1814, the first book of his stories, “Fantasies in the Manner of Callot,” was published, enthusiastically received by the German reading public, and in 1822 the writer, who had long suffered from a serious illness, died. By this time, Hoffmann was no longer read and revered only in Germany; in the 20s and 30s his short stories, fairy tales, and novels were translated in France and England; in 1822, the magazine “Library for Reading” published Hoffmann’s short story “Maiden Scuderi” in Russian. The posthumous fame of this remarkable writer outlived him for a long time, and although there were periods of decline in it (especially in Hoffmann’s homeland, Germany), today, one hundred and sixty years after his death, a wave of interest in Hoffmann has risen again, he has again become one one of the most widely read German authors of the 19th century, his works are published and republished, and the scientific Hoffmannian science is replenished with new works. None of the German romantic writers, including Hoffmann, received such truly global recognition.

Hoffmann's life story is the story of a constant struggle for a piece of bread, for finding oneself in art, for one's dignity as a person and an artist. His works are full of echoes of this struggle.

Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann, who later changed his third name to Amadeus, in honor of his favorite composer Mozart, was born in 1776 in Konigsberg, into the family of a lawyer. His parents separated when he was in his third year. Hoffmann grew up in his mother's family, under the care of his uncle, Otto Wilhelm Dörfer, also a lawyer. In the Dörfer house, everyone began to play music a little; Hoffmann also began to teach music, for which the cathedral organist Podbelsky was invited. The boy showed extraordinary abilities and soon began composing small musical pieces; He also studied drawing, and also not without success. However, given the obvious inclination of young Hoffmann towards art, the family, where all the men were lawyers, had previously chosen the same profession for him. At school, and then at the university, where Hoffmann entered in 1792, he became friends with Theodor Hippel, the nephew of the then famous humorist writer Theodor Gottlieb Hippel - communication with him did not pass without a trace for Hoffmann. After graduating from university and after a short practice in the court of the city of Glogau (Glogow), Hoffmann goes to Berlin, where he successfully passes the exam for the rank of assessor and is assigned to Poznan. Subsequently, he would prove himself to be an excellent musician - composer, conductor, singer, talented artist- draftsman and decorator outstanding writer; but he was also a knowledgeable and efficient lawyer. Possessing an enormous capacity for work, this amazing man did not treat any of his activities carelessly and did nothing half-heartedly. In 1802, a scandal broke out in Poznan: Hoffmann drew a caricature of a Prussian general, a rude martinet who despised civilians; he complained to the king. Hoffmann was transferred, or rather exiled, to Plock, a small Polish town, which in 1793 went to Prussia. Shortly before leaving, he married Michalina Trzcinska-Rorer, who was to share with him all the hardships of his unsettled, wandering life. The monotonous existence in Plock, a remote province far from art, depresses Hoffmann. He writes in his diary: “The muse disappeared. Archival dust obscures any future prospects for me.” And yet, the years spent in Plock were not lost in vain: Hoffmann reads a lot - his cousin sends him magazines and books from Berlin; Wigleb’s book, “Teaching Natural Magic and All sorts of Entertaining and Useful Tricks”, which was popular in those years, falls into his hands, from which he will draw some ideas for his future stories; His first literary experiments date back to this time.

In 1804, Hoffmann managed to transfer to Warsaw. Here he devotes all his leisure time to music, gets closer to the theater, achieves the production of several of his musical and stage works, and paints the concert hall with frescoes. The Warsaw period of Hoffmann's life dates back to the beginning of his friendship with Julius Eduard Hitzig, a lawyer and literature lover. Hitzig, Hoffmann's future biographer, introduces him to the works of the romantics and their aesthetic theories. On November 28, 1806, Warsaw is occupied by Napoleonic troops, the Prussian administration is dissolved - Hoffmann is free and can devote himself to art, but is deprived of his livelihood. He is forced to send his wife and one-year-old daughter to Poznan, to his relatives, because he has nothing to support them. He himself goes to Berlin, but even there he survives only with odd jobs until he receives an offer to take the place of conductor at the Bamberg Theater.

The years spent by Hoffmann in the ancient Bavarian city of Bamberg (1808 - 1813) were the heyday of his musical, creative and musical-pedagogical activities. At this time, his collaboration with the Leipzig General Musical Newspaper began, where he published articles about music and published his first “musical novel” “Cavalier Gluck” (1809). His stay in Bamberg was marked by one of Hoffmann's deepest and most tragic experiences - his hopeless love for his young student Julia Mark. Julia was pretty, artistic and had a charming voice. In the images of singers that Hoffmann would later create, her features will be visible. The prudent consul Mark married her daughter to a wealthy Hamburg businessman. Julia's marriage and her departure from Bamberg were a heavy blow for Hoffmann. A few years later he would write the novel “Elixirs of the Devil”; the scene where the sinful monk Medard unexpectedly witnesses the tonsure of his passionately beloved Aurelia, the description of his torment at the thought that his beloved is being separated from him forever, will remain one of the most heartfelt and tragic pages of world literature. In the difficult days of parting with Julia, the short story “Don Juan” came from the pen of Hoffmann. The image of the “mad musician”, conductor and composer Johannes Kreisler, the second “I” of Hoffmann himself, the confidant of his most dear thoughts and feelings - an image that will accompany Hoffmann throughout his entire life. literary activity, was also born in Bamberg, where Hoffmann learned all the bitterness of the fate of an artist forced to serve the family and financial nobility. He conceives a book of short stories, “Fantasies in the Manner of Callot,” which the Bamberg wine and bookseller Kunz volunteered to publish. An extraordinary draftsman himself, Hoffmann highly appreciated the caustic and elegant drawings - “capriccios” of the 17th century French graphic artist Jacques Callot, and since his own stories were also very caustic and whimsical, he was attracted by the idea of ​​​​comparing them to the creations of the French master.

The next stations on Hoffmann's life path are Dresden, Leipzig and again Berlin. He accepts the impresario's offer opera house Seconds, whose troupe played alternately in Leipzig and Dresden, took the place of conductor, and in the spring of 1813 left Bamberg. Now Hoffman devotes more and more energy and time to literature. In a letter to Kunz dated August 19, 1813, he writes: “It is not surprising that in our gloomy, unfortunate time, when a person barely survives from day to day and still has to rejoice in this, writing captivated me so much - it seems to me that something has opened up before me.” a wonderful kingdom that is born from my inner world and, taking on flesh, separates me from the external world.”

In the external world that closely surrounded Hoffmann, war was still raging at that time: the remnants of the Napoleonic army defeated in Russia fought fiercely in Saxony. “Hoffmann witnessed the bloody battles on the banks of the Elbe and the siege of Dresden. He leaves for Leipzig and, trying to get rid of difficult impressions, writes “The Golden Pot - a fairy tale from new times.” Working with Seconda did not go smoothly; one day Hoffmann quarreled with him during a performance and was refused the place. He asks Hippel, who has become a major Prussian official, to get him a position in the Ministry of Justice and in the fall of 1814 he moves to Berlin. In the Prussian capital, Hoffmann spent the last years of his life, unusually fruitful for him. literary creativity. Here he formed a circle of friends and like-minded people, among them writers - Friedrich de la Motte Fouquet, Adelbert Chamisso, actor Ludwig Devrient. His books were published one after another: the novel “Elixirs of the Devil” (1816), the collection “Night Stories” (1817), the fairy tale “Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober” (1819), “Serapion’s Brothers” - a cycle of stories combined, like Boccaccio’s “Decameron”, with a plot frame (1819 - 1821), the unfinished novel “The worldly views of the cat Murr, coupled with fragments of the biography of the bandmaster Johannes Kreisler, which accidentally survived in waste paper sheets” (1819 - 1821), the fairy tale “The Lord of the Fleas” (1822 )

The political reaction that reigned in Europe after 1814 darkened the last years of the writer’s life. Appointed to a special commission investigating the cases of so-called demagogues - students involved in political unrest and other opposition-minded individuals, Hoffman could not come to terms with the “brazen violation of laws” that took place during the investigation. He had a clash with police director Kampets, and he was removed from the commission. Hoffmann settled accounts with Kamptz in his own way: he immortalized him in the story “The Lord of the Fleas” in the caricature of Privy Councilor Knarrpanti. Having learned in what form Hoffman portrayed him, Kampts tried to prevent the publication of the story. Moreover: Hoffmann was brought to trial for insulting a commission appointed by the king. Only a doctor's certificate, certifying that Hoffman was seriously ill, suspended further persecution.

Hoffmann was indeed seriously ill. Damage to the spinal cord led to rapidly developing paralysis. In one of the last stories - “The Corner Window” - in the person of his cousin, “who has lost the use of his legs” and can only observe life through the window, Hoffmann described himself. On June 24, 1822 he died.

(German) Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann) - the largest representative of German romanticism.

Even in his youth, he was captivated by reading Shakespeare (translated by A. V. Schlegel), and knew many phrases by heart. It is known, for example, that among Hoffmann’s favorite works was W. Shakespeare’s comedy “As You Like It.” Intensive reading of Shakespeare occurred in 1795. It is interesting that this was also a period of equally intensive acquaintance with the works of J. J. Rousseau, L. Stern, with the novel “Genius” (1791-1795) just published and causing a lot of noise by the German pre-romanticist Karl Grosse (1768-1847), presented in the form of a hoax - as the memoirs of a certain Spanish marquis, whose adventurism carries him around the world, plunges him into the networks of a secret brotherhood who decided to establish a new world order (the novel influenced M. Shelley, and Jane Austen rightly saw in It has similarities with the Gothic novels of the pre-Romantic writer E. Radcliffe - “The Mysteries of Udolf” and “The Italian”). This framing of Shakespeare in the circle of authors, simultaneously with his work being read by Hoffmann, could not but affect the “image of Shakespeare” in the cultural thesaurus of the German romantic.

In Hoffmann's works there are features of Shakespeareanization, primarily in the form of quoting tragedies and comedies, mentioning characters, etc. But it is noteworthy that in Hoffmann Shakespeareanization is often ironic, comic in nature.

The most striking example is Shakespearean reminiscences (quite in the spirit of German romantic Shakespeareanization) in Hoffmann’s novel “The Everyday Views of Murr the Cat,” which constitutes both the peak and the result of the great writer’s work. The novel mentions the elf Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream, Prospero and Ariel from The Tempest, Celia and Touchstone from the comedy As You Like It (a quote from this work is given: “... sighing like a furnace”, mentioned Touchstone's monologue about seven ways to refute a lie), words from Juliet's monologue are freely quoted (Romeo and Juliet, IV, 3). Most often, the text is correlated with “Hamlet”: in addition to the mention of Horatio, the novel contains several quotes from Shakespeare’s tragedy, but almost all of them are paraphrased, as they are put into the mouth of the cat Murr: “O appetite, your name is Cat!” — Hamlet’s words are paraphrased: “O inconstancy, your name- woman!"; “...the stick raised to strike, as they say in the famous tragedy, seemed to freeze in the air...” says the cat Murr, referring the reader to “Hamlet” (II, 2); “O army of heaven! Earth!..” - Murr speaks in the words of Hamlet after meeting with the Ghost of his father (I, 3); “...where are your happy jumps now? Where is your playfulness, your cheerfulness, your clear joyful “meow” that cheered all hearts?” — a parody of Hamlet’s monologue over Yorick’s skull (V, 1): “Where are your jokes now? Your songs? Your outbursts of merriment that made the whole table laugh every time?” etc. So, the bearer of Shakespeareanization in the novel becomes the cat Murr, embodying not the romantic world of Kreisleriana, but the world of philistines. This anti-Shakespearean orientation of Shakespeareanization makes us recall the anti-Shakespeareanism of the English romantic Byron.

A cultural paradox arises: if it is obvious that the cult of Shakespeare and Shakespeareanization are connected in the literature of the 18th-19th centuries. with the pre-romantics and romantics, then anti-Shakespeareanism is also connected with romanticism, and, as the case of Byron shows, with English romanticism, and as the case with Hoffmann shows, with German romanticism.

This makes us take a closer look at the personality and stages of the work of the great German writer.

The beginning of a creative journey. Hoffman in his biography embodies the contradictions of a romantic personality forced to live in a philistine world alien to her. He was naturally gifted with genius. His greatest passion there was music, it is no coincidence that he replaced his third name Wilhelm, given to him by his parents, with the middle name of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Hoffmann wrote the first German romantic opera"Ondine" (1814, post. 1816). He was wonderful artist and a great writer. But Hoffmann was born in prim and boring Koenigsberg into an bureaucratic family, he studied at the law faculty of the university there, and then was public service in various cities, performing bureaucratic functions. The French invasion, which found Hoffmann in Warsaw (1806), deprived him of work and income. Hoffmann decides to devote himself to art, serves as a conductor, gives music lessons, and writes music reviews. After the defeat of Napoleon, Hoffmann was again in public service in Berlin in 1814.

Kreisler image. This romantic character, passing from work to work, closest to the author, his alter ego, first appears in the essay-novel “The Musical Sufferings of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler” (1810), one of Hoffmann’s first literary works. The author plays a game with the reader, coming up with unexpected compositional moves. The text is supposedly notes from the musician Kreisler on the publication of the sheet music of J. S. Bach's variations. He takes notes about the past evening in the house of Privy Councilor Roederlein, where he is forced to accompany the councilor's untalented daughters Nanette and Marie. Hoffmann resorts to irony: “... Fraulein Nanette has achieved something: she is able to sing a melody heard only ten times in the theater and then repeated no more than ten times on the piano in such a way that one can immediately guess what it is.” Then an even greater test for Kreisler: Councilor Eberstein sings. Then the guests begin to sing in chorus - and nearby the game is on into cards. Hoffmann conveys this episode in the text: “I loved - forty-eight - carefree - pass - I didn’t know - whist - the torment of love - trump card.” Kreisler is asked to play fantasies, and he plays 30 Bach variations, becoming more and more carried away by the brilliant music and not noticing how all the guests are running away, only the sixteen-year-old footman Gottlieb is listening to him. In the essay, a division of people characteristic of Hoffmann appears into musicians (creative natures to whom the ideal is accessible) and non-musicians (“just good people”) - ordinary people, philistines. Already in this short story, Hoffmann uses a technique characteristic of his subsequent work: showing events from two (opposite) points of view: Kreisler sees the guests who play music as ordinary people, while they see Kreisler as a boring eccentric.

In 1814, the first volume of the collection “Fantasies in the Manner of Callot” was published, in which, in addition to short stories (“Cavalier Gluck”, “Don Juan”), Hoffmann included the “Kreisleriana” cycle, consisting of six essays-short stories, in the fourth volume ( 1815) seven more works of this cycle appear (in 1819, Hoffmann republished the collection, grouping its material into two volumes, the second half of “Kreisleriana” was included in the second volume). Romantic essays and short stories (including “Musical Suffering...” included in the cycle) are here side by side with satirical essays (“The Perfect Machinist”), musical critical notes (“Extremely Incoherent Thoughts”), etc. Kreisler acts as lyrical hero, largely autobiographical, it is often impossible to distinguish it from the author. Those around him believe that he has gone crazy (as reported in the preface, which talks about his disappearance).

Hoffman masters the entire spectrum of comedy from humor, irony to sarcasm. He combines the comic with the grotesque, of which he was an unsurpassed master. Thus, in the short story “Information about an educated young man“we read: “It touches your heart when you see how widely our culture is spreading.” Quite an enlightening phrase, comic effect connected with the fact that it appears in a letter from Milo, an educated monkey, to his friend, the monkey Pipi, who lives in North America. Milo learned to speak, write, play the piano, and now he is no different from people.

The short story “The Enemy of Music” is even more indicative of Hoffmann’s romanticism. The hero of the story, a young man, is truly talented, understands music - and that is why he is known as the “enemy of music.” There are jokes about him. While performing a mediocre opera, a neighbor said to him: “What a wonderful place!” “Yes, the place is good, although it’s a little drafty,” he replied. The young man highly appreciates the music of Kreisler, who lives nearby, who is “sufficiently celebrated for his eccentricities.” The technique of contrasting two points of view on the same facts is again used.

"Golden Pot". In the third volume of Fantasies (1814), Hoffmann included the fairy tale “The Golden Pot,” which he considered his best work. Romantic dual worlds appear in the work as a combination of two narrative planes - real and fantastic, while supernatural forces enter into battle for the soul of the hero, student Anselm, good (the spirit of the Salamanders, in everyday life the archivist Lindgorst) and evil (the witch, also known as the old woman). apple seller and fortune teller Frau Rauerin). The student leaves the cheerful Veronica and unites with the green snake - the beautiful daughter of Salamander Serpentina, receiving from the sorcerer the Golden Pot (this is a symbol similar to the blue flower of Novalis: at the moment of betrothal, Anselm must see how a fiery lily sprouts from the pot, must understand its language and know everything , which is revealed to disembodied spirits). Anselm disappears from Dresden; apparently, he found his happiness in Atlantis, uniting with Serpentina. Veronica found comfort in her marriage to court councilor Geerbrand. Hoffmann's grotesque and irony in the fairy tale extend to the description of both worlds, real and fantastic, and to all the characters. One of the consequences of the development of folk fairy-tale permeability of space by a romantic writer is the ability of heroes to simultaneously be in both worlds, performing different actions (for example, Anselm is simultaneously imprisoned by Salamander in a glass jar for temporarily preferring Veronica to Serpentine and stands on the bridge, looking at his reflection in the river) . This is a kind of technique that is the opposite of duality and complements it. And again the contrast of two points of view is used. A typical example: Anselm hugs an elder tree (in his dreams it is Serpentina), and those passing by think that he has gone crazy. But Anselm himself thinks that he just scattered the apples of the old merchant, and she sees in them her children, whom he mercilessly tramples. This is how a whole system of doubling techniques arises, conveying the idea of ​​romantic dual worlds.

Other works. Among Hoffmann’s works are the novel “The Devil’s Elixirs” (1815-1816), the fairy tales “Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober” (1819), “The Lord of the Fleas” (1822), and the collections “Night Stories” (vol. 1-2, 1817 ), "Serapion's brothers" (vol. 1-4, 1819-1821), " Latest stories"(op. 1825), which became especially famous thanks to P. I. Tchaikovsky's ballet (1892) fairy tale "The Nutcracker, or the Mouse King."

"Everyday views of the cat Murr." Hoffmann’s last, unfinished novel, “The Everyday Views of Murr the Cat, Together with Fragments of the Biography of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler, That Accidentally Survived in Waste Paper” (1820-1822) is the result of Hoffmann’s writing activity, one of his most profound creations. The composition of the novel is so original that it is difficult to find even a remote analogue of it in all previous literature. In the “Publisher's Preface,” the author plays a game with the reader by presenting the novel as a manuscript written by a cat. Since the manuscript was prepared for printing extremely carelessly, it contains fragments of another manuscript, the sheets from which the cat used “partly for lining, partly for drying the pages.” This second manuscript (fragments of the biography brilliant musician Johannes Kreisler) wedges itself into the text of the “non-musician” cat Murr, creating counterpoint, reflecting the separation of ideal and reality. Thus, Hoffmann uses montage in literature, and in that variety, which was discovered for cinema in 1917 by director L.V. Kuleshov (to a certain extent by accident) and which was called the “Kuleshov effect” (fragments of two films with completely different , unrelated to each other plots, being glued alternately, create new story, in which they are connected through spectator associations). The publisher also cites the noted typos (instead of “glory” one should read “tear”, instead of “rat” - “roofs”, instead of “feel” - “honor”, ​​instead of “ruined” - “beloved”, instead of “flies” - “spirits” ”, instead of “meaningless” - “profound”, instead of “value” - “laziness”, etc.). This humorous remark actually has a deep meaning: Hoffman, almost a century earlier than S. Freud with his “Psychopathology of Everyday Life,” emphasizes that typos are not accidental, they unconsciously reveal the true content of a person’s thoughts.

The game with the reader continues: after the “Introduction by the Author,” where the cat Murr modestly asks readers for leniency towards the aspiring writer, there is an “Foreword by the Author (not intended for publication)”: “With the confidence and calm characteristic of a true genius, I convey to the world my biography , so that everyone can see in what ways cats achieve greatness, so that everyone knows what my perfections are, loves, appreciates me, admires me and even reveres me,” Murr informs about his true intentions and threatens to introduce the reader who doubts his merits to his claws. What follows are interspersed two stories: the cat Murr (about the birth, rescue by maestro Abraham, adventures, learning to read and write, a visit to the high society of dogs, where he is, however, despised, finding a new owner in the person of Kreisler) and Johannes Kreisler, presented only in fragments ( about the confrontation between a musician who is in love with Yulia, his daughter ex-lover Prince Irenaeus, advisor Benson, and the princely court, destroying his happiness and leading him to the brink of despair). The afterword reports the death of Murr's cat; Kreisler's story remains unfinished.

"Corner window" IN latest novella Hoffman, “Corner Window,” presents his approach to creativity. The “poor cousin,” who cannot move, sits by the window and, starting from what he sees, makes up stories, and one fact can cause two completely different interpretations. This affirmation of absolute freedom of fantasy in the face of real lack of freedom is the key to creative method Hoffman.

Lit.: Berkovsky N. L. Romanticism in Germany. L.: Khud. Lit-ra, 1973; Karelsky A. V. Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffman // Hoffman E. T. A. Collection. Op. : In 6 volumes. T. 1. M.: Khud. Lit-ra, 1991; Lukov Vl. A. History of literature: Foreign literature from origins to the present day / 6th ed. M.: Academy, 2009.