Editing E. T. A. Hoffmann (section)

==Assessment==
[[File:Bamberg ETA Hoffmann 13aug2007.jpg|thumbnail|Statue of "E. T. A. Hoffmann and his cat" in Bamberg]]

Hoffmann is one of the best-known representatives of [[German Romanticism]], and a pioneer of the [[fantasy]] genre, with a taste for the [[macabre]] combined with [[realism (arts)|realism]] that influenced such authors as [[Edgar Allan Poe]] (1809–1849), [[Nikolai Gogol]]<ref>{{cite journal | url=http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/221023912x642709 | doi=10.1163/221023912x642709 | title=Intertextual Parallels between Gogol' and Hoffmann: A Case Study of Vii and the Devil's Elixirs | date=2013 | last1=Krys | first1=Svitlana | journal=Canadian–American Slavic Studies | volume=47 | issue=1 | pages=1–20 }}</ref><ref>Krys Svitlana, ''"Allusions to Hoffmann in Gogol's Ukrainian Horror Stories from the Dikan'ka Collection."'' Canadian Slavonic Papers: Special Issue, devoted to the 200th anniversary of Nikolai Gogol's birth (1809–1852) 51.2–3 (June–September 2009): 243–266. (23 pages)</ref> (1809–1852), [[Charles Dickens]] (1812–1870), [[Charles Baudelaire]] (1821–1867), [[George MacDonald]] (1824–1905),<ref>Greville MacDonald, ''George MacDonald and His Wife'' London: Allen and Unwin, 1924 (p. 297-8).</ref> [[Fyodor Dostoevsky]] (1821–1881), [[Vernon Lee]] (1856–1935),<ref>"Another major influence for Lee is unmistakably E.T.A. Hoffmann's ''Der Sandmann''..."  Christa Zorn, ''Vernon Lee : aesthetics, history, and the Victorian female intellectual''. Athens : Ohio University Press, 2003. {{ISBN|0821414976}} (p. 142).</ref> [[Franz Kafka]] (1883–1924) and [[Alfred Hitchcock]] (1899–1980). Hoffmann's story ''[[Mademoiselle de Scuderi|Das Fräulein von Scuderi]]'' is sometimes cited as the first [[detective story]] and a direct influence on Poe's "[[The Murders in the Rue Morgue]]";<ref>''[[The Seven Basic Plots]]'', Christopher Booker, Continuum, 2004, page 507</ref> Characters from it also appear in the opera ''[[Cardillac]]'' by [[Paul Hindemith]].

The twentieth-century Russian literary theorist [[Mikhail Bakhtin]] characterised Hoffmann's works as [[Menippean|Menippean Satire]], essentially satirical and self-parodying in form, thus including him in a tradition that includes [[Cervantes]], [[Diderot]] and [[Voltaire]].

[[Robert Schumann]]'s piano suite [[Kreisleriana]] (1838) takes its title from one of Hoffmann's books (and according to [[Charles Rosen]]'s ''The Romantic Generation'', is possibly rather inspired by "The Life and Opinions of Tomcat Murr", in which Kreisler appears).<ref name=":1" /> [[Jacques Offenbach]]'s masterwork, the opera ''[[Les contes d'Hoffmann]]'' ("The Tales of Hoffmann", 1881), is based on the stories, principally "[[Der Sandmann]]" ("The Sandman", 1816), "Rat Krespel" ("Councillor Krespel", 1818), and "Das verlorene Spiegelbild" ("The Lost Reflection") from ''Die Abenteuer der Silvester-Nacht'' (''The Adventures of New Year's Eve'', 1814). ''[[Little Zaches|Klein Zaches genannt Zinnober]]'' (''Little Zaches called Cinnabar'', 1819) inspired an aria as well as the operetta ''Le Roi Carotte'' (1872). [[Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky]]'s ballet ''[[The Nutcracker]]'' (1892) is based on "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King", and the ballet ''[[Coppélia]]'', with music by [[Delibes]], is based on two eerie Hoffmann stories.

Hoffmann also influenced 19th-century musical opinion directly through his music criticism. His reviews of [[Beethoven]]'s [[Symphony No. 5 (Beethoven)|Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67]] (1808) and other important works set new literary standards for writing about music, and encouraged later writers to consider music as "the most Romantic of all the arts."<ref>See also [[Fausto Cercignani]], ''E. T. A. Hoffmann, Italien und die romantische Auffassung der Musik'', in S. M. Moraldo (ed.), ''Das Land der Sehnsucht. E. T. A. Hoffmann und Italien'', Heidelberg, Winter, 2002, S. 191–201.</ref> Hoffmann's reviews were first collected for modern readers by Friedrich Schnapp, ed., in ''E.T.A. Hoffmann: Schriften zur Musik; Nachlese'' (1963) <!-- Didn't Maassen first do this back at the beginning of the 20th century in his edition of Hoffmann's works? --> and have been made available in an English translation in ''E.T.A. Hoffmann's Writings on Music, Collected in a Single Volume'' (2004).

[[File:E. T. A. Hoffmann - Hoffmann kämpft gegen die Bürokratie 1821.jpg|thumbnail|250px|Hoffmann's drawing of himself, riding on Tomcat Murr and fighting "Prussian bureaucracy"]]

Hoffmann strove for artistic [[polymath]]y. He created far more in his works than mere political commentary achieved through satire. His masterpiece novel ''[[Lebensansichten des Katers Murr]]'' (''The Life and Opinions of Tomcat Murr'', 1819–1821) deals with such issues as the aesthetic status of true artistry and the modes of self-transcendence that accompany any genuine endeavour to create. Hoffmann's portrayal of the character Kreisler (a genius musician) is wittily counterpointed with the character of the tomcat Murr – a virtuoso illustration of artistic pretentiousness that many of Hoffmann's contemporaries found offensive and subversive of Romantic ideals.

Hoffmann's literature indicates the failings of many artists to differentiate between the superficial and the authentic aspects of such Romantic ideals. The ''self-conscious'' effort to impress must, according to Hoffmann, be divorced from the ''self-aware'' effort to create. This essential duality in ''Kater Murr'' is conveyed structurally through a discursive "splicing together" of two biographical narratives.

===Science fiction===
While disagreeing with [[E. F. Bleiler]]'s claim that Hoffmann was "one of the two or three greatest writers of fantasy", [[Algis Budrys]] of ''[[Galaxy Science Fiction]]'' said that he "did lay down the groundwork for some of our most enduring themes".<ref name="budrys196807">{{Cite magazine
 |last=Budrys
 |first=Algis
 |date=July 1968
 |title=Galaxy Bookshelf
 |url=https://archive.org/stream/Galaxy_v26n06_1968-07#page/n161/mode/2up
 |magazine=Galaxy Science Fiction
 |pages=161–167
}}</ref>

Historian Martin Willis argues that Hoffmann's impact on science fiction has been overlooked, saying "his work reveals a writer dynamically involved in the important scientific debates of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries." Willis points out that Hoffmann's work is contemporary with ''[[Frankenstein]]'' (1818) and with "the heated debates and the relationship between the new empirical science and the older forms of natural philosophy that held sway throughout the eighteenth century." His "interest in the machine culture of his time is well represented in his short stories, of which the critically renowned [[The Sandman (short story)|''The Sandman'']] (1816) and [[The Automata|''Automata'']] (1814) are the best examples. ...Hoffmann's work makes a considerable contribution to our understanding of the emergence of scientific knowledge in the early years of the nineteenth century and to the conflict between science and magic, centred mainly on the 'truths' available to the advocates of either practice. ...Hoffmann's balancing of [[mesmerism]], mechanics, and magic reflects the difficulty in categorizing scientific knowledge in the early nineteenth century."<ref name=Willis>{{cite book|title=Mesmerists, Monsters, and Machines: Science Fiction and the Cultures of Science in the Nineteenth Century|author=Martin Willis|pages=29–30|publisher=Kent State University Press|location=Kent, Ohio|year=2006}}</ref>