#e.t.a. hoffmann

It's December, so I felt like some Nutcracker Prince fanart was in order. So here's some Hans/Clara.

“The interest of Schauerromantik [Dark Romanticism] in the ‘dark side’ of human existence and the unfathomable contrasted sharply with the Aufklärung (Enlightenment), which had taken upon itself the task of illuminating darkness and shedding light. E.T.A. Hoffmann's “Fantasiestücke” (“Fantasy Pieces”, 1814) and “Nachtstücke” (“Night Pieces”, 1817) portray above all the ‘dark side’ of civilization, with the unearthly, the demonic, madness, and lawlessness as their focal point. In his literary fairy tale “Der Sandmann” (“The Sandman”, 1816) and his novel “Die Elixiere des Teufels” (“The Devil's Elixir”, 1817), Hoffmann developed the motif of the doppelgänger, the bifurcated self whose good and evil nature split into separate identities.

The loss of the sense of reality, the destruction of individuality, as well as persecution mania are depicted in Hoffmann's tales as reactions symptomatic of a failure of social integration. His tales, such as “Der goldne Topf”, reflect the Romantic notion of the alienated individual, the poet or the artist, who isolates himself from the urban, modern, bourgeois world of a materialistic society and retreats to the solitary or fantasy world of the mind. Similarly to Hoffmann's works, [Ludwig] Tieck's literary fairy tales “Der blonde Egbert” and “Der Runenberg” show the descent into madness of characters who lose touch with reality.”

— Claudia Mareike Katrin Schwabe; “Romanticism, Orientalism, and National Identity: German Literary Fairy Tales” (2012)

he was a woke king (by early 19th century germany standards obviously, but still, my man respected women and roasted the fuck out of his characters when they disrespected women) who wrote stories so fucked up that even his sadboy romantic contemporaries were like there's something deeply wrong with this man he must be on drugs or something. i'm not exaggerating, sir walter scott once said that "the inspirations of Hoffmann so often resemble the ideas produced by the immoderate use of opium, that we cannot help considering his case as one requiring the assistance of medicine rather than of criticism" (link). but sir walter scott was a little bitch and hoffmann was a chad who wrote banger after banger (he wrote some shitty stories too because he's also a relatable king). not to mention, he did all that while being a full-time lawyer, and he was really good at his job, but he kept getting almost fired for drawing mean caricatures of his bosses.

Foreign fantasy: Gothic and Romantic eras

die physiker, fritz umgelter 1964

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