CHAPTER I
1.1Ernst Theodor Hoffman's ways of life
The German poet Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann was born on
January 24, 1776 in Königsberg. After his parents separated, his father
was a lawyer, Hoffmann grew up with his mother and grandmother and
attended the Reformed school in Königsberg. After graduating from
school, Hoffmann studied law in Königsberg from 1792 and graduated in
1795 with the exam. In 1798 he completes his legal traineeship and is
transferred to Berlin. In 1800 Ernst Hoffmann passed his assessor exams
and was transferred to Posen. Hoffmann married in 1802, in the same
year he was transferred to Plock because of a cartoon series he had
published and his doctorate was rejected. until he finally returned to the
Prussian civil service in 1814 and two years later was appointed a member
of the Supreme Court. In 1819 he became seriously ill with a nervous
disorder of the spinal cord, from which he never really recovered. He dies
three years later at the age of only 46 on June 25, 1822 in Berlin.
1
Hoffmann appeared as a writer above all from 1814, when he re-
entered the civil service. Financial security gives him the freedom to write.
This resulted in numerous works that are still known today, such as The
Elixirs of the Devil (1814), The Sandman (1816), Life Views of the Cat Murr
(1819) or the four-volume collection The Serapions Brothers (1819-1821).
His work is influenced by his biography. He has a penchant for the
grotesque and caricature, which is due to the influence of his pedantic
mother and strict uncle. Hoffmann also has numerous affairs
1
Ursula Orlowski:
Literary subversion at ETA Hoffmann: Nouvelles von
“Sandmann”.
Winter, Heidelberg 1988, ISBN 3-533-03980-3.
and love affairs, even after his marriage in 1802. These women then often
serve as models for his literary female characters. ETA Hoffmann led a
kind of double life throughout his life.
On the one hand he stands between his lover and his wife, on the other
hand between his profession as a lawyer and his existence as an artist. Phases of
ascetic sobriety follow alcoholic excesses in his life, putting him somewhere
between ingenuity and intoxication. His character Nathanael from The Sandman
also leads a double life. He's a physics student by day and an artist by night, and he
too is caught between two women. Nathanael is also on the one hand rational but
on the other hand caught in his madness, although it remains unclear whether the
young student has actually gone mad or whether he was the victim of a conspiracy.
His first literary work, "Writing from a monastery priest to his friend
in the capital", is written. With the help of a friend, Ernst Theodor
Amadeus Hoffmann was appointed to the government council and took
up a new position in Warsaw in 1804. ETA Hoffmann made his debut as a
conductor in 1806 and went to Berlin after Warsaw was occupied. In 1809
he then briefly accepted a position as Kapellmeister at the Bamberg
Theater, but then worked only as a composer. He moves back to Berlin
and works again in the civil service. During this period around 1816 he
wrote the work "The Devil's Elixir", he composed the opera "Undine" and
in 1818 he wrote the story "Das Fräulein von Scuderi". In the meantime,
Hoffmann fell seriously ill and obtained his release in 1821. In 1819 and
1821 ETA Hoffmann published his second novel in two parts, "Life Views
of Katers Murr together with a fragmentary biography of Kapellmeister
Johannes Kreisler in random manuscript sheets".
The writer, lawyer, composer, music critic, draftsman and caricaturist ETA
Hoffmann died on June 25, 1822 in Berlin.
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