Abstract
Hoffmann’s late stories have been criticised as incoherent and chaotic. A scrutinous analysis of two stories reveals that Kabbala, alchemy and Rosicrucianism underlie the apparent narrative chaos. What happens to the characters turns out to be a travesty of the alchemical work. The way in which the author trivialises the hero’s transmutation, ironizes both philhellenism and the belief in the possibility of improving the self and society.
Zusammenfassung
Hoffmanns späte Erzählungen wurden als „zusammengereihter Mischmasch“ abgetan. Eine Analyse zweier Erzählungen ergibt, daß Kabbala, Alchimie und Rosenkreuzertum dem scheinbaren narrativen Chaos unterliegen und daß das Schicksal der Gestalten das alchimistische Werk karikiert. Die trivialisierte Transmutation des Helden ironisiert den Philhellenismus wie den Glauben an das Vermögen, das Selbst und die Gesellschaft zu verbessern.
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Literature
These texts are quoted according to the pages and lines of the Deutscher Klassikeredition: E.T.A. Hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke in sechs Bänden, Le bens-Ansichten des Katers Murr, Werke 1820–1821, hrsg. Hartmut Steinecke, Gerhard Allroggen, Frankfurt a.M. 1992, V. See ibidem for references to the “Stellenkommentar.”
Die Irrungen, oder die doppelten Zwillinge. Ein Lustspiel. Christoph Martin Wieland translated this and 21 other works of Shakespeare between 1762 and 1766. Gesammelte Schriften. Shakespeare, theatralische Werke, 2 Bde., hrsg. Ernst Stadler, Hildesheim 1987. His translation was continued by Johann Joachim Eschenburg between 1775 and 1782. In the early nineteenth century August Wilhelm Schlegel and Dorothea Tieck prepared the first complete edition in German prose, but the translation of The Comedy of Errors was only finished in 1831, by Wolf Graf von Baudissin, who also edited the complete collection in 1833. He chose as title Die Komödie der Irrungen. This translation can be consulted in the Schlegel-Tieck-Baudissin-Gesamtausgabe (nach der 3. Schlegel-Tieck-Gesamtausgabe von 1843–44): William Shakespeare, Sämtliche Dramen. Band I. Komödien, München 1976, 321–376 for Die Komödie der Irrungen.
Die Geheimnisse. Ein Fragment. In: Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Werke. Hamburger Ausgabe. Gedichte und Epen II. Textkritisch durchgesehen und kommentiert von Erich Trunz, München 1982, II, 271–281; see also ibidem: “Die Geheimnisse. Fragment. Aufsatz Goethes in Cottas ‘Morgenblatt’ 1816”, 281–284; and “Nachwort zu ‘Die Geheimnisse’”, 705–711.
The reason why Hoffmann combined the theme and title of Die Irrungen with Die Geheimnisse in his own stories, can perhaps be found in this rejoinder of 1816. One could argue that the association of Die Geheimnisse with Die Irrungen, in the sense of errantry, is suggested by the opening scenes of Goethe’s Geheimnisse, where the main character accidentally finds the sanctuary where he will be initiated (270, v. 20: “[…] ausser Steg und Bahn”). Quite naturally, Goethe uses the verb ‘irren’ to summarise the opening scene of his own poem in 1816, (note 3), 282, r. 24–27: “Man erinnert sich, dass ein junger Ordensgeistlicher, in einer gebirgigen Gegend verirrt, zuletzt im freundlichen Tale ein herrliches Gebäude antrifft, das auf Wohnung von frommen, geheimnisvollen Männern deutet.” It is reasonable to assume that Hoffmann had read the Goethe-piece in Cottas Morgenblatt in 1816 and made a mental note of the connection between Die Irrungen and Die Geheimnisse. On the connection between Hoffmann and this literary magazine, see Hartmut Steinecke “‘Der beliebte, vielgelesene Verfasser […]’. Über die Hoffmann-Kritiken im ‘Morgenblatt für gebildete Stände’ und in der ‘Jenaischen Allgemeinen Literaturzeitung’”, Mitteilung der E.T.A. Hoffmann-Gesellschaft e.V., 17. Heft (1971), 1–16.
See Christopher Mcintosh, The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason. Eighteenth-Century Rosicrucianism in Central Europe and its Relationship to the Enlightenment, Leiden, New York, Köln 1992, 107–111 for the enmity between the Illuminati and the Rosicrucians, and for the legal measures taken against the former, arguably inspired at least partly by the latter (108; 110–1).
Rolf Christian Zimmermann, Das Weltbild des jungen Goethe. Studien zur Hermetischen Tradition des deutschen I8. Jahrhunderts. Erster Band: Elemente und Fundamente, München 1969, 171–172 discusses Goethe’s reasons for stopping work on Die Geheimnisse in the Spring of 1785.
For Hoffmann’s use of alchemy in a number of other works, we can refer to Kurt Stiasny, E.T.A. Hoffmann und die Alchemie, Aachen 1997. Stiasny, however, does not mention the stories we are analysing here.
We know of no other works that do, but to his bibliography on the general topic of Hoffmann and the esoterical tradition (179–183), we could add Detlef Kremer, Romantische Metamorphosen. E.T.A. Hoffmanns Erzählungen, Stuttgart, Weimar 1993; idem, “Alchemie und Kabbala. Hermetische Referenzen im ‘Goldnen Topf’”, Hoffmann Jahrbuch 2 (1994), 36–56
Eveline Goodman-Thau, e.a. (edd.), Kabbala und die Literatur der Romantik. Zwischen Magie und Trope, Tübingen 1994.
See e.g. E.J. Holmyard, Alchemy, New York 1957 [Reprint 1990], 153–155 for the use of the term “hieroglyphics” and some tables with illustrations of and explanations for the many “signs, symbols and secret terms”.
Gareth Roberts, The Mirror of Alchemy. Alchemical Ideas and Images in Manuscripts and Books from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century, Toronto (Buffalo), London 1994, 37: “Ill-health occurred when the balance of the humours was upset and good health returned when the physician redressed the balance. In Alchemy imperfect metals, often considered ill, were helped to perfection and an ideal internal balance by the medicine of the elixir.”
John Warwick Montgomery, Cross and Crucible. Johann Valentin Andreae (1586–1654), Phoenix of the Theologians. Volume II: The Chymische Hochzeit with notes and commentary. Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Idées — International Archives of the History of Ideas 55, The Hague 1973, 293.
Also called the aurea catena Homeri (cfr. Ilias VIII, 17–26), or the annulus Platonis, Plato’s ring. Françoise Bonardel, L’Hermétisme, Paris 1985, 67–68: “Cette chaîne relie autant les initiés de la même révélation hermétique que les divers mondes entre eux ou les différents états de la matière en alchimie.” Zimmermann (note 6), 29 and 297, sub note 84, remarks that there can be mention of two interpretations of the aurea catena (the consensus of the Wise, i.e. the hermetic tradition itself or the vertical union of all levels of existence, the sympatheia of all things), but neglects the third meaning of unity between the elements on the material level.
Alexander Roob, Das Hermetische Museum. Alchemie und Mystik, Köln, Lisboa, e.a. 1996, 540.
See Gershom G. Scholem, La Kabbale et sa symbolique, Paris 1975, 118ff. The Pythagorean Tetractys was made up by the first four whole numbers, arranged in an equilateral triangle. Roob ([note 28], 528) has a fine example of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton for God (IHWH) arranged in the same way, from a work of Jakob Böhme.
See Roland Edighoffer, Les Rose-Croix, Paris 1982, 18 for a comparable analysis of Pythagorean number symbolism in the Fama and Confessio (here the number 37 is used: 3 + 7 = 10).
The texts were introduced and edited by Richard van Dülmen, together with the Chymiscbe Hochzeit Christiani Rosencreutz, Stuttgart 1973.
An English translation can be found in the “Appendix” in Frances Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, London, Boston 1972, 238–251: Fama Fraternitatis or a Discovery of the Fraternity of the most noble Order of the Rosy Cross and 251–260: Confessio Fraternitatis or the Confession of the laudable Fraternity of the most honorable Order of the Rosy Cross, written to all the Learned of Europe.
As we have argued elsewhere: Danny Praet, Mark Janse, “Dem Namen Nach. Greek and Jewish References and Word Plays in the Character Names of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Die Irrungen and Die Geheimnisse” (13–14), forthcoming in the Hoffmann Jahrbuch (2005).
According to P. Sucher, Les Sources du Merveilleux chez E.T.A. Hoffmann, Paris 1912, V and 102, one of Hoffmann’s sources of information on the esoteric traditions was Petr. Frid. Arpe, De prodigiosis naturae et artis operibus Talismanes et Amuleta dictis cum recensione scriptorum huius argumenti. Hamburgi: Apud Christian Liebezeit, 1717, where one can find an example of such a systematic list, on 181–182: “Luna […] ex metallis: argenteum; e coloribus: candidus et argenteus, […].” Sol is here also linked to Osiris and Luna to Isis; there are even links to Hebrew and Arabic figures.
Henry & Renée Kahane, “Hellenistic and Medieval Alchemy”, in: Mircea Eliade (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion, New York, London 1987; Volume 1 (s.v. “Alchemy”, 183–202); 192–196; here: 193.
For further references, see the chapter on “Artemis” in: Walter Burkert, Greek Religion, Cambridge (Massachusetts) 1985 [2001], 149–152.
J.N. Martius, Unterriebt von der wunderbaren Magie und derselben medicinischen Gebrauche auch von zauberischen und miraculosen Dingen: Sympathie, Astrologie, usw. Welchem beygefüget ein neu-eröffnetes Kunst-Cabinet in 178 Artikeln und Antonii Mizaldi 100 Kunst-Stücke, Frankfurt, Leipzig 1719, 7–8.
Roberts (note 21), 44 identifies the illustration with hares as plate III from this work, printed in Hamburg, in 1717. A page-size reproduction of the same plate can be found in Johannes Fabricius, L’Alchimie. Les Alchimistes du Moyen Age et leur Art Royal, (Traduit de l’anglais par Richard Crevier; Harper Collins, 1976) Paris 1996, 97.
For this theme, see David Glenn Kropf, Authorship as Alchemy. Subversive writing in Pushkin, Scott and Hoffmann, Stanford, California 1994.
“Denn welcher treue, für Nationalbildung besorgte Teilnehmer hat nicht mit Trauer gesehen, dass die krankhaften Werke jenes leidenden Mannes lange Jahre in Deutschland wirksam gewesen und solche Verirrungen als bedeutend fördernde Neuigkeiten gesunden Gemütern eingeimpft worden.” ‘Anzeichnung’ from 1827, quoted in Klaus Günzel (ed.), E.T.A. Hoffmann. Leben und Werk in Briefen, Selbstzeugnissen und Zeitdokumenten, Berlin 1978, 490.
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Praet, D. Kabbala loculariter Denudata E.T.A. Hoffmann’s ironical use of Rosicrucianism, alchemy and esoteric philosophy as narrative substructures in Die Irrungen and Die Geheimnisse. Dtsch Vierteljahrsschr Literaturwiss Geistesgesch 79, 253–285 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03374702
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03374702