E. T. A. Hoffmann

Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann was a German writer, composer, and artist. As a composer, he used the pseudonym Johannes Kreisler.

He was born into the family of Prussian royal advocate Christoph Ludwig Hoffmann (1736–1797). When Ernst was three years old, his parents separated, and he was raised in his maternal grandmother’s house under the influence of his uncle, a lawyer, a clever and gifted man with a taste for fantasy and mysticism. Ernst showed an early aptitude for music and drawing. But, not without his uncle’s influence, he chose the path of law, from which he tried throughout his later life to break free and earn his living by art.

In 1800 Hoffmann completed the course of legal studies at the University of Königsberg with distinction and tied his life to public service. That same year he left Königsberg and until 1807 worked in various positions, devoting his free time to music and drawing. Later, his attempts to make a living by art led to poverty and hardship; only after 1813 did his situation improve after he received a small inheritance. The post of Kapellmeister in Dresden briefly satisfied his professional ambitions; after 1815 he lost this position and was forced once again to enter the hated civil service, now in Berlin. However, the new post provided both income and much time for creative work.

Feeling revulsion for petty-bourgeois “tea” gatherings, Hoffmann spent most evenings, and sometimes part of the night, in a wine cellar. After ruining his nerves with wine and sleeplessness, Hoffmann would come home and sit down to write; the horrors created by his imagination sometimes frightened even himself. And at the appointed hour Hoffmann was already sitting at work in the office and diligently doing his job.

Hoffmann expressed his worldview in a long series of fantastic tales and stories, unparalleled in their kind. In them he skillfully blended the marvelous of all ages and peoples with personal invention, sometimes bleakly morbid, sometimes gracefully cheerful. At the time, German criticism did not hold Hoffmann in very high esteem; it preferred a romanticism that was profound and serious, without any admixture of sarcasm or satire. Hoffmann was much more popular in other countries of Europe and in North America; in Russia,