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Birgit Roder, A Study of the Major Novellas of E. T. A. Hoffmann. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2003. xiv +193 pp.
E. T A. Hoffmann's reputation as "Gespenster-Hoffmann," the author of entertaining ghost stories affected his early reception. Only in the twentieth century did he begin to receive serious critical attention, but even then in a selective fashion. On one side, following the lead of Freud's groundbreaking examination of Der Sandmann in terms of the "uncanny," psychoanah/tically oriented critics such as James M.McGlathery (1981, 1985) have looked at scattered tales as case studies in neuroses, reading Hoffmann as a "sexual humorist" (quoted 4), portraying unconscious sublimation. On the other side, Marxist critics, most notably Georg Lukács and Hans Meyer, argue that Hoffmann stands out from other Romantic writers for his realistic critique of bourgeois philistinism and as an opponent to conservative tendencies in German culture. Yet other critics, such as Wulf Segebrecht and Rüder Safranski take an existential approach, looking at the despair of the artist. Only more recently have critics begun to look at Hoffmann's narrative elements. The most detailed is SheUa Dickson's treatment of Hoffmann in her book on German Romantic prose (1994). For Dickson, the narrative form of the tales reveals more about the experience of the world than their specific content.
Taking a largely thematic approach, Birgit Roder (University of Reading, UK) attempts a synthesis. For her the key to Hoffmann's tales centers on the "Romantic dUemma," the struggle of the artist with the ideal. This dilemma is closely bound to the complex tensions between artists and society, and between the aesthetic and the ideal. In turn it has implications with regard to gender, the way the artist (typically male) projects the ideal onto a beloved (female). ''It is clear," says Roder, "that if a genuine synthesis of artist, audience, and work of art is to be brought about, then both socio-political and aesthetic factors will play a vital role" (169). She limits her discussion to what she considers eight representative stories, divided and arranged thematically, selecting...