Interpreting the Creative Spark: Intertextuality and Remediation in the Critical Work of Bloom and Hutcheon in Relation to the Fiction of E. T. A. Hoffmann

E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776–1822) excelled in the art of intertextuality. During the German Romantic period, loosely spanning 1780–1830, he was a mischievous "snapper-up of considered trifles," to misquote Shakespeare's Autolycus.¹ By tracing connections between his precursors and successors, we aim to increase his already strong reputation in this area of artistic transmission, and to enhance critical acclaim for his sometimes undervalued work. Using the vast amount of extant criticism on Hoffmann as a springboard, we hope to illuminate the plurality of his artistic predecessors and progeny. We place his work in the artistic context of his time and explore his literary principles, as expressed dramatically within his collection The Serapion Brothers (1819–21) and other fiction. Then, using the insights of modern American and British critical theorists, we examine his intertextual writing practices. Relevant critical texts include Harold Bloom's The Anxiety of Influence (1973), A Map of Misreading (1975), and The Anatomy of Influence (2011); and Linda Hutcheon's A Theory of Adaptation (2012). Our eclectic critical approach brings together Hoffmann's use of Romantic Irony as embodied in his Serapiontic principles, Bloom's critique of literary precursors, and Hutcheon's cross-generic theories of adaptation with particular application to paintings and music. By applying modern American and British critical theories retrospectively to the striking use of metaphor and creative intertextuality in Hoffmann's work, we demonstrate his indebtedness to artistic forerunners, and the considerable reach of his influence on those who followed him. We include Miguel de Cervantes, Lawrence Sterne, and Ludwig Tieck, and consider the painter K. W. Kolbe and the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as significant among his literary, painterly, and musical precursors. We refer to Charles Baudelaire, Edgar Allan Poe, Fyodor Dostoyevsky² and Angela Carter as his literary progeny, and Richard Wagner as his musical progeny.

Multi-Generic and Contemporary Influences on Hoffmann's Work

Hoffmann's artistic output is high, comprising three novels, extended literary fairy tales (Märchen), fifty or more tales and anecdotes, music reviews, two operas, and many musical pieces. This is not surprising given his driven character, multiple talents, and the shaping pressures of the time and places in which he lived. He was an obsessive bibliophile, composer, music reviewer, illustrator, theatre factotum, and successful lawyer, eventually rising to the position of High Court Judge in Berlin before spinal paralysis killed him at only forty-five. To add to his polymathic talents, he also took a great interest in contemporary psychology, medical practice, science, and philosophy. The critical significance of these biographical details is the range of discourses which he read, heard, and used during his richly varied lifetime. Along with millions of others, he lived through the Napoleonic occupation of what is now Germany, with all the chaos and personal catastrophes that it brought. During this period of rapid political and cultural change, Hoffmann worked intermittently as a composer (his first love), writer, and lawyer, his creative side often being forced into keeping company with the necessity of earning a living or even just surviving. He therefore had firsthand experience with that aspect of Romantic philosophy which articulated the conflict between art and life.

His prestigious capacity for reading presents the problem of mass when untangling intertextual influences on his own literary principles and practice. In addition, his love of music, theatre, and the fine arts shaped his aesthetic. A narrow idea of what might constitute an intertext in his case needs to be put aside because Hoffmann's writing shows affinities with opera, plays, and paintings. For example, Christoph Gluck and Mozart profoundly influenced his writing, as well as his musical compositions, as can be seen in his tales "Ritter Gluck" (1814), "Don Juan" (1814), and others.³ He frequently refers to Carlo Gozzi's and Shakespeare's plays and appropriates their plots. His later ekphrastic tales of 1819 "Doge and Dogaresse," "The Interrupted Cadenza," and "Master Martin, the Cooper, and his Company...