Orientalism in Kunstmärchen: E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Escape to the Mythical Realm Atlantis

The mythical land Atlantis is a recurring trope in literary fairy tales written by German authors of the Romantic period (1795–1848). In this essay, I examine E. T. A. Hoffmann’s The Golden Pot: A Modern Fairytale (1814) by tying the text to German Orientalism, magic realism within the framework of a Wirklichkeitsmärchen (reality fairy tale), and the marginalized artist as the misunderstood Other. I elaborate on the longing of the German Romantics to escape reality and their nostalgic turn to the East and argue that Hoffmann’s literary creation of Atlantis, as mythological source of artistry and poetry, represents the imagined Orient.