The Aesthetic Views of E.T.A. Hoffmann

Abstract

The essay is devoted to an analysis of aesthetic views of one of the most distinguished German Romantics, which came through with particular fullness in his fiction. Hoffmann’s aesthetic views focus around his understanding of art. He is convinced that art has an anagagogical nature. It elevates the human being from everyday life to the sphere of the divine and thereby ennobles everyday life itself. Art draws the artist away from the world and manifests to the world his prophetic gift, which is often perceived as “poetic madness.” The fantastic in art, as well as the terrible and the frightening, does not contradict artistic truth. The elements of the terrible give philosophical significance to the work of art and please the recipient. Art is cognitive to a high degree, because nature itself reveals its secrets to the artist and allows him to intuit the “truth of nature.” Hoffmann is convinced about the ontological status of art. It must “be something, and not mean it.” Artistic creativity takes place fully within the inner world of the artist as he aspires for his ideal. Hoffmann allows for a certain degree of vagueness in a concrete work of art, whose purpose is additional aesthetic effort on the part of the recipient, who must be internally ready for communication with art. Creative activity is based on imagination and reason. It is based on natural foundations and is inspired by the illuminating effect of divine energy. Hoffmann considers music as the highest form of art and the ideal for all the arts. According to Hoffmann, music is the truly Romantic form of art. He sees the meaning of music in its foundation in nature, its aspiration for the heavens, the fact that it includes the world of the spirits in its orbit, and that it incites a longing for the unattainable in the listener. Hoffmann paid much attention to irony as one of the features of Romantic art.