E. T. A. Hoffmann and the Serapiontic Principle

A comprehensive investigation of Hoffmann's "Serapiontic Principle" and what it implies for his oeuvre. Critics have long sought to elucidate the multilayered texts of E. T. A. Hoffmann by applying to them a particular set of theories and ideas that Hoffmann himself subsumed under the heading of the "Serapiontic Principle." This principle, which Hoffmann expounded in his collection of tales Die Serapionsbrüder, involves a complex intersection of the artist's faculties of imagination and percepti