Poe was also influenced by Hoffmann, but Poe's whole world is the
supernatural, and where Hoffmann slips with fantastic but logical
changes from the real to the unreal, Poe's metempsychosis is the real
in his world and he has a deeper insight into the world of terror. The
difference between Hawthorne and Hoffmann is even more striking, for
in the American the supernatural is the embodiment of the Puritan
New England conscience. In Hoffmann there is no such elevation of the
moral world to the rank of an atmosphere.
In Hoffmann there is no out-of-doors, no lyric love; some of his
characters are frankly insane. The musical takes on a supreme
significance among the sensations, and music seemed the only art which
was able to draw the soul of the man from his earth-bound habitation.
Only in music did Hoffmann find the ability to make the Romantic
escape from the homelessness of this existence to the all-embracing
world of the unreal. But too often in his works does the unreal fail
to satisfy the reader. There is an effort felt, an effect sought for,
and, while the amalgamation of the two worlds is perfect, the world
to which Hoffmann is able to take us proves to be without the cogency
which our imaginations expect. Here Hoffmann fails. His world of the
imagination cannot always be taken seriously.
Count August von Platen-Hallermund (1796-1835) is characterized by
the eternal Romantic homelessness; at every turn of his career this
impresses one.
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