Features of romanticism in Hoffmann’s work “The Golden Pot. Analysis of the romantic fairy tale “The Golden Pot” by Hoffmann Hoffman the Golden Pot analysis of the work
Subject.Hoffmann "The Golden Pot".
Target: introduce students to the work of one of the outstanding romanticists of Europe; show the features of Hoffmann's romantic concept; learning to analyze a romantic work; strengthening questioning skills; practicing the skills of a coherent answer to a question.
Equipment: portrait of the writer, filmstrip on the biography and creative path of the writer; book exhibition of works by Hoffmann, a selection of illustrations for the “Golden Pot” by various artists.
Epigraph: Just a minute, I wanted to ask:
Is it easy for Hoffmann to have three names?
Oh, to grieve and get tired for three people
To the one who is Ernst, and Theodore, and Amadeus.
A. Kushner
During the classes
1. Checking homework on the writer’s biography .
W/D - Group 3 (reproducing level) – answer the quiz questions.
Quiz questions
1. Where and when was E. born? (January 24, 1776 in Konigsberg)
2. What is the tragedy of the Hoffmann family? (In 1778, my parents divorced, I stayed with my mother)
3. Name the people whose friendship the writer treasured throughout his life. (Theodor Hippel, Eduard Gitzig)
4. What was Hoffmann's reading range in his youth? (“The Sorrows of Young Werther” by Goethe, “Confession” by Rousseau, Shakespeare, Stern, Jean-Paul)
5. Yours Hoffmann replaced the third name “Wilhelm” with “Amadeus”. What was the reason for this replacement? (Love of Mozart's music - took Mozart's name)
6. What kind of education did Hoffman receive and what did he do after graduation? (Legal, efficient judicial officer)
7. Why was he exiled to Plock and then often persecuted, even before his death? (For caricatures of the authorities and for the fact that the authorities recognized themselves in his heroes)
8. How did creative recognition begin? (From the production of “Merry Musicians” at the musical theater)
9. What role did Julia Mark play in Hoffmann’s life? (Tragic love)
10. Who did Hoffmann perform as in the Bamberg musical theater? (Composer, stage director, decorator, librettist, critic)
11. Name the work that brought Hoffmann the greatest fame. (Ondine" libretto by Fouquet)
12. Name the most famous prose works of Hoffmann, written over the last 9 years of his life. (“Callo’s Fantasies”, “Kreisleriana”, “Serapion Brothers”, “Elixirs of the Devil”, “Worldly Views of Murr the Cat”, “Golden Pot”, “Nutcracker”, “Corner Window”, etc.)
13. Give the date of the writer’s death. (June 25, 1822 – 46 years old)
W/D - For the 1st group (creative level) and 2nd (constructive level) - a business game: “Editor of the publishing house ZhZL.”
- You are the editor of the ZhZL publishing house, you need to prove the legality of publishing the volume “E. "The Life of a Remarkable Man." Give arguments from the writer’s biography, formulate it in the form of an oral presentation to members of the editorial board. Convince your colleagues.
Oral presentations by students of these groups are heard, the best are noted.
Self-testing of quiz answers by group 3..
2.Analysis of the fairy tale “The Golden Pot”. Form - round table conversation.
Even before the discussion begins, students take their seats so that they sit facing each other so that they can see each other clearly. The atmosphere should be relaxed. Students ask questions prepared at home about the content of this work. Questions can be asked not only to a specific student who must answer this question, but questions can be directed to the teacher. When asking a question, the student says to whom he is asking the question.
Approximate range of questions for discussion
· What is the genre of this work? (Fairy tale)
· Is this tale folklore? (No, it’s a literary fairy tale, the so-called fairy tale from modern times)
· What can you say about the main character of the work? (A student, poor, unlucky, sometimes a funny loser - that is, endowed with individual traits, not always positive)
· What attracts the reader to this character? (Enthusiast, imaginative poet)
· What is the conflict of the tale? (Conflict – a collision of the real world with the dream world: he pushed a basket of apples from an evil old woman)
· How is the clash of Hoffmann's two worlds reflected in the depiction of the love line of the plot? (Serpentina – Veronica)
· What are Serpentina and Veronica like? (Both are attractive in their own way: Veronica represents the sphere of everyday life, dreams of achieving everything in real life: dreams of being a court councilor. Serpentina is the embodiment of a high spirit)
· How is the world of everyday life reflected through a symbol in a fairy tale? (The witch is an everyday force, terrible, but also attractive, attractive)
· What is philistinism and how does it affect a person as depicted by Hoffmann? (It deprives a person of high aspirations)
· How does Hoffman depict the triumph of things over man? (Things live human lives)
· What is Hoffmann’s contrast to this terrible world of materialism? (Dream World)
· Which of the fairy tale characters belongs to the dream world? (Fairy-tale characters: the prince of spirits, Soloman, his daughters - three green snakes)
· What is the world like in which these characters live? (Objects in it lose their material omnipotence: music, colors, poetry, the high world of dreams)
· Is this world open to everyone? (For enthusiasts only)
· How does the main character behave? Which world does he choose? (Anselm now rushes into the world of poetry, now into everyday life - to Veronica)
· What role does the feeling of being in a closed glass vessel play in Anselm’s choice? (In this way he understands even more clearly his loneliness in the world of materialism, the vacuum of spiritual life, emotional poverty)
· What choice does the hero make? (After he shakes off everyday life, marries Serpentine, they move to the fairy-tale kingdom of Atlantis)
· Why is the ending riddled with irony? (Atlantis is a dream, but not a reality. Hoffmann questions the romantic dream itself. He feels fear of the phenomena of life in their irrationality)
· What is Hoffmann's aesthetic ideal? (Creative world, dream world)
Salary – Name the features of Hoffmann's romanticism in the fairy tale “The Golden Pot”. Write them down in your notebooks.
Features of romanticism in the fairy tale “The Golden Pot”
1. Subjectivism.
2. The connection between romanticism and folklore.
3. the position of a “natural” person.
4. Combination of reality and fiction.
5. Showing the complexity and contradictions of human character.
6. Synthesis of arts (literature, music, fine arts, light music).
7. Use of symbolism.
8. Grotesque.
Conclusion: The main conflict of the work is between dream and reality, which is reflected in the construction of the work - in the romantic dual world. Hoffmann's aesthetic ideal is a creative world, a world of dreams and beauty. The combination of reality and fantasy in the story further emphasizes the incompatibility of these two worlds. Synthesis of arts
Music and poetry are ideal forms of expressing a romantic idea of the world and man, the author’s “I”. The fairy tale is dominated by subjectivism as the leading principle in the approach to the world and man in romantic art. Fantasy and imagination play a big role. With irony, Goffman destroys normative aesthetics. "Fairy tale" as a "canon of poetry" (Novalis). Grotesque, the connection between romanticism and folklore is not only at the genre level. Poeticization of the “natural” person as a bearer of the individual, unique. Goffman develops an idea of the complexity and contradictoriness of human nature.
3. Lesson summary.
4. Homework.
The Misadventures of the Student Anselm. - Healthy Conrector Paulman tobacco and golden-green snakes.
On the day of the Ascension, around three in the afternoon, a young man was rapidly walking through the Black Gate in Dresden and just fell into a basket of apples and pies that was being sold by an old, ugly woman - and he fell so successfully that part of the contents of the basket was crushed, and everything that successfully escaped this fate scattered in all directions, and the street boys joyfully rushed to the prey that the clever young man delivered to them! At the cries of the old woman, her companions left their tables, at which they were selling pies and vodka, surrounded the young man and began to scold him so rudely and furiously that he, speechless with annoyance and shame, could only take out his small and not particularly full wallet, which The old woman greedily grabbed it and quickly hid it. Then the tight circle of merchant women parted; but when the young man jumped out of it, the old woman shouted after him: “Run away, damn son, so that you will be blown away; You’ll fall under glass, under glass!...” There was something terrible in this woman’s sharp, shrill voice, so the walkers stopped in surprise, and the laughter that had been heard at first suddenly fell silent. Student Anselm (it was he who was the young man), although he did not at all understand the old woman’s strange words, felt an involuntary shudder and quickened his steps even more in order to avoid the gaze of the curious crowd directed at him. Now, making his way through the stream of smartly dressed townspeople, he heard everywhere saying: “Ah, poor young man! Oh, she’s a damned woman!” In a strange way, the old woman’s mysterious words gave the funny adventure a certain tragic turn, so that everyone looked with sympathy at the man whom they had not noticed at all before. Female persons, in view of the young man's tall stature and his handsome face, the expressiveness of which was enhanced by hidden anger, willingly excused his awkwardness, as well as his costume, which was very far from any fashion, namely: his pike-gray tailcoat was cut in such a way as if the tailor who worked for him knew only from hearsay about modern styles, and the black satin, well-preserved trousers gave the whole figure a kind of magisterial style, which was completely inconsistent with his gait and posture.
On the Feast of the Ascension, around three in the afternoon, a young man, a student named Anselm, was rapidly walking through the Black Gate in Dresden. He accidentally knocked over a huge basket of apples and pies that an ugly old woman was selling. He gave the old woman his skinny wallet. The merchant hastily grabbed him and burst out with terrible curses and threats. “You’ll end up under glass, under glass!” - she shouted. Accompanied by malicious laughter and sympathetic glances, Anselm turned onto a secluded road along the Elbe. He began to complain loudly about his worthless life.
Anselm's monologue was interrupted by a strange rustling sound coming from the elderberry bush. There were sounds similar to the ringing of crystal bells. Looking up, Anselm saw three lovely golden-green snakes entwined around the branches. One of the three snakes extended its head towards him and looked at him with tenderness with its wonderful dark blue eyes. Anselm was overcome with a feeling of the highest bliss and deepest sorrow. Suddenly a rough, thick voice was heard, the snakes rushed into the Elbe and disappeared as suddenly as they had appeared.
Anselm, in anguish, hugged the trunk of an elder tree, frightening the townspeople walking in the park with his appearance and wild speeches. Hearing unkind remarks about himself, Anselm woke up and started running. Suddenly they called out to him. It turned out to be his friends - registrar Geerbrand and rector Paulman and their daughters. Conrector invited Anselm to take a boat ride with them on the Elbe and end the evening with dinner at his house. Now Anselm clearly understood that the golden snakes were just a reflection of the fireworks in the foliage. However, that same unknown feeling, bliss or sorrow, again squeezed his chest.
During the walk, Anselm almost capsized the boat, shouting strange speeches about golden snakes. Everyone agreed that the young man was clearly not himself, and that this was due to his poverty and bad luck. Geerbrand offered him a job as a scribe for the archivist Lindgorst for decent money - he was just looking for a talented calligrapher and draftsman to copy manuscripts from his library. The student was sincerely happy about this offer, because his passion was to copy difficult calligraphic works.
The next morning, Anselm dressed up and went to Lindhorst. Just as he was about to take hold of the knocker on the door of the archivist’s house, suddenly the bronze face twisted and turned into an old woman, whose apples Anselm scattered at the Black Gate. Anselm recoiled in horror and grabbed the bell cord. In its ringing, the student heard the ominous words: “You will already be in glass, in crystal.” The bell cord went down and turned out to be a white, transparent, gigantic snake. She wrapped herself around him and squeezed him, so that blood sprayed from the veins, penetrating the snake’s body and coloring it red. The snake raised its head and laid its tongue of red-hot iron on Anselm's chest. He lost consciousness from the sharp pain. The student woke up in his poor bed, and Principal Paulman stood over him.
After this incident, Anselm did not dare to approach the archivist’s house again. No amount of persuasion from his friends led to anything; the student was considered to be truly mentally ill, and, in the opinion of Registrar Geerbrand, the best remedy for this was to work for an archivist. In order to get to know Anselm and Lindhorst better, the registrar arranged a meeting for them one evening in a coffee shop.
That evening the archivist told a strange story about a fiery lily that was born in a primeval valley, and about the young man Phosphorus, for whom the lily was inflamed with love. Phosphorus kissed the lily, it burst into flames, a new creature came out of it and flew away, not caring about the young man in love. Phosphorus began to mourn his lost friend. A black dragon flew out of the rock, caught this creature, hugged it with its wings, and it again turned into a lily, but her love for Phosphorus became a sharp pain, from which everything around her faded and withered. Phosphorus fought the dragon and freed the lily, who became the queen of the valley. “I come from exactly that valley, and the fire lily was my great-great-great-great-grandmother, so I myself am a prince,” Lindgorst concluded. These words of the archivist caused trembling in the student’s soul.
Every evening the student came to that same elderberry bush, hugged it and sadly exclaimed: “Ah! I love you, snake, and I will die of sadness if you don’t come back!” On one of these evenings, archivist Lindgorst approached him. Anselm told him about all the extraordinary events that had happened to him recently. The archivist told Anselm that the three snakes were his daughters, and he was in love with the youngest, Serpentina. Lindgorst invited the young man to his place and gave him a magical liquid - protection from the old witch. After this, the archivist turned into a kite and flew away.
The daughter of the director Paulman, Veronica, having accidentally heard that Anselm could become a court councilor, began to dream of the role of a court councilor and his wife. In the midst of her dreams, she heard an unknown and terrible creaking voice that said: “He will not be your husband!”
Having heard from a friend that an old fortune teller, Frau Rauerin, lived in Dresden, Veronica decided to turn to her for advice. “Leave Anselm,” the witch told the girl. - He's a bad person. He contacted my enemy, the evil old man. He is in love with his daughter, the green snake. He will never be a court councilor.” Dissatisfied with the fortune teller's words, Veronica wanted to leave, but then the fortune teller turned into the girl's old nanny, Lisa. To detain Veronica, the nanny said that she would try to heal Anselm from the sorcerer’s spell. To do this, the girl must come to her at night, on the future equinox. Hope woke up again in Veronica's soul.
Meanwhile, Anselm began working for the archivist. Lindhorst gave the student some kind of black mass instead of ink, strangely colored pens, unusually white and smooth paper and ordered him to copy an Arabic manuscript. With every word Anselm's courage increased, and with it his skill. It seemed to the young man that the serpentine was helping him. The archivist read his secret thoughts and said that this work is a test that will lead him to happiness.
On the cold and windy night of the equinox, the fortune teller led Veronica to the field. She lit a fire under the cauldron and threw into it those strange bodies that she had brought with her in a basket. Following them, a curl from Veronica’s head and her ring flew into the cauldron. The witch told the girl to stare into the boiling brew without stopping. Suddenly Anselm came out from the depths of the cauldron and extended his hand to Veronica. The old woman opened the tap near the boiler, and molten metal flowed into the mold. At that same moment a thunderous voice was heard above her head: “Get away, quickly!” The old woman fell to the ground screaming, and Veronica fainted. Coming to her senses at home, on her couch, she discovered in the pocket of her soaked raincoat a silver mirror that had been cast by a fortune teller the previous night. From the mirror, as if from a boiling cauldron at night, her lover looked at the girl.
Student Anselm had been working for the archivist for many days. The write-off went quickly. It seemed to Anselm that the lines he was copying had already been known to him for a long time. He felt Serpentina next to him all the time, sometimes her light breath touched him. Soon Serpentina appeared to the student and told him that her father actually came from the Salamander tribe. He fell in love with a green snake, the daughter of a lily, who grew in the garden of the prince of spirits, Phosphorus. The salamander embraced the snake, it disintegrated into ashes, a winged creature was born from it and flew away.
In desperation, Salamander ran through the garden, devastating it with fire. Phosphorus, the prince of the country of Atlantis, became angry, extinguished the flame of Salamander, doomed him to life in the form of a man, but left him a magical gift. Only then will Salamander throw off this heavy burden, when there are young men who will hear the singing of his three daughters and love them. They will receive a Golden Pot as a dowry. At the moment of betrothal, a fiery lily will grow from the pot, the young man will understand its language, comprehend everything that is open to disembodied spirits, and begin to live with his beloved in Atlantis. The Salamanders, who have finally received forgiveness, will return there. The old witch strives to own a golden pot. Serpentina warned Anselm: “Beware of the old woman, she is hostile to you, since your childish pure character has already destroyed many of her evil spells.” In conclusion, the kiss burned Anselm's lips. When the student woke up, he discovered that Serpentina’s story was captured on his copy of the mysterious manuscript.
Although Anselm's soul was turned to dear Serpentine, he sometimes involuntarily thought about Veronica. Soon Veronica begins to appear to him in his dreams and gradually takes over his thoughts. One morning, instead of going to the archivist, he went to visit Paulman, where he spent the whole day. There he accidentally saw a magic mirror, into which he began to look together with Veronica. A struggle began in Anselm, and then it became clear to him that he had always thought only about Veronica. A hot kiss made the student’s feeling even stronger. Anselm promised Veronica to marry her.
After lunch, Registrar Geerbrand arrived with everything needed to prepare the punch. With the first sip of the drink, the strangeness and wonder of the past weeks rose again before Anselm. He began to dream aloud about the Serpentine. Suddenly, after him, the owner and Geerbrand begin to scream and roar, as if possessed: “Long live Salamander! Let the old woman perish!” Veronica tried in vain to convince them that old Lisa would certainly defeat the sorcerer. In insane horror, Anselm ran into his closet and fell asleep. When he woke up, he again began to dream about his marriage to Veronica. Now neither the archivist's garden nor Lindhorst himself seemed so magical to him.
The next day, the student continued his work with the archivist, but now it seemed to him that the parchment of the manuscript was covered not with letters, but with tangled squiggles. Trying to copy the letter, Anselm dripped ink onto the manuscript. Blue lightning flew out of the spot, the archivist appeared in the thick fog and severely punished the student for his mistake. Lindhorst imprisoned Anselm in one of those crystal jars that stood on the table in the archivist's office. Next to him stood five more bottles, in which the young man saw three students and two scribes, who had also once worked for the archivist. They began to mock Anselm: “The madman imagines that he is sitting in a bottle, while he himself stands on the bridge and looks at his reflection in the river!” They also laughed at the crazy old man who showered them with gold because they were drawing doodles for him. Anselm turned away from his frivolous comrades in misfortune and directed all his thoughts and feelings to dear Serpentine, who still loved him and tried as best she could to alleviate Anselm’s situation.
Suddenly Anselm heard a dull grumbling and recognized the witch in the old coffee pot standing opposite. She promised him salvation if he married Veronica. Anselm proudly refused. Then the old woman grabbed the golden pot and tried to hide, but the archivist overtook her. The next moment, the student saw a mortal battle between a sorcerer and an old woman, from which Salamander emerged victorious, and the witch turned into a nasty beetroot. At this moment of triumph, Serpentina appeared before Anselm, announcing to him the forgiveness granted. The glass cracked and he fell into the arms of the lovely Serpentina.
The next day, Registrar Geerbrand and Registrar Paulman could not understand how an ordinary punch had brought them to such excesses. Finally, they decided that the cursed student was to blame for everything, who infected them with his madness. Many months have passed. On Veronica’s name day, the newly appointed court councilor Geerbrand came to Paulman’s house and proposed marriage to the girl. She agreed and told her future husband about her love for Anselm and about the witch. A few weeks later, Madam Court Counselor Geerbrand settled into a beautiful house in the New Market.
The author received a letter from the archivist Lindhorst with permission to make public the story of the strange fate of his son-in-law, a former student, and currently the poet Anselm, and with an invitation to complete the story of the Golden Pot in the very hall of his house where the illustrious student Anselm worked. Anselm himself became engaged to Serpentina in a beautiful temple, inhaled the aroma of a lily that grew from a golden pot, and found eternal bliss in Atlantis.
Retold
The world of Hoffmann's fairy tale has pronounced signs of a romantic dual world, which is embodied in the work in various ways. Romantic dual worlds are realized in the story through the characters’ direct explanation of the origin and structure of the world in which they live.
“There is this world, the earthly world, the everyday world and another world, the magical Atlantis, from which man once originated. This is exactly what is said in Serpentina’s story to Anselm about her father, the archivist Lindgorst, who, as it turned out, is the prehistoric elemental spirit of fire Salamander, who lived in the magical land of Atlantis and was exiled to earth by the prince of spirits Phosphorus for his love for his daughter Lily the snake” Chavchanidze D. L. “Romantic irony” in the works of E.T.-A. Hoffman // Scientific notes of the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute named after. IN AND. Lenin. - No. 280. - M., 1967. - P.73..
This fantastic story is perceived as an arbitrary fiction that has no serious significance for understanding the characters of the story, but it is said that the prince of spirits Phosphorus predicts the future: people will degenerate (namely, they will cease to understand the language of nature), and only melancholy will vaguely remind of the existence of another world (the ancient homeland of man), at this time the Salamander will be reborn and in its development will reach man, who, having been reborn in this way, will begin to perceive nature again - this is a new anthropodicy, the doctrine of man. Anselm belongs to the people of the new generation, since he is able to see and hear natural miracles and believe in them - after all, he fell in love with a beautiful snake that appeared to him in a flowering elderberry bush.
Serpentina calls this a “naive poetic soul”, which is possessed by “those young men who, due to the excessive simplicity of their morals and their complete lack of so-called secular education, are despised and ridiculed by the crowd” Hoffmann E.T.-A. “The Golden Pot” and other stories. -M., 1981. - P. 23.. A man on the verge of two worlds: partly an earthly being, partly a spiritual one. In essence, in all of Hoffmann’s works the world is structured exactly this way. See: Skobelev A.V. On the problem of the relationship between romantic irony and satire in Hoffmann’s works // The artistic world of E.T.-A. Goffman.-M., 1982. - P.118..
Duality is realized in the character system, namely in the fact that the characters clearly differ in their affiliation or inclination to the forces of good and evil. In The Golden Pot, these two forces are represented, for example, by the archivist Lindgorst, his daughter Serpentina on the side of good, and the old witch on the side of evil. The exception is the main character, who finds himself under the equal influence of one and the other force, and is subject to this changeable and eternal struggle between good and evil.
Anselm’s soul is a “battlefield” between these forces, see, for example, how easily Anselm’s worldview changes when he looks into Veronica’s magic mirror: just yesterday he was madly in love with Serpentine and wrote down the history of the archivist in his house with mysterious signs, and Today it seems to him that he only thought about Veronica, “that the image that appeared to him yesterday in the blue room was again Veronica, and that the fantastic fairy tale about the marriage of Salamander with a green snake was only written by him, and not told to him at all.” . He himself marveled at his dreams and attributed them to his exalted state of mind, due to his love for Veronica...” Hoffman E.T.-A. “The Golden Pot” and other stories. -M. 1981. - P. 42.. Human consciousness lives in dreams and each of these dreams always seems to find objective evidence, but, in fact, all these mental states are the result of the influence of the fighting spirits of good and evil. The extreme antinomy of the world and man is a characteristic feature of the romantic worldview.
“Dual worlds are realized in the images of a mirror, which are found in large numbers in the story: the smooth metal mirror of the old woman-fortune teller, the crystal mirror made of rays of light from the ring on the hand of the archivist Lindhorst, the magic mirror of Veronica that bewitched Anselm” Chavchanidze D.L. “Romantic irony” in the works of E.T.-A. Hoffman // Scientific notes of the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute named after. IN AND. Lenin. - No. 280. - M., 1967. - P.84..
The color scheme used by Hoffmann in the depiction of objects from the artistic world of “The Golden Pot” reveals that the story belongs to the era of romanticism. These are not just subtle shades of color, but necessarily dynamic, moving colors and entire color schemes, often completely fantastic: “pike-gray tailcoat” Hoffman E.T.-A. “The Golden Pot” and other stories. -M., 1981. - P.11., “snakes shining with green gold” Ibid. - P. 15., “sparkling emeralds fell on him and entwined him with sparkling golden threads, fluttering and playing around him with thousands of lights” Ibid. - P.16., “blood spurted from the veins, penetrating the transparent body of the snake and coloring it red” Ibid. - P.52., “from the precious stone, as from a burning focus, rays emerged in all directions, which, when combined, made up a brilliant crystal mirror” Ibid. - P.35..
The sounds in the artistic world of Hoffmann’s work have the same feature - dynamism, elusive fluidity (the rustling of elderberry leaves gradually turns into the ringing of crystal bells, which, in turn, turns out to be a quiet, intoxicating whisper, then bells again, and suddenly everything ends in rough dissonance, noise the water under the oars of the boat reminds Anselm of a whisper).
Wealth, gold, money, jewelry are presented in the artistic world of Hoffmann's fairy tale as a mystical object, a fantastic magical remedy, an object partly from another world. “A spice thaler every day - it was this kind of payment that seduced Anselm and helped him overcome his fear in order to go to the mysterious archivist, it is this spice thaler that turns living people into chained ones, as if poured into glass” Hoffman E.T.-A. “The Golden Pot” and other stories. -M., 1981. - P.33.. Lindgorst’s precious ring can charm a person. In her dreams of the future, Veronica imagines her husband, court councilor Anselm, and he has “a gold watch with a rehearsal, and he gives her cute, wonderful earrings of the latest style” Ibid. - P.42..
The heroes of the story are distinguished by their obvious romantic specificity. Archivist Lindgorst is the keeper of ancient mysterious manuscripts that apparently contain mystical meanings; in addition, he is also engaged in mysterious chemical experiments and does not allow anyone into this laboratory. Anselm is a copyist of manuscripts who is fluent in calligraphy. Anselm, Veronica, and Kapellmeister Geerbrand have an ear for music and are able to sing and even compose music. In general, everyone belongs to the scientific community and is associated with the production, storage and dissemination of knowledge.
The nationality of the heroes is not definitely stated, but it is known that many heroes are not people at all, but magical creatures generated from marriage, for example, a black dragon feather and a beetroot. Nevertheless, the rare nationality of the heroes as an obligatory and familiar element of romantic literature is still present, although in the form of a weak motive: the archivist Lindgorst keeps manuscripts in Arabic and Coptic, as well as many books “such as those written in some strange characters, not belonging to none of the known languages” Ibid. - P.36..
The style of “The Golden Pot” is distinguished by the use of the grotesque, which is not only Hoffmann’s individual originality, but also that of romantic literature in general. “He stopped and looked at a large door knocker attached to a bronze figure. But just as he wanted to take up this hammer at the last sonorous strike of the tower clock on the Church of the Cross, suddenly the bronze face twisted and grinned into a disgusting smile and the rays of its metal eyes sparkled terribly. Oh! It was an apple trader from the Black Gate...” Hoffman E.T.-A. “The Golden Pot” and other stories. -M., 1981. - P.13., “the bell cord went down and turned out to be a white, transparent, gigantic snake...” Ibid. - P.42., “with these words he turned and left, and then everyone realized that the important little man was, in fact, a gray parrot” Ibid. - P.35..
Fiction allows you to create the effect of a romantic two-world: there is the world here, the real one, where ordinary people think about a serving of coffee with rum, double beer, dressed up girls, etc., and there is a fantastic world. Fantasy in Hoffmann's story comes from grotesque imagery: with the help of the grotesque, one of the characteristics of an object is increased to such an extent that the object seems to turn into another, already fantastic one. For example, the episode with Anselm moving into the bottle.
The image of a man chained in glass, apparently, is based on Hoffmann’s idea that people sometimes do not realize their lack of freedom - Anselm, having found himself in a bottle, notices the same unfortunate people around him, but they are quite happy with their situation and think that they are free, that they they even go to taverns, etc., and Anselm went crazy (“he imagines that he is sitting in a glass jar, but is standing on the Elbe Bridge and looking into the water” Ibid. - P. 40.).
Author's digressions appear quite often in the story's relatively small text volume (in almost every one of the 12 vigils). Obviously, the artistic meaning of these episodes is to clarify the author's position, namely the author's irony. “I have the right to doubt, gentle reader, that you have ever happened to be sealed in a glass vessel...” Ibid. - P.40.. These obvious authorial digressions set the inertia of perception of the rest of the text, which turns out to be completely permeated with romantic irony See: Chavchanidze D.L. “Romantic irony” in the works of E.T.-A. Hoffman // Scientific notes of the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute named after. V.I. Lenin. - No. 280. - M., 1967. - P.83.
Finally, the author’s digressions play another important role: in the last vigil, the author announced that, firstly, he would not tell the reader how he knew this whole secret story, and secondly, that Salamander Lindgorst himself suggested and helped him complete the story of the fate of Anselm, who, as it turned out, moved, together with Serpentina, from ordinary earthly life to Atlantis. The very fact of the author’s communication with the elemental spirit Salamander casts a shadow of madness over the entire narrative, but the last words of the story answer many of the reader’s questions and doubts and reveal the meaning of key allegories: “Anselm’s beatitude is nothing other than life in poetry, which holds the sacred harmony of all things reveals itself as the deepest of nature’s secrets!” Goffman E.T.-A. “The Golden Pot” and other stories. -M., 1981. - P.55..
Sometimes two realities, two parts of a romantic dual world intersect and give rise to funny situations. So, for example, a tipsy Anselm begins to talk about the other side of reality known only to him, namely about the true face of the archivist and Serpentina, which looks like nonsense, since those around him are not ready to immediately understand that “Mr. Archivist Lindgorst is, in fact, the Salamander, who devastated the garden of the prince of spirits Phosphorus is in their hearts because the green snake flew away from him” Ibid. - P.45.. However, one of the participants in this conversation - registrar Geerbrand - suddenly showed awareness of what was happening in a parallel real world: “This archivist is really a damned Salamander; he flicks fire with his fingers and burns holes on his coats in the manner of a fire pipe.” Ibid. - P.45.. Carried away by the conversation, the interlocutors completely stopped reacting to the amazement of those around them and continued to talk about characters and events that only they understood, for example, about the old woman - “her dad is nothing more than a tattered wing, her mother is a bad beetroot” Goffman E.T.-A. “The Golden Pot” and other stories. -M., 1981. - P.45..
The author's irony makes it especially noticeable that the heroes live between two worlds. Here, for example, is the beginning of Veronica’s remark, who suddenly entered the conversation: “This is vile slander,” Veronica exclaimed with her eyes sparkling with anger...” Ibid. - P.45.. For a moment it seems to the reader that Veronica, who does not know the whole truth about who the archivist or the old woman is, is outraged by these crazy characteristics of her acquaintances Mr. Lindgorst and old Lisa, but it turns out that Veronica is also aware of the matter and indignant at something completely different: “...Old Lisa is a wise woman, and the black cat is not an evil creature at all, but an educated young man of the most subtle manner and her cousin germain.” Ibid. - P.46..
The conversation between the interlocutors takes on completely ridiculous forms (Gerbrand, for example, asks the question “can Salamander eat without burning his beard..?” Ibid. - P. 46), any serious meaning is completely destroyed by irony. However, irony changes our understanding of what happened before: if everyone from Anselm to Geerband and Veronica is familiar with the other side of reality, then this means that in ordinary conversations that happened between them before, they hid their knowledge of another reality from each other, or these conversations contained hints, ambiguous words, etc., invisible to the reader, but understandable to the heroes. Irony, as it were, dispels the holistic perception of a thing (person, event), instills a vague feeling of understatement and “misunderstanding” of the surrounding world See: Skobelev A.V. On the problem of the relationship between romantic irony and satire in Hoffmann’s works // The Artistic World of E.T.-A. Hoffman. - M., 1982. - P. 128.
The listed features of Hoffmann's story “The Golden Pot” clearly indicate the presence of elements of a mythological worldview in this work. The author constructs two parallel worlds, each with its own mythology. The ordinary world with its Christian worldview does not attract the author’s close attention as far as mythology is concerned, but the fantastic world is described not only in vivid detail, but for it the author also invented and described in detail a mythological picture of its structure. That is why Hoffmann’s fantasy is not inclined to forms of implicit fantasy, but, on the contrary, turns out to be explicit, emphasized, magnificently and uncontrollably developed - this leaves a noticeable imprint on the world order of Hoffmann’s romantic fairy tale.
Having read the work “The Golden Pot” by Hoffmann, we see the first thing that belongs to the features of romanticism - the use of the grotesque. The entire work is built on a bizarre interweaving of the real and the fantastic. With the help of fiction, Hoffman creates the effect of two worlds. In Hoffmann's work there are metamorphoses, that is, transformations; an example of such a transformation could be a green snake that turned into a girl. There are many digressions in the work in which the author explains the author’s position, namely the author’s irony. Irony is also inherent in this work, the intertwining of two worlds leads to an ironic situation when Anselm is considered crazy after his stories about the other side of reality. Fantasticity and fabulousness are manifested throughout the entire work, the magical world, witchcraft, metamorphoses, fantastic heroes of the work, etc. Hoffmann's fantasy in The Golden Pot is not hidden, but, on the contrary, obvious. Also, the features of romanticism in Hoffmann’s work “The Golden Pot” include such features as unity with nature, this can be seen in the episode when Anselm sees three green snakes entwined around the branches of an elderberry, after they disappeared Anselm remained standing, hugging the bush elderberries. As for Anselm, he is a romantic hero in this work; he does not betray his dreams. Despite the events taking place, even when he finds himself in the bottle, he does not give in to the persuasion of the witch.
As you know, we associate romanticism with everything bright, sweet, with flowers and elegant gifts. It turns out that in our time you can be a romantic. For me, for example, a bouquet of sweets as an original gift for a loved one was a revelation. It is very original, pleasant and romantic.
