The tale of the pot of gold analysis. “The Golden Pot”, an artistic analysis of Hoffmann’s fairy tale

Subject. Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann "The Golden Pot".

Target: introduce students to the work of one of the outstanding romanticists of Europe; show features romantic concept Hoffman; analysis training romantic work; strengthening questioning skills; practicing the skills of a coherent answer to a question.

Equipment: portrait of the writer, filmstrip based on biography and creative path writer; book exhibition 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. Check homework according to the writer's biography.

W/D - Group 3 (reproducing level) – answer the quiz questions.

Quiz questions

Where and when was E.T.A. Hoffmann born? (January 24, 1776 in Konigsberg)
What is the tragedy of the Hoffmann family? (In 1778, the parents divorced, Ernst Theodor Wilhelm remained with his mother)
Name the people whose friendship the writer treasured throughout his life. (Theodor Hippel, Eduard Gitzig)
What was Hoffmann's reading range in his youth? (“Suffering young Werther"Goethe, "Confession" by Rousseau, Shakespeare, Stern, Jean-Paul)
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)
What kind of education did Hoffman receive and what did he do after graduation? (Legal, efficient judicial officer)
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)
Where did it start creative recognition? (From production in musical theater"Merry Musicians")
What role did Julia Mark play in Hoffmann’s life? ( Tragic love)
Who did Hoffmann perform as in the Bamberg musical theater? (Composer, stage director, decorator, librettist, critic)
Name the work that brought Hoffmann the most great fame. (Ondine" libretto by Fouquet)
Name the most famous prose works Hoffmann, written in the last 9 years of his life. (“Fantasies of Callot”, “Kreisleriana”, “Serapion’s Brothers”, “Elixirs of the Devil”, “ Worldly views Murrah the Cat”, “Golden Pot”, “Nutcracker”, “Corner Window”, etc.)
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.T.A. Hoffman, Life wonderful person" 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 - conversation at a round table.

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 funny loser - i.e. endowed individual traits, not always positive)
What attracts the reader to this character? (Enthusiast, imaginative poet)
What is the conflict of the fairy tale? (Conflict – a collision of the real world with the dream world: he pushed a basket of apples from an evil old woman)
How the clash of Hoffmann's dual worlds is reflected in the image love line 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 does a fairy tale reflect the world of everyday life through a symbol? (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? scary world materialism? (Dream World)
Which of the fairy tale characters belongs to the dream world? ( Fairy tale characters: 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, high world dreams)
Is this world open to everyone? (For enthusiasts only)
How does he behave? main character? 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 place play in Anselm’s choice? glass vessel? (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 fairy kingdom Atlantis)
Therefore for happy ending does the author use a fantasy ending? (Into the world of poetic dreams is the only way to escape from the everyday life of contemporary society. Hoffman understands the illusory nature of this exit)
Why is the ending riddled with irony? (Atlantis is a dream, but not a reality. Hoffman questions the very romantic dream. 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”

Subjectivism.
The connection between romanticism and folklore.
the position of a “natural” person.
A combination of reality and fantasy.
Showing the complexity and contradictions of human character.
Synthesis of arts (literature, music, visual arts, light music).
Use of symbolism.
Grotesque.

Conclusion: Main conflict work - between dream and reality, which is reflected in the construction of the work - in a 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 - perfect shapes expressions of 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.

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Slide captions:

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

Works of the writer

Assignment for group 1 (creative level) and group 2 (constructive level) Business game: “Editor of the publishing house ZhZL.” You are the editor of the ZhZL publishing house, you need to prove the need to publish the volume “E.T.A. Hoffman. The life of a wonderful person." 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.

Quiz questions group 3 (reproducing level) Where and when was E.T.A. born? Hoffman? What is the tragedy of the Hoffmann family? 3. Name the names of people whose friendship the writer treasured all his life. 4. What was Hoffmann’s reading range in his youth? 5. Hoffmann replaced his third name “Wilhelm” with “Amadeus”. What was the reason for this replacement? 6. What kind of education did Hoffman receive and what did he do after graduation?

Why was he exiled to Plock and then often persecuted, even before his death? How did creative recognition begin? What role did Julia Mark play in Hoffmann’s life? Who did Hoffmann perform as in the Bamberg musical theater? 11. Name the work that brought Hoffmann the greatest fame. 12. Name the most famous prose works of Hoffmann, written over the last 9 years of his life. 13. Give the date of the writer’s death.

Quiz questions group 3 (reproducing level) 1. Where and when was E.T.A. born? Hoffman? (January 24, 1776 in Koenigsberg). 2. What is the tragedy of the Hoffmann family? (In 1778, the parents divorced, Ernst Theodor Wilhelm remained with his mother). 3. Name the names of people whose friendship the writer treasured all 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. Hoffmann replaced his 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 the caricatures of the bosses and for the fact that the bosses recognized themselves in his heroes) 8. How did creative recognition begin? (From the musical theater production of “The Merry Musicians”) 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" on a libretto by Fouquet) Name the most famous prose works of Hoffmann, written in the last 9 years of his life. (“Fantasia Callot”, “Kreisleriana”, “Serapion Brothers”, “Elixirs of the Devil”, “Worldly Views of the Cat Murra”, “Golden Pot”, “Nutcracker”, “Corner Window”, etc.) 13. Name the date death of the writer. (June 25, 1822 – 46 years old)

Questions for Discussion What is the genre of this work? Is this tale folklore? What can you say about the main character of the work? What attracts the reader to this character? What is the conflict of the fairy tale? How is the clash of Hoffmann's two worlds reflected in the depiction of the love line of the plot?

What are Serpentina and Veronica like? How does a fairy tale reflect the world of everyday life through a symbol? What is philistinism and how does it affect a person as depicted by Hoffmann? How does Hoffman depict the triumph of things over man?

What is Hoffmann’s contrast to this terrible world of materialism? Which of the fairy tale characters belongs to the dream world? What is the world like in which these characters live? Is this world open to everyone?

How does the main character behave? Which world does he choose? What role does the feeling of being in a closed glass vessel play in Anselm’s choice? What choice does the hero make?

Connection with folklore Combination of reality and fantasy Synthesis of arts Grotesque Use of symbolism Complexity and inconsistency of character Position of a “natural” person Subjectivism Features of romanticism

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 expression of the 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.

There are two stages in the history of romanticism: early and late. The division is not only chronological, but based on philosophical ideas era.

Philosophy early romanticism defines a two-sphere world: the world of “infinite” and “finite” (“become”, “inert”). “Infinite” - Cosmos, Genesis. “Finite” - earthly existence, ordinary consciousness, everyday life

Art world early romanticism embodies the dual world of “infinite” and “finite” through the idea universal synthesis. The dominant attitude of the early romantics was a joyful acceptance of the world. The universe is a kingdom of harmony, and world chaos is perceived as a bright source of energy and metamorphosis, the eternal “flow of life.”

The world of late romanticism is also a two-sphere world, but already different, it is a world of absolute two-worldness. Here the “finite” is an independent substance, opposite to the “infinite”. The dominant attitude of the late romantics is disharmony, cosmic chaos is perceived as a source of dark, mystical forces.

Hoffmann's aesthetics are created at the intersection of early and late romanticism, their philosophical interpenetration.

In the world of Hoffmann’s heroes, there is no single correct space and time; each has its own reality, its own topos and its own time. But the Romantic, describing these worlds, in his own mind connects them into a holistic, albeit contradictory, world.

Hoffmann's favorite character, Kreisler, in The Musical Sorrows of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler, describes a “tea evening” to which he was invited as a pianist playing at a dance:

“...I... am completely exhausted... A disgusting lost evening! But now I feel good and easy. After all while playing I took out a pencil and right hand sketched in numbers on page 63 under the last variation several successful deviations, while the left hand did not stop struggling with the flow of sounds!.. I keep writing on the back blank side<…>As a recovering patient who never ceases to talk about what he suffered, I describe in detail here the hellish torment of today’s tea evening.” Kreisler, Hoffmann's alter ego, is able to overcome the drama of reality through spiritual existence.

In Hoffmann’s work, the structure of each text is created by “two worlds,” but it enters through “ romantic irony».

In the center of Hoffmann's universe - creative person, poet and musician, the main thing for whom is act of creation, according to the romantics, is “music, the being of being itself.” Aesthetic act and resolves the conflict between the “material” and the “spiritual”, life and being.

A fairy tale from modern times “The Golden Pot” was the center of philosophical and aesthetic concept Hoffmann.

The text of the fairy tale reflects the “extra-textual” world and at the same time the individual character that characterizes Hoffmann’s personality. According to Yu. M. Lotman, the text is “ author's model of the world", through everything structural components which, chronotope and heroes are embodied real world. The philosophy of romantic dual worlds determines the plot and plot of the tale, composition and chronotope.

To parse the text we need theoretical concepts, without which students, as a rule, call Anselm the main character of the tale, and from art spaces two are distinguished - the city of Dresden and the magical and mystical world in its two guises - Atlantis (the bright beginning) and the space of the Old Woman (the dark beginning). Thus delineated chronotope of the tale cuts off individual parts of the composition, reduces the plot by half, reducing it to the plot about Anselm.

If for actor the characters of this plot Anselm, Veronica, Geerbrand, Paulman, Lindgorst and the old woman Lisa are sufficient for creative fantasies stage embodiment, then for director this compositional deconstruction leads to the loss of the meaning of the Fairy Tale and its main character - Romance.

Theoretical concepts become indicators of artistic and ideological meanings.

Chronotope - “... relationship spatial and temporal relations, artistically mastered in literature" [p. 234].

Author-creator - a real man, the artist is “distinguishable from the image author, narrator and narrator. Author-creator = composer both in relation to the work as a whole, and to a separate text as a particle of the whole” [p. 34].

The author is “the bearer of the intensely active unity of the completed whole, the whole hero and the whole work.<...>The author’s consciousness is the consciousness that embraces the consciousness of the hero, his world” [p. 234]. The author’s task is to understand the form of the hero and his world, i.e. aesthetic assessment of someone else's knowledge and action.

Narrator (narrator, narrator) - “this created figure which belongs to the whole literary work". This role invented and adopted by the author-creator. “The narrator and characters, by their function, are “paper creatures”, Author story (material) cannot be confused with narrator this story."

Event. There are two types of Events: an artistic event and a story event:

1) An artistic event - in which the author-creator and the reader take part. So in “The Golden Pot” we will see several similar Events, about which the characters “do not know”: this structural division, the choice of genre, the creation of a chronotope, as Tynyanov notes, such an Event “introduces not the hero, but the reader into prose.”

2) The plot event changes the characters, situations, dynamic deployment of the plot in the space of the entire plot.

The text of the “Golden Pot” is a system of several artistic events, fixed in the structure of the composition.

The beginning of these Events is the division into “printed” text and “written” text.

First Event- this is the text “printed”: “The Golden Pot” A fairy tale from modern times.” It was created by Hoffmann - Author-creator - and has general character with the rest of Hoffmann's work, this is Kreisler, the main character of "Kreisleriana".

Second Event. Author-Creator to your text introduces another author - Author-narrator. In the literature such author-narrator always exists as an alter ego real author. But often the author-creator endows him with the subjective function of the author-storyteller, who turns out to be a witness or even a participant real story, which it tells about. “The Pot of Gold” has just such a subjectified author - a romantic writer who writes “his own text” - about Anselm (“the text being written”).

Third Event- this is the “written text” about Anselm.

The story tells us about the life of a young man, a student who considers himself very unlucky. His name is Anselm. He constantly finds himself in unpleasant situations. Walking through the market, he accidentally pushes a basket of apples, gives his wallet to the grandmother selling them, and in return she showers him with abuse and curses. He runs away from her and suddenly sees three snakes, looking at them he feels very good, but they jump into the river and the guy seems to return to real life.

One day his friend offered him a well-paid job as “scribe to archivist Linghorst,” who had long been looking for a good calligrapher with talent. Anselm immediately agreed, because it was his hobby to copy difficult calligraphic works. He came to Linghorst, wanted to knock on the door, but suddenly the old woman’s voice was heard in his head, and her face appeared before his eyes. The student runs away in fear, his friends think that he has gone crazy and only work with the archivist can help him. Having waited for the right moment, they introduce Anselm and Linghorst. He told Anselm the story that he was cursed, and the three snakes were his daughters. That they can be freed from the curse if a young man falls in love with their daughters.

Afterwards it turned out that the archivist was Salamander, and Anselm fell in love with him. youngest daughter- Serpentine. He also learned that the grandmother is an evil witch who wants to get the golden pot and prevent Salamander from lifting the curse. The witch plotted many intrigues, tried to make another girl fall in love with Anselm, and for a short time she even succeeded, but Anselm came to his senses and remembered his beloved Serpentine. In the end, the curse was lifted, they got married, and the student became a poet. And they lived happily ever after in Atlantis. The story tells that you need to listen to your heart, that there may be many obstacles on the way to what you want, but if it is really what you want, then overcoming them will be easier than ever.

Picture or drawing of a golden pot

Other retellings for the reader's diary

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Summary of the poem Beowulf
In old Denmark, the monster Grendel appeared, who kills warriors and does not give peaceful life to people. Brave Beowulf sails to the aid of the king, whom others have refused to support.
Summary of Dragunsky The secret becomes clear
The boy Deniska heard the phrase “The secret becomes clear” and asked his mother about its meaning. Mom explained that sooner or later any deception will be exposed and the deceiver will be punished.
Summary of Roberts Shantaram
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Summary of Abramov Alka
In the summer Alya Amosova, main character books, arrived to native village Summer trip to his aunt Anisya. A year ago she came to bury her mother and has not been here since then.

Question 7. The romantic hero and the romantic ideal in Hoffmann’s stories

Let's look at the romantic features in two of Hoffmann's works: “The Golden Pot” and “Little Tsakhes...”

1) Gold pot

Romantic hero

Anselm is the main character, a romantically inclined student, very strapped for money. He wears a pike-gray, old-fashioned tailcoat and rejoices at the opportunity to earn a thaler by copying papers from the archivist Lindgorst. To a young man unlucky in everyday life, his indecisive character becomes the cause of many comic situations: his sandwiches always fall to the ground with the smeared side, if he happens to leave the house half an hour earlier than usual, so as not to be late, he will definitely be doused with soapy water from the window. At the same time, Anselm has a “naive poetic soul”, capable of throwing off the “burden of everyday life”. So a poetic fairy-tale world opens up to him, connected with the second, fantastic life of Lindgorst (aka the prince of the spirits of the Salamanders from the magical land of Atlantis) and his daughters, who appear to Anselm in the guise of golden-green snakes. The fantastic invades the midst of real everyday life.

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 blooming and singing 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.”

. In The Golden Pot, these two forces are represented, for example, by the archivist Lindgorst, his daughter Serpentina and the old witch, who turns out to be the daughter of a black dragon feather and a beetroot. 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.

The heroes of the story as a whole are distinguished by their obvious romantic specificity.

Profession. Archivist Lindgorst is the keeper of ancient mysterious manuscripts containing, apparently, mystical meanings; in addition, he also deals with 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.

Disease. Often romantic heroes suffer from an incurable disease, which makes the hero seem to be partially dead (or partially unborn!) and already belonging to another world. In The Golden Pot, none of the characters are distinguished by ugliness, dwarfism, etc. romantic illnesses, but there is a motive of madness, for example, Anselm, for his strange behavior, is often mistaken by others for a madman.

Nationality. The nationality of the heroes is not definitely mentioned, but it is known that many heroes are not people at all, but magical creatures born 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 that do not belong to in no known language."

Everyday habits of heroes: many of them love tobacco, beer, coffee, that is, ways of bringing themselves out of an ordinary state into an ecstatic one. Anselm was just smoking a pipe filled with “useful tobacco” when his miraculous encounter with an elderberry bush took place; registrar Geerband “invited student Anselm to drink a glass of beer every evening in that coffee shop on his, the registrar’s, bill and smoke a pipe until he somehow met the archivist... which student Anselm accepted with gratitude”; Geerband talked about how he once fell into a sleepy state in reality, which was the result of the influence of coffee: “Something similar happened to me once after lunch while drinking coffee...”; Lindhorst has a habit of snuff; in the house of Conctor Paulman, punch was prepared from a bottle of arrack and “as soon as the alcoholic fumes rose into the head of the student Anselm, all the strangeness and wonders that he had experienced recently rose again before him.”

Portrait of heroes. As an example, a few fragments of Lindhorst’s portrait scattered throughout the text will suffice: he had a piercing gaze of eyes sparkling from deep depressions thin, wrinkled face as if made of a case,” he wears gloves, under which a magic ring is hidden, he walks in a wide cloak, the flaps of which, blown by the wind, resemble the wings of a large bird; at home Lindgorst walks “in a damask dressing gown that sparkled like phosphorus.”

Romantic ideal

The world of Hoffmann's fairy tale has pronounced signs of romantic dual worlds, which is embodied in the work different ways. Romantic dual worlds are realized in the story through direct explanation by the characters origin and structure of the world, in which they live. There is this world, the earthly world, the everyday world, and another world, some magical Atlantis, from which man once originated.

A man is on the verge of two worlds: partly an earthly being, partly a spiritual one. In essence, in all of Hoffmann’s works the world works exactly like this.

Used by Hoffmann color spectrum in the depiction of objects from the artistic world of “The Golden Pot”, the story belongs to the era of romanticism. These are not just subtle shades of color, but necessarily dynamic, moving colors and whole color schemes, often completely fantastic: “pike-gray tailcoat”, snakes shining with green gold, “sparkling emeralds fell on him and entwined him with sparkling golden threads, fluttering and playing around him with thousands of lights”, “blood spurted from the veins, penetrating the transparent body of the snake and coloring it red,” “from the precious stone, as from a burning focus, rays emerged in all directions, which, combining, made up a brilliant crystal mirror.”

Duality is realized in the character system, namely in the fact that characters are clearly distinguished by their affiliation or inclination to the forces of good and evil.

Duality is realized in images mirrors, which in large quantities found in the story: the smooth metal mirror of the old 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, which bewitched Anselm.

Wealth, gold, money, jewelry Hoffmann's fairy tales are presented in the artistic world as a mystical object, a fantastic magical remedy, an object partly from another world. Spetsies-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 specials-thaler that turns living people into chained ones, as if poured into glass (see the episode of Anselm’s conversation with other copyists of manuscripts, who also ended up in bottles). 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 the latest style of “cute, wonderful earrings”.

The style of the story is distinguished by the use grotesque, which is not only the individual originality of Hoffman, but also 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 vendor from the Black Gate...", "the bell cord went down and turned out to be a white, transparent, gigantic snake...", "with these words he turned and left, and then everyone realized that the important man was, in fact, a gray parrot."

Fiction allows you to create the effect of a romantic two-world: there is a world here, a real one, where ordinary people they think about a portion of coffee with rum, double beer, dressed up girls, etc., but there is a fantasy world where “the young man Phosphorus, dressed in brilliant weapons that played with a thousand multi-colored rays, and fought with a dragon, which struck the shell with its black wings ..."

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. See, for example, the episode with Anselm moving into the flask. 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 has gone crazy (“he imagines that he is sitting in a glass jar, but is standing on the Elbe Bridge and looking into the water”).

Irony. 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 in their hearts for flying away from him green snake" 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 in his coats in the manner of a fire pipe.” 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 torn wing, her mother is a bad beet.” The author's irony makes it especially noticeable that the heroes live between two worlds.

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.

2) Little Tsakhes

Hero

The main character, Balthazar, is a creator, not a consumer, which is why the magician Prosper Alpanus reveals a big secret to him. Only Balthazar can free the world from spiritual emptiness, since he is endowed with inner harmony. It is he who tells the world the love of the nightingale and the rose, as he is able to see beauty.

He is melancholic, immersed in nature and reflection. Like Anselm, he is the only one given the opportunity to see the other side of the world.

Zinnober (Tsakhes) is ugly, like Quasimodo, only here it’s the other way around: he seemed beautiful on the outside, but turned out to be ugly on the inside.

Romantic ideal

The ideal in the work, antagonism to reality - this is the kingdom under Demetrius, when people lived in harmony and did not engage in any nonsense.

“Surrounded by mountain ranges, this small country, with its green, fragrant groves, flowering meadows, noisy streams and cheerfully murmuring springs, was likened - and especially because there were no cities at all, but only friendly villages and here and there lonely castles , -

a marvelous, beautiful garden, the inhabitants of which seemed to be strolling in it for

own joy, unaware of the painful burden of life. Everyone knew that

This country is ruled by Prince Demetrius, but no one noticed that it

manageable, and everyone was very pleased with it. People who love complete freedom

in all their endeavors, beautiful terrain and mild climate, could not

choose a better residence than in this principality, and therefore it happened

that, among others, beautiful fairies of the good tribe settled there,

who, as you know, place warmth and freedom above all else.”

Now everything is sad and terrible.

Irony

The object of Balthasar’s love: “the object of Balthasar’s poetic delight - Candida with her legible handwriting and a couple of books she has read - does not indicate the sophistication of the taste of a romantic enthusiast.” Irony haunts Hoffmann's heroes until the very end, even until the happy ending. Alpanus, having arranged the successful reunion of Balthazar with his beloved, gives them a wedding gift - a “country house”, on the plot of which excellent cabbage grows, in the magic kitchen the pots never boil over, the porcelain in the dining room does not break, and the carpets in the living room do not get dirty. “An ideal which, having been brought to life, by Hoffmann’s crafty will, turns into a completely philistine comfort, thereby which the hero shunned and fled; this is after the nightingales after the scarlet rose - ideal cuisine and excellent cabbage!!!” And here, please, in the story are kitchen paraphernalia.

"Pot of Gold"

The title of this fairy-tale short story is accompanied by the eloquent subtitle “A Tale from New Times.” The meaning of this subtitle is that characters this tale is Hoffmann's contemporaries, and the action takes place in the real Dresden early XIX V. This is how Hoffmann reinterprets the Jena tradition of the fairy tale genre - the writer includes the plan of real everyday life into its ideological and artistic structure.

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 world is 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, some 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 fire spirit Salamander, who lived in magical land Atlantis and exiled to earth by the prince of spirits Phosphorus for his love for his daughter Lily the snake.

The hero of the novel, student Anselm, is an eccentric loser endowed with a “naive poetic soul,” and this makes the world of the fabulous and wonderful accessible to him. A man is on the verge of two worlds: partly an earthly being, partly a spiritual one. Faced with magical world, Anselm begins to lead a dual existence, falling from his prosaic existence into the realm of fairy tales, adjacent to the ordinary real life. In accordance with this, the short story is compositionally built on the interweaving and interpenetration of the fairy-tale-fantastic plan with the real. Romantic fairy tale fantasy in its subtle poetry and grace finds here in Hoffmann one of its best exponents. At the same time, the story clearly outlines the real plan. The widely and vividly developed fairy-tale plan with many bizarre episodes, so unexpectedly and seemingly randomly intruding into the story of real everyday life, is subject to a clear, logical ideological and artistic structure. Biplane creative method Hoffman, the dual world in his worldview was reflected in the opposition of the real and fantastic worlds.

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 and the old witch, who turns out to be the daughter of a black dragon feather and a beetroot. 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. For example, how easily Anselm’s worldview changes when he looks at magic mirror Veronica: only yesterday he was madly in love with Serpentina and wrote down the history of the archivist in his house with mysterious signs, and today it seems to him that he was only thinking about Veronica.

Duality is realized in the images of a mirror, which are found in large numbers in the story: the smooth metal mirror of an old woman fortune teller, a crystal mirror made of rays of light from the ring on the hand of the archivist Lindhorst, magic mirror Veronica, who bewitched Anselm. Mirrors are a famous magical tool that has always been popular with all mystics. It is believed that a person endowed with spiritual vision is able to easily see the invisible world with the help of a mirror and act through it, as through a kind of portal.

The duality of the Salamander lies in the fact that he is forced to hide his true essence and pretend to be a secret archivist. But he allows his essence to manifest itself for those whose gaze is open to the invisible world, the world of higher poetry. And then those who could saw his transformation into a kite, his regal appearance, his paradise gardens at home, his duel. Anselm discovers the wisdom of Salamander, incomprehensible signs in manuscripts and the joy of communicating with the inhabitants of the invisible world, including Serpentina, become accessible. Another inhabitant of the invisible is the old woman with apples - the fruit of the union of a dragon's feather with a beet. But she is a representative of the dark forces and is trying in every possible way to prevent the implementation of Salamander’s plans. Her worldly counterpart is the old woman Lisa, a witch and sorceress who led Veronica astray.

Gofrat Geerbrand is a double of Gofrat Anselm. In the role of groom or husband, each of them duplicates the other. A marriage with one gofrat is a copy of a marriage with another, even in details, even in the earrings that they bring as a gift to their bride or wife. For Hoffmann, the word “double” is not entirely accurate: Veronica could have exchanged Anselm not only for Heerbrand, but for hundreds, for a great many of them.

In The Golden Pot it is not only Anselm who has a double in this sense. Veronica also has a double - Serpentina. True, Veronica herself does not suspect this. When Anselm slips on the way to his beloved Serpentina and loses faith in his dream, Veronica, as a social double, comes to him. And Anselm is consoled by a social, general detail - “blue eyes” and a sweet appearance. Replaces Serpentina on the same grounds on which Veronica replaced Anselm with Gofrat Heerbrand

A double is the greatest insult that can be inflicted on a human person. If a double is created, then the person as a person ceases. Double - individuality is lost in individuality, life and Soul are lost in the living.