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CHAPTER IV
HOFFMANN'S Elixiere des Teufels AND POE'S William Wilson
A motive which Fouqué, Novalis and Hoffmann have al used in their narratives is that of the double existence. The idea is that the personality is divided into two parts and that the individual leads then a double existence, mental and physical. The motive appears in Fouqué's Zauberring rather as a minor incident. It plays a role of secondary importance. In the second part of Fouqué's novel (chapter 13), the young German knight, Otto von Trautwangen, meets, in a combat with the Finns, another knight in armor who is his exact double. The mystery is explained by the fact that both men are the sons of one father by different mothers.
Novalis has also made use of the idea in Ofterdingen, where various personages are in the end revealed as one and the same. And Heinrich himself is the poet of Klingsor's Märchen.(1) One of Novalis's Fragments reads: “A really synthetic person is a person who is several persons at once, — a genius.”(2)
It is one of Hoffmann's favorite themes. He drew from life. He was frequently haunted by the idea that he was being pursued by his double.(3) The idea is the basic one in the story of the Doppelgänger. It occurs also in Kater Murr, and plays a large role in the Elixiere des Teufels. It is from the latter story that Poe drew suggestions, which, according to his method, he combined and transformed in his narative [[narrative]], William Wilson. [page 32:]
In Hoffmann's tale a monk relates the story of his life. He begins with his childhood, passes rapidly to his reception in the monastery, and describes with great exactness events and persons which are of importance in the development of his own destiny. We follow minutely the course of his life. We learn of the temptations which beset him, how the germ of evil in his soul, at first infinitesimal, grows and waxes strong, and finally overpowers and drives him from the monastery and into a life of vice and crime. We learn further of his repentance, heavy penance, and his return to his monastery. He writes the story of his life on the eve of death.
The first chapter deals with the life of the monk, Medardus, in the monastery. The underlying idea of the chapter is to depict the gradual growth of evil in Medardus. This is motivated first by the awakening of the sexual impulse, and secondly by a fiction of certain elixirs of the devil, from which latter incident the story takes its name. Medardus, the hero, is custodian of the relics of the monastery, and among these are certain flasks of wine which St. Anthony had received from the devil, in a temptation to which the former was subjected in the wilderness. Medardus succumbs to the temptation to drink of the wine; and the effect is a magical growth of evil in his soul, which constantly increases and finally overpowers him.
The next chapter deals with Medardus's entrance into the world. He is sent by his Prior on a mission to Rome. Traveling through the mountains, Medardus comes suddenly upon a man lying asleep over a precipice. Startled out of his sleep by the sudden appearance of the monk, he falls over the precipice and, as Medardus supposes, meets his death. This incident marks a turning point in the monk's career. He supposes himself a murderer, and from that time on his life is a history of crime. We learn later that this stranger is Graf Viktorin, a half brother of Medardus, and the latter's exact counterpart as to figure and appearance. Viktorin has not been killed but has received wounds which resulted in. insanity. His insanity takes the remarkable form that he [page 33:] believes himself to be the monk Medardus. In this fashion Hoffmann works out the fiction of the double existence on quite natural grounds.
Viktorin is involved in an illicit relationship with the wife of a nobleman, whose castle lies in the immediate vicinity. Medardus enters the castle, and is mistaken by the Baroness for her lover Viktorin in the garb of a monk. He assumes Viktorin's role, but becomes enamored also of the daughter of the house, and in an attempt to seduce her he is forced to flee from the castle, murdering in his flight the son of the house, Hermogen, who attempts to stop him. Fleeing from the castle, Medardus is for the first time confronted by his blood-stained double, who utters the very words which the monk himself has in mind.
The third chapter gives a series of adventures, of which the principal one takes place at a lonely hunting lodge in the midst of the forest. Medardus has discarded his monk's garb, and is traveling as a private gentleman. His carriage breaks down in the forest and he is received by the forester in the latter's home for a short time. In the middle of the night his double appears, clothed in a monk's cassock. The following morning Medardus learns that an insane monk is being harbored by the forester. The latter believes him to be the monk Medardus, of whose disappearance he has heard. The supposed monk is of course Viktorin.
We next find Medardus at the court of a prince, where he mingles freely with the society of the court. Among the ladies of the court is that Aurelie, the daughter of the Baron of the previous chapter, whom Medardus attempted to seduce. Aurelie recognizes him as the murderer of her brother. He is imprisoned and about to be executed when he is saved by the intervention of the insane Viktorin, who declares (and believes) that he is the monk Medardus. The real Medardus is liberated and is about to be married to Aurelie, when he falls a victim to insanity, attempts to murder his bride, and flees from court. In prison and in his flight from the castle, Medardus is repeatedly visited by his double with terrorizing effect. [page 34:]
We find Medardus next in Italy, recovered from his insanity, and in repentant mood. He passes some time in a monastery near Rome, confesses the story of his life to the prior, and submits himself to the severest penance. Here also, as everywhere, he is visited by his tormentor in the shape of his double. He is received by the Pope, wins notoriety by his conspicuous piety, and finally returns to his own monastery. He learns that Aurelie is about to take the vows as a nun in a neighboring convent. During the ceremony of consecration she is murdered by Medardus's insane double, Vik-torin. With her death Medardus wins his victory over the evil.
Poe's story, as compared with that of Hoffmann, is greatly reduced and constructed with infinitely more simplicity. Here also the hero relates his own story. We are introduced first to a school for boys in England, the life of which in its simplicity and monastic monotony bears much resemblance to that of the youthful Medardus in his monastery. The idea of Poe's story is also the contention of the good with the evil for supremacy. William Wilson learns that in the school there is another pupil of the same name, and by a singular coincidence his counterpart in appearance and, as we learn later, born on the same day. The two lads are also of similar coustitution [[constitutionally]] mentally, both imperious, and rivals for leadership among their fellow-pupils. Outwardly, the two boys are friendly, but inwardly both are conscious of their rivalry. We are told also that a favorite device of William Wilson the Second for annoying his rival, William Wilson the First, was an exact imitation of the latter as to personal appearance, gait, manners, and above all as to voice and speech. There is no explanation of the relationship between the two boys, and at first no suggestion of the supernatural; nothing more than a striking resemblance. Finally, the first William Wilson, in playing a practical joke on his namesake, slips into the latter's room at night, draws aside the curtains of the bed in preparation for the perpetration of the joke, and is suddenly overcome and horrified [page 35:] by the idea that it is his double who lies before him in sleep. He rushes from the room and from the school, never to return again. This incident is the first suggestion of a supernatural relationship between the two.
The narrator mentions briefly his course of vice and crime of the next few years, and describes next a night of excess at Eton. Surrounded by his boon companions, flushed with wine and in the midst of their orgies, William Wilson is summoned to the door by a visitor. In the darkness he distinguishes the form of his double, and hears the words, William Wilson, in a solemn whisper. After which, the apparition disappears.
A similar scene is described at Oxford, where William Wilson, having ruined a fellow-student at cards by fraudulent play, is exposed by the appearance of his double, who explains to the company the secret of Wilson's winnings, namely, cards hidden in his sleeve.
The hero is everywhere relentlessly pursued by his double.
Villain! at Rome, with how untimely, yet with how spectral, an officiousness stepped he in between me and my ambition! At Vienna too — at Berlin — and at Moscow! Where, in truth, had I not bitter cause to curse him within my heart? From his inscrutable tyranny did I at length flee, panic-stricken, as if from a pestilence; and to the very ends of the earth I fled in vain.(4)
The culminating scene is described in Rome during the carnival time. The double appears again to frustrate Wilson's plan. This time it is a question of a love intrigue with the young wife of an old Roman nobleman. Wilson, in a frenzy of rage, seizes his double and challenges him to fight. In the duel which follows the double is killed, his death typifying the final extinction of the good in William Wilson's heart. [page 36:]
The idea on which both narratives are constructed is the simple one of the contention of two inimical forces in a man's soul; the evil and the good, struggling for supremacy and final victory. In carrying out the idea, both authors have availed themselves of the device of a double existence to achieve their purpose. Such a division of the human personality they have romanticized by the fiction of two selves, physical as well as mental, both of which are well nigh identical as to physical appearance and as to mental characteristics. One self is the type of the good, the other is the embodiment of the evil. The atmosphere of mystery thus created works an effect of terror, as, in the successive stages of the development of the story, the hero at some critical point of the narrative is confronted by his double. This in general is the basic idea which Poe has borrowed from Hoffmann.
The German traces the growth and struggle of evil, in his hero's life, very minutely. We observe the first foothold which the “dunkle Macht” wins in Medardus's soul, and we trace the growth of this germ of evil step by step, until with giant power it plunges the victim into an abyss of crime. Early in Medardus's career, we find reference to the evil which is beginning to beset him. His sermons are characterized by unusual eloquence, and the fame which he wins by them arouses his vanity. In a letter from his patroness, the abbess, we hear:
Der Geist des Truges ist in Dich gefahren, und wird Dich verderben, wenn Du nicht in Dich gehst und der Sünde entsagest . . Der heilige Bernardus, den Du durch Deine trügerische Rede so schnode beleidigt, moge Dir nach seiner himmlischen Langmut verzeihen, ja Dich erleuchten, dass Du den rechten Pf ad, von dem Du durch den Bosen verlockt abgewichen, wieder find-est, und er fürbitten Winne für das Heil Deiner Seele.(5) [page 37:]
The references to this evil force in Medardus's life are to be found on almost every page. The Baroness relates to Medardus that their secret relation is suspected by Hermogen as follows:
In allerlei Andeutungen, die gleich schauerlichen entsetzlichen Sprüchen einer dunklen Macht, die über uns waltet, lauten, hat er (Hermogen) dem Baron einen Verdacht eingeflösst, der ohne deutlich ausgesprochen zu sein mich doch auf quälende Weise verfolgt. — Wer du bist, dass unter diesem heiligen Kleide Graf Viktorin verborgen, das scheint Hermogen durchaus verschlossen geblieben; dagegen behauptet er, aller Verrat, alle Arglist, alles Verderben, das über uns einbrechen werde, ruhe in dir, ja wie der Widersachet selbst, sei der Minch in das Haus getreten, der von teuflischer Macht beseelt, verdammten Verrat brüte.(6)
On the eve of his marriage with Aurelie, Medardus is overcome by this “teuflische Macht.” From a window he sees his double being carried to execution for crimes which he has committed.
Da wurden die Geister der Hone in mir roach, und baumten sich auf mit Gewalt, die ihnen verliehen über den frevelnden vurruchten Sünder.(7)
Medardus relates his life to the Pope, and we hear again of this evil power:
Glaubt Ihr, dass der Wein, den Ihr aus der Reliquien-kammer stahlet und austranket, Euch zu den Freveln trieb, die Ihr beginget?
The answer comes:
Wie ein von giftigen Dünsten geschwangertes Wasser gab er Kraft dem bösen Reim, der in mir ruhete, dass er fortzuwuchern vermochte.(8) [page 38:]
Again Medardus recapitulates himself this growth of evil in his soul. He calls himself “einen muthlosen Feigling” without strength to resist the devil.
Gering war der Reim des Bosen in mir, als ich des Konzertmeisters Schwester sah, als der frevelige Stolz in mir erwachte, aber da spielte mir der Satan jenes Elixier in die Hande, das mein Blut wie ein verdamm-tes Gift in Garung setzte. ... Wie eine physische Krankheit, von jenem Gift erzeugt, brach die Sünde hervor.(9)
We follow exactly the same development in Poe's tale. Hoffmann rescues his hero at the end from the “dunkle Macht.” Poe gives the victory to the evil force. Medardus writes the story of his life when he has, in a measure at least, conquered the devil and gained peace. William Wilson narrates his story when he realizes that he is hopelessly lost, his soul a forfeit to the powers of darkness. Hoffmann's narrative takes the reader up to the point where his hero gains the victory. Poe's tale ends at the point where Wilson finally and definitely destroys the last germ of good still extant in his soul. We are told in the beginning that the remainder of his life was a history of crime and debauch. Medardus and William Wilson both write their histories as they feel the approach of death.
The history of Medardus's struggle against the evil which has been traced finds its exact counterpart on the first page of William Wilson's story. We hear at once:
From comparatively trival wickedness I passed, with the stride of a giant, into more than the enormities of an Elagabalus. What chance — what one event brought this thing to pass, bear with me while I relate. Death approaches, and the shadow which foreruns him has thrown a softening influence over my spirit. I long in passing through the dim valley for the sympathy, I had nearly said for the pity, of my fellow-men. I would fain have them believe that I have been in some measure the slave of circumstances beyond human [page 39:] control. I would wish them to seek out for me, in the details I am about to give, some little oasis of fatality amid a wilderness of error. I would have them allow, what they cannot refrain from allowing, that although temptation may have erewhile existed as great, man was never thus at least tempted before, certainly never thus fell. And is it therefore that he has never thus suffered? Have I not indeed been living in a dream? And am I not now dying a victim to the horror and the mystery of the wildest of all sublunary visions?(10)
Medardus's “Gering war der Reim des Bosen in mir” is Wilson's “comparatively trivial wickedness” with which the latter begins his career. Hoffmann's “dunkle Macht,” “das vom Teufel beseelte Prinzip,” “der bose Feind,” find their counterpart in Poe's “slave of circumstances beyond human control,” “oasis of fatality amid a wilderness of error,” and the greatness and character of his hero's “temptation.”
Of Wilson's life at Eton we hear also:
I do not wish to trace the course of my miserable profligacy here — a profligacy which set at defiance the laws, while it eluded the vigilance of the institution (Eton).
Again:
Let it suffice, that among spendthrifts I out-Heroded Herod, and that, giving name to a multitude of novel follies, I added no brief appendix to the long catalogue of vices then usual in the most dissolute university of Europe (Oxford).
The climactic scene in Wilson's career is the final one of the story. It is the duel with his double. It is also the climax, or rather the decisive event, in the contest of the good and evil.
The contest was brief indeed. I was frantic with every species of wild excitement, and felt within my single arm the energy and power of a multitude. In a [page 40:] few seconds I forced him by sheer strength against the wainscoting, and thus, getting him at mercy, plunged my sword with brutal ferocity repeatedly through and through his bosom. At that instant some person tried the latch of the door. I hastened to prevent an intrusion, and then immediately returned to my dying antagonist. But what human language can adequately portray that astonishment, that horror which possessed me at the spectacle then presented to view? The brief moment in which I averted my eyes had been sufficient to produce apparently a material change in the arrangements at the upper or farther end of the room. A large mirror — so at first it seemed to me in my confusion — now stood where none had been perceptible before; and, as I stepped up to it in extremity of terror, mine own image, but with features all pale and dabbled in blood, advanced to meet me with a feeble and tottering gait.
Thus it appeared, I say, but was not. It was my antagonist — it was Wilson who then stood before me in the agonies of his dissolution. His mask and cloak lay where he had thrown them upon the floor. Not a thread in all his raiment — not a line in all the marked and singular lineaments of his face which was not, even in the most absolute identity, mine own!
It was Wilson: but he spoke no longer in a whisper, and I could have fancied that I myself was speaking- while he said: “You have conquered and I yield. Yet, henceforth art thou also dead — dead to the World, to Heaven, and to Hope! In me didst thou exist — and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself.” (11)
The death of his double is the death of the good principle in Wilson's life. “Dead to the world, to Heaven, and to Hope:” it is the triumph of evil, the ultimate extinction of [page 41:] the good. It is what Medardus also fears and struggles against.(12)
Ich bin verflucht, ich bin verflucht! — Keine Gnade — kein Trost mehr, Kier und dort! — Zur Hölle — zur Hölle — ewige Verdamnis fiber mich verruchten Sunder beschlossen.
Again:
O Gott — o, all’ ihr Heiligen! lasst mich nicht wahn-sinnig werden, nur nicht wahnsinnig — denn das Entsetzliche muss ich sonst thun, und meine Seele preisgeben der ewigen Verdamnis!(13)
Poe's very dramatic final scene is an adaptation of a motive in Hoffmann's story. The motive, as Hoffmann has used it, is entirely secondary. Poe, with a better estimate of its dramatic possibilities, has elevated it to the very climax of his story, with striking, almost startling effect. When Medardus, shortly after leaving his monastery on his trip to Rome, comes upon his brother-double sleeping in the forest, the latter, startled suddenly out of his sleep by the appearance of the monk, falls over a precipice, and as Medardus supposes, meets his death. For a long period of time the monk supposes that he has been the cause of Viktorin's death.
Seinen scheinbaren Tod, vielleicht das leere Blendwerk des Teufels, musste ich mir zuschreiben. Die That machte mich vertraut mit dem Gedanken des Mordes, der dem teuflischen Trug folgte. So war der in verruchter Sünde erzeugte Bruder das vom Teufel beseelte Prinzip, das mich in die abscheulichsten Frevel stürzte und mich mit den grasslichen Qualen umhertrieb.(14)
In other words, the supposed death of his double, which Medardus ascribes to himself, acquaints him with crime. It is the initial act of crime, which introduces the series of [page 42:] crimes which follows. Poe has taken exactly the same notion, and made it the climax of his narrative. In the real death of William Wilson's double, the last spark of good in the former's soul is extinguished, and like Medardus, what follows is a history of crime. The seeming death of Medardus's double marks the seeming victory of sin in the monk's life. But Viktorin's death is only apparent, and Medardus in the end gains his victory. Wilson, on the contrary, kills his double in actual fact, and becomes thereby the victim of the evil for all time.
The American author has adopted also Hoffmann's idea of the personification of the two powers in a man's soul. Medardus's double, Viktorin, is the personified incorporated principle of evil. William Wilson's double, on the other hand, is the living embodiment of the good principle. Both authors expressly state as much. Poe bas taken this idea from Hoffmann, but in so doing he has inverted it. William Wilson's double is an agent of the good.
Medardus's double, Viktorin, serves the power of evil. After Medardus confesses to the prior on his return to his monastery, the latter says:
Es ist gewiss, dass Viktorin auf wunderbare Weise errettet wurde aus dem Abgrunde, in den du ihn stürztest, dass er der wahnsinnige Mönch war, den der Forster aufnahm, der dich als dein Doppelgänger verfolgte and hier im Kloster starb. Er diente der dunklen Macht, die in dein Leben eingriff, nur zum Spiel — ach, Bruder Medardus, noch geht der Teufel rastlos auf Erden umber, and bietet den Menschen seine Elixiere dar!(15)
And in the passage already quoted:
So war der in verruchter Sünde erzeugte Bruder das vom Teufel beseelte Prinzip, das mich in die abscheulichsten Frevel stürzte. — u. s. w.(16) [page 43:]
Poe has used the same motive but has made William Wilson's double an agent of the good. We hear of the school days:
Yet at this distant day, let me do him the simple justice to acknowledge that I can recall no occasion when the suggestions of my rival were on the side of those errors or follies so usual to his immature age and seeming inexperience; that his moral sense, at least, if not his general talents and worldly wisdom, was far keener than my own; that I might have today been a better, and thus a happier man, had I less frequently rejected the counsels embodied in those meaning whispers which I then but too cordially hated and too bitterly despised.(17)
In the scenes at Eton and Oxford, the appearance of William Wilson's double is always with the intent of frustrating his vice or crime. At Eton for example:
Upon my entering, he strode hurriedly up to me, and seizing me by the arm with a gesture of petulant impatience, whispered the words, “William Wilson!” in nay ear. I grew perfectly sober in an instant. There was that in the manner of the stranger, and in the tremulous shake of his uplifted finger, as he held it between my eyes and the light, which filled me with unqualified amazement; but it was not this which had so violently moved me.(18)
Again, at Oxford, when the double exposes Wilson's cheating at cards:
The darkness, however, was total and we could only feel that he was standing in our midst. “Gentlemen,” he said, “Gentlemen, I make no apology for this behavior, because in thus behaving I am but fulfilling my duty.” [page 44:]
And in the final scene, already quoted, the death of the double marks the extinction of the remaining good.
It is characteristic of Poe's story in general that he has taken certain secondary or minor incidents of the Hoffmann story and made them of prime importance in his narrative in the production of desired effects. Such a motive was Hoff-mann's incident of the murder of Medardus's brother-double, and its baneful consequences; namely, the introduction of the monk to his subsequent career of crime. William Wilson's murder of his double forms the climax of Poe's story, and serves also as the climax of a series of crimes which closes forever the road to repentance, and makes Wilson for all time a slave of the evil.
Another such a motive in Hoffmann's story is the whisper and the voice of the Doppelgänger. Poe has appropriated this motive also and used it as a means of heightening the mystery of his story. With Hoffmann, the exact correspondence of voice and the whispered utterances of Medardus's double, are of no special’ significance. They are part and parcel of the general correspondence between Medardus and his double-brother. Poe has seized these two incidents to create an atmosphere of mysterious fatality, to transport his reader at once into the realm of the supernatural.
In the appearance of the Doppelgänger, while Medardus is in prison, there are the whispered tones:
Endlich rief es leise, leise, abet wie mit hasslicher, heiserer, stammelnder Stimme, hintereinander fort: Medar-dus! Medar-dus! Ein Eisstrom goss sich mir durch die Glieder!(19)
Again, in his flight after the scene with Aurelie:
Als ich durch die finstre Nacht der Residenz zueilte, war es mir, als liefe jemand neben mir her, and als flüsterte eine Stimme: “Imm —— immer bin ich bei di —— dir”(20) [page 45:]
Medardus does not know at times whether he is speaking, or whether it is the voice of his double which he hears. In his flight from the castle after the murder of Hermogen:
Da lachte ich grimmig auf, dass es durch den Saal, durch die Gänge dröhnte, and rief mit schrecklicher Stimme: “Wahnwitzige, wollt ihr das Verhanghis fahen, das die frevelnden Sünder gerichtet?” Aber des grässlichen Anblicks! — vor mir — vor mir stand Viktorins blutige Gestalt, nicht ich, er hatte die Worte gesprochen.(21)
Poe has made this whisper and correspondence of voice play a much larger and more effective role in his story. In the description of the life of the two boys at school, we learn that the favorite device of the second William Wilson for annoying his rival, was an exact imitation of his person, dress and voice. But the first William Wilson, owing to a physical defect of speech, could not raise his voice above a whisper:
His cue, which was to perfect an imitation of myself, lay both in words and in action, and most admirably did he play his part. My dress it was an easy matter to copy; my gait and general manner were without difficulty appropriated; in spite of his constitutional defect, even my voice did not escape him. My louder tones were of course unattempted, but then the key, it was identical; and his singular whisper, it grew the very echo of my own.
In the scene at Eton where the double appears:
It was the pregnancy of solemn admonition in the singular, low, hissing utterance, and, above all, it was the character, the tone, the key, of those few, simple and familiar, yet whispered syllables, which came with a thousand thronging memories of by-gone days, and struck upon my soul with the shock of a galvanic battery. [page 46:]
In the appearance of the double at Oxford:
“Gentlemen,” he said, in a low, distinct and never-to-be-forgotten whisper which thrilled to the very marrow of my bones, “gentlemen, I make no apology for this behavior.”
Poe uses everywhere italics to emphasize the whisper. In the final scene of the duel:
It was Wilson; but he spoke no longer in a whisper, and I could have fancied that I myself was speaking while he said: —
Another incident which has its counterpart in Hoffmann's story is the gambling at Oxford. While Medardus is at the Prince's court, he is induced by the latter to take part in the games of faro which form the principal diversion of the Prince and the court. The result is that Medardus wins constantly. The episode forms a part of Hoffmann's use of the supernatural. We are told that Medardus wins by favor of those evil forces which are then controlling his destiny.
Es lag für mich etwas Entsetzliches darin, dass, indem die gleichgültige Karte, die ich blindlings zog, in mir eine schmerzhafte herzzerreissende Erinnerung weckte, ich von einer unbekannten Macht ergriffen wurde, die das Gluck des Spiels, den losen Geldgewinn mir zuwarf, als entsprosse es aus meinem eignen Innern, als wenn ich selbst, jenes Wesen denkend, das aus der leblosen Karte mir mit glühenden Farben entgegen-strahlte, dem Zufall gebieten konne, seine geheimsten Verschlingungen erkennend.
William Wilson's gambling is a passion, — a part of his depravity, — and his winnings are explained on the ground of cheating:
It could hardly be credited, however, that I had, even here, so utterly fallen from the gentlemanly estate as to seek acquaintance with the vilest arts of the gambler by profession, and having become an adept in his despicable science, to practice it habitually as a means of increasing my already enormous income at the [page 47:] expense of the weak-minded among my fellow-collegians. Such, nevertheless, was the fact:(22)
The treatment of the supernatural by both authors shows a difference in degree only, and little in kind. Ellinger, Hoffmann's biographer, remarks:
Der gauze eigenthümliche Zusammenhang zwischen Medardus und Viktorin einerseits und Medardus und Aurelie anderseits, die geheimnisvollen Beziehungen, die sich sonst gelegentlich ergeben, schweben auf der Grenze der Moglichkeit und sind von Hoffmann mit grosser Kunst auf dieser festgehalten. Sie sind in hohem Grade unwahrscheinlich, ganz ausgeschlossen sind sie, wenn man von einigen bereits berührten Einzelheiten absieht, nicht, und bei der eigenartigen Kraft, mit der der Dichter sie darzustellen gewusst hat, gewinnen sie eine solche lebensvolle Anschaulichkeit, dass es schwer ist, sich dem Banne der aus diesen Verhaltnissen sich ergebenden Vorstellungen zu entziehen.
Again speaking of the relation between Medardus and Viktorin:
Er (Viktorin) wird durch den Sturz wahnsinnig, und im Wahnsinn halt er sich für den Medardus. Wie er Kenntnis von der Persönlichheit des Medardus erhalten, sagt der Dichter nicht, doch lässt sich dafür leicht eine Erklärung finden. Wenn er aber im Wahnsinn Dinge aus dem Leben des Medardus erzählt, die kein Anderer als der eigentliche Medardus kennen kann, so treten wir aus dem gebiete des Wirklichen in das des Wunderbaren hinüber.(23)
Poe goes a step further and takes his material entirely out of the realm of the natural. There is no explanation of the resemblance between the double hero, as in Hoffmann. It is the evident purpose of the American author to create a setting of the supernatural and to remove his reader wholly out of the reasonable, to transport him to the realm of the [page 48:] inexplicable, and to create an impression of awe, even terror, by contact with the supernatural. As a means to this end, Poe uses with striking effect the mysterious whisper as well as the identity of voice between the two doubles.
Grisebach remarks also:
Bei der Form der Mitteilung aus dem eigenen Leben, die Hoffmann gewählt hat, konnte ein Dichter leicht der Versuchung nachgeben, alles Leben auf die Hauptperson zusammenzudrangen, das fibrige aber nur kurz and skizzenhaft zu behandeln. Hoffmann hat diese Gefahr durchaus zu vermeiden gewusst.
Poe uses, of course, the same form of narrative, and he has done just what Hoffmann “knew how to avoid.” But in so doing he has achieved a more telling, striking effect than has the German author. In so doing he has sacrificed all detail, all characterization, and the love episode, in order to centre all action and interest around his double hero. Hoffmann vacillates on the border of the supernatural, crossing and re-crossing it, and leaving his reader in doubt as to whether the author himself believes in it or not. Poe leads at once, and boldly, into another world, and keeps us in this region of mystery, at least as long as we are reading his story.
William Wilson is constructed after Poe's own receipt. He has started out to produce an effect of awe-inspiring mystery, and he has gathered and gleaned such motives as best served his purpose, remolding them and fitting them together in such a way as to make of the finished product something all his own. In “looking about him for combinations of events or tone,” he has drawn largely on Hoffmann: first, for the idea of the double existence, and secondly, for its typification of the good and evil forces in man's soul. Also, various other motives of minor importance in Hoffmann's story have been used by the American; — such as the murdering of the double with its consequent extinction of the good principle; the mysterious, solemn whisper, and the exact correspondence of the double's voice; and, finally, the gambling proclivities of William Wilson. These all have their counterparts in Hoffmann's story.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 31:]
1. Heilborn, Vol. I, page 191.
2. Just Bing, page 120.
3. Ellinger, page 121.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 35:]
4. Harrison, Vol. III, page 321.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 36:]
5. Grisebach, Vol. II, page 37.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 37:]
6. Grisebach, Vol. II, page 70.
7. Grisebach, Vol. II, page 199.
8. Grisebach, Vol. II, page 239.
[[In the original, there is no footnote 9, although there is a notation for the footnote in the text — JAS]]
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 39:]
10. Harrison, Vol. XIV, page 299.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 40:]
11. The Italics are Poe's.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 41:]
12. Grisebach's, Vol. II, page 213.
13. Grisebach, Vol. II, page 272.
14. Grisebach, Vol. II, page 277.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 42:]
15. Grisebach, Vol. II, page 267.
16. Grisebaeh, Vol. II, page 277.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 43:]
17. Harrison, Vol. XIV, page 310.
18. Harrison, Vol. XIV, page 314.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 44:]
19. Grisebach, Vol. II, page 158.
20. Grisebach, Vol. II, page 74.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 45:]
21. Grisebach Vol. II, pages 124-125.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 47:]
22. Harrison, Vol XIV, page 316.
23. Ellinger, pages 120, 121.
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Notes:
None.
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[S:0 - PCETA, 1908] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Bookshelf - The Influence of E. T. A. Hoffman on the Tales of Edgar Allan Poe (Jacobs)