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I. NOTES ON THE INFLUENCE OF E. T. A. HOFFMANN UPON EDGAR ALLAN POE.
In his Preface to The Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque Poe, while discussing the character and style of these tales, says: “ I am led to think it is this prevalence of the ‘Arabesque’ in my serious tales, which has induced one or two critics to tax me, in all friendliness,(1) with what they have been pleased to term ‘Germanism’ and gloom. The charge is in bad taste, and the grounds of accusation have not been sufficiently considered. Let us admit for a moment that the ‘phantasy-pieces’ now given are ‘Germanic’ or what not. . . . But the truth is that, with a single exception, there is no one of these stories in which the scholar should recognize the distinctive features of that species of pseudo-horror which we are taught to call Germanic, for no better reason than that some of the secondary names of German literature have become identified with its folly. If in many of my productions terror has been the thesis, I maintain that terror is not [page 2:] of Germany, but of the soul.”(1) In this passage, though himself possessed with almost a monomania for discovering ‘plagiarism’ in other writers,(2) (nowadays we should rather speak of ‘influences’), Poe practically denies similar charges brought against him. And, in this denial, he takes occasion to lunge a side thrust at Hoffmann in his reference to ‘phantasy pieces’ and ‘some secondary names of German literature’ — as will be seen later.
Despite this disclaimer, neither the poet's own contemporaries nor posterity have been willing to accept his statement of the case, although there is still great divergence of opinion and much uncertainty prevailing upon this very point. The French and German critics, in general, have accepted the influence of Hoffmann upon Poe as a matter of course, as beyond all question. American writers, however, seem divided, not only among themselves, but even in their own minds. Richard Henry Stoddard expresses the guarded opinion: “If Hawthorne's master was Tieck, as Poe declared, the master of Poe, so far as he had one, was Hoffmann. But given his genius, he did not need a master long, if at all.”(3) In 1881, E. C. Stedman (in his biography of Poe) remarks: “He (Poe) was not a pupil of Beckford, Godwin, Maturin, Hoffmann or Fouqué.”(4) Yet in 1894, in the Introduction to Poe's Tales,(5) à propos of Poe's disclaimer, quoted above, he says: “Nevertheless, there is a pseudo-horror to be found in certain of his pieces, and enough of Ernest Hoffmann's method to suggest that the [page 3:] brilliant author of the Fantasiestücke, whether, a secondary name or not, was one of Poe's early teachers.” Later, in this same Introduction, Stedman calls attention to various motifs in certain of Poe's tales, presumably borrowed from the German author, and concludes, “Hoffmann's spell was unquestionable.” While Stedman asserts that Hoffmann's influence upon Poe is ‘unquestionable,’ his fellow editor, Professor Woodberry, in his biography of Poe,(1) not only breathes not a word about Hoffmann, but declares, in discussing some of the very tales in which Stedman had seen the convincing evidence of the German writer's ‘unquestion able spell’: “Bulwer and Disraeli, the popular writers of his time, gave direction to his genius, both in subject and style. Under their influence he wrote at least six tales, etc.” (referring to the first six Tales of the Folio Club).(2) This negative attitude was made more positive in a statement made by him, in reply to a graduate student of Yale, who had written for his views on this point, of which the gist was, that “he was very skeptical about the influence of Hoffmann upon Poe.”
Even in the latest biography of Poe, by Professor Harrison of the University of Virginia, though the author speaks of Poe “as being saturated with the doctrines of Schelling,” and further of “Novalis and Schelling, his masters across the German sea,” and mentions expressly the “translations of Tieck, La Motte Fouqué, Chamisso, the Schlegels, Schiller, Heine and Uhland . . . . opening up a wonder world of picturesque ‘ Germanism,’”(3) yet there is nowhere the slightest reference to Hoffmann. In a personal letter, however, Professor Harrison explains the omission as due to some over sight occurring in the preparation of the manuscript for the printer. He believes in Hoffmann's influence upon Poe, [page 4:] though he seems to consider it of no greater importance than that of a number of other German writers, and as being ‘vague and indefinite.’
Of peculiar interest are the conflicting opinions of two foreign writers, who, in quite recent articles,(1) have discussed Poe as a “dipsomaniac,” and his works as specimens of Littérature Pathologique. While both agree that Poe was the victim of alcoholism, which explains his peculiarly disordered imagination, the French critic, M. Arvède Barine says: “ He (Poe) had his Hoffmann at the tips of his fingers. Not con tent with borrowing his peculiar species of tale (son gendre), he had learned in his school how to give reality to the most extravagant fantasies by precision and truthfulness of detail. His instinct served him well in the choice of a model.”(2) On the other side Dr. Karl Ferdinand van Vleuten remarks: “In general, people were satisfied to explain the peculiarity of Poe's tales by the deeply pervading influence of E. Th. A. Hoffmann, by the influence of the German romantic writers in general. That was very superficial; it may even be said, it was false.”(3) “ Untenable is the position that Poe was influenced to any decided extent by E. Th. A. Hoffmann.?. . .The art of the two authors differs fundamentally.”(4)
In view of these widely diverging differences of opinion, it would surely be an interesting task to follow this problem to the end, to trace out in all the tales of these two foremost authors of the “grotesque and arabesque” analogous motifs, similar ideas and methods, in order to determine, if possible, in what respects and to what extent this similarity is conscious or unconscious imitation on Poe's part, or is simply fortuitous. The investigator, starting from Mr. Stedman's [page 5:] suggestions, might press much further the analogies in Poe's Fall of the House of Usher and Hoffmann's Das Majorat; or in The Assignation and Doge und Dogaressa, and also compare the seemingly countless sporadic parallels in the other works of the two writers. He might investigate the similar views held by the two writers on the theory of the tale, and likewise compare the persistent attitude of “rebellion against formalism, commonplace, the spirit of the bourgeois,”(1) which is so marked a characteristic in both. He might further analyze their peculiar grotesque humor, which is so strikingly alike, and in Poe seems a direct, though feeble, reflection of the German author's genial, all-pervasive humor. He might finally, taking Poe's tale, The Angel of the Odd, as his point of departure, compare its main theme and underlying conception with Hoffmann's doctrine, so oft repeated in varying forms, that “truth is stranger than fiction,”(2) a doctrine which underlies their entire conception of the world about them. And, upon the basis of these various comparisons, the investigator might arrive at convincing conclusions and a definitive settlement of the debated question of Hoffmann's influence upon Poe. But an elaborate investigation of this character is not the purpose of these notes. Avoiding the pitfalls of a Motivenjägerei, as the Germans so felicitously term it, which only too often [page 6:] degenerates into a veritable Hetzjagd with its over-subtlety and forced fanciful analogies, they wish only to point out some striking points of resemblance in the work of the two authors, such as seem to present tangible evidence of the direct influence of the German writer upon Poe, — an influence which is quite marked in his earlier period, though waning more and more as the American writer found himself and his native genius asserted itself.
Though I believe it can be shown that Poe probably understood German enough to have read Hoffmann in the original, yet this question does not affect the subject under discussion, for Poe had had abundant opportunity to become acquainted with Hoffmann's work from English, as well as from French, translations before his own first tale, Ms. Found in a Bottle, appeared in the Baltimore Saturday Visiter of October 12, 1833. In English(1) the first work translated was The Devil's Elixir (Edinburgh, 1824), Hoffmann's only novel, which is one wild orgy of crime, passion, insanity and superstitious horror.(2) There followed, in 1826, two translations of Mlle. de Scudéri, one of Hoffmann's best tales, though it is free from his most marked peculiarities of style, horror and grotesqueness. This same year there appeared Rolandsitten; or the Deed of Entail, the translation of Das Majorat, in which Stedman sees the germ of The Fall of the House of Usher. In 1826 also Meister Floh, one of Hoffmann's most fantastic and poorest tales, was published in English translation. In the following year (1827), [page 7:] Thomas Carlyle's sketch of Hoffmann's life and works,(1) an appendix to his translation of the fairy story Der goldene Topf, called the attention of the English reading public to this extraordinary genius, though, on the whole, Carlyle's opinion of him was unfavorable. And in July of that same year Walter Scott published his famous article On the Supernatural in Fictitious Composition; and particularly on the Works of Ernest Theodore William Hoffmann,(2) which at the time made a decided stir. The characterization of Hoffmann's genius and personality as presented by these two essays is such that, if Poe saw them, the similarity to his own nature and genius must have struck him with a good deal of force, and must have interested him profoundly in the German author. No further translations of Hoffmann appeared in England until 1844.
While the number of works translated in Great Britain was not large and the criticisms of the author and his work were distinctly unfavorable, in France just the opposite was true.(3) One author writes: “France was unanimous in welcoming the tales of Hoffmann and ranking them among the chef-d’œuvres of romancers.”(4) Hoffmann was ranked as a “German classic,” and, according to Gautier, became “popular in France, more popular than in Germany. His tales were read by everybody.”(5) One enthusiast compared him to Homer.(6) In 1823 Mlle. de Scudéri was published in translation under the name Olivier Brusson, and dramatized [page 8:] with success the following year. But this beginning amounted to nothing until 1828, when the Globe(1) took Hoffmann up with enthusiasm, so that he quickly became the most popular author of the day in France.’ In 1829 the Revue de Paris (vol. I, p. 25) contained an article, Du Merveilleux dans le Roman, signed Walter Scott, which is a free and condensed translation of the first fourteen pages of the article mentioned above,(2) and also published copious extracts from Hoffmann's tales. Other magazines also contained translations. In that year too, François Adolphe Loevè-Veimars(3) began an edition of Hoffmann in French, which, though not complete as it purported to be, still contained his most important works. It had as its Introduction an essay on Hoffmann, strangely enough a free and condensed translation of the last twenty five pages of Scott's article.(2) This edition was completed in 1833, the year of Poe's first published tale. A second edition of Hoffmann's selected works was begun in 1830 by Th. Toussenel, and in the same year there appeared an edition of Hoffmann for children, Contes aux enfants. Even if Poe had not been able to read and understand a word of German he might very easily have hit upon the English translations, and quite as likely, with his fondness for French, have read them in French. With his interest once aroused in the German author of the ‘fantasy-pieces,’ who, in genius, temperament and life, was his very doppelgänger,(4) he must have read eagerly whatever he could get hold of. [page 9:]
Is there any direct evidence that Poe knew Hoffmann and his work? The evidence is found in his very disclaimer of Germanic influence, in that reference to the ‘phantasy pieces,’(1) which he takes care to enclose in quotation marks. And, again, in a letter to his friend, Professor Anthon of New York,(2) he writes: “My tales, a great number of which might be called fantasy-pieces, are in number sixty-six.” Now this name, ‘fantasy-piece,’ is the very name coined by Hoffmann for his first collection of sketches and tales, which appeared (4 vols., 1814-1815) with the title Fantasiestücke in Callot's Manier and made a decided sensation; besides establishing for the ‘weird tale’ the name which Poe appropriates. Possibly Poe saw the name in the original, quite as likely in Carlyle's appendix to German Romance, in which(3) the latter speaks of Hoffmann's Golden Pot as belonging “to a strange sort (the Fantasy-piece) of which he himself i. e., Hoffmann) was the originator.”(3) And where he later translates the title of Hoffmann's first work literally, i. e., Fantasy-pieces in Callot's Manner, besides referring to Prinzessin Brambilla as being ‘properly another Fantasy-piece.’
Poe not only knew of Hoffmann's ‘fantasy-pieces,’ but he actually knew them, and seems to have known them well, and from them obtained, consciously or unconsciously, certain features and motifs for his own stories. In fact, under the ægis of Hoffmann Poe entered the literary arena as a writer of tales. Poe's first productions in prose are the sixteen tales known as the Tales of the Folio Club, incorporated later [page 10:] in the collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, of which tales six were handed in for a prize competition to the Baltimore Visiter, early in October, 1833. The Introduction to these Tales of the Folio Club is a sort of satire, — one of Poe's “hoaxes,” — evidently directed against dilettante or philistine literary clubs, and was intended to be printed with the tales, though finally held back by the author. That part of it explaining the origin and nature of the Folio Club runs as follows:(1) “I find upon reference to the records, that the Folio Club was organized as such on the ———— day of ——— in the year ——. I like to begin with the beginning, and have a partiality for dates. A clause in the Constitution then adopted forbade the members to be otherwise than erudite and witty: and the avowed objects of the Confederation were the ‘instruction of society, and the amusement of themselves.’ For the latter purpose a meeting is held monthly at the house of some one of the association, when each individual is expected to come prepared with a ‘Short Prose Tale’ of his own composition. Each article then produced is read by its [respective] author to the company assembled over a glass of wine [at a very late] dinner.”
It is to be noticed, that the members of the Folio Club meet together once a month, at the house of one of the members, over a glass of wine at a dinner, and that each member is to read a “‘Short Prose Tale’ of his own com position.” Now, the best-known, as well as the best, collection of Hoffmann's tales is Die Serapionsbrüder (4 volumes, published 1819-1821). This purports to be a collection of tales read before the Serapions-Klubb — a club named after an eccentric anchorite, who, as is narrated in the introductory tale, possessed an unusual gift for telling vivid, realistic, interesting prose tales. This Serapion Club, then, was a literary club, whose four members agree to meet [page 11:] regularly, once a week, at the house of one of the members, and over a glass of good wine each individual is, in his turn, to read a prose tale. The solemn principle which is to guide them is, that “each member is to be as bright, lively, congenial, receptive and witty as it is possible for him to be.”(1) If, now, Hoffmann frankly acknowledges his in debtedness to the Phantasus of Tieck(2) for the idea of his Rahmenerzählung, i. e., this pot-pourri of tales gathered loosely about a central frame-work, what could Poe say in regard to his constitution of the Folio Club? In Tieck's Phantasus a number of men and women gather, more or less by accident, in a country-house, read aloud not only stories but also dramas and poems, entertaining each other in the interim with discussions on literature and art. In general, the setting is much more like that of Boccaccio's Decameron, than like that of the Serapion-Brethren. There is in Tieck not the slightest suggestion of anything like regular proceedings, or like a club, or anything approaching the idea of a club, in fact, of anything regular. Hoffmann, however, has the ‘club’ idea distinctly developed, has his members discuss the adoption of a constitution, a suggestion which they finally reject. They do, however, agree to hold meetings regularly, once a week, at a fixed place, usually the house of one of their number, and decide that they have a fixed program, the reading of a “Serapion tale,” written by the reader. And this organization Hoffmann calls the Serapion Club. Poe, to be sure, works out these details more and embellishes the central idea, but the kernel, the essential part of the idea comes from Hoffmann. It is not a case of a vague suggestion worked up into a new and independent creation, but a clearly outlined, definite scheme invented by the German, [page 12:] and borrowed by his American imitator. Possibly, the resemblance seemed to Poe too striking and close; at any rate, he never published this Introduction, which has not appeared in print until included in the recent ‘Virginia Edition’ of Poe's works.
The second collection of Poe's tales bears, as is well known, the striking and strange title Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. It has always been a question of some interest how Poe managed to hit upon this peculiarly happy name for his collection of twenty tales. No satisfactory explanation has as yet been given. In his Preface(1) to the tales Poe remarks upon their name, but does not offer any suggestion as to where he took it from. He says there: “The epithets ‘Grotesque’ and ‘Arabesque’ will be found to indicate with sufficient precision the prevalent tenor of the tales here published,” but affords no further explanation. Professor Belden, of the University of Missouri, suggests this explanation:(2) “ It is held by some that his ‘Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque’ got their peculiar title, if nothing else, from the ‘arabesken’ of the German romanticists; but [the title] is merely a matter of name that might be learned from a book-cover.”
As Professor Belden says, it is ‘ merely a matter of name,’ but names are interesting and, to the literary curious, often full of suggestive information. Hence, it may not be an utter waste of time to speculate a little about this particular name, especially as the name may prove to have some bearing upon the subject under discussion. The word ‘speculate’ is designedly used, for what is to be offered here is a conjecture only, a ‘speculation’ — but a conjecture, if well grounded, may amount to something as evidence. It will be recalled [page 13:] that the first number of the Foreign Quarterly Review (July, 1827) contained an exhaustive, carefully written article on Hoffmann, unsigned, but written by Walter Scott. This article opens with a general discussion of the character and legitimate use of the marvelous and supernatural in literature, and then passes on to an analysis of “another species of composition (which the) attachment of the Germans to the mysterious has invented.” This species Scott calls the “FANTASTIC mode of writing.”(1) The pioneer in this department of writing, according to Scott, is Hoffmann, whose life he reviews, and whose genius and style he analyzes. He gives the plot and long quotations, in translation, of Das Majorat in order to illustrate the legitimate employment of the supernatural. He praises this tale highly, but Hoffmann's Der Sandmann he cites as a type of the “FANTASTIC mode of writing” introduced by Hoffmann, a type which “it is impossible to subject to criticism,” such tales “are the feverish dreams of a light-headed patient.” The article concludes with a strong protest against Hoffmann's methods.(2) This article was the most carefully thought-out and best written review of Hoffmann which had yet appeared and was, for instance, most highly recommended by Goethe to the German public,(3) besides furnishing material, as noted above, for two articles on Hoffmann in French. Poe, who was an omnivorous reader, really obliged to be by his duties as editor and critic, followed carefully English as well as American literary magazines, and in one of his letters cites [page 14:] by name this very magazine.(1) Now, if he saw this particular number,-and the first number of a new magazine is likely to be more widely disseminated and read than ordi nary issues,-he must have been struck and impressed by Scott's article, an article of special interest to him. And he would have found in this article a striking passage,(2) characterizing Hoffmann's style, which is worth quoting in full. “Thus was the inventor (i. e., Hoffmann), or at least first distinguished artist who exhibited the fantastic or super natural grotesque in his compositions so nearly on the verge of insanity, as to be afraid of the beings his own fancy created. It is no wonder that to a mind so vividly accessible to the influence of imagination, so little under the dominion of sober reason, such a numerous train of ideas should occur in which fancy had a large share and reason none at all. In fact the grotesque in his compositions partly resembles the arabesque in painting,(3) in which is (sic) introduced the most strange and complicated monsters, resembling centaurs, griffins, sphinxes, chimeras, rocs, and all other creatures of romantic imagination, dazzling the beholder as it were by the unbounded fertility of the author's imagination, and sating it by the rich contrast of all the varieties of shape and colouring, while there is nothing to satisfy the under standing or satisfy the judgment.” In this passage those two epithets, grotesque and arabesque, are found in close juxtaposition and used to characterize ‘weird’ tales, occur ring in a paragraph, which describes, almost as if written for that purpose, the peculiar character of so much of Poe's work; and in a paragraph which would especially appeal to Poe's Imp of Perverseness, as it ends with the screed about “satisfying the understanding and satisfying the judgment.” For, of all things, Poe protests loudest against poetry or [page 15:] literature with a “moral.” If Poe read this article, he could not fail to note this passage,(1) and note also these unusually felicitous designations for his own work, designations which “indicate,” as he puts it in his Preface, “ with sufficient precision the prevalent tenor of these tales.” Scott himself was evidently pleased with his happy comparison, for later he repeats it in a passage,(2) in which he deplores the fact, that Hoffmann's “ taste and temperament directed him too strongly to the grotesque and fantastic.” Scott deprecates narrowness and bigotry in literary taste, and then proceeds: “Genius too, is, we are aware, capricious and must be allowed to take its own flights, however eccentric, were it but for the sake of experiment. Sometimes, also, it may be eminently pleasing to look at the wildness of an Arabesque painting — Scott writes the word with a capital A — executed by a man of rich fancy. But we do not desire to see a genius expand or rather exhaust itself upon themes which cannot be reconciled to taste, etc.” Poe, with his keen observation and appreciation of things well said, as shown in his Marginalia and Pinakidia, would be sure to note such passages as these and store them away in his memory for future use. All this, of course, is conjecture, but not at all improbable.
But there are other features in this review which incline one very strongly to believe, that it must have been read by Poe. You will remember, that Poe speaks contemptuously of ‘some of the secondary names of German literature.’ Scott says of Hoffmann that “with a steadier command of his imagination, he might have been an author of first distinction,” and, in concluding, speaks of Hoffmann's leaving behind “the reputation of a remarkable man, whose temperament [page 16:] and health alone prevented his arriving at a great height of reputation” — the italics in both cases are mine. In other words, Hoffmann is one of the ‘secondary names of German literature,’ as Poe calls him in his Preface.
Stedman, as has been touched upon, claims that “a reader finds certain properties of the House of Usher and Metzengerstein in Das Majorat; in the ancestral castle of a noble family, on a wild and remote estate near the Baltic Sea, — the interior, where the moon shines through oriel windows upon tapestry and carven furniture and wainscoting, — the uncanny scratchings against a bricked-up door, — the old Freiherr foreseeing the hour of his death — the ominous conflagration — the turret falling of its own decay into a chasm at its base.”(1) These ‘properties’ here enumerated are the very features which Scott, in his article on Poe, lays stress upon in the analysis of Das Majorat. In his own words he describes the castle and its inhabitants, quotes in translation the scene in the large hall at night with the moonlight streaming “ through the broad transom windows” into the hall in which “the walls and roof . . . . were ornamented, — the former with heavy panelling, the latter with fantastic carving;” and also quotes the conclusion of the story. He notes that the baron's name is Roderick; and that his lady is “young, beautiful, nervous, and full of sensibility.” The most striking feature of the whole, how ever, is Scott's description of the castle itself culled from various parts of Hoffmann's story. “It was a huge pile overhanging the Baltic Sea, silent, dismal, almost uninhabited, and surrounded, instead of gardens and pleasure grounds by forests and black pines and firs which came up to the walls. Part of the castle was in ruins; and by its fall made a deep chasm, which extended from the highest turret [page 17:] down to the dungeon of the castle.”(1) Compare with this picture the description of the ‘House of Usher’ and note the close resemblance; chiefly of the chasm from “the highest turret down to the dungeon “ with that “ barely perceptible fissure which, extending from the roof in the building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn.”(2) That feature which is the most haunting feature of the mansion, as was noticed by one of Poe's correspondents, who writes à propos of the Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque: “I have always found some one remarkable thing in your stories to haunt me long after reading them. The teeth in Berenice — the changing eyes of Morella — that red and glaring crack in the House of Usher.”(3)
In addition, other features of the life and incidents at the ‘Entailed Castle’ agree most strikingly with those at the Castle of Metzengerstein as described by Poe. If Poe needed and got any outside suggestions for those two stories, he found them here in condensed form. There is a great temptation in hounding similarities to death, but it does not seem like forcing things too much to see in Scott's essay On the Supernatural the first germs of Poe's two stories, and to hold that these analogies confirm the conjecture that Poe saw this review and drew from it. Among other things [page 18:] the suggestion for the title of his famous collection of tales.
Every one conversant with Poe's Tales, who has read them with some attention to their style, has probably noticed one idiosyncrasy of style, which, owing to its frequent occurrence, becomes a downright vice. I refer to the peculiar habit of the author in conversational dialogue of beginning a sentence with one or more words, inserting thereupon the word of saying, by itself or with others, and then repeating the opening words before proceeding with the rest of the sentence. E. g., “Thou hast conquered,” she said, or the murmurs of the water deceived me — “thou hast conquered.”(1) “What think you,” said he, turning abruptly as he spoke — what think you of this Madonna della Pieta.”(2) “ They have given the signal at last,” cried the Pharisee, “they have given the signal at last!”(3) Such examples might be cited by scores. These repetitions take various forms, differing in minor details, which may be classified in three types for the sake of convenience.
The first type is the one of which examples have just been given, i. e., with some expression of saying intervening between the opening words and their repetition.
The second type is that in which a statement is made and followed by a parenthetical explanation or interruption, whereupon the first words are repeated with “I say.” E. g., “Do you know, however,” continued he musingly, “ that at Sparta (which is now Palaeochori), at Sparta, I say, to the west of the citadel, etc.”(4) “ Imagine — that is if you have a fanciful turn — imagine, I say, my wonder.”(5) Or again, “If Pierre Bon-Bon had his failings — and what great man has not a thousand? — if Pierre Bon-Bon, I say, had his failings, they were failings of very little importance.”(6) [page 19:]
There is subclass of this type, in which the phrase “I say “ is omitted. As, “The person of the stranger-let me call him by this title, who to all the world was still a stranger — the person of the stranger is one of these subjects.”(1) Again, “What was it, I paused to think, what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher?”(2) Or, in conversation, “I cannot help — pity me! — I cannot help preferring the Antinous.”(3)
The third type is mere repetition, with or without any parenthetical phrase, but with a change to strengthen the opening statement. E. g., “Very well! — very well, sir! very well indeed, sir!” said his Majesty, apparently much flattered.(4) “See! see!” cried he, shrieking in my ears, “Almighty God! see! see!”(5) “It is a day of days,” she said as I approached; “a day of all days either to live or to die.”(6) The examples for every one of these types could be multiplied many times.
A careful examination of these repetitions makes it evident, that a considerable number are more or less intentional, have a rhetorical or stylistic value, or else aid in the delineation of character, as in The Tell-Tale Heart. But by far the larger part can be accounted for only as a habit, a trick of style, which as far as I have been able to recall or learn by enquiry is peculiar to Poe, at least among English writers.(7) It seems, then, that he did not catch the trick from any [page 20:] English authors. Can these peculiarities be explained by Poe's general fondness for repetition, a device which he used with unqualified success in his poetry, by systematic, care fully-planned repeating of words and phrases, and alliteration?(1) Or, can they be explained as the result of mental weakness, due to his intemperance, or other unfortunate habit? But, if either were the case, we should expect it to be a habit which would grow on him. If a rhetorical device, that he would develop it for more and more effective use, as he did the trick of repetition in his poetry. Here it is most effectively used in The Raven (1845) and The Bells (1849), that is, in his latest poems. A study of his tales, however, shows that these peculiarities are most noticeable in the earliest ones. Thus, The Assignation (1835) has thirteen cases in sixteen pages of text, as many as three occurrences on a single page.(2) Bon-Bon (1835) has sixteen in twenty pages; A Tale of Jerusalem (1836) has nine cases in five pages; while in The Murderers [[Murders]] of Rue Morgue (1841), though there are forty-seven pages of text, with abundant opportunity for the use of repetition, there is only one case. The Purloined Letter (1845) with twenty-five pages of text, affording all kinds of occasion, has also only one case. The Cask of Amontillado (November, 1846), with ten pages of text and full of conversational dialogue, has not a single case of repetition. In the last of Poe's tales Hop-Frog (1849) there are just two cases in thirteen pages of text, though most of the story is animated conversation. Furthermore, in his early years, Poe does not confine the peculiarity to his tales, but drops into it in his serious work. So, in a book review(3) of January, 1836: “I published,” says he in his [page 21:] reminiscences we are now reviewing, “I published the work on Great Britain, etc.” Or, in his Introduction to his Poems(1) (1831), “But there are occasions, dear B —— , there are occasions.” Later, however, only two examples occur in his serious writings, twice in Eureka.(2)
This does not mean that there are no stories of Poe's earlier period which are free from this peculiarity, or, that there are none of his later period in which it does not occur a number of times. But such cases are the exceptions. In Lionizing (1835) and in Metzengerstein (1836) no examples are found, though there is plenty of chance for their occurrence. While in The Spectacles (published April, 1844) eight cases occur within thirty-four pages; and in The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Feather (November, 1845) there are ten cases in twenty-six pages, though seven of these are repetitions of the same phrase.(3) Either these last two tales, which are generally considered as rather poor, were written earlier, or else Poe resorts to this device of repetition to give a touch of grotesque humor to the narration, an effect which the device does produce, and which Poe uses quite skillfully in some of the earlier tales (e. g., Bon-Bon, A Tale of Jerusalem, Loss of Breath), though its use was by no means confined to tales of such character. From these statistics, it seems clearly established that Poe outgrew this early vice of style, and in his later works employed the device only occasionally. [page 22:] And, furthermore, that he purposely avoided it as he developed in his powers of narration, and also in his style.
The question naturally suggests itself, is this eccentricity of style a personal peculiarity, one characteristic solely of Poe? Or, if not, where could he have acquired it? As has been mentioned, authorities, whose work covers the whole range of English literature, cannot recall any English author in whom it is noticeable as a peculiarity, though isolated instances are met with. But turn now to the biography of E. T. A. Hoffmann by Ellinger,(1) to see what light, if any, can be thrown upon this matter. In discussing Hoffmann's style, the chief virtue of which he finds to be clearness, he says: “Only occasionally is the reader somewhat disturbed by certain eccentricities of style in his enjoyment of Hoffmann's language, which rings clear as silver; e. g. ,. . . . by the habit in conversations of beginning with one or several words of the speaker and then repeating these after the interpolated ‘said he,’ ‘spoke he.’”(2) These words describe Poe's peculiarity exactly, and hence, in my opinion, we need search no further to determine whether this peculiarity is original with Poe, or from whom he caught it. Now, in this characterization Ellinger says that the reader is occasionally disturbed — ‘occasionally disturbed’ is very mild. The cases occur so frequently that they grow decidedly annoying, almost maddening.(3) They are characteristic above every thing else in Hoffmann's writing. As many as five cases occur on one page, and you can hardly turn to any page of conversation of any kind in Hoffmann's work, in which you [page 23:] will not find one example at least, and any number of pages have two, and not infrequently three on a page. The types of repetition, formulated for Poe, can be duplicated in hundreds of examples from the works of his German predecessor. E. g., of the first type: “Lass mich in Ruhe, sprach er, lass mich in Ruhe.”(1) “Du faselst, murmelte Falieri, ohne sich vom Fenster wegzuwenden, du faselst, Alter.” Again: “Nein, beim Himmel! unterbrach er den Freund, indem er mit rascher, heftiger Bewegung vom Fenster weg und auf ihn zutrat, nein, beim Himmel!” These three cases occur within three pages and there are three more on these same pages. In Das Fräulein von Scuderi, which would make about seventy-five pages of matter, if printed as in the ‘Virginia Edition’ of Poe's works, there are nearly fifty cases of such repetition.
The second type, consisting of opening words and a paren thesis followed by the repetition with “I say,” does not occur exactly as in the English, since the German does not use “I say,” or any equivalent. Still the same thing is found in such sentences as these: “So macht doch nur auf, um Christuswillen, so macht doch nur auf!”(2) Again: “Daif dann mich, die ich der Tugend getreu und der Frommigkeit, tadellos blieb von Kindheit an, darf dann mich u. s. w.”(2) “Ihr wisst es ja alle, ihr wackeren Kumpane meines fróhlichen Jugendlebens, ihr wisst es ja alle.” Within three pages occurs this example: “Bemerken Sie — (er führte mich in das hintere Zimmer und zeigte durchs Fenster) — bemerken Sie.”(3)
The third form, repetition with increased emphasis, is found occasionally: “Der Arm ist schon hell, schon wieder heil,” [page 24:] Or, “Söhnlein, mein goldenes Sohnlein, Antonio.”(1) All these examples are practically taken from two tales, which Stedman thinks may have furnished suggestions to Poe.(2)
But they can be duplicated in any quantities from the others. But how about Hoffmann? Did not he derive this peculiarity of style from some writer before him? About this Ellinger has the following to say: “But possibly this peculiarity, which asserted itself to any considerable extent only from about 1815, is to be explained by Hoffmann's desire for greater clearness.” That is to say, Hoffmann developed it himself as an aid to clearness in composition, he did not borrow from anybody else. In fact, it is startling almost how suddenly it becomes noticeable in Hoffmann's tales. Cases of repetition occur occasionally, but only occasionally, in Hoffmann's earlier works, Fantasie-Stücke, Die Elixiere des Teufels, and the earlier stories of Nachstücke. All of a sudden they become very noticeable in the tale Das Sanctus of the Nachtstücke, after which the frequency of occurrence increases very rapidly, more noticeable almost in his last tales than in many of the earlier ones. The peculiarity is found just as often in the serious discussions of art interspersed in Die Serapionsbrüder as in the tales themselves. Hence, there can be but one inference from these facts: Hoffmann grew into the peculiarity, Poe grew out of it; with Hoffmann it was natural, self-developed, with Poe something extraneous, acquired, but thrown off as he grew more and more independent in style and in method. So much seems established beyond reasonable doubt. But, if this peculiar habit was acquired, if it was an imitation, there is only one writer Poe could have learned it from and that was Hoffmann, from whom he seems to have obtained so many suggestions for his tales, particularly the earlier ones. [page 25:]
If the sequence of reasoning in this paper has been logical, it has proved, and it is hoped by tangible evidence, that Poe acknowledges the kinship of his tales to those of Hoffmann, when he calls them ‘fantasy-pieces;’ that he took from Hoffmann the idea of the Tales of the Folio Club; that through Hoffmann he seems to have hit upon the name Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, and from him to have received many a suggestion and inspiration for his own ‘weird tales;’ finally, that his very style seems to have been affected and molded in a very marked manner by that of the German author; in short, that Hoffmann exerted a deep reaching influence upon the young Poe, an influence which he grew away from, but never entirely outgrew. But what of Poe's disclaimer of ‘Germanism’? That is only another confirmation of Poe's own theory of literary plagiarism, elaborated in that fine passage on James Aldrich in his New York Literati:(1) “all literary history demonstrates the fact that, for the most frequent and palpable plagiarisms” — let us rather say, literary influences — “we must search the work of the most eminent poets.”
GUSTAV GRUENER.
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 1:]
1 Cf. the letter of Jas. E. Heath (September 12, 1839) in The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, edited by James A. Harrison, New York, 1902 (cited hereafter as Works), XVII, 47.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 2:]
1 Works, I, 150-51.
2 Works, xii, 112, Charges against Hawthorne for plagiarizing his own story William Wilson. Also XII, 41, “The Longfellow War;” XIII, 144, et passim.
3 The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, London, 1884, I, p. xiv.
4 Edgar Allan Poe, Boston, 1881, p. 63.
5 The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, by Edmund Clarence Stedman and George Edward Woodberry, Chicago, 1894-95. I, 96. 2
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 3:]
1 Edgar Allan Poe, by George E. Woodberry, Boston, 1885.
2 Cf. p. 65; also p. 85.
3 Works, I, 153-154.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 4:]
1 Revue des Deux Mondes of July 15, 1897 (vol. 142), pp. 336-374, and 552-592. — Die Zukunft (Berlin) of August 1st, 1903 (vol. 11, No. 44), pp. 181-190.
2 Cf. p. 372.
3 Cf. pp. 181-182.
4 Cf. p. 189.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 5:]
1 Cf. Stedman: Edgar Allan Poe, p. 86.
2 Some of the most striking examples, taken at random, follow: So magst du bedenken, dass das, was sich wirklich begibt, beinahe imrner das Unwahr scheinlichste ist (Werke, ed. Grisebach, Leipzig, 1900, VI, 52).
Man war dariiber einig, dass die wirklichen Erscheinungen im Leben oft viel wunderbarer sich gestalteten, als alles, was die regste Fantasie zu erfinden trachte (III, 133).
Vielleicht wirst du, 0 mein Leser, dann glauben, dass nichts wunderlicher und toller sei, als das wirkliche Leben (III, 20).
Or, in Das Friiulein von Scuderi (vin, 190), where Hoffmann quotes Boileau (L’Art Poetique, III, 43): Le vrai peut quelquee fois n’tre pas vrai semblable.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 6:]
l The translations have been taken from the Catalogue of the British Museum and corroborated, where it was possible, from the catalogues of some of the leading libraries in this country.
2 Die Elixiere des Teufels is a rambling, long drawn-out story of a satanic elixir, which prolongs life but debases the purest character into one of utter depravity and wickedness. The germ is there of Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (cf. Jahresbericht fir Neuere Deutsche Litteratur, 1895, IV, 4, 151).
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 7:]
l Thomas Carlyle: German Romance, Edinburgh, 1827.
2 Published in The Foreign Quarterly Review, Vol. I, No. 1, pp. 60-99 (July, 1827). The article is based upon a review of (1) Hoffmanns Leben und Nachlass (by his friend Hitzig), Berlin, 1823; (2) Hoffmann's Serapionbrüder, 6 vols., 1819-1823; (3) Hoffmann's Nachtstücke, 2 vols., 1816.
3 Cf. Gustav Thurau: E. T. A. Hoffmanns Erzdhlungen in Frankreich. Festschrift zum siebzigsten Geburtstage Oskar Schade dargebracht von seinen Shiilern und Verehrern. Königsberg i. Pr. 1896, pp. 239-289.
4 Champfleury, quoted by Thurau, p. 245.
5 Quoted by Thurau, p. 241.
6 Cf. Thurau, p. 241. 7
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 8:]
1 Cf. Dr. Th. Süpfle: Geschichte des deutschen Kultureinflusses auf Frankreich, Gotha, 1886-90, vol. 2, pp. 154 f.
2 Professor Wm. Lyon Phelps kindly compared the articles at the National Library in Paris, and furnished these data.
3 Loeve-Veimars was a well-known critic and translator, who had made a good name for himself by translations of Heine and Schiller, and his articles on general German literature.
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 8, running to the bottom of page 9:]
4 Cf. Stedman (Poe's Complete Works, I, 96-97) : “Among authors of the penumbral cast . . . . the temperaments and lives, even the features of Hoffmann and Poe seem to be most nearly of the same type.” “Still, [page 9:] while Hoffmann was wholly of the Vaterland and Poe a misfitted American, if the one had died before the other's birth instead of thirteen years later, there would be a chance for a pretty fancy in behalf of the doctrine of metempsychosis, which both these writers utilized.”
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 9:]
1 Works, I, 150.
2 Works, XVII, 179.
3 Cf. Critical and Miscellaneous Essays; collected and republished (first time, 1839; final, 1869) by Thomas Carlyle, London, 1869, vol. I, pp. 314, 349, 350.
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 10:]
1 Cf. Works, II, Introduction, xxxvii ff. 10
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 11:]
1 Hoffmann's Werke (Grisebach), viI, 145.
2 Werke, VI; Vorwort, p. 7: Eben diese Form wird-muss an Ludwig Tiecks Phantasus erinnern.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 12:]
1 Works, I, 150.
2 Henry Marvin Belden, Poe's Criticism of Hawthorne, in Anglia, XXIII (pp. 376-404), p. 389.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 13:]
1 “In which,” he goes on to say (p. 72), “the most wild and unbounded license is given to an irregular fancy.” “It has no restraint save that which it may ultimately find in the exhausted imagination of the author.”
2 P. 98. The concluding words run: His “works as they now exist ought to be considered less as models for imitation than as affording a warning how the most fertile fancy may be exhausted by the lavish prodigality of its possessor.”
3 Cf. Kürschner's Deutsche Nationallitteratur, vol. 113, p. 266.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 14:]
1 Works, XVII, 161. Letter to Lowell. Cf. also Lowell's reply, p. 181.
2 Cf. p. 81.
3 The italics are not in the original.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 15:]
1 Particularly as it proceeds to condemn Hoffmann for his wasted life and just such extravagances of conduct as Poe himself was charged with.
2 Cf. p. 93.
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 16:]
1 Complete Works, I, 97.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 17:]
1 For. Quar. Rev., I, 84. The italics are not in the original.
This description is not by any means exactly the same as that given in Hoffmann. Three important features, that of silence, so impressive a feature in Poe's House of Usher; that of the huge chasm from top to bottom; and that of the castle overhanging the Baltic are not so distinctly stated in the German. The castle is described only as “being not far from the Baltic Sea.” Hoffmann tries to heighten the desolation by laying special stress on the croaking of the ravens, the cries of the wheeling gulls, the howling of the wind and the soughing of the pines. The deep chasm is only remotely suggested by Hoffmann.
2 Works, 227.
3 Letter from Philip Pendleton Cook, XVII, 264.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 18:]
1 The Assignation. II, 114.
2 The Assignation. II, 118.
3 A Tale of Jerusalem. I, 218.
4 The Assignation. II, 117.
5 Loss of Breath. II, 152.
6 Bon-Bon. II, 127. 18
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 19:]
1 The Assignation. II, 114.
2 The Fall of the House of Usher. III, 273.
3 The Assignation. II, 119.
4 Bon-Bon. II, 140.
5 MS. found in a Bottle. II, 7.
6 Morella. II, 30.
7 Professors Lounsbury, Beers, and Cross, as well as others who were appealed to, were unable to recall any other English writer who shows this peculiarity to anywhere near such an extent, if at all. An examination of tales appearing in Blackwood's Magazine from 1825 to 1833 revealed that there were numerous tales of the “Grotesque and Arabesque,” but none which possessed this peculiarity.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 20:]
1 Cf. Professor Charles W. Kent's Introduction to Poe's Poems. Works, VII, p. xxvi.
2 Works, II, 118.
3 Works, VIII, 163. Reminiscences of an Intercourse with Mr. Niebuhr, the Historian, &c., &c., by Francis Lieber.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 21:]
1 Works, VII, xi-xii.
2 Works, XVI, 188 and 191: “Do you know, my dear friend,” says the writer, addressing no doubt a contemporary — “Do you know that, etc.” P. 191: “Than the persons” — the letter goes on to say-”than the persons, etc.”
3 Works, VI, 64: “And then,” said a cadaverous looking personage, etc. “and then.” — P. 65: “And then,” said somebody else, “then there was,” etc. — Later: “And then,” said some other of the party, “then there was,” etc. — P. 69: “To be sure,” said I, “to be sure.” — P. 70: “To be sure,” said I. “To be sure” occurs three times on this one page.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 22:]
1 E. T. A. Hoffmann, Sein Leben und seine Werke, by Georg Ellinger, Hamburg and Leipzig, 1894, p. 175.
2 The italics are not in the original.
3 They are so felt by translators. In the popular French translation by Marnier they are cut out. Also in an English edition of Die Serapions brüder by Ewing.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 23:]
1 These examples are taken from Doge und Dogaressa (Werke, III, 101 ff.), which Stedman thinks suggested to Poe features of The Assignation.
2 Das Fräulein von Scuderi. Werke, VIII, 139 f.
3 Das Ode Haus. Werke, III, 133 f.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 24:]
1 Doge und Dogaressa. V. supra.
2 Complete Works, I, 98.
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 25:]
1 Works, XV, 63.
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Notes:
None.
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[S:0 - PMLA, 1904] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - A Poe Bookshelf - Notes on the Influence of E. T. A. Hoffmann Upon Edgar Allan Poe (G. Gruener, 1904)