Text: Palmer Cobb, “Conclusion,” The Influence of E. T. A. Hoffman on the Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, 1908, pp. 103-104

[page 103:]

In conclusion, one may sum up the facts relative to the question which this work undertakes to discuss, as follows:

First, from about the year 1825 there was a constantly increasing interest in current German literature in England and America. The expression of this interest is to be observed in the numerous translations from the German, as well as the frequent articles which deal with German literature in the magazines and periodicals of the time.

Secondly, Poe, as a magazine editor and a contributor to the magazines, followed closely English and American periodicals, and therefore must have been affected more or less by this interest. His attention was probably first attracted to Hoffmann by Scott's article in the Foreign Quarterly Review, and the interest this article aroused in him led to a closer acquaintance with Hoffmann's works.

Thirdly, Poe possessed the ability to read German, although his reading of Hoffmann was by no means dependent upon this ability, since he might have read him in both English and French translations.

Fourthly, five stories of Poe show the indubitable influence of Hoffmann. These five stories are, in the order of their publication, The Assignation, Southern Literary Messenger, July, 1835; Fall of the House of Usher, Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, September 1839; William Wilson, Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, October, 1839; The Oval Portrait, Graham's Magazine, April, 1842; and The Tale of the Ragged Mountains, Godey's Lady's Book, April, 1844. It cannot be claimed that Hoffmann's influence dominated Poe during this whole period, 1835 to 1844. It was rather a question of his “looking about him for such combinations of events or tone”,(1) and finding in Hoffmann's works at various times such motives as struck his fancy, or suited his purpose. Above all, [page 104:] it was probably Hoffmann's interest in mesmerism and metempsychosis that attracted Poe's attention. At that period when these subjects were absorbing his interest, he went naturally to Hoffmann's tales, and drew from them in his own work dealing with the same subject.

This interest in mesmerism, metempsychosis, etc., and the expression Of this interest in the prose tale was, of course, not confined to Poe and Hoffmann alone. These subjects, as well as other motives used by Poe and Hoffmann, play a part in that tale of terror the principal exponents of which were Mrs. Radcliff, Horace Walpole, and M. G. Lewis. The kinship of Poe's tales to those of Hoffmann is not attested by the fact that the motives in question are peculiar to Poe and Hoffmann. They may be found in other sources both English and German.

The verification of Poe's indebtedness to the German is to be sought in the similarity of the treatment of the same motives in the works of both authors. The most convincing evidence is furnished by the way in which Poe has combined these themes in the exact agreement with the grouping employed by Hoffmann. Notable examples of this are the employment of the idea of the double existence in conjunction with the struggle of the good and evil forces in the soul of the individual, and the combination of mesmerism and metempsychosis as leading motives in one and the same story.

Finally, Hoffmann's influence on Poe did not extend to the latter's style. It was solely a borrowing and adaptation of motives.

[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 103:]

1.  Harrison, Vol. XIV, page 194.