Every nation has its own tales. In them fiction is intertwined with real historical events, and they are a kind of encyclopedia of traditions and everyday features of different countries. Folk tales have existed verbally for centuries, while author's tales began to appear only with the development of typography. Tales of German writers Gesner, Wieland, Goethe, Gauf, Brentano were fertile soil for the development of romanticism in Germany. At the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the name of the Grimm brothers loudly sounded, who created an amazing, magical world in their works. But one of the most famous fairy tales was the "Golden Pot" (Hoffmann). A brief summary of this work will allow you to get acquainted with some of the features of German romanticism, which had a huge impact on the further development of art.
Romanticism: the origins
German romanticism is one of the most interesting and fruitful periods in art. It began in literature, giving a powerful impetus to all other forms of art. Germany at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries did not much resemble a magical, poetic country. But the burgher life, simple and rather primitive, turned out, oddly enough, to be the most fertile ground for the birth of the most spiritualized direction in culture. Ernst Theodore Amadeus Hoffmann opened the door to it. The character of the crazy bandmaster Kreisler created by him became the forerunner of a new hero, overwhelmed by feelings only in the most superlative degree, immersed in his inner world more than in the real one. Hoffmann also owns the amazing work "The Golden Pot". This is one of the pinnacles of German literature and a true encyclopedia of romanticism.
History of creation
The tale "The Golden Pot" was written by Hoffmann in 1814 in Dresden. Shells exploded outside the window and bullets of the Napoleonic army whistled, and a wonderful world filled with wonders and magical characters was born at the writer's desk. Hoffman just experienced a terrible shock when his beloved Julia Mark parents passed off as a wealthy businessman. The writer once again ran into the vulgar rationalism of philistines. An ideal world in which the harmony of all things reigns - that is what E. Hoffmann longed for. The "Golden Pot" is an attempt to invent such a world and settle in it even in imagination.
Geographical coordinates
An amazing feature of the Golden Pot is that the scenery for this fairy tale is copied from the real city. Heroes walk along Castle Street, passing Linkovy baths. Pass through the Black and Lake Gate. Miracles take place at real festivities on the day of the Ascension. The heroes ride a boat, the Osters ladies pay a visit to their friend Veronica. Registrar Geerbrand tells his fantastic story about the love of Lilia and Phosphorus, drinking a punch in the evening at Conrector Paulman, and no one even draws an eyebrow. Hoffman so closely intertwines a fictional world with the real one that the line between them is erased almost completely.
The Golden Pot (Hoffmann). Summary: the beginning of amazing adventures
On the day of the Ascension Day, about three in the afternoon, student Anselm quickly walks along the pavement. After passing through the Black Gate, he accidentally knocks over a basket of apples and, in order to at least somehow make amends, gives her his last money. The old woman, however, not satisfied with the compensation, pours on Anselm a whole stream of curses and curses, from which he catches only what he is threatened with under the glass. Having been depressed, the young man starts wandering aimlessly around the city when he suddenly hears a slight rustling of elderberry. Peering through the foliage, Anselm decided that he saw three wonderful golden snakes wriggling in the branches and whispering mysteriously. One of the snakes brings its graceful head to it and gazes intently into its eyes. Anselm becomes wildly delighted and begins to talk with them, which attracts bewildered looks of passers-by. The conversation is interrupted by the registrar Gerrand and the corrector Paulman with his daughters. Seeing that Anselm is a little crazy, they decide that he is crazy from incredible poverty and bad luck. They offer the young man to come to the post in the evening. At this reception, the unfortunate student receives an offer from the archivist Lindgorst to join him as a calligrapher. Realizing that he can’t count on anything better, Anselm accepts the offer.
This initial section is the main conflict between the miraculous soul (Anselm) and the down-to-earth, preoccupied consciousness (“Dresden characters”), which forms the basis of the dramaturgy of the novel “The Golden Pot” (Hoffmann). A summary of Anselm's further adventures follows.
Magic house
Miracles began as soon as Anselm approached the archivist's house. The door knocker suddenly turned into the face of an old woman whose basket the young man turned over. The lanyard of the bell turned out to be a white snake, and again Anselm heard the prophetic words of the old woman. In horror, the young man ran away from the strange house, and no persuasion helped convince him to visit this place again. To establish contact between the archivist and Anselm, the registrar Geerbrand invited both of them to the coffee shop, where he told a mythical story about the love of Lilia and Phosphorus. It turned out that this Lily was Lindgorst great-great-great-grandmother, and royal blood flows in his veins. In addition, he said that the golden snakes that captivated the young man so much were his daughter. This finally convinced Anselm that he needed to try his luck again in the archivist's house.
Fortune Teller Visit
The daughter of the registrar Geerbrand, imagining that Anselm could become a court adviser, convinced herself that she was in love, and set out to marry him. To be faithful, she went to a fortuneteller, who informed her that Anselm had contacted evil forces in the person of the archivist, loved his daughter - a green snake - and he would never become an adviser. In order to somehow console the unfortunate girl, the sorceress promised to help her by making a magic mirror through which Veronica could bewitch Anselm to her and save him from the evil old man. In fact, there was a long-standing feud between the fortuneteller and the archivist, and so the witch wanted to settle accounts with her enemy.
Magical ink
Lindgorst, in turn, also provided Anselm with a magical artifact - he gave him a bottle with a mysterious black mass, which the young man had to rewrite the letters from the book. With each passing day, the symbols became clearer to Anselm, and soon it began to seem to him that he had known this text for a long time. One of the working days, Serpentina appeared to him - a snake, in which Anselm fell in love without a memory. She said that her father comes from the Salamander tribe. For his love of the green snake, he was expelled from the magical land of Atlantis and was doomed to remain in a human form until someone could hear the singing of his three daughters and fall in love with them. As a dowry, they promised the Golden Pot. When betrothed, a lily will grow out of it, and one who can learn to understand its language will open the door to Atlantis for himself and for the Salamander.
When Serpentina disappeared, giving Anselm a searing kiss in farewell, the young man looked at the letters he had copied, and realized that everything said by the snake was contained in them.
Happy ending
For some time, Veronica’s magic mirror affected Anselm. He forgot Serpetina and began to dream of Paulman's daughter. Arriving at the archivist’s house, he discovered that he had ceased to perceive the world of miracles, the letters, which he had recently read with ease, again turned into incomprehensible squiggles. Dripping ink on parchment, the young man was imprisoned in a glass jar as a punishment for his mistake. Looking around, he saw several more of the same cans with young people. Only they did not understand at all that they were in captivity, mocking the suffering of Anselm.
Suddenly a grunt came from the coffee pot, and the young man recognized in him the voice of the notorious old woman. She promised to save him if he marries Veronica. Anselm refused angrily, and the witch tried to escape, grabbing a gold pot. But then the formidable Salamander blocked her path. The battle between them took place: Lindgorst won, the spell of the mirror slept from Anselm, and the sorceress turned into a nasty beet.
All Veronica’s attempts to tie Anselm to herself ended in failure, but the girl was not discouraged for long. Conrector Paulman, appointed as a court adviser, offered her a hand and a heart, and she gladly gave her consent. Anselm and Serpentina happily got engaged and gained eternal bliss in Atlantis.
The Golden Pot, Hoffmann. Heroes
Anselm is an unlucky student in real life. There is no doubt that Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann associates himself with him. The young man passionately wants to find his place in the social hierarchy, but stumbles upon the rude, imagined world of burghers, that is, ordinary people. His inconsistency with reality is clearly demonstrated at the very beginning of the story, when he knocks over a basket of apples. Powerful people, standing firmly on the ground, make fun of him, and he acutely feels his exclusion from their world. But as soon as he gets a job with archivist Lindgorst, his life begins to instantly improve. In his house, he falls into magical reality and falls in love with a golden snake - the youngest daughter of archivist Serpentina. Now the meaning of his existence is the desire to win her love and trust. In the image of Serpentina, Hoffmann embodied the ideal lover - the elusive, elusive and fabulously beautiful.
The magic world of the Salamander is opposed by "Dresden" characters: Conrector Paulman, Veronica, registrar Gerrand. They are completely deprived of the ability to observe miracles, considering faith in them a manifestation of mental illness. Only Veronica, in love with Anselma, sometimes opens the veil over the fantasy world. But she loses this susceptibility as soon as an adviser with a marriage proposal appears on the horizon.
Features of the genre
"A Tale from the New Times" - this is the name that Hoffmann himself proposed his story "Golden Pot". An analysis of the features of this work, carried out in several studies, makes it difficult to accurately determine the genre in which it is written: a chronicle plot allows it to be attributed to a story, an abundance of magic - to a fairy tale, a small volume - to a short story. The real city ​​of Dresden with its dominance of philistinism and pragmatism and the fantastic country of Atlantis, where the entrance is accessible only to people with heightened sensitivity, exist in parallel. Thus, Hoffmann affirms the principle of double peace. Blurring forms and duality were generally characteristic of romantic works. Drawing inspiration from the past, romantics set their thirsting eyes on the future, hoping to find the best of the worlds in such a union.
Hoffman in Russia
The first translation from the German tale of Hoffmann's "Golden Pot" in Russia came out in the 20s of the XIX century and immediately attracted the attention of all thinking intelligentsia. Belinsky wrote that the prose of a German writer resists vulgar everyday life and rational clarity. Herzen devoted his first article to an essay on the life and work of Hoffmann. In the library of A. S. Pushkin there was a complete work of Hoffmann. The translation from German was made into French - according to the then tradition, give this language preference over Russian. Oddly enough, in Russia, the German writer was much more popular than in his homeland.
Atlantis is a mythical country where the harmony of all things that was unattainable in reality was realized. It is in such a place that student Anselm strives to get into the tale “The Golden Pot” (Hoffmann). The summary of his adventures, unfortunately, cannot make it possible to enjoy either the smallest twists and turns of the plot, or all the amazing miracles that Hoffmann's fantasy scattered on his way, or the refined narrative style peculiar only to German romanticism. This article is intended only to awaken your interest in the work of the great musician, writer, artist and lawyer.