Every nation has its own stories. They freely intertwine fiction with real historical events, and they are a kind of encyclopedia of traditions and everyday features of different countries. Folk tales have existed in oral form for centuries, while author's tales began to appear only with the development of printing. The tales of Gesner, Wieland, Goethe, Hauff, Brentano were fertile ground for the development of romanticism in Germany. At the turn of the 18th-19th centuries, the name of the Grimm brothers sounded loudly, who created an amazing, magical world in their works. But one of the most famous fairy tales was The Golden Pot (Hoffmann). A summary of this work will allow you to get acquainted with some features of German romanticism, which had a huge impact on the further development of art.
Romanticism: 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 art forms. Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries bore little resemblance to a magical, poetic country. But the burgher life, simple and rather primitive, turned out, oddly enough, the most fertile ground for the birth of the most spiritualized direction in culture. Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann opened the door to it. The character of the insane Kapellmeister Kreisler, created by him, became the herald 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 peaks of German literature and a real encyclopedia of romanticism.
History of creation
The fairy 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 at the writer's table an amazing world was born, filled with miracles and magical characters. Hoffmann had just experienced a severe shock when his beloved Yulia Mark was married off by his parents to a wealthy businessman. The writer once again faced the vulgar rationalism of the philistines. An ideal world in which the harmony of all things reigns - this is what E. Hoffmann longed for. The "Golden Pot" is an attempt to invent such a world and settle in it, at least in the imagination.
Geographical coordinates
An amazing feature of the "Golden Pot" is that the scenery for this fairy tale is based on a real city. The heroes walk along Zamkova Street, bypassing Link's Baths. Pass through the Black and Lake gates. Miracles happen at real festivities on Ascension Day. The heroes go boating, the young ladies Osters pay a visit to their friend Veronica. The registrar Geerbrand tells his fantastic story about the love of Lilia and Phosphorus, drinking punch at the evening at the director Paulman, and no one even raises an eyebrow. Hoffmann so closely intertwines the fictional world with the real one that the line between them is almost completely erased.
"Golden Pot" (Hoffmann). Summary: the beginning of an amazing adventure
On the day of the Feast of the Ascension, at about three o'clock in the afternoon, the student Anselm strides along the pavement. After passing through the Black Gate, he accidentally knocks over an apple seller's basket and, in order to somehow make amends for his guilt, gives her his last money. The old woman, however, not satisfied with the compensation, pours out a whole stream of curses and curses on Anselm, from which he catches only what threatens to be under glass. Dejected, the young man starts wandering aimlessly around the city when he suddenly hears the slight rustle of an elderberry. Peering into the foliage, Anselm decided that he saw three wonderful golden snakes writhing in the branches and whispering something mysteriously. One of the snakes brings its graceful head closer to him and looks intently into his eyes. Anselm becomes wildly delighted and begins to talk with them, which attracts the bewildered glances of passers-by. The conversation is interrupted by the registrar Geerbrand and the director Paulman with their daughters. Seeing that Anselm is a little out of his mind, they decide that he is crazy from incredible poverty and bad luck. They offer the young man to come to the director in the evening. At this reception, the unfortunate student receives an offer from the archivist Lindgorst to enter his service as a calligrapher. Realizing that he can’t count on anything better, Anselm accepts the offer.
This initial section contains the main conflict between the soul looking for miracles (Anselm) and the mundane, preoccupied with everyday consciousness (“Dresden characters”), which forms the basis of the dramaturgy of the story “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 knocker suddenly turned into the face of an old woman whose basket was overturned by a young man. The cord 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 amount of persuasion helped convince him to visit this place again. In order to establish contact between the archivist and Anselm, the registrar Geerbrand invited them both to a coffee shop, where he told the mythical story of the love of Lily and Phosphorus. It turned out that this Lilia is Lindgorst's great-great-great-grandmother, and royal blood flows in his veins. In addition, he said that the golden snakes that so captivated the young man were his daughters. This finally convinced Anselm that he needed to try his luck again in the archivist's house.
Visit to a fortune teller
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 sure, she went to a fortuneteller, who told her that Anselm had contacted evil forces in the person of the archivist, fell in love with 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 herself and save him from the evil old man. In fact, there was a long-standing enmity between the fortune teller and the archivist, and in this way the sorceress wanted to settle accounts with her enemy.
magic ink
Lindgorst, in turn, also provided Anselm with a magical artifact - he gave him a bottle with a mysterious black mass, with which the young man was supposed to rewrite the letters from the book. Every day the symbols became more and more understandable to Anselm, soon it began to seem to him that he had known this text for a long time. On one of the working days, Serpentina appeared to him - a snake with which Anselm fell unconsciously in love. She said that her father comes from the Salamander tribe. For his love for the green snake, he was expelled from the magical land of Atlantis and doomed to remain in human form until someone can hear the singing of his three daughters and fall in love with them. As a dowry, they were promised a golden pot. When betrothed, a lily will grow out of him, and whoever can learn to understand her language will open the door to Atlantis for himself and for the Salamander.
When Serpentina disappeared, giving Anselm a burning kiss as a farewell, the young man looked at the letters he was copying and realized that everything said by the snake was contained in them.
happy ending
For a while, Veronica's magic mirror had an effect on Anselm. He forgot Serpetina and began to dream of Paulman's daughter. Arriving at the archivist's house, he found that he had ceased to perceive the world of miracles, the letters, which until recently he had read with ease, again turned into incomprehensible squiggles. Having dripped ink on the parchment, the young man was imprisoned in a glass jar as punishment for his oversight. 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 Anselm's suffering.
Suddenly, grumbling came from the coffee pot, and the young man recognized in it the voice of the notorious old woman. She promised to save him if he marries Veronica. Anselm angrily refused, and the witch tried to escape with the golden pot. But then the formidable Salamander blocked her path. A battle took place between them: Lindgorst won, Anselm's mirror spell fell off, and the sorceress turned into a nasty beetroot.
All attempts by Veronica to tie Anselm to her ended in failure, but the girl did not lose heart for long. Con- rector Paulman, who was appointed court councilor, offered her his hand and heart, and she gladly gave her consent. Anselm and Serpentina are happily engaged and find eternal bliss in Atlantis.
"Golden Pot", Hoffmann. Heroes
Enthusiastic student Anselm is unlucky 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 rough, unimaginative world of the burghers, that is, the townsfolk. His inconsistency with reality is clearly demonstrated at the very beginning of the story, when he overturns the basket of an apple seller. Powerful people, firmly standing with their feet on the ground, make fun of him, and he keenly feels his exclusion from their world. But as soon as he gets a job with the archivist Lindhorst, his life begins to improve immediately. In his house, he finds himself in a magical reality and falls in love with a golden snake - the youngest daughter of the 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 beloved - elusive, elusive and fabulously beautiful.
The magical world of the Salamander is contrasted with "Dresden" characters: the director Paulman, Veronica, the registrar Geerbrand. They are completely deprived of the ability to observe miracles, considering belief in them a manifestation of mental illness. Only Veronica, in love with Anselm, sometimes opens the veil over the fantastic world. But she loses this susceptibility as soon as a court adviser appears on the horizon with a marriage proposal.
Genre features
"A Tale from New Times" - this is the name Hoffmann himself suggested for his story "The 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: the chronicle plot makes it possible to attribute it to a story, an abundance of magic - to a fairy tale, a small volume - to a short story. The real, with its dominance of philistinism and pragmatism, and the fantastic land of Atlantis, where access is available only to people with heightened sensitivity, exist in parallel. Thus, Hoffmann affirms the principle of two worlds. Blurring of forms and duality in general were characteristic of romantic works. Drawing inspiration from the past, the Romantics looked longingly into the future, hoping to find in such unity the best of all possible worlds.
Hoffmann in Russia
The first translation from the German fairy tale by Hoffmann “The Golden Pot” was published in Russia in the 20s of the 19th century and immediately attracted the attention of all thinking intelligentsia. Belinsky wrote that the prose of the German writer is opposed to 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 collection of Hoffmann's works. Translation from German was made into French - according to the then tradition to give preference to this language over Russian. Oddly enough, in Russia the German writer was much more popular than in his homeland.
Atlantis is a mythical country where the unattainable in reality harmony of all things was realized. It is in such a place that the student Anselm seeks to get in the fairy tale story “The Golden Pot” (Hoffmann). The brief summary of his adventures, unfortunately, cannot allow one to enjoy either the smallest twists in the plot, or all the amazing miracles that Hoffmann's fantasy scattered on his way, or the refined style of narration 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.
The misadventures of the student Anselm. - Beneficial tobacco of Paulmann's con-rector and golden-green snakes.
On Ascension Day, about three o'clock in the afternoon, a young man was walking swiftly through the Black Gate in Dresden and just got into a basket of apples and pies that an old, ugly woman was selling - and hit so well that part of the contents of the basket was crushed, and everything that had safely escaped this fate scattered in all directions, and the street boys joyfully rushed to the booty that the dexterous young man brought them! At the cries of the old woman, her companions left their tables where they sold pies and vodka, surrounded the young man and began to scold him so rudely and furiously that he, numb with vexation and shame, could only take out his small and not particularly full purse, which the old woman seized it greedily and quickly hid it. Then the tight circle of merchants parted; but when the young man jumped out of it, the old woman shouted after him: “Run away, damn son, so that you will be blown away; you will fall under glass, under glass!…” There was something terrible in the sharp, piercing voice of this woman, so that the walkers stopped in surprise, and the laughter that had been heard at first immediately ceased. The student Anselm (it was he who was the young man), although he did not at all understand the strange words of the old woman, felt an involuntary shudder and accelerated his steps even more in order to avoid the eyes of the curious crowd directed at him. Now, making his way through the stream of smart citizens, he heard everywhere saying: “Ah, poor young man! Oh, she's a damned woman! In a strange way, the mysterious words of the old woman gave a certain tragic turn to the comical adventure, so that everyone looked with participation at a person whom they had not noticed at all before. The females, in view of the young man's tall stature and his handsome face, the expressiveness of which was intensified by hidden anger, willingly excused his awkwardness, as well as his costume, which was very far from any fashion, namely: his pike-gray tailcoat was tailored in such a way as if the tailor who worked for him knew only by hearsay about modern styles, and black satin, well-preserved trousers gave the whole figure some kind of master's style, which was completely inconsistent with gait and posture.
On the Feast of the Ascension, about three o'clock in the afternoon, a young man, a student named Anselm, was rapidly walking through the Black Gate in Dresden. By chance, he knocked over a huge basket of apples and pies sold by an ugly old woman. He gave the old woman his skinny purse. The peddler hurriedly seized him and burst into terrible curses and threats. “You will fall under glass, under glass!” she shouted. Accompanied by malevolent laughter and sympathetic glances, Anselm turned onto a secluded road along the Elbe. He began to complain loudly about his worthless life.
Anselm's monologue was interrupted by a strange rustling coming from the elder bush. Sounds like crystal bells rang out. Looking up, Anselm saw three lovely golden-green snakes twined around the branches. One of the three snakes stretched its head towards him and looked at him tenderly with wonderful dark blue eyes. Anselm was seized by a feeling of the highest bliss and the deepest sorrow. Suddenly a rough, thick voice was heard, the snakes rushed into the Elbe and disappeared as suddenly as they appeared.
Anselm in anguish embraced the trunk of an elderberry, frightening with his appearance and wild speeches the townspeople walking in the park. Hearing unforest remarks at his own expense, Anselm woke up and rushed to run. Suddenly he was called. It turned out to be his friends - the registrar Geerbrand and the director Paulman with their daughters. The rector invited Anselm to take a boat ride on the Elbe with them and finish the evening with dinner at his house. Now Anselm clearly understood that the golden snakes were just a reflection of the fireworks in the foliage. Nevertheless, that same unknown feeling, bliss or sorrow, again squeezed his chest.
During the walk, Anselm almost capsized the boat, shouting strange speeches about golden snakes. Everyone agreed that the young man was clearly not himself, and his poverty and bad luck were to blame. Geerbrand offered him a job as a scribe for the archivist Lindgorst for decent money - he was just looking for a talented calligrapher and draftsman to copy manuscripts from his library. The student was sincerely happy about this offer, because his passion was to copy difficult calligraphic works.
On the morning of the next day, Anselm dressed up and went to Lindhorst. He was just about to grab the knocker on the door of the archivist's house, when suddenly the bronze face contorted and turned into an old woman, whose apples Anselm scattered at the Black Gate. Anselm recoiled in horror and grabbed the cord of the bell. In his ringing, the student heard ominous words: "You will be in glass, in crystal." The bell cord went down and turned out to be a gigantic white transparent snake. She wrapped around and squeezed him, so that the blood spattered from the veins, penetrating the snake's body and turning it red. The snake raised its head and laid its tongue of red-hot iron on Anselm's chest. From a sharp pain he lost his senses. The student woke up in his poor bed, and over him stood the director Paulman.
After this incident, Anselm did not dare to approach the archivist's house again. No persuasion of friends led to anything, the student was considered in fact mentally ill, and, according to the registrar Geerbrand, the best remedy for this was to work with an archivist. In order to introduce Anselm and Lindgorst closer, the registrar arranged a meeting for them one evening in a coffee shop.
That evening, the archivist told a strange story about a fiery lily that was born in a primeval valley, and about the young Phosphorus, for whom the lily was inflamed with love. Phosphorus kissed the lily, it flared up in a bright flame, a new creature came out of it and flew away, not caring about the young man in love. Phosphorus began to mourn his lost girlfriend. A black dragon flew out of the rock, caught this creature, hugged it with its wings, and it again turned into a lily, but her love for Phosphorus became a sharp pain, from which everything around faded and withered. Phosphorus fought the dragon and freed the lily, who became the queen of the valley. “I come from that valley, and the fiery lily was my great-great-great-great-grandmother, so I myself am a prince,” Lindhorst concluded. These words of the archivist caused awe in the soul of the student.
Every evening the student came to that same elderberry bush, hugged it and exclaimed sadly: “Ah! I love you, snake, and I will die of sadness if you do not return! On one of these evenings, the archivist Lindgorst approached him. Anselm told him about all the extraordinary events that had happened to him lately. The archivist informed Anselm that the three snakes were his daughters, and that he was in love with the youngest, Serpentina. Lindgorst invited the young man to his place and gave him a magical liquid - protection from the old witch. After that, the archivist turned into a kite and flew away.
Paulman's daughter Veronica, having accidentally heard that Anselm could become a court adviser, began to dream of the role of a court adviser and his wife. In the midst of her dreams, she heard an unknown and terrible creaky voice that said: “He will not be your husband!”.
Having heard from a friend that an old fortune-teller Frau Rauerin lives in Dresden, Veronica decided to turn to her for advice. “Leave Anselm,” said the witch to the girl. - He's a bad person. He contacted my enemy, the evil old man. He is in love with his daughter, a green snake. He will never be a court adviser." Dissatisfied with the words of the fortune teller, Veronica wanted to leave, but then the fortune teller turned into the girl's old nanny, Lisa. To delay Veronica, the nanny said that she would try to heal Anselm from the spell of the sorcerer. To do this, the girl must come to her at night, on the future equinox. Hope again woke up in the soul of Veronica.
Meanwhile, Anselm set to work with the archivist. Lindhorst gave the student some kind of black mass instead of ink, strangely colored pens, unusually white and smooth paper, and ordered him to copy the Arabic manuscript. With every word, Anselm's courage increased, and with it, skill. It seemed to the young man that the serpentine was helping him. The archivist read his secret thoughts and said that this work is a test that will lead him to happiness.
On a cold and windy night of the equinox, a fortune teller led Veronica into a field. She kindled a fire under the cauldron and threw into it those strange bodies that she had brought with her in a basket. Following them, a curl from Veronica's head and her ring flew into the cauldron. The witch told the girl to keep looking into the boiling brew. Suddenly, Anselm came out of the depths of the cauldron and held out his hand to Veronica. The old woman opened the faucet at the boiler, and molten metal flowed into the substituted form. At the same moment, a thunderous voice rang out over her head: “Get away, hurry!” The old woman fell to the ground with a howl, and Veronica fainted. When she came to her senses at home, on her couch, she found in the pocket of her soaking raincoat a silver mirror, which had been cast by a fortune-teller the previous night. From the mirror, as at night from a boiling cauldron, her lover looked at the girl.
The student Anselm had been working for the archivist for many days. The writing went fast. It seemed to Anselm that the lines he was copying had long been known to him. He always felt Serpentina next to him, sometimes her light breath touched him. Soon Serpentina appeared to the student and said that her father actually comes from the Salamander tribe. He fell in love with a green snake, the daughter of a lily, which grew in the garden of the prince of spirits Phosphorus. The Salamander embraced the snake, it disintegrated into ashes, a winged creature was born from it and flew away.
In desperation, the Salamander ran through the garden, devastating it with fire. Phosphorus, the prince of the country of Atlantis, became angry, put out the flame of the Salamander, doomed him to life in the form of a man, but left him a magical gift. Only then will the Salamander throw off this heavy burden, when there are young men who will hear the singing of his three daughters and fall in love with them. As a dowry, they will receive a Golden Pot. At the moment of betrothal, a fiery lily will grow out of the pot, the young man will understand its language, comprehend everything that is open to incorporeal spirits, and with his beloved will begin to live in Atlantis. The Salamander, having finally received forgiveness, will return there. The old witch strives for possession of the golden pot. Serpentina warned Anselm: "Beware of the old woman, she is hostile to you, since your childishly pure disposition has already destroyed many of her evil spells." In conclusion, the kiss burned Anselm's lips. Waking up, the student found that Serpentina's story was imprinted on his copy of the mysterious manuscript.
Although Anselm's soul was turned to dear Serpentina, he sometimes involuntarily thought of Veronica. Soon Veronica begins to appear to him in a dream and gradually takes possession of his thoughts. One morning, instead of going to the archivist, he went to visit Paulman, where he spent the whole day. There he accidentally saw a magic mirror in which he began to look along with Veronica. A struggle began in Anselm, and then it became clear to him that he always thought only of Veronica. A hot kiss made the feeling of a student even stronger. Anselm promised Veronica to marry her.
After dinner the registrar Geerbrand appeared with everything needed to make punch. With the first sip of the drink, the oddities and wonders of the last weeks rose again before Anselm. He began to dream aloud of the Serpentine. Suddenly, after him, the owner and Geerbrand begin to shout and roar, as if possessed: “Long live the Salamander! Let the old woman perish!" Veronica tried in vain to convince them that old Lisa would certainly defeat the sorcerer. In mad terror, Anselm fled to his closet and fell asleep. Waking up, he again began to dream about his marriage to Veronica. Now neither the archivist's garden nor Lindhorst himself seemed so magical to him.
The next day, the student continued his work with the archivist, but now it seemed to him that the parchment of the manuscript was covered not with letters, but with intricate scribbles. Trying to copy the letter, Anselm dripped ink on the manuscript. Blue lightning flew out of the spot, an archivist appeared in thick fog and severely punished the student for his mistake. Lindhorst imprisoned Anselm in one of those crystal jars that stood on the table in the archivist's office. Next to him stood five more flasks, in which the young man saw three scholars and two scribes, who once also worked for the archivist. They began to mock Anselm: "The madman imagines that he is sitting in a bottle, while he himself is standing on a bridge and looking at his reflection in the river!" They also laughed at the crazy old man who showered them with gold for drawing scribbles for him. Anselm turned away from his frivolous comrades in misfortune and directed all his thoughts and feelings to dear Serpentina, who still loved him and tried her best to alleviate Anselm's situation.
Suddenly Anselm heard a muffled grumbling and recognized the witch in the old coffee pot opposite. She promised him salvation if he marries Veronica. Anselm proudly refused. Then the old woman grabbed a golden pot and tried to hide, but the archivist overtook her. The next moment, the student saw a mortal battle between the sorcerer and the old woman, from which the Salamander emerged victorious, and the witch turned into an ugly beet. At this moment of triumph, Serpentina appeared before Anselm, announcing to him the granted forgiveness. The glass cracked and he fell into the arms of the lovely Serpentina.
The next day, Registrar Geerbrand and Con-Rector Paulman could not understand in any way how an ordinary punch had brought them to such excesses. Finally, they decided that the damned student, who infected them with his madness, was to blame for everything. Many months have passed. On the day of Veronica's name day, the newly-made court adviser Geerbrand came to Paulman's house and offered the girl a hand and a heart. She agreed and told her future husband about her love for Anselm and about the witch. A few weeks later, Mrs. Geerbrand, the court adviser, settled in a beautiful house on the New Market.
The author received a letter from the archivist Lindhorst with permission to publicize the story of the strange fate of his son-in-law, a former student, and now the poet Anselm, and with an invitation to complete the story of the Golden Pot in the very hall of his house where the illustrious student Anselm worked. Anselm himself became engaged to Serpentina in a beautiful temple, inhaled the scent of a lily that grew from a golden pot, and found eternal bliss in Atlantis.
retold
There are two stages in the history of romanticism: early and late. The division is not only chronological, but based on the philosophical ideas of the era.
The philosophy of early romanticism defines a two-sphere world: the world of "infinite" and "finite" ("become", "inert"). "Infinite" - Cosmos, Being. "Final" - earthly existence, ordinary consciousness, everyday life.
The artistic world of early romanticism embodies the dual world of "infinite" and "finite" through the idea universal synthesis. The dominant attitude of the early romantics is a joyful acceptance of the world. The universe is the kingdom of harmony, and world chaos is perceived as a bright source of energy and metamorphosis, the eternal "stream of life".
The world of late romanticism is also a two-sphere world, but already different, it is a world of absolute two-world. Here "finite" is an independent substance, opposite to "infinite". The dominant attitude of the late romantics - disharmony, cosmic chaos is perceived as a source of dark, mystical forces.
Hoffmann's aesthetics is created at the intersection of early and late romanticism, their philosophical interpenetration.
In the world of Hoffmann's characters there is no single true space and time, each has its own reality, its own topos and its own time. But the Romantic, describing these worlds, in his own mind unites them into an integral, albeit contradictory world.
Hoffmann's favorite hero, Kreisler, in The Musical Sufferings of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler, describes a "tea party" to which he was invited as a pianist playing at the dance:
“... I ... completely exhausted ... A vile wasted evening! But now I feel good and at ease. After all while playing, I took out a pencil and with my right hand sketched in numbers on page 63 under the last variation several successful deviations, while my left hand did not stop struggling with the stream of sounds! .. I keep writing on the back blank side<…>like a convalescing patient, who never ceases to talk about what he endured, I describe here in detail the hellish torments of this tea evening. Kreisler, Hoffmann's alter ego, is able to overcome the drama of reality through spiritual being.
In Hoffmann's work, the structure of each text is created by a "two-world", but it enters through " romantic irony».
In the center of Hoffmann's universe is a creative person, a poet and a musician, the main thing for which is act of creation, according to the Romantics, - "music, the being of being itself." aesthetic act and resolves the conflict between the "material" and "spiritual", everyday life and being.
Fairy tale from new times "Golden Pot" was the focus of the philosophical and aesthetic concept of Hoffmann.
The text of the tale reflects the world "out of text" and at the same time individual, characterizing the personality of Hoffmann. According to Yu. M. Lotman, the text is “ author's model of the world”, through all the structural components of which, the chronotope and heroes, the real world is embodied. The philosophy of the romantic two worlds is determined by the plot and plot of the Fairy Tale, composition and chronotope.
To parse the text, we need theoretical concepts, without which students, as a rule, call Anselm the main character of the Fairy Tale, and two of the artistic spaces are distinguished - the city of Dresden and the magical and mystical world in its two forms - Atlantis (bright beginning) and the space of the Old Woman (dark beginning). The thus outlined chronotope of the tale cuts off individual parts of the composition, reduces the plot by half, reducing it to the plot about Anselm.
If for actor the characters of this plot Anselm, Veronica, Geerbrand, Paulman, Lindhorst and the old woman Lisa are sufficient for creative fantasies of stage embodiment, then for director this compositional deconstruction leads to the loss of the meaning of the Fairy Tale and its main character - Romance.
Theoretical concepts become indicators of artistic and ideological meanings.
Chronotope - "... relationship spatial and temporal relations artistically assimilated in literature” [p. 234].
The author-creator is a real person, the artist is “distinguishable from the image author, narrator and narrator. Author-creator = composer both in relation to his work as a whole, and a separate text as a particle of the whole" [p. 34].
The author is “the carrier of the intensely active unity of the completed whole, the whole hero and the whole work.<...>The consciousness of the author is the consciousness that embraces the consciousness of the hero, his world" [p. 234]. The task of the author is the knowledge of the form of the hero and his world, i.e. aesthetic evaluation of someone else's knowledge and deed.
Narrator (narrator, narrator) - “this is created figure which belongs to the entire literary work. This role conceived and accepted by the author-creator. "The narrator and the characters in their function are "paper creatures", Author storytelling (material) cannot be confused with narrator this story."
Event. There are two types of Events: an artistic event and a plot event:
1) An artistic event - in which the Author-creator and the reader take part. So in The Golden Pot we will see several similar Events that the characters “do not know” about: this is a structural division, the choice of genre, the creation of a chronotope, according to Tynyanov, such an Event “introduces not the hero, but the reader” into the prose.
2) A plot event changes characters, situations, dynamic deployment of the plot in the space of the entire plot.
The text of the "Golden Pot" is a system of several artistic events fixed in the structure of the composition.
The beginning of these Events is the division into the text "printed" and the text "written".
First Event- this is the text “printed”: ““Golden Pot” A Tale from New Times”. It was created by Hoffmann - Creator-Author and has a common character with the rest of Hoffmann's work - this is Kreisler, the protagonist of Kreisleriana.
Second Event. Author-Creator in your text introduces another author - The narrator. In literature such narrator always exists as the alter ego of the real author. But often the author-creator endows him with the subjective function of the author-narrator, who turns out to be a witness or even a participant in the real story, about which he narrates. The "Golden Pot" has just such a subjective author - a romantic writer, who writes "his own text" - about Anselm ("the text being written").
Third Event- this is the "writing text" about Anselm.
I event
Let's turn to First art event: creation by the Author-Creator of the "Golden Pot".
The "printed" text is the result of the work of the Author-Creator - E. T. A. Hoffmann.
It gives the name of the work (the semantics of which the reader has yet to think), defines the genre ( Fairy tale from new times), plot, compositional structure, including such a compositional element as division into chapters, in this case " vigils". It is through this title of the chapter with a vigil that the Creator-Author defines the space of the narrator - the Romantic-Author and conveys the "word" to him. It is he, romantic storyteller, firstly, shows the reader the process of writing a story, how and where it happens (place and time) and, secondly, presents the created by him ( author) text about Anselm.
firstly, he structures his text "Golden Pot";
secondly, it includes two more Events:
Romantic text (history of Anselm).
In addition, by introducing the name of Kreisler, the hero of his other text, the author-creator embeds the text about Anselm and the "Golden Pot" in general into the artistic integral system of his work.
At the same time, Hoffmann includes the "Golden Pot" - in the culturological series. The name of the fairy tale "The Golden Pot" refers to the Novalis fairy tale - "Heinrich von Ofterdingen". In it, the protagonist dreams of a blue flower, and the whole novel is illuminated by a blue sign. The symbolism of the blue flower, like the color itself (blue, blue) is a sign of world synthesis, the unity of the finite and the infinite, as well as the journey-opening of a person through self-knowledge.
E. T. A. Hoffmann also offers his hero a goal - a golden pot. But the symbolism of the “golden pot” is philistine gilded happiness, which profanes the romantic sign. The "Golden Pot" in the context of the works of E. T. A. Hoffmann acquires a meaning, which in turn refers the reader to another sign. In Hoffmann's fairy tale "Little Tsakhes" the hero ingloriously drowns in night pot. Thus, the sign of the "golden pot" is even more profaned by the definition of "night". It turns out that the author-creator begins a dialogue with the reader already with the name of the fairy tale.
First event, dispersing space and time, assigning them to different authors and characters, introduces a philosophical motif search for truth: what is really or does it all depend on our perception?
Immediately, after the name and definition of the genre, the reader is "suggested" a temporal and spatial marker of the transition to " another author's test. This is the name of the first "chapter" (and there are 12 of them in the tale) - Vigilia .
Vigilia (lat. vigil a) - night guard in ancient Rome; here - in the sense of "night vigil".
Night a very important time of day for the aesthetics of romanticism: “Night is the keeper. This image belongs to the spirit,” wrote Hegel.
According to the romantics, it is at night that the human soul comes into intimate contact with the spiritual content of the world, feelings come to life and wake up in it, drowned out by the external (often imaginary) surface of life during the day. A significant role in this process, as studies by psychologists have shown, is played by the patterns of the brain, the different functions of the right and left hemispheres. The left ("day") hemisphere is responsible for mental operations, the right ("night") - for the creative abilities of the individual. Night - and not only among romantics - is the time of activity of the right hemisphere and productive creative work.
Through artistic marker - "vigil" and the first time and space are set in the “Golden Pot”: a personified figure of the narrator invented by the Creator-Author is introduced – new Author- romance.
one - demonstration history making process about Anselm,
second - herself History of Anselm.
Second And 3rd Event
take place at different times and at different levels of the Golden Pot text: plot and plot.
The plot is "a vector-temporal and logically determined sequence of life facts chosen or invented by the artist" [S. 17].
The plot is “a sequence of actions in a work, artistically organized through spatio-temporal relations and organizing a system of images; the totality and interaction of series of events at the level of the author and characters” [Ibid., p. 17].
Considering the space and time of the "Golden Pot" as plot and plot, we will use these definitions.
Story space- “multidimensional, multifaceted, mobile, changeable. plot space exists in the real dimensions of reality, it is one-dimensional, permanent, attached to certain parameters and in this sense static.
plot time -"event time". Story time- “time of the story about the event. Plot time, unlike plot time, can slow down and speed up, move in a zigzag and intermittently. The plot time exists not outside, but inside the plot time" [S. 16].
Second Event- the creative process experienced by the Romantic, the creation of his own Text. In the structure of the whole fairy tale, it organizes plot space and time. The main task of the Event is to create a "story about Anselm", which has its own time and place.
Twelve vigils, twelve nights writes The author - this is story time. We become witnesses of a creative process: in our presence, a story about Anselm is being written, and “for some reason” the 12th vigil is not obtained. All the activity of the Author is aimed, first of all, at compiling the composition of his work: he chooses the characters, places them at a certain time and place, connects them with plot situations, i.e. forms the plot of the "history of Anselm". As an author, he is free to do whatever he wants with his text. So, before the eyes of the reader, he performs the function of the "Author of the Creator" of the text, where the main character is Anselm.
A subjective narrator and at the same time a character of the Tale from New Times "The Golden Pot", the romantic artist creates a text about an unusual person Anselm, whose individuality does not fit into Dresden society, which leads him to the world of Lindgorst, the magician and master of the kingdom of Atlantis.
This magician and sorcerer Lindgorst, in turn, turns out to be familiar with the musician, bandmaster Kreisler, the hero of "another text" - "Kreisleriana" belonging to the Author-Creator - Hoffmann. The mention of Kreisler as a beloved friend of Romantic, i.e. the author of the text about Anselm, connects the fictional worlds (from different texts by Hoffmann) and the real world in which Hoffmann creates.
It is in this connection, and not in the story of Anselm, that the romantic idea of Hoffmann himself is embodied - the indissolubility of the two worlds, the synthesis of the “infinite” and the “finite”. But Hoffman connects these worlds through the artistic device of romantic irony. “Irony is a clear consciousness of eternal liveliness, chaos in its infinite wealth,” according to F. Schelling. All the plenitude of world life in irony and through irony holds its own judgment on the flawed phenomena that claim to be independent. Hoffmann's romantic irony chooses collisions that put the whole against the whole, the world of romanticism against the petty-bourgeois world, the world of creativity against the mediocre, being against everyday life. And only in this opposition and indissolubility does the fullness of life appear.
So, Romantic Artist in the "Golden Pot", performs 3 functions:
2) he character in his own story about Anselm, which we find in the 12th vigil (his acquaintance with the character invented by him - Lindhorst).
3) He "romantic artist" tearing the boundaries of the "story about Anselm" invented by him. The introduction into his story of the figure of Kreisler, the hero of "another text" belonging only to the author-creator, thus allows Romantic, the author of Anselm, to enter Hoffmann's world as his alter ego self.
Plot topos of the second Event constitute the own space of the author-Romance and the text created by him. His dwelling is a "closet on the fifth floor" in the city of Dresden. Of all the attributes that belong to him, the reader sees a table, a lamp and a bed. Here they also bring him a note from Lindhorst (the character of the text composed by him as the author). Lindhorst-character offers his creator help: "... if you want to write the twelfth vigil<...>come to me" [p. 108]. From their meeting in Lindhorst's house (plot topos text about Anselm and the plot topos of The Golden Pot), we learn that the best friend of the Author is the Kapellmeister Johann Kreisler (a very significant character who is a true enthusiast for Hoffmann himself; it is through this image that the Golden Pot is united with other works of Hoffmann).
We also learn about the presence of the author's "decent manor as a poetic property ..." in Atlantis (the invisible space of the author-Romantic). But in the plot topos this space poetic manor performs the role of connection, identification of the Author and the Creator-Author, the creator of "Kreisleriana".
firstly, lives in the city of Dresden,
secondly, in Atlantis he has a manor or a manor,
thirdly, writes "the story of Anselm",
fourthly, he meets with the hero of his own work (Lindhorst),
and finally, fifthly, learns about the visit of Kreisler, the hero of another text by Hoffmann.
Materialized space of the Author(his home) subjective space (Myza, readers), finally, fictional space- text about Anselm, and the process of writing it - all this elements of space II Events.
The development of the "story about Anselm", its chronotope - plot space and time.
But since this is the story of the spiritual state of the author-Romantic, then its “materialization” becomes at the same time the plot of the Second Event, forming a text within the text. The Romantic author occupies a certain attitude in the "Golden Pot" along with the Text he created.
Time, during which the Text is written (12 nights), "outgrows" the plot (vector) dimension and turns out to be plot time. Because this is not only perceptual time, calculated in 12 days (or nights), but also subjective, conceptual time. Before the eyes of the reader, linear time passes into timelessness, through the world of the created text it enters the spiritual world of poetry - into eternity.
Time and space lose their plot meaning through the game with “plot-stories” in the plot, lose their formal features and become spiritual substances.
Third Art Event is a text by the Romantic Author, a story dedicated to the "search" of a young man named Anselm.
The plot space of history: Dresden and the mystical world - the realm of Atlantis and the Witch. All these spaces exist autonomously, changing the overall configuration due to the movements of the characters.
In parallel to the "material" Dresden, two opposing forces secretly rule: the prince of good spirits of the kingdom of Atlantis, the Salamander, and the evil Witch. Finding out their relationship, they at the same time try to win over Anselm to their side.
All events begin with a domestic incident: Anselm turns over a basket of apples in the market and immediately receives a curse: “You will fall under glass,” which plotly immediately determines the presence of another space - the mystical world.
The story of Anselm mostly takes place in Dresden, the most common provincial German town in Hoffmann's time. Its historical, "temporary" parameters: the city market, the embankment - a place for evening walks of the townspeople, the petty-bourgeois house of the official Paulman, the office of the archivist Lindhorst. This city has its own laws, has its own philosophy of life. We learn about all this from the characters, that is, the inhabitants of Dresden. So, rank, profession, budget are valued above all, it is they who determine what a person can and what not. The higher the rank, the better, for young people it means to be in the position of gofrat. And the ultimate dream of the young heroine Veronica is to marry a gofrat. Thus, Dresden is a burgher-bureaucratic city. Everything is immersed in everyday life, in the vanity of vanities, in the game of limited interests. Dresden, from the point of view of the opposition of spiritual and material values, within the framework of spatio-temporal oppositions, acts as a closed, “finite”.
At the same time, Dresden is both under the sign of old Lisa, who embodies the devilish, witchy beginning of the universe, and under the sign of Lindhorst and his bright, magical Atlantis.
third event, the story of Anselm is quite easy to read by students, and is perceived as the direct content of the fairy tale "The Golden Pot" and, with independent analysis of the text, most often remains the only story of the entire plot ...
... And only a deep analysis, knowledge of theoretical concepts and knowledge of artistic laws help to see and understand the whole picture of the text, to maximize the field of meaning and one's own imagination.
"The Closed Trading State" (1800) is the title of a treatise by the German philosopher J. G. Fichte (1762-1814), which caused great controversy.
Fanchon is an opera by the German composer F. Gimmel (1765-1814).
General bass - doctrine of harmony.
Iphigenia- in Greek mythology, the daughter of the leader of the Greeks, King Agamemnon, who in Aulis sacrificed her to the goddess of hunting Artemis, and the goddess transferred her to Taurida and made her priestess.
Tutti(Italian) - simultaneous play of all musical instruments.
Alcina Castle- The castle of the sorceress Alcina in the poem of the Italian poet L. Ariosto (1474-1533) "Furious Roland" (1516) was guarded by monsters.
Evfon (Greek) - euphony; here: the creative power of the musician.
Orc Spirits- in the Greek myth about Orpheus, the spirits of the underworld, where the singer Orpheus descends to bring out his dead wife Eurydice.
"Don Juan"(1787) - an opera by the great Austrian composer W. A. Mozart (1756-1791).
Armida- a sorceress from the poem of the famous Italian poet T. Tasso (1544-1595) "The Liberated Jerusalem" (1580).
Alcesta- in Greek mythology, the wife of the hero Admet, who sacrificed her life to save her husband and was freed from the underworld by Hercules.
Tempo di Marcia (Italian)- March
modulation- Changes in tone, transitions from one musical system to another.
Melisma (Italian) melodic decoration in music.
Lib.ru/GOFMAN/gorshok.txt copy on the website Translated from German by Vl. Solovyov. Moscow, "Soviet Russia", 1991. OCR: Michael Seregin. Here ends the translation of V. S. Solovyov. The final paragraphs were translated by A. V. Fedorov. - Ed.
“The Musical Sufferings of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler” // Hoffmann Kreislerian (From the first part of “Fantasy in the manner of Callot”). - THIS. Hoffman Kreislerian. Worldly views of the cat Murr. Diaries. - M .: AN USSR Literary monuments, 1972. - S. 27-28.
Bakhtin M.M. Questions of literature and aesthetics: - M .: 1975, p. 234
Ibid, 34.
Think again about these concepts, in a specific analysis of the text they will help you understand the meaning of the entire text..
See Vigils 4 and 12 of the Golden Pot.
Egorov B.F., Zaretsky V.A. and others. Plot and plot // In: Questions of plot construction. - Riga, 1978. S. 17.
Tsilevich L.M. Dialectics of plot and plot // In: Questions of plot construction. - Riga, 1972. P.16.
The world of Hoffmann's fairy tale has pronounced signs of a romantic dual world, which is embodied in the work in various ways. Romantic duality is realized in the story through a direct explanation by the characters of the origin and structure of the world in which they live.
“There is a local, earthly, everyday world and another world, magical Atlantis, from which man once originated. This is exactly what Serpentina tells Anselm about her father, the archivist Lindhorst, who, as it turned out, is the prehistoric elemental spirit of fire Salamander, who lived in the magical land of Atlantis and was exiled to earth by the prince of spirits Phosphorus for his love for the daughter of a lily, the snake "Chavchanidze D. L. "Romantic irony" in the work of E.T.-A. Hoffmann // Scientific notes of the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute. IN AND. Lenin. - No. 280. - M., 1967. - S.73 ..
This fantastic story is perceived as an arbitrary fiction that is not of serious importance for understanding the characters of the story, but it is said that Phosphorus, the prince of spirits, predicts the future: people will degenerate (namely, they will no longer understand the language of nature), and only longing will vaguely remind of the existence of another world (the ancient homeland of man), at that time the Salamander will be reborn and in its development it will reach a person who, having been reborn in this way, will again perceive nature - this is already a new anthropodicy, the doctrine of man. Anselm belongs to the people of the new generation, as he is able to see and hear natural miracles and believe in them - after all, he fell in love with a beautiful snake that appeared to him in a flowering elderberry bush.
Serpentina calls this the “naive poetic soul” possessed by “those young men who, due to the excessive simplicity of their morals and their complete lack of so-called secular education, are despised and ridiculed by the crowd” Hoffman E.T.-A. "Golden Pot" and other stories. -M., 1981. - P. 23. Man on the verge of two worlds: partly earthly being, partly spiritual. In fact, in all the works of Hoffmann, the world is arranged in this way. Hoffman.-M., 1982. - S.118..
The duality is realized in the system of characters, namely, in the fact that the characters are clearly distinguished by belonging or inclination to the forces of good and evil. In The Golden Pot, these two forces are represented, for example, by the archivist Lindgorst, his daughter Serpentina on the side of good, and the old witch on the side of evil. An exception is the protagonist, who is under the equal influence of both forces, is subject to this changeable and eternal struggle between good and evil.
Anselm’s soul is a “battlefield” between these forces, see, for example, how easily Anselm’s worldview changes when he looks into Veronica’s magic mirror: only yesterday he was madly in love with Serpentina and wrote down the history of the archivist in his house with mysterious signs, and today it seems to him that he only thought about Veronica, “that the image that appeared to him yesterday in the blue room was again Veronica and that the fantastic tale of the marriage of Salamander with a green snake was only written by him, and not told to him in any way . He himself marveled at his dreams and attributed them to his exalted, due to love for Veronica, state of mind ... ”Hoffman E.T.-A. "Golden Pot" and other stories. -M. 1981. - P. 42. The human consciousness lives in dreams and each of these dreams always, it would seem, finds objective evidence, but, in fact, all these states of mind are the result of the influence of the fighting spirits of good and evil. The extreme antinomy of the world and man is a characteristic feature of the romantic worldview.
“The dual world is realized in the images of a mirror, which are found in large numbers in the story: a smooth metal mirror of an old fortune-teller, a crystal mirror made of rays of light from a ring on the hand of the archivist Lindhorst, Veronica’s magic mirror that enchanted Anselm” Chavchanidze D.L. "Romantic irony" in the work of E.T.-A. Hoffmann // Scientific notes of the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute. IN AND. Lenin. - No. 280. - M., 1967. - S.84 ..
The color scheme used by Hoffmann in the depiction of objects from the artistic world of the "Golden Pot" betrays that the story belongs to the era of romanticism. These are not just subtle shades of color, but necessarily dynamic, moving colors and whole color schemes, often completely fantastic: “pike-gray tailcoat” Hoffman E.T.-A. "Golden Pot" and other stories. -M., 1981. - P.11., “Snakes shining with green gold” Ibid. - P.15., "sparkling emeralds fell on him and wrapped around him with sparkling golden threads, fluttering and playing around him with thousands of lights" Ibid. - P.16., "blood spattered from the veins, penetrating into the transparent body of the snake and coloring it red" Ibid. - P.52., “beams came out of the precious stone, as from a burning focus, in all directions, which, when combined, made up a brilliant crystal mirror” Ibid. - P.35..
The same feature - dynamism, elusive fluidity - is possessed by sounds in the artistic world of Hoffmann's works (the rustle of elderberry leaves gradually turns into the ringing of crystal bells, which, in turn, turns out to be a quiet intoxicating whisper, then bells again, and suddenly everything is cut off by rude dissonance, noise water under the oars of the boat reminds Anselm of a whisper).
Wealth, gold, money, jewelry are presented in the artistic world of Hoffmann's tale as a mystical object, a fantastic magic tool, an object partly from another world. “Spices-thaler every day - it was this payment that seduced Anselm and helped him overcome his fear to go to the mysterious archivist, it is this spices-thaler that turns living people into chained, as if poured into glass” Hoffman E.T.-A. "Golden Pot" and other stories. -M., 1981. - P.33. Lindhorst's precious ring is able to charm a person. In dreams of the future, Veronica imagines her husband, the court councilor Anselm, and he has “a gold watch with a rehearsal, and he gives her the latest style, nice, wonderful earrings” Ibid. - P.42..
The heroes of the story are distinguished by a clear romantic specificity. Archivist Lindgorst is the keeper of ancient mysterious manuscripts, containing, apparently, mystical meanings, in addition, he is also engaged in mysterious chemical experiments and does not let anyone into this laboratory. Anselm is a copyist of manuscripts, who is fluent in calligraphic writing. Anselm, Veronica, Kapellmeister Geerbrand have an ear for music, are able to sing and even compose music. In general, all belong to the scientific community, are associated with the extraction, storage and dissemination of knowledge.
The nationality of the heroes is definitely not mentioned, but it is known that many heroes are not people at all, but magical creatures born from marriage, for example, a black dragon's feather and a beetroot. Nevertheless, the rare nationality of the heroes as an obligatory and habitual element of romantic literature is still present, although in the form of a weak motive: the archivist Lindgorst keeps manuscripts in Arabic and Coptic, as well as many books “of those that are written in some strange signs, not belonging to any of the known languages" Ibid. - P.36..
The style of the "Golden Pot" is distinguished by the use of the grotesque, which is not only the individual identity of Hoffmann, but also of romantic literature in general. “He stopped and examined a large knocker attached to a bronze figure. But as soon as he wanted to take up this hammer at the last resounding strike of the tower clock on the Cross Church, when suddenly the bronze face twisted and grinned into a disgusting smile and terribly flashed with rays of metal eyes. Oh! It was an apple vendor from the Black Gate…” Hoffman E.T.-A. "Golden Pot" and other stories. -M., 1981. - P.13., “The cord of the bell went down and turned out to be a white transparent gigantic snake ...” Ibid. - P.42., “With these words, he turned and left, and then everyone realized that the important little man was, in fact, a gray parrot” Ibid. - P.35..
Fiction allows you to create the effect of a romantic dual world: there is the local, real world, where ordinary people think about a portion of coffee with rum, double beer, smart girls, etc., and there is a fantasy world. Fantasy in Hoffmann's story comes from grotesque imagery: one of the signs of an object with the help of the grotesque is increased to such an extent that the object, as it were, turns into another, already fantastic. For example, the episode with Anselm moving into a bottle.
The image of a glass-bound man, apparently, is based on Hoffmann's idea that people are sometimes not aware of their lack of freedom - Anselm, having got into a bottle, notices the same unfortunate people around him, but they are quite satisfied with their position and think that they are free, that they they even go to taverns, etc., and Anselm has gone mad (“imagines that he is sitting in a glass jar, but stands on the Elbe bridge and looks into the water” Ibid. - P. 40.).
The author's digressions quite often appear in the relatively small text of the story (almost in each of the 12 vigils). Obviously, the artistic meaning of these episodes is to clarify the author's position, namely the author's irony. “I have the right to doubt, kind reader, that you ever happened to be corked in a glass vessel…” Ibid. - P.40.. These obvious authorial digressions set the inertia of perception of the rest of the text, which turns out to be all permeated with romantic irony See: Chavchanidze D. L. "Romantic irony" in the work of E.T.-A. Hoffmann // Scientific notes of the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute. V. I. Lenin. - No. 280. - M., 1967. - P.83.
Finally, the author's digressions play another important role: in the last vigil, the author announced that, firstly, he would not tell the reader how he got to know all this secret history, and secondly, that Salamander Lindhorst himself suggested and helped him complete the story about the fate of Anselm, who moved, as it turned out, along with Serpentina from ordinary earthly life to Atlantis. The very fact of the author’s communication with the elemental spirit Salamander casts a shadow of madness over the entire narrative, but the last words of the story answer many questions and doubts of the reader, reveal the meaning of the key allegories: “Anselm’s bliss is nothing but life in poetry, which is the sacred harmony of all things reveals itself as the deepest of the mysteries of nature!” Hoffman E.T.-A. "Golden Pot" and other stories. -M., 1981. - P.55..
Sometimes two realities, two parts of the romantic dual world intersect and give rise to funny situations. So, for example, drunken Anselm begins to talk about the other side of reality known only to him, namely, the true face of the archivist and Serpentina, which looks like nonsense, since those around are not ready to immediately understand that “Mr. the garden of the prince of spirits Phosphorus in hearts because a green snake flew away from him ”Ibid. - P.45 .. However, one of the participants in this conversation - the registrar Geerbrand - suddenly showed awareness of what was happening in the parallel real world: “This archivist is indeed the damned Salamander; he flicks fire with his fingers and burns holes in frock coats in the manner of a fiery pipe ”Ibid. - P.45 .. Carried away by the conversation, the interlocutors completely stopped responding to the amazement of those around them and continued to talk about heroes and events understandable only to them, for example, about an old woman - “her dad is nothing but a ragged wing, her mother is a bad beet” Hoffman E.T.-A. "Golden Pot" and other stories. -M., 1981. - P.45..
The author's irony makes it especially noticeable that the characters live between two worlds. Here, for example, is the beginning of Veronica's remark, who suddenly entered into a conversation: "This is a vile slander," Veronica exclaimed with eyes sparkling with anger ... "Ibid. - P.45 .. It seems to the reader for a moment that Veronika, who does not know the whole truth about who an archivist or an old woman is, is outraged by these crazy characteristics of Mr. Lindhorst and old Liza, whom she knows, but it turns out that Veronika is also in the know and outraged by a completely different one: “... Old Liza is a wise woman, and the black cat is not at all an evil creature, but an educated young man of the most subtle treatment and her cousin germain” Ibid. - P.46..
The conversation of the interlocutors takes quite ridiculous forms (Geerbrand, for example, asks the question “can the Salamander eat without burning his beard ..?” Ibid. - P. 46.), any serious meaning of it is finally destroyed by irony. However, the irony changes our understanding of what was before: if everyone from Anselm to Geerband and Veronica is familiar with the other side of reality, then this means that in the ordinary conversations that happened between them before, they withheld from each other their knowledge of a different reality, or these conversations contained hints, ambiguous words, which were invisible to the reader, but understandable to the characters, and so on. Irony, as it were, dispels a holistic perception of a thing (a person, an event), settles a vague feeling of understatement and “misunderstanding” of the surrounding world See: Skobelev A.V. On the problem of the correlation of romantic irony and satire in the work of Hoffmann // The Artistic World of E.T.-A. Hoffmann. - M., 1982. - S. 128.
The listed features of Hoffmann's story "The Golden Pot" clearly indicate the presence in this work of elements of a mythological worldview. The author constructs two parallel worlds, each with its own mythology. The ordinary world with its Christian worldview does not attract the author's close attention in terms of mythology, however, the fantastic world is described not only in the brightest details, but for it the author also invented and described in detail the mythological picture of its structure. That is why Hoffmann's fantasy is not inclined to the forms of implicit fantasy, but on the contrary, it turns out to be explicit, emphasized, magnificently and unrestrainedly developed - this leaves a noticeable imprint on the world order of Hoffmann's romantic fairy tale.
