The story-tale "The Golden Pot", Hoffmann: summary, plot, characters

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Every nation has its own fairy tales. 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 the German writers Gesner, Wieland, Goethe, Hauff, and 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 brief 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 endThe 18th - 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 an amazing world filled with miracles and magical characters was born at the writer's table. Hoffmann had just experienced a severe shock when his beloved Yulia Mark was married off by his parents to a we althy businessman. The writer once again faced the vulgar rationalism of the philistines. An ideal world in which the harmony of all things reigns - that's what E. Hoffmann longed for. "Golden Pot" is an attempt to invent such a world and settle in it at least in the imagination.

Geographic 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. Go throughBlack and Lake gates. Miracles happen at real festivities on Ascension Day. The heroes go boating, the Osters ladies 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 Ascension, about three o'clock in the afternoon, 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, 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 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 fromincredible 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 Lindhorst to enter his service 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 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 love story 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 thatAnselm can become a court adviser, convinced herself that she was in love, and set out to marry him. To be sure, she went to a fortune-teller, who told her that Anselm 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 thus 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 goodbye, a young manlooked at the letters he was transcribing and realized that everything the snake said 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, the mirror's spell fell from Anselm, 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. The con-rector Paulman, who was appointed court counselor, offered her his hand and heart, and she gladly gave her consent. Anselm and Serpentina are happily engaged and find eternal bliss in Atlantis.

"The Golden Pot", Hoffmann. Heroes

Enthusiastic student Anselm has no luck in real life. Notthere 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 Lindgorst, 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 the court adviser appears on the horizon with a marriage proposal.

Features of the genre

"A Tale from New Times" - that's the name Hoffmann himself presupposed for his story "The Golden Pot". Feature Analysisof this work, carried out in several studies, makes it difficult to accurately determine the genre in which it is written: the chronicle plot allows us to attribute it 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 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 turned their longing eyes to the future, hoping to find the best of all worlds in such unity.

Hoffmann in Russia

The first translation from the German Hoffmann's fairy tale "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. The translation from German was made into French - according to the then tradition, this language should be given preference over Russian. Oddly enough, the German writer was much more popular in Russia 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 plot twists, or all the amazing miracles that Hoffmann's fantasy has 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.