Night Pieces

The Sandman (trans. Morozov)

The novella “The Sandman” is included in the author’s collection “Night Stories.” It brings together works reflecting Hoffmann’s interest in the “night side of the soul,” in the subconscious and the irrational in human psychology. Hoffmann is drawn to the theme of madness, crime, and mysterious, pathological states of the mind.
As in “Fantazies in the Manner of Callot,” the artist’s fate is portrayed here in a tragic light. A person endowed with feeling and imagination is doomed to madness and suicide. Depicting the madness of his hero, the author looked into sides of inner life that had not yet been discovered before him. In writing the story, he relied on special scientific works. Researchers note a clinically accurate reproduction of the illness of the hero. In Hoffmann, it appears as a consequence of the harsh experiences of childhood. What interested the writer, however, was not madness as a phenomenon itself, but the depths of inner life that it allowed one to glimpse.
“The Sandman” is one of Hoffmann’s best-known novellas. It has sparked many interpretations. A special essay was devoted to it by the famous Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud. Its plot was partly used in Jacques Offenbach’s romantic opera “The Tales of Hoffmann” (premiered 1881) and served as the basis for the ballet by Léo Delibes (1836–1891) “Coppélia” (premiered 1870).

Ignaz Denner

Once, a gamekeeper Andres sheltered a lost traveler who introduced himself as the merchant Ignaz Denner. The merchant was full of gratitude and began visiting the gamekeeper’s house often. The fate of Andres and his family became tightly bound to Ignaz Denner by strange and terrible bonds…

The Jesuit Church in Ge (trans. Streblyov)

The novella “The Jesuit Church in Ge” is included in the author’s collection “Night Stories.” It brings together works reflecting Hoffmann’s interest in the “night side of the soul,” in the subconscious and the irrational in human psychology. Hoffmann is drawn to the theme of madness, crime, and mysterious, pathological states of the mind.
“The Jesuit Church” belongs to the genre of “novellas about artists” characteristic of romantic literature. The plot thread is interrupted by digressions on aesthetic themes. They continue Hoffmann’s thoughts begun in the essay “Jacques Callot”—about the problems of art that occupied him throughout his life. The focus is on art’s relationship to life. The programmatic nature of the words of the Maltese speaker addressed to Berthold is clear: he urges the artist not to copy nature by following a copyist who doesn’t know the language of the manuscript being copied, but to study its language, grasp its “highest principle,” and awaken a “fiery longing for higher life.” It is not formal perfection, but spirituality of thought that constitutes the essence of true art.

Sanctus (trans. Fedorova)
Empty house
MayoRiat (trans. Morozov)
Vow
The Stone Heart (trans. Beketova)