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ETA Hoffmann was a 19th-century German author, music critic, composer, painter, jurist, and caricaturist. He was a major figure in German Romanticism and his work inspired later genres such as surrealism, fantasy, and magical realism. Hoffmann’s life was marked by his interest and talent for the arts, his career in law, and his troubled times during Napoleon’s invasion of Warsaw. He left a legacy of strange but compelling stories that influenced many areas of Western culture.
ETA Hoffmann was a 19th-century German author known for his bizarre and fantastic works. He was a major figure in German Romanticism and his work inspired later genres such as surrealism, fantasy and magical realism. ETA Hoffmann was also a music critic, composer, painter, jurist and caricaturist.
Hoffmann was born Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann on January 24, 1776 in Köningsberg, Prussia, the youngest of three children. His parents separated in 1778 and Wilhelm spent his childhood in his grandmother’s house with his mother and three unmarried brothers. Hoffmann showed an interest and talent for the arts as a child, as he began to paint and draw, compose music and read avidly. At the age of 16, he began studying law at the University of Königsberg, carrying on the tradition of both sides of his family.
Hoffmann balanced his judicial and artistic career starting from his school days, when he supported himself with piano lessons. He passed his first law exam in 1795 and began working as a law clerk and writing his first works of literature. Hoffmann lived with his uncle in Glogau for a few years before passing his second law exam and moving to Berlin in 1798. There, he was exposed to a richer literary and artistic culture than he had previously experienced, and immersed himself in the life of the city.
Hoffmann took up a government post in Posen, in present-day Poland, after passing his final law exam in 1800. He found the town unbearably boring, but he married Michaelina, a local woman, in 1802. Hoffmann’s first published works date to this period. In 1804, he and his wife moved to Warsaw, where Hoffmann found the atmosphere much more engaging and began to see more success as a writer. He changed his third name to Amadeus the same year, as a tribute to Mozart.
Hoffmann had a son in 1806, but soon after that he found himself in troubled times when Napoleon’s army invaded Warsaw. He lost his job and for some years could not find any kind of stable job. He moved to Bamberg in 1808, where he supported himself with music lessons and composed numerous musical and literary works. Fortunately, this period of despair allowed him to develop his writing skills and his works became immensely popular.
Hoffmann returned to Berlin in 1815 and remained there for the rest of his life, becoming a respected judge and the city’s most popular author. When he died on June 25, 1822, he left a legacy of strange but compelling stories that would have a lasting influence on many areas of Western culture. Psychiatrists Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung were inspired by his work, as were many writers of the Romantic period and later eras. Some of Hoffmann’s stories became the basis for Jacques Offenbach’s 1881 opera Les contes d’Hoffmann and Tchaikovsky’s 1892 ballet The Nutcracker.
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