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STUDIES IN PHILOLOGY
PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF
THE PHILOLOGICAL CLUB OF THE UNIVERSITY OF
NORTH CAROLINA
Copa
VOL. III
The Influence of E.T. A. Hoffmann on the
Tales of Edgar Allan Poe
— BY —
PALMER COBB
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF GERMAN IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the Faculty
of Philosophy, Columbia University
CHAPEL HILL
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1908


THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
CHAPEL HILL.


E.H. Oct. 6,08
TO
M. L. S.
IN
FRIENDSHIP





CONTENTS
PAGE
BIBLIOGRAPHY ......
INTRODUCTION
........................................
1
CHAPTER I
VARIOUS ESTIMATES OF POE'S INDEBTEDNESS TO
GERMAN LITERATURE...,
.....
4
CHAPTER II
GERMAN LITERATURE IN AMERICA AND ENGLAND
IN THE THIRTIES AND FORTIES.................. 15
CHAPTER III
Poe's KNOWLEDGE OF THE GERMAN LANGUAGE......... 20
CHAPTER IV
HOFFMANN'S Elixiere des Teufels AND Poe's William
Wilson ....
...... 31
CHAPTER V
HOFFMANN's Magnetiseur AND Poe's Tale of the Ragged
MOUNTAINS ..................................... 49
CHAPTER VI
HOFFMANN's Die Jesuiterkirche in G-
The Oval Portrait .
AND Poe's
.... 70


Contents
CHAPTER VII
HOFFMANN's Doge und Dogaressa AND Poe's The
Assignation ...........
........ 81
CHAPTER VIII
Poe's STYLISTIC INDEBTEDNESS TO HOFFMANN..........
CHAPTER IX
ONCLUSIONS ..................
........103


BIBLIOGRAPHY
References in the body of the text are made by foot notes
under the name of the author or editor to the following
works.
A. Barine, Nevrosés. Paris, 1893.
H. M. Belden, Anglia, 23. 376.
L. P. Betz, Edgar Poe in der Französischen Literatur.
Frankfurt a. M., 1893.
W. v. Biedermann, Editor, Goethes Gespräche. Leipzig,
1889-96.
J. Bing, Novalis. Eine Biographische Charakteristik.
Hamburg and Leipzig, 1893.
Bruhier, Abhandluugen von der Ungewissheit der Kennzei-
chen des Todes. Übersetzt von Johann Gotfried Jancke.
Leipzig, 1754.
Cooper, The Mohawk Edition of Cooper's Works. New
York, 1897.
G. Ellinger, E. T. A. Hoffmann. Sein Leben and seine
Werke. Hamburg und Leipzig, 1906.
C. P. Evans. Müncher Allg. Zeitung, 1899. No. 229.
R. P. Gillies, German Stories. Selected from the works of
de la Motte Fouqué, Richter, etc. London, 1826.
E. Griesebach, Editor, E. T. A. Hoffmanns Sämtliche
Werke. Leipzig, 1906.
R. W. Griswold, Life and Works of E. A. Poe. New
York, 1856.
G. Gruener, Publications of the Modern Language Associ-
ation of America. March, 1904.
Gruendel, E. A. Poe. Ein Beitrag zur Kenntniss und
Würdigung des Dichters. Schulprogram, Freiberg, 1895.
J. A. Harrison, Editor, The Complete Works of E. A. Poe.
New York, 1902,
Havemann, Deutsche Heimat, 1902. Heft 3,


viii
Bibliography
Hawthorne, The Riverside Edition of Hawthorne's Works.
E. v. der Hellen, Editor, Schillers Sämtliche Werke, Sä-
kular-Ausgabe. Stuttgart und Berlin, 1905.
E. Heilborn, Editor, Novalis Schriften. Berlin, 1901.
J. E. Hitzig, E. T. A. Hoffmanns Leben und Nachlass.
Stuttgart, 1845.
A. v. Humbolt, Kosmos. Stuttgart, 1845.
J. H. Ingram, Editor, The Works of E. A. Poe. London,
1899.
Lauvrière, Edgar Poe. Sa Vie et Son Oeuvre. Paris,
1904.
A. und H. Moeller-Bruck, Editors, E. A. Poes Sämtliche
Werke Minden i. W. 1904.
Mrs. Ann Radcliff, The Mysteries of Udolpho. London,
1824.
Mrs. Ann Radcliff, The Italian. London, 1836.
R. H. Stoddard, Editor, The Works of E. A. Poe. New
York, 1884,
E. C. Stedman, E. A. Foe. Boston, 1881.
E. C. Stedman and G. E. Woodberry, Editors, The Works
of E. A. Poe. Chicago, 1896.
Van Vleuten, Berliner Zukunft. XI Jahrgang. No, 44.
Wiegler, Berliner Tag. 1901. No. 300.
G. E. Woodberry, E. A. Poe. Boston, 1885,


INTRODUCTION
“Goethe spoke much about the French, especially Cousin,
Villemain, and Guizot, “The insight, circumspection, and
perspicuity of these men,' said he, 'is great; they com-
bine complete knowledge of the past with the spirit of
the nineteenth century, which, to be sure, works wonders.'
From this we passed to the newest French writers and to
the significance of classic and romantic.
“A new expression has occurred to me,' said Goethe,
'which does not characterize the relationship badly. The
classic I call the healthy, and the romantic the diseased. And
in this sense the Nibelungen is classic, as well as Homer, for
both are healthy and vigorous. The most of the new is not
romantic because it is new, but because it is weak, sickly and
diseased, and the old is not classic because it is old, but because
it is strong, fresh, happy and healthy.'".
This is Goethe's word relative to a certain phase of roman-
ticism whose productions seemed to him to be unsound and
unwholesome, because they did not emanate from minds
which were “strong, fresh, happy and healthy."
It is with the productions of two such minds which Goethe
characterizes as “diseased” that the present work has to do.
The American Edgar Allan Poe, and the German Ernst Theo-
dor Amadeus Hoffmann are both disciples of that phase of
romanticism which had terror of the uncanny as its dominant
note, and which Goethe calls “weak, sickly, and diseased” in
in distinction from that which is “strong, fresh, happy and
healthy." Both these men were powerfully fascinated by the
mystery of the supernatural. They were tantalized by the
hope of solving or guessing the secrets of another world which
stretches away beyond the range of human intelligence. One
may agree with Goethe that the theories they evolved and the
1 Biedermann. Goethes Gespräche, Leipzig, 1889-96. Vol. 7, p. 40.


2
Palmer Cobb
tales they told are not food for the mind that is fresh, sound,
and cheerful. But if their fancy and their speculation enticed
them too far afield their genius accompanied them, and it
will create for their work a lasting value. .
It has been said that they were both exponents of one
phase of romanticism, that their interests were frequently
identical. To what extent was the one acquainted with the
work of the other? In what measure did the one mind influ-
ence the other?
In the recently completed German edition of Poe's works,”
the editor, in his prefatory account of the poet's life and
work's remarks:
Sein Leben war das eines Träumers aus dem alten Mut-
terlande Europa, und wenn man seine halb norman-
nische Abkunft bedenkt, kann man schon ruhig sagen,
eines germanischen Träumers — war ein Leben, ein
Traumieben, geführt in dem brutal-realen, fast aus-
schliesslich merkantilen Milieu Nord Amerikas ...
Die Kreuzung von Leben und Mensch, die sich da
ergab, die Mischung von bedingungsloser Kultur und
unbedingtem Neuland, die dann so einzig ist, ist Poe,
der Romantiker, verpflanzt auf den realitätenschwer-
sten Boden, den man sich in damaliger Zeit nur über-
haupt denken konnte.
This in general is the standpoint of the present work. It
is Poe the “Germanic dreamer,” the romanticist, that is here
to be the subject of discussion, and always from the stand-
point of his indebtedness to German literature, as to material
and technique. Poe the romanticist and dreamer is probably
nowhere more happily, and at the same time more briefly
characterized than by his contemporary James Russell
Lowell:3
In his tales he has chosen to exhibit nis powers chiefly
in that dim region which stretches from the very
2 Moeller-Bruck, E. A. Poe's Sämtliche Werke. Minden i. W., 1904. Vol.
8 Graham's Magazine. February, 1845. Our Contributors.
1, p. 126.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
utmost limits of the probable into the weird confines of
superstition and unreality. He combines in a very
remarkable manner two faculties which are seldom
found united; a power of influencing the mind of the
reader by the impalpable shadows of mystery, and a
minuteness of detail which does not leave a pin or a
button unnoticed. . . .
He loves to dissect those cancers of the mind, and to
trace all the subtle ramifications of its roots. In rais-
ing images of horror he has a strange success; convey-
ing to us sometimes by a hint some terrible doubt
which is the secret of all horror. He leaves to the
imagination the task of finishing the picture, a task
to which she only is competent,


CHAPTER I
VARIOUS ESTIMATES OF POE'S INDEBTEDNESS TO GERMAN
LITERATURE
Poe's critics have from the very first connected his name
and work with German romanticism. As early as 1833 he
published in the March number of the Southern Literary
Messenger his tale Berenice, and the editor of the maga-
zine found it expedient to introduce it to his readers with the
following note: “Whilst we confess we think there is too
much German horror in his subject, there can be but one
opinion as to his force and style.” And from that time
on critics of Poe have generally assumed a German influence
in his tales. Some indeed have contested it. Poe himself
was entirely conscious of this attitude on the part of his crit-
ics, and he has expressed himself on the subject as follows:
I am led to think that it is the prevalence of the Ara-
besque in my serious tales which has induced one or two
of my critics to tax me, in all friendliness, with what
they have been pleased to call Germanism and gloom.
The charge is in bad taste and the grounds of the accu-
sation have not been sufficiently considered. Let us
admit for the moment that the phantasy pieces” now
given are Germanic or what not. But the truth is that
with a single exception there is no one of the stories in
which the scholar should recognize the distinctive fea-
tures of that species of pseudo-horror which we are
taught to call Germanic for no better reason than that
some of the secondary names of German literature
have become identified with its folly. If in many of
my productions terror has been the thesis, I maintain
that terror is not of Germany, but of the soul.'
1 Harrison, The Complete Works of E. A. Poe. New York, 1902. Vol. 17,
p. 47.


Influence of Hoffman on the Tales of Poe
5
This utterance of Poe has been used as evidence by the
few critics who deny the German influence in his works. In
so doing they have overlooked the fact that Poe does not
deny in general terms the influence of German romanticism
in his tales. The statement is that, as far as terror has been
the thesis of his tales, this terror was of his own soul and not
of Germany. That is without doubt true. Of motives and
technique of the German romanticists there is no word of
denial. A few of the critics have also made that distinction.
The first American biographer of Poe, Griswold, has too
much to do in his slanderous investigations of Poe's supposed
debauches to treat of literary influences. There is no men-
tion of German influence. Stedman discusses the subject
briefly but does not find in Poe's work anything suggestive
of far reaching German influence. Later, however, he seems
to have changed his mind. In his introduction to the edition
of Poe of 1895, he says: “Nevertheless, there is a pseudo-
horror to be found in certain of his pieces, and enough of
Hoffmann's method to suggest that the brilliant author of the
Phantasie Stücke, (Hoffmann) whether a secondary name or
not, was one of Poe's early teachers.”
Again, on page 96: “Still, while Hoffmann was wholly of
the fatherland, and Poe a misfitted American, if the one had
died before the other, instead of thirteen years later, there
would be a chance for a pretty fancy in behalf of the doc-
trine of metempsychosis, which both writers utilized.” Sted-
man concludes that Hoffmann's influence is undeniable.
The next American biographer, Prof. Woodberry, is
entirely against German influence, while the last biography,
that of Prof. Harrison in the preface to his edition of Poe,
makes no direct reference to E. T. A. Hoffmann. He declares,
however,' that Poe was "saturated with the doctrines of
Schelling," and speaks also of “Novalis and Schelling, his
masters across the German Sea.” Mention is also made of
the translations of Tieck, de la Motte-Fouqué, Chamisso, the
2 Harrison, Vol. 1, p. 153, 4.


Palmer Cobb
Schlegels, Schiller, Heine, Uhland, ---“opening up a won-
der-world of picturesque Germanism.”
Aside from the biographies of Poe, the subject is dis-
cussed in a brief article by Prof. Gruener in the Publications
of the Modern Language Association of America, March, 1904.
The article is entitled, Notes on the Influence of E. T. A.
Hoffmann on Edgar Allan Poe. The author states that it is
not his purpose to go deeply into the matter, and sums up
his results as follows.
First,“Poe acknowledges the kinship of his tales to those of
Hoffmann, when he calls them 'phantasy pieces.'” Gruener
is of the opinion that Poe saw this term in Carlyle's discus-
sion of Hoffmann in his German Romance, and that the Amer-
ican author appropriated thence the title which he applies to
his tales. In a letter to his friend, Prof. Anthon, Poe writes:
“My tales, a great number of which might be called phantasy
pieces, are in number sixty-six.”
Secondly, Gruener believes that Poe took from Hoffmann
his idea of the Folio Club, imitating the German author's
Serapionsbrüder. Poe gave to his first collection of tales the
title Tales of the Folio Club. They were submitted to the
Baltimore Visitor, October, 1833, for a prize contest. He
introduces them as follows: "I find upon reference to the
records that the Folio Club was organized as such on the
- day - - in the year — I like to begin with the
beginning, and have a partiality for dates.” The members
were to be witty and erudite. The purpose of the club was
the "instruction of society and the amusement of themselves.”
It was also resolved that some member should compose and
read at each meeting a prose tale. The meetings were to be
held at the homes of the members, and provision was made
also for eatables and drinkables. The constitution of the
Serapionsbrüder is strikingly similar.4
We read:
3 Harrison, Vol. 17. p. 179.
4 Griesebach, E. T. A. Hoffmans Sämtliche Werke. Leipzig, 1906. Vol. 7,
p. 11.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
Und hiermit erkläre ich die Präliminarien unsers neuen
Bundes feierlichst für abgeschlossen, und setze fest,
dass wir uns jede Woche an einem bestimmten Tage
zusammen finden wollen, u.s.w.
“Herrlicher Einfall,” rief Lothar, "füge doch noch sog-
leich, lieber Ottmar, gewisse Gesetze hinzu, die bei
unsern bestimmten wöchentlichen Zusammenkünften
stattfinden sollen. Z. B. dass über dieses oder jenes
gesprochen oder nicht gesprochen werden darf, oder
dass jeder gehalten sein soll, dreimal witzig zu sein,
oder dass wir ganz gewiss jedesmal Sardellen-Salat
essen wollen,” u.s.w.
Again, page 55:
Es kann nicht fehlen dass wir, einer dem andern, nach
alter Weise, manches poetische Produktlein, das wir
unter dem Herzen getragen, mitteilen werden.
Thirdly, Gruener believes that Poe hit upon his title for
his second collection of Tales, Tales of the Grotesque und
Arabesque, through Hoffmann. In support of this theory, an
article by Walter Scott in the Foreign Quarterly Review for
July, 1827, is quoted. Poe, in one of his letters, quotes this
very magazines and he must have been attracted by this
article of Scott's, which deals with German Romance. Scott
speaks of the "fantastic mode of writing" and cites Hoffmann
as the pioneer in this field: “He (Hoffmann) was the inven-
tor, or at least the first distinguished artist, who exhibited
the fantastic or supernatural grotesque in his compositions,
so nearly on the verge of insanity as to be afraid of the beings
his own fancy created. In fact, the Grotesque in his compo-
sitions partly resembles the Arabesque in painting.” Gruener
concludes that Poe must have noticed this passage, "partic-
ularly as Scott proceeds to charge Hoffmann with just those
things with which Poe was charged in his lifetime." It is
worthy of note also that the introduction to Poe's Tales of
the Folio Club was first published in Harrison's edition. Poe
5 Harrison. Vol. 17, page 161.


Palmer Cobb
probably thought the resemblance to the Serapionsbrüder too
striking.
Gruener discusses the passage in Stedman's biography
of Poe which connects the latter's Fall of the House of
Usher with Hoffmann's Das Majorat. The passage reads as
follows: 6
A reader finds certain properties of the “House of
Usher” and Metzengerstein in DasMajorat in
the ancestral castle of a noble family, in a wild and
remote estate near the Baltic Sea — the interior, where
the moon shines through oriel windows upon tapestry
and carven furniture and wainscoting, – the uncanny
scratchings upon a bricked-up door, — the old Freiherr
foreseeing the hour of his death, the ominous confia-
gration, — the turret falling of its own decay into a
chasm at its base, - etc.
Gruener notes relative to this passage:
These “properties" here enumerated are the very fea-
tures which Scott, in his article on Hoffmann lays stress
upon in the analysis of Das Majorat. In his own words
he describes the castle and its inhabitants, quotes in
translation the scene in the large hall at night with
moonlight streaming “through the broad transom win-
dows” into the hall in which the “walls and roof were
ornamented the former with heavy paneling, the
latter with fantastic carving;” and also quotes the
conclusion of the story. He notes that the Baron's
name was Roderick; and that the lady is "young, beau-
tiful, nervous, and full of sensibility.” The most
striking feature of the whole, however, is Scott's
description of the castle itself, culled from various
parts of Hoffmann's story: “It was a huge pile over-
hanging the Baltic sea, silent, dismal, almost uninhab-
ited, and surrounded, instead of gardens and pleasure
grounds, by forests and black pines and firs which
6 Woodbery-Stedman Edition, The Works of E. A. Poe. Chicago, 1896.
Vol. I, page 97.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
came up to the walls. Part of the castle was in ruins;
and by its fall made a deep chasm, which extended from
the highest turret down to the dungeon of the castle.
Compare with this picture the description of the House
of Usher, and note the close resemblance, chiefly, of the
chasm from “the highest turret down to the dungeon"
with that “barely perceptible fissure which, extending
from the roof in the building in front, made its way
down the wall in a zig-zag direction until it became
lost in the sullen waters of the tarn."
In addition, other features of the life and incidents at
the Entailed Castle agree most strikingly with those
at the Castle of Metzengerstein as described by Poe. If
Poe needed and got any outside suggestion for those two
stories, he found them here in condensed form. There
is a great temptation in hounding similarities to death,
but it does not seem like forcing things too much to see
in Scott's essay On the Supernatural the first germs of
Poe's two stories, and to hold that these analogies
confirm the conjecture that Poe saw this review and
drew from it.
Gruener's generalizations are obvious. Nor does it seem
like forcing things too much to suppose that Poe's interest
in Hoffmann was greatly aroused by this article and that
his acquaintance with the German author's work is to be
dated from this time.
Gruener very rightly connects Poe's Fall of the House
of Usher with this article of Scott rather than with a first
hand reading of Das Majorat. The analogies do not extend
further than Gruener traces them.
As to the resemblances between Metzengerstein and Das
Majorat, they hardly justify a minute analysis. The two
stories are constructed out of the same general romantic mate-
rial, but a consecutive thread of resemblance is lacking.
There is in both stories the dismal uninhabited castle ten-
anted by an eccentric hero, the last of his noble race. But
the analogy hardly goes further. Poe's story has for its


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
11
A French critic' takes account of Poe's denial of German
horror in his work as follows: "La critique américaine lui
(Poe) reprochait d'avoir emprunté aux romantiques allemands
le goût des histoires lugubres.” Barine then quotes the
passage from Poe which has already been given, and adds:
Il disait vrai — La science extraordinaire de la peur, à
tous les degrés et dans toutes ses variétés, n'avait été
emprunté à personne. Poe n'en avait pas eu besoin.
Il n'avait eu, comme il le dit, qu'à regarder dans son
âme.
In another place Barine says:
Edgar Poe conteur procède à la fois de Coleridge et des
romantiques allemands, de Coleridge pour les idées gén-
érales, des romantiques allemands pour la technique. Il
possédait son Hoffmann sur le bout du doigt. Non con-
tentde lui emprunter son genre, il avait appris à son
école à donner de la realité, par la précision et la variété
du détail, aux fantasies les plus extravagantes.
Barine's criticism is important in that he makes the dis-
tinction between the terror which prevails in Poe's tales, and
their motive and technique. In the first passage he justifies
Poe's own statement with reference to the Germanic or non-
Germanic character of the horror which is to be found in his
tales. In the second passage he does justice to the German
influence in general and to Hoffmann in particular. And this
is the distinction which one may well hold in mind in a sur-
vey of Poe's works. Whatever of terror he has, he may
easily have created out of his own fancy. But that in no wise
precludes indebtedness to Hoffmann and others for material
and method. It is interesting to note the standpoint from
which Barine writes. He discusses his subjects in four
chapters: Hoffmann-Le vin, Quincy-L'opium, Edgar Poe
-L'alcool, and Gerard de Nerval-La Folie.
German criticism has little to say on the subject, but the
few references we find assume, with one exception, an influ-
8 Barine, Nevrosés. Paris, 1893. p. 209.


Palmer Cobb
ence from Hoffmann and the other romanticists. The excep-
tion is an article by Van Vleuten on Poe. The author
ascribes the whole of Poe's creative work to the inspiration
of alcoholic delirium or epilepsy, a view which no one thor-
oughly conversant with Poe's works, or with modern criticism
of the poet, could possibly hold. Van Vleuten remarks also:
Man begnügte sich viel mehr meist damit, die Eigen-
art der Novellen Poe's dadurch zu erklären, dass man
seine tiefgehende Beeinflussung durch E. T. A. Hoff-
mann, überhaupt durch die deutschen Romantiker
annahm. Das war sehr oberflächlich; mann kann sogar
sagen: Es war falsch.” . . . .
Again:
Unhaltbar ist die Annahme, Poe sei von E. Th.
A. Hoffmann entscheidend beeinflusst worden. Hoff-
mann war kein Epileptiker, also auch kein Dipsomane.
Was er (Hoffmann) am Schauerlichen und Unheim-
lichen bietet, stammt von den Romantikern, aus alten
Zauberstücken und Mystikern: Gespenster, ver-
grabene Schätze, Doppelgänger, dazu eine Prise Mes-
mer, u.s.w.
The reader who is even superficially acquainted with Poe
will at once observe that this list of motives which Van
Vleuten has established as characteristic for Hoffmann recurs
without exception, again and again, in Poe's tales.
A “Schul-programm”'to of Freiberg, 1895, gives a short
account of Poe's life and works. “Er (Poe) erinnert viel an
E. Th. A. Hoffmann, dem er viele Anregung verdankte, sowie
Tieck und Novalis.” Wherever Hoffmann is discussed, the
writer usually thinks involuntarily of Poe.
Havemann" denies the assertion of Ellinger (Hoffmann's
last biographer) that the spectral and the ghostly no longer
tales.
9 Von Vleuten, Berliner Zukunft. XI Jahrgang. No. 44.
10Gruendel, E. A. Poe. Ein Beitrag zur Kenntniss und Würdigung des
Dichters. Schul-program, Freiberg, 1895.
11 Havemann, Deutsche Heimat, 1902. Heft. 3.


Palmer Cobb
steigerte ... Um gleiches mit gleichem zu vergel -
ten haben einige Critiker den krankhaften und unwider-
stehlichen Hang zum literarischen Diebstahl, den Poe
eifrig bestrebt war bei Longfellow nachzuweisen, -4
in noch höherem Grad bei ihm entdecken wollen. "
Moeller-Bruck remarks in this connection 15
Poe ist ja überhaupt einseitig, und man muss immer,
wenn man an ihn denkt oder von ihm spricht, festhal-
ten, dass der Grundton seines Lebens und Schaffens
der Romantiker ist, und dass er nur ein Echo im Ameri-
kanischen hat .... Seine amerikanischen Zeitge-
nossen, Longfellow, u.s.W., den Hawthorne vielleicht
ausgenommen, waren im Grunde ihres Wesens rein
englische Dichter; und die dann kamen, Thoreau und
vor allen Walt Whitman waren, was Poe nicht war,
rein amerikanisch; während die deutschen Romantiker,
auf die man sich bei Poe so gern bezieht, doch sozusa-
gen Romantiker im eigenen Lande, Romantiker im
Romantischen Lande sein durften.
L. P. Betz expresses the following opinion:16
Weitaus am wichtigsten aber sind Poe's litterarische
Beziehungen zu unserem Amadeus Hoffman. Stofflich
und technisch dankt der Erzähler Poe, der Autor der
Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, dem phanta-
sie-reichen und phantastischen deutschen Dichter zwei-
fellos vieles. Darauf deuten schon einige direkte
Entlehnungen hin.
He speaks of Poe also as an “Anglo-Germane.”
The quotations cited have been chosen with the view of
setting forth the gist of American, French, English, and
German criticism with respect to Poe's relationship to Ger-
man literature.
14Westermanns Monatshefte, Oct. 1882, Jan., Feb., 1883.
15 Vol. I, page 127.
16 Edgar Poe in der Französischen Literatur. Frankfurt a. M., 1893.


CHAPTER II
GERMAN LITERATURE IN AMERICA AND ENGLAND IN THE
THIRTIES AND FORTIES
A question which naturally suggests itself is: What
stimulus did Poe have for an interest in German literature?
America was in those days far more isolated from Europe
than in this latter-day era of express steamers and rapid
transit. How was it possible for an American man of letters
to be so in touch with the productions of a European country
as to have his thoughts guided and his work colored by that
of a European nation? The answer to this question leads to
others. Namely, to what extent was German literature
known and studied in America during the time of Poe's act-
ivity as a story writer, 1830 to 1848 in round numbers?
What impetus would an American man of letters have had to
a study of German literature: and, granting his interest once
aroused, what means would he have had of gratifying this
interest? Disregarding, for the moment, the possibility of a
first hand access to the original, there remain two possibili-
ties: translations, and magazine literature.
It is impossible, of course, to give anything like an
exhaustive survey of this subject here. A few translations
and magazine articles will suffice to indicate a general inter-
est in those of the Romanticists to whom Poe is indebted.
Up to 1845, the following translations of the works of E. T.
A. Hoffmann had appeared in English: Blackwood's Maga-
zine brought out as early as 1824 a translation of Die
Elixiere des Teufels. There was also a separate print. In
Carlyle's German Romance, London, 1827, there was a trans-
lation of Der goldene Topf, together with a discussion of
Hoffmann. In 1826 there appeared in London three volumes
translated by Robert Pierce Gillies, and containing trans-
lations of Das Fräulein von Scudery, and Das Majorat. In
1826 there also appeared a volume of translations by G.


16
Palmer Cobb
Soane, which contained a translation of Hoffmann's Meister
Floh. In 1844 appeared translations of Die Jesuiterkirche in
G., Der Sandmann, and Der Elementargeist, by John Oxen-
ford.
The following translations of Tieck appeared during the
same period: The Old Man of the Mountain, Love Charm,
and Pietro of Abano, London, 1831; The Pictures and The
Betrothal, London, 1825; The Poet's Life, Leipzig, 1830; The
Roman Matron, or Vittoria Colonna, London, 1845. No
translations of Novalis are recorded up to 1845. Poe's first
tale, A Manuscript Found in a Bottle, appeared in 1833.
Poe was always a close observer of French Literature, and
the German romanticists were early cultivated in France.
Hoffmann, even in those days, was better known and more
widely read in France than in his own country. French
literary journals were constantly busied with Hoffmann, and
besides numerous single translations of his work, a complete
edition was begun in 1829 by Francois Adolphe Loeve
Veimars, and completed in 1833, the year of Poe's first tale."
Another edition was begun in 1830 by Th. Toussenel.
In 1829 also the Revue de Paris published a translation of
a part of Scott's article in the Foreign Quarterly. The
article is entitled Du Merveilleux dans le Roman.
In the article by Prof. Belden (Anglia 23), already cited,
the author discusses Poe's criticism of Hawthorne, namely,
that the latter's style was identical with that of Tieck. He
accords to Poe's criticism the high value which the poet him-
self placed upon it, and which is its undeniable due. But he
questions Poe's knowledge of German. “To the question
whether Poe knew German, it will probably never be pos-
sible to give a definite answer.” Further, he asks himself:
“What means had a man not master of German of knowing
the character of Tieck's works?” These means, he decides,
were the English and American periodicals. He concludes
1 MS. found in a Bottle. Baltimore Saturday Visitor. Oct. 12, 1833.
2 Revue de Paris. Vol. 1, page 25.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
17
that Poe's criticism might have been perfectly sincere, solely
from an idea of Tieck which he might have gathered from
magazine articles. In substantiation of his theory he gives
a survey of British and American magazine articles of the
Thirties and Forties, some of which are as follows:
The American Quarterly Review, for example, contained
between 1827 and 1831 six articles on German literature, one of
which deals with Bouterwek's Geschichte der deutschen Poesie
und Beredsamkeit. The article contained a critique of the
Schlegels, Tieck, and Novalis. In 1836 there appeared in
Boston a translation of Heine's Zur Geschichte der neueren
schöneu Literatur in Deutschland. There were numerous
translations from Fouqué. The Democratic Review, begin-
ning with 1842, had in almost every number a trans-
lation from the German, or an article on some German
writer. Fr. Schlegel's lectures were translated in New York
in 1841, and mention of them is found in a short sketch by
Poe.
Besides these mentioned by Prof. Belden, there appeared
a translation of Fouqué's Undine, New York, 1839, and a
volume entitled Tales from the German, translated by
Nathaniel Greene, Boston, 1837. The latter a two-volumed
publication, contained several stories by C. F. van der Velde.
In 1839 a small volume was published in New York contain-
ing Der todte Gast, by Heinrich Zschokke, and Spieler
Glück, by E. T. A. Hoffmann. These two tales were printed
in the original. A significant statement relative to Ameri-
can appreciation of German literature of the period is to be
found in the North American Review, January, 1840, page
279. In connection with a review of a new German gram-
mar the reviewer observes:
Some of us, who are not yet past the mezzo del cammin
di nostra vita, can remember the time when a German
grammar and dictionary could not be had for love or
money. The poets of Germany were as much unknown
» Revies of the neare to Ama
4 Ingram. Vol. IV, page 89.


18
Palmer Cobb
as the poets of Tartary . . . . . Nous avons
change tout cela. Within a few years German litera-
ture has made great progress in this country. At some
of our colleges, particularly Harvard University,
almost every student of any pretensions to literary dis-
tinction masters the elements at least of the German
language; and the opinions of German philosophers
and theologians have already made themselves deeply
felt, whether for good or evil, among the chaos of
opinions around us.
The interest in German Romanticism in England was
earlier awakened, and more lively. Carlyle's German
Romance appeared in 1827. The article in the Foreign
Quarterly Review for July, 1827, has already been mentioned.
Besides this, the following numbers up to 1844 contained
upwards of forty articles dealing with German literature,
reviews, criticisms, etc. Fraser's for 1831 has articles on
The Old Man of the Mountain, Love Charm, and Pietro of
Abano, translations from Tieck. Blackwood's for February,
1833, has a criticism of Bluebeard. The same magazine for
September, 1837, has a review of Dichterleben.
Among the translations, an important contribution
included four volumes of stories entitled The German Novel-
ists; Tales selected from Ancient and Modern Authors, trans-
lated by Thomas Roscoe, London, 1826. The work con-
tained two tales from Fouqué, four from Schiller, four from
Tieck, six from Langbein, and two from Engel. Another
volume of translations appeared in 1826 in Edinburgh, enti-
tled Tales from the German. The translator was Richard
Holcroft. Another volume of Tales from the German
appeared in London, 1829.
These statistics, though not exhaustive, will suffice to
show that there was a lively interest in German Romanticism
both in America and England in the Thirties and Forties.
Poe, in his capacity of magazine editor, was a zealous reader
of magazines and followed closely American and foreign pub-
lications. Compare his sketch, How to write a Blackwood


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
19
Article. It was impossible that he should not have been
affected by this general interest in German romance. And it
is just as impossible to read his works, especially his criti-
cism, without recognizing that he had a more intimate
acquaintance with German literature than it would have been
possible to gain from magazine reading.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
21
nation. Rationale of Verse:* If any one has a fancy to
be thoroughly confounded—to see how far the infat-
uation of what is termed 'classical scholarship’ can
lead a book-worm to manufacture darkness out of sun-
shine, let him turn over for a few moments any of the
German Greek Prosodies. The only thing clearly
made out in them is a very magnificent contempt for
Leibnitz's principle of a sufficient reason.
Poe's assertion that Hawthorne's manner was identical
with that of Tieck has already been mentioned. The follow-
ing from Poe's Marginalra is also a striking passage. He is
discussing Fouqué's Theodolf the Icelander and Aslacya's
Knight.
This book could never have been popular out-
side of Germany. It is too simple—too direct-too
obvious—too bold—not sufficiently complex—to be rel-
ished by any people who have thoroughly passed the
first (or impulsive) epoch of literary civilization. The
Germans have not yet passed this first epoch. . . .
Individual Germans have been critical in the best sense,
but the masses are unleavened. Literary Germany
thus presents the singular spectacle of the impulsive
spirit surrounded by the critical, and of course in some
measure influenced thereby. . . . At present Ger-
man literature resembles no other on the face of the
earth,—for it is the result of certain conditions which,
before this individual instant of their fulfilment, have
never been fulfilled. And this anomalous state to
which I refer is the source of our anomalous criticism
upon what that state produces,-is the source of the
grossly conflicting opinions about German letters.
For my own part, I admit the German vigour, the Ger-
man directness, boldness, imagination, and some other
qualities in the first (or impulsive) epochs of British
4 Harrison, Vol. XIV, Page 217.


Palmer Cobb
his favorite reading, the statement becomes significant for
his relationship to Hoffmann. It is also quite significant that
Poe nowhere mentions Hoffmann's name directly. The Amer-
ican was an inveterate pursuer of plagiarism (one recalls, for
example, the strife about Longfellow). He would therefore
naturally not have given the horde of his inimical critics an
opportunity to turn his own guns upon himself by discussing
openly a man whose work bore such a striking resemblance to
his own.
Just as Poe's references to German literature in his works
preclude the possibility of anything but a first-hand knowl-
edge of sources, so also they imply a knowledge of the
language. The Mystery of Marie Roget, for example, which
appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger, November,
December, February, 1842-1843, contained as a heading a
quotation from Novalis's Fragments in the original, with the
translation appended.
Es gibt eine Reihe idealischer Begebenheiten, die der
Wirklichkeit parallel läuft. Selten fallen sie zusam-
men. Menschen und Zustände modificiren gewöhnlich
die idealische Begebenheit, so dass sie unvollkommen
erscheint, und ihre Folgen gleichfalls unvollkommen
sind. So bei der Reformation; statt des Protestantis-
mus kam das Luthertum hervor.
Poe translates, and no one can question the knowledge of
German displayed:
There are ideal series of events which run parallel
with the real ones. They rarely coincide. Men and
circumstances generally modify the ideal train of
events, so that it seems imperfect, — and its conse-
quences are equally imperfect. Thus with the Reform-
ation; instead of Protestantism came Lutherism.
Novalis is again quoted in one of Poe's Fragments. "The
Artist belongs to his work, and not the work to the Artist,"
Also, in Poe's Tale of the Ragged Mountains, we find a refer-
ence to Novalis's theory of dreams.
9 Marginalia. Harrison, Vol. XVI, page 98.
Heilborn, Vol. II, page 563.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
25
Poe's reference to Tieck's Journey into the Blue Distance,
in The Fall of the House of Usher, has been mentioned. At
the time when this tale was written, 1839, no translation of
Tieck's Reise ins Blaue hinein had appeared either in English,
or French.
Numerous German quotations in the original are scattered
throughout Poe's works. In Marginalia," he applies the
term Schwärmerei to a certain style of criticism in America.
He translates it, “not exactly humbug, but sky-rocketing."
He has a note also on Goethe's Sorrows of Werther." He
finds it difficult to conceive how the Germans could have
admired it, and adds: “The title, by the way, is mistrans-
lated, - Leiden does not mean sorrows, but sufferings;"
which distinction is quite exact.
Poe's tale, The Man of the Crowd, opens with the follow-
ing sentence: “It is well said of a certain German book, es
lässt sich nicht lesen," and he then translates more literally
than elegantly, “it does not permit itself to be read."
In the article on Longfellow's Ballads," Poe mentions
Count Bielfeld's definition of poetry as “L'art d'exprimer les
pensées par la fiction," and our author adds: “With this defi-
nition (of which the philosophy is profound to a certain
extent) the German terms Dichtkunst, the art of fiction, and
dichten, to feign, which are used for poetry, and to make
verses, are in full and remarkable accordance.”
While editor of Graham's Magazine, 1840-1841, Poe was
much interested in cryptography and advertised in the maga-
zine, inviting his readers to invent secret writings and sub-
mit them to him for solution. “Yet any one who will take
the trouble may address us a note, in the same manner as
here proposed, and the key phrase may be either in French,
Italian, Spanish, German, Latin or Greek (or in any of the
dialects of these languages), and we pledge ourselves for the
10 Harrison, Vol. XVI, page 166.
11 Ingram, Vol. III, page 477.
12 Harrison, Vol. XVI, page 74.


26
Palmer Cobb
solution of the riddle. "13 Poe received responses to his invita-
tion, and did actually solve all the riddles which were sub-
mitted to him.
Prof. Gruener, in an article in Modern Philology, Vol. 2,
page 125, entitled Poe's Knowledge of German, 4 argues in
favor of Poe's ability to read German. Prof. Gruener enum-
erates, in part, the evidence given here, and in addition calls
attention to a German motto which appeared on the title
page of Poe's Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. The
motto in question is a verse from Goethe's Die Göttin:
Seltsamer Tochter Jovis,
Seinem Schlosskind,
Der Phantasie –
Prof. Gruener also adduces as evidence a passage in Poe's
Eureka translated from Alexander Humboldt's Kosmos.
Previous to the publication of Eureka, two translations of
this work had appeared; one by Prichard, London, 1845,
another by Col. Sabine, London, 1847. The passage referred
to is to be found in the Kosmos, Vol. i, page 151:
Betrachtet man die nicht perspectivischen eigenen Be-
wegungen der Sterne, so scheinen viele gruppenweise
in ihrer Richtung entgegengesetzt; und die bisher
gesammelten Thatsachen machen es aufs wenigste
nicht nothwendig, dass alle Theile unserer Sternen-
schicht oder gar der gesammten Sterneninseln, welche
den Weltraum füllen, sich um einen grossen, unbe-
kannten, leuchtenden oder dunkel Centralkörper
bewegen. Das Streben nach den letzten und höchsten
Grundursachen macht freilich die reflectirende Thätig-
keit des Meschen, wie seine Phantasie, zu einer solchen
Annahme geneigt.
Prichard's translation of the passage reads:
13Harrison, Vol. XIV, page 124.
14The attention of the author was called to this article after the foregoing
had been completed.
16Vol. I, page 154.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
27
If the non-perspective, proper motion of the stars be
considered, many of them appear group-wise opposed
in their directions; and the data hitherto collected
make it at least not necessary to suppose that all parts
of our astral system, or the whole of the star islands
which fill the universe, are in motion about any great
unknown luminous or non-luminous central mass., The
longing to reach the last or highest fundamental
cause, indeed, renders the reflecting faculty of man, as
well as his fancy, disposed to adopt such a proposi-
tion.
Sabine's translation" is as follows:
If we consider the proper motions of the stars, as con-
tradistinguished from their apparent or perspective
motions, their directions are various; it is not, there-
fore, a necessary conclusion, either that all parts of
our astral system, or that all the systems which, fill
universal space, revolve around one great undiscovered
luminous or non-luminous central body, however
naturally we may be disposed to an inference which
would gratify alike the imaginative faculty and that
intellectual activity which ever seeks after the last and
highest generalization,
Poe's translation*8 reads:
When we regard the real, proper, or non-perspective
motions of the stars, we find many groups of them
moving in opposite directions; and the data as yet in
hand render it not necessary at least to conceive that
the systems composing the Milky Way, or the clusters
generally composing the Universe, are revolving about
any particular centre unknown, whether luminous or
non-luminous. It is but man's longing for a funda-
mental First Cause that impels both his intellect and
fancy to the adoption of such an hypothesis.
17Vol. I, page 135.
18Harrison, Vol. XVI, page 299.


28
Palmer Cobb
Relative to the passage which Poe quotes from Novalis,
Prof. Gruener notes that it had appeared in a volume entitled
Fragments from German Prose Writers, translated by Sarah
Austin, London, 1841. Poe's story, The Mystery of Marie
Roget, in which the passage from Novalis is used as a
motto, appeared in November, 1842. But Poe's translation
of the passage and that of Mrs. Austin diverge as radically
as do the foregoing versions of the passage from the Kos-
mos.
In Poe's story, The Premature Burial, he recounts several
supposedly authentic cases of persons having been buried
alive. One of his instances he says he has found in "a late
number” of the “Chirurgical Journal” of Leipsic. 19 Prof.
Gruener suggests that Poe was perhaps in the habit of con-
sulting this journal in search of novel material, and that he
did actually read the story in the original. A search of all
the medical periodicals in the libraries of Berlin for the
period 1834-1844 (Poe's Premature Burial was published in
1844) failed to result in a discovery of the case cited by Poe,
although, at that time, there was apparently a lively interest
in the subject among surgeons and numerous similar cases
were recorded.
The same story affords some evidence of Poe's unreli-
ability as to his statement concerning his source. In addi-
tion to the case of premature burial just mentioned, Poe
gives in the same story the facts in another case; that of a
young woman rescued from her grave by her lover. Poe
states that this event occurred in Paris in the year 1810, and
gives the names of the persons concerned. This latter is a
very commonly quoted case, and can be traced in various
slightly different forms as far back as the year 1754.20
The same story appears also in the following works:
"Über die Ungewissheit des Todes und das einzige untrüg-
liche Mittel sich von seiner Wirklichkeit zu überzeugen.”
C. M. Hufeland, Weimar, 1791.
19 Harrison, Vol. V, page 299.
20Brubier.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
29
“Beweis, dass einige Leute lebendig können begraben
werden.” J. P. Brinckmann, Düsseldorf, Cleve, und Leipzig,
1772.
The same story is found in the Causes Célèbresas, and this
is probably the source of all the other versions. Bruhier
states that this is his source. Poe states that the event
occurred in Paris in 1810, and provides the persons concerned
with names. It would seem, then, that his statement relative
to the source of the other case which he says he took from the
Chirurgical Journal of Leipsic might be regarded also as some-
what untrustworthy.
So much we may deduce with certainty from the fore-
going. First, that in England and America, in the Thirties
and Forties, there was a lively interest in German contem-
porary literature. Secondly, that Poe as a magazine editor
was thoroughly en rapport with this wave of interest, and
that among his favorite reading he counted some of the
secondary productions (meaning probably Hoffmann) of Ger-
man literature. Finally, the American author possessed at
least an ability to read German in the original, though in
view of the meagreness of the information which we have
concerning his life, it is impossible to discover when and
where he acquired this ability.
It now remains for us to see what echo of his German
reading we find in his own work.
In this connection it is interesting to take account of cer-
tain utterances of Poe with reference to his theory of the tale.
A skilful literary artist has constructed a tale. If
wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommo-
date his incidents; but, haviug conceived with deliber-
ate care a certain unique or single effect to be wrought
out, he then invents such incidents-he then combines
such events as may best aid him in establishing this
preconceived effect............ And here it will be seen
how full of prejudice are the usual animadversions
21 Vol. 8, page 452.


Palmer Cobb
against those tales of effect, many fine examples of
which were found in the earlier numbers of Black-
wood.22
It was worth noting that Hoffmann's Elixiere des Teufels
appeared in an "early number of Blackwood” for 1824.
We have a similar utterance on the same subject in the
Philosophy of. Composition.23
I prefer commencing with the consideration of an
effect. Keeping originality always in view, for he is
false to himself who ventures to dispense with so
obvious and so easily attainable a source of interest-I
say to myself in the first place, ‘Of the innumerable
effects or impressions of which the heart, the intellect,
or (more generally) the soul is susceptible, what one
shall I, on the present occasion, select?' Having
chosen a novel, first, and secondly, a vivid, effect, I
consider whether it can be best wrought by incident or
tone-whether by ordinary incidents and peculiar tone,
or the converse, or by peculiarity both of incident and
tone-afterwards looking about me (or rather within)
for such combinations of event or tone as shall best aid
me in the construction of the effect.
The last sentence, especially the phrase "looking about
me (or rather within) for such combinations,” is signif-
icant. Poe has placed the words “or rather within” in paren-
theses, lest the foregoing might be construed as a confession
of his literary borrowings,
In looking about him for combinations of event or tone,
what did he find that was serviceable among the productions
of the German romanticists?
22Ingram, vol. IX, pages 216, 217.
28Ingram, vol. III, page 266.


CHAPTER IV
HOFFMANN's Elixiere des Teufels AND POE's
William Wilson
A motive which Fouqué, Novalis and Hoffmann have al
used in their narratives is that of the double existence. The
idea is that the personality is divided into two parts and that
the individual leads then a double existence, mental and
physical. The motive appears in Fouqué's Zauberring
rather as a minor incident. It plays a role of secondary
importance. In the second part of Fouqué's novel (chapter
13), the young German knight, Otto von Trautwangen,
meets, in a combat with the Finns, another knight in
armor who is his exact double. The mystery is explained
by the fact that both men are the sons of one father by
different mothers.
Novalis has also made use of the idea in Ofterdingen,
where various personages are in the end revealed as one and
the same. And Heinrich himself is the poet of Klingsor's
Märchen." One of Novalis's Fragments reads: “A really
synthetic person is a person who is several persons at once,
- a genius."
It is one of Hoffmann's favorite themes. He drew from
life. He was frequently haunted by the idea that he was
being pursued by his double. The idea is the basic one in
the story of the Doppelgänger. It occurs also in Kater Murr,
and plays a large role in the Elixiere des Teufels. It is from
the latter story that Poe drew suggestions, which, according
to his method, he combined and transformed in his narative,
William Wilson.
1 Heilborn, Vol. I, page 191.
2 Just Bing, page 120.
3 Ellinger, page 121.


Palmer Cobb
In Hoffmann's tale a monk relates the story of his life.
He begins with his childhood, passes rapidly to his reception
in the monastery, and describes with great exactness
events and persons which are of importance in the develop-
ment of his own destiny. We follow minutely the course of
his life. We learn of the temptations which beset him, how
the germ of evil in his soul, at first infinitesimal, grows and
waxes strong, and finally overpowers and drives him from
the monastery and into a life of vice and crime. We learn
further of his repentance, heavy penance, and his return to
his monastery. He writes the story of his life on the eve of
death.
The first chapter deals with the life of the monk, Medar-
dus, in the monastery. The underlying idea of the chapter
is to depict the gradual growth of evil in Medardus. This
is motivated first by the awakening of the sexual impulse,
and secondly by a fiction of certain elixirs of the devil, from
which latter incident the story takes its name. Medardus,
the hero, is custodian of the relics of the monastery, and
among these are certain flasks of wine which St. Anthony
had received from the devil, in a temptation to which the
former was subjected in the wilderness. Medardus succumbs
to the temptation to drink of the wine; and the effect is a
magical growth of evil in his soul, which constantly increases
and finally overpowers him.
The next chapter deals with Medardus's entrance into the
world. He is sent by his Prior on a mission to Rome.
Traveling through the mountains, Medardus comes suddenly
upon a man lying asleep over a precipice. Startled out of
his sleep by the sudden appearance of the monk, he falls over
the precipice and, as Medardus supposes, meets his death.
This incident marks a turning point in the monk's career.
He supposes himself a murderer, and from that time on his
life is a history of crime. We learn later that this stranger
is Graf Viktorin, a half brother of Medardus, and the latter's
exact counterpart as to figure and appearance. Viktorin has
not been killed but has received wounds which resulted in,
insanity. His insanity takes the remarkable form that he


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
33
believes himself to be the monk Medardus. In this fashion
Hoffmann works out the fiction of the double existence on
quite natural grounds.
Viktorin is involved in an illicit relationship with the
wife of a nobleman, whose castle lies in the immediate vicin-
ity. Medardus enters the castle, and is mistaken by the
Baroness for her lover Viktorin in the garb of a monk. He
assumes Viktorin's role, but becomes enamored also of the
daughter of the house, and in an attempt to seduce her he is
forced to flee from the castle, murdering in his flight the son
of the house, Hermogen, who attempts to stop him. Fleeing
from the castle, Medardus is for the first time confronted by
his blood-stained double, who utters the very words which
the monk himself has in mind.
The third chapter gives a series of adventures, of which
the principal one takes place at a lonely hunting lodge in
the midst of the forest. Medardus has discarded his monk's
garb, and is traveling as a private gentleman. His carriage
breaks down in the forest and he is received by the forester
in the latter's home for a short time. In the middle of the
night his double appears, clothed in a monk's cassock. The
following morning Medardus learns that an insane monk is
being harbored by the forester. The latter believes him to
be the monk Medardus, of whose disappearance he has heard.
The supposed monk is of course Viktorin.
We next find Medardus at the court of a prince, where he
mingles freely with the society of the court. Among the
ladies of the court is that Aurelie, the daughter of the Baron
of the previous chapter, whom Medardus attempted to
seduce. Aurelie recognizes him as the murderer of her
brother. He is imprisoned and about to be executed when he
is saved by the intervention of the insane Viktorin, who
declares (and believes) that he is the monk Medardus. The
real Medardus is liberated and is about to be married to
Aurelie, when he falls a victim to insanity, attempts to mur-
der his bride, and flees from court. In prison and in his
flight from the castle, Medardus is repeatedly visited by his
double with terrorizing effect.


34
Palmer Cobb
We find Medardus next in Italy, recovered from his insan-
ity, and in repentant mood. He passes some time in a mon-
astery near Rome, confesses the story of his life to the prior,
and submits himself to the severest penance. Here also, as
everywhere, he is visited by his tormentor in the shape of
his double. He is received by the Pope, wins notoriety by
his conspicuous piety, and finally returns to his own monas-
tery. He learns that Aurelie is about to take the vows as a
nun in a neighboring convent. During the ceremony of con-
secration she is murdered by Medardus's insane double, Vik-
torin. With her death Medardus wins his victory over the
evil.
Poe's story, as compared with that of Hoffmann, is greatly
reduced and constructed with infinitely more simplicity.
Here also the hero relates his own story. We are introduced
first to a school for boys in England, the life of which in its
simplicity and monastic monotony bears much resemblance
to that of the youthful Medardus in his monastery. The
idea of Poe's story is also the contention of the good
with the evil for supremacy. William Wilson learns that in
the school there is another pupil of the same name, and by a
singular coincidence his counterpart in appearance and, as
we learn later, born on the same day. The two lads are
also of similar coustitution mentally, both imperious, and
rivals for leadership among their fellow-pupils. Outwardly,
the two boys are friendly, but inwardly both are conscious of
their rivalry. We are told also that a favorite device of
William Wilson the Second for annoying his rival, William
Wilson the First, was an exact imitation of the latter as to
personal appearance, gait, manners, and above all as to voice
and speech. There is no explanation of the relationship
between the two boys, and at first no suggestion of the
supernatural; nothing more than a striking resemblance.
Finally, the first William Wilson, in playing a practical
joke on his namesake, slips into the latter's room at night,
draws aside the curtains of the bed in preparation for the
perpetration of the joke, and is suddenly overcome and hor-


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
35
rified by the idea that it is his double who lies before him
in sleep. He rushes from the room and from the school,
never to return again. This incident is the first suggestion
of a supernatural relationship between the two.
The narrator mentions briefly his course of vice and crime
of the next few years, and describes next a night of excess at
Eton. Surrounded by his boon companions, flushed with
wine and in the midst of their orgies, William Wilson is
summoned to the door by a visitor. In the darkness he dis-
tinguishes the form of his double, and hears the words, Wil-
liam Wilson, in a solemn whisper. After which, the appar-
ition disappears. .
A similar scene is described at Oxford, where William
Wilson, having ruined a fellow-student at cards by fraudu-
lent play, is exposed by the appearance of his double, who
explains to the company the secret of Wilson's winnings,
namely, cards hidden in his sleeve.
The hero is everywhere relentlessly pursued by his double.
Villain! at Rome, with how untimely, yet with how
spectral, an officiousness stepped he in between me and
my ambition! At Vienna too — at Berlin - and at
Moscow! Where, in truth, had I not bitter cause to
curse him within my heart? From his inscrutable
tyranny did I at length see, panic-stricken, as if from
a pestilence; and to the very ends of the earth I fled in
vain.
The culminating scene is described in Rome during the
carnival time. The double appears again to frustrate Wil-
son's plan. This time it is a question of a love intrigue with
the young wife of an old Roman nobleman. Wilson, in a
frenzy of rage, seizes his double and challenges him to fight.
In the duel which follows the double is killed, his death typi-
fying the final extinction of the good in William Wilson's
heart.
4 Harrison, Vol. III, page 321.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
37
The references to this evil force in Medardus's life are to
be found on almost every page. The Baroness relates to
Medardus that their secret relation is suspected by Hermogen
as follows:
In allerlei Andeutungen, die gleich schauerlichen
entsetzlichen Sprüchen einer dunklen Macht, die über
uns waltet, lauten, hat er (Hermogen) dem Baron
einen Verdacht eingeflösst, der ohne deutlich ausge-
sprochen zu sein mich doch auf quälende Weise ver-
folgt. -- Wer du bist, dass unter diesem heiligen Kleide
Graf Viktorin verborgen, das scheint Hermogen durch-
aus verschlossen geblieben; dagegen behauptet er,
aller Verrat, alle Arglist, alles Verderben, das über
uns einbrechen werde, ruhe in dir, ja wie der Wider-
sacher selbst, sei der Mönch in das Haus getreten, der
von teuflischer Macht beseelt, verdammten Verrat
brüte.
On the eve of his marriage with Aurelie, Medardus is
overcome by this “teuflische Macht.” From a window he
sees his double being carried to execution for crimes which he
has committed.
Da wurden die Geister der Hölle in mir wach, und
bäumten sich auf mit Gewalt, die ihnen verliehen über
den frevelnden vurruchten Sünder.?
Medardus relates his life to the Pope, and we hear again
of this evil power:
Glaubt Ihr, dass der Wein, den Ihr aus der Reliquien-
kammer stahlet und austranket, Euch zu den Freveln
trieb, die Ihr beginget?
The answer comes:
Wie ein von giftigen Dünsten geschwängertes Was-
ser gab er Kraft dem bösen Keim, der in mir ruhete,
dass er fortzuwuchern vermochte. 8
6 Grisebach, Vol. II, page 70.
7 Grisebach, Vol. II, page 199.
8 Grisebach, Vol. II, page 239.


38
Palmer Cobb
Again Medardus recapitulates himself this growth of evil
in his soul. He calls himself “einen muthlosen Feigling"
without strength to resist the devil.
Gering war der Keim des Bösen in mir, als ich des
Konzertmeisters Schwester sah, als der frevelige Stolz
in mir erwachte, aber da spielte mir der Satan jenes
Elixier in die Hände, das mein Blut wie ein verdamm-
tes Gift in Gärung setzte .... Wie eine phy-
sische Krankheit, von jenem Gift erzeugt, brach die
Sünde hervor.9
We follow exactly the same development in Poe's tale.
Hoffmann rescues his hero at the end from the “dunkle
Macht.” Poe gives the victory to the evil force. Medardus
writes the story of his life when he has, in a measure at
least, conquered the devil and gained peace, William Wil-
son narrates his story when he realizes that he is hopelessly
lost, his soul a forfeit to the powers of darkness. Hoffmann's
narrative takes the reader up to the point where his hero
gains the victory. Poe's tale ends at the point where Wilson
finally and definitely destroys the last germ of good still
extant in his soul. We are told in the beginning that the
remainder of his life was a history of crime and debauch.
Medardus and William Wilson both write their histories as
they feel the approach of death.
The history of Medardus's struggle against the evil which
has been traced finds its exact counterpart on the first page
of William Wilson's story. We hear at once:
From comparatively trival wickedness I passed, with
the stride of a giant, into more than the enormities of
an Elagabalus. What chance — what one event
brought this thing to pass, bear with me while I relate.
Death approaches, and the shadow which foreruns him
has thrown a softening influence over my spirit. I
long in passing through the dim valley for the sympa-
thy, I had nearly said for the pity, of my fellow-men.
I would fain have them believe that I have been in
some measure the slave of circumstances beyond human


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
39
control. I would wish them to seek out for me, in the
details I am about to give, some little oasis of fatality
amid a wilderness of error. I would have them allow,
what they cannot refrain from allowing, that although
temptation may have erewhile existed as great, man
was never thus at least tempted before, certainly never
thus fell. And is it therefore that he has never thus
suffered? Have I not indeed been living in a dream?
And am I not now dying a victim to the horror and the
mystery of the wildest of all sublunary visions ?ro
Medardus's “Gering war der Keim des Bösen in mir" is
Wilson's “comparatively trivial wickedness" with which the
latter begins his career. Hoffmann's “dunkle Macht," "das
vom Teufel beseelte Prinzip," "der bose Feind,” find their
counterpart in Poe's "slave of circumstances beyond human
control,” “oasis of fatality amid a wilderness of error,” and
the greatness and character of his hero's “temptation.”
Of Wilson's life at Eton we hear also:
I do not wish to trace the course of my miserable pro-
fligacy here - a profligacy which set at defiance the
laws, while it eluded the vigilance of the institution
(Eton).
Again:
Let it suffice, that among spendthrifts I out-Heroded
Herod, and that, giving name to a multitude of novel
follies, I added no brief appendix to the long catalogue
of vices then usual in the most dissolute university of
Europe (Oxford).
The climactic scene in Wilson's career is the final one of
the story. It is the duel with his double. It is also the
climax, or rather the decisive event, in the contest of the
good and evil.
The contest was brief indeed. I was frantic with
every species of wild excitement, and felt within my
single arm the energy and power of a multitude. In a
10Harrison, Vol. XIV, page 299,


Palmer Cobb
few seconds I forced him by sheer strength against the
wainscoting, and thus, getting him at mercy, plunged
my sword with brutal ferocity repeatedly through and
through his bosom. At that instant some person tried
the latch of the door. I hastened to prevent an intru-
sion, and then immediately returned to my dying
antagonist. But what human language can ade-
quately portray that astonishment, that horror which
possessed me at the spectacle then presented to view?
The brief moment in which I averted my eyes had been
sufficient to produce apparently a material change in
the arrangements at the upper or farther end of the
room. A large mirror — so at first it seemed to me in
my confusion - now stood where none had been per-
ceptible before; and, as I stepped up to it in extremity
of terror, mine own image, but with features all pale
and dabbled in blood, advanced to meet me with a
feeble and tottering gait.
Thus it appeared, I say, but was not. It was my
antagonist - it was Wilson who then stood before me
in the agonies of his dissolution. His mask and cloak
lay where he had thrown them upon the floor. Not a
thread in all his raiment – not a line in all the marked
and singular lineaments of his face which was not,
even in the most absolute identity, mine own!
It was Wilson: but he spoke no longer in a whisper, and
I could have fancied that I myself was speaking while
he said: “You have conquered and I yield. Yet,
henceforth art thou also dead - dead to the World, to
Heaven, and to Hope! In me didst thou exist — and,
in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how
utterly thou hast murdered thyself."'!
The death of his double is the death of the good principle
in Wilson's life. "Dead to the world, to Heaven, and to
Hope:" it is the triumph of evil, the ultimate extinction of
11 The Italics are Poe's.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
the good. It is what Medardus also fears and struggles
against."
Ich bin verflucht, ich bin verflucht! — Keine Grade -
kein Trost mehr, hier und dort! - Zur Hölle — zur
Hölle - ewige Verdamnis über mich verruchten Sünder
beschlossen.
Again:
O Gott - o, all' ihr Heiligen! lasst mich nicht wahn-
sinnig werden, nur nicht wahnsinnig – denn das
Entsetzliche muss ich sonst thun, und meine Seele
preisgeben der ewigen Verdamnis!13
Poe's very dramatic final scene is an adaptation of a
motive in Hoffmann's story. The motive, as Hoffmann has
used it, is entirely secondary. Poe, with a better estimate of
its dramatic possibilities, has elevated it to the very climax
of his story, with striking, almost startling effect. When
Medardus, shortly after leaving his monastery on his trip to
Rome, comes upon his brother-double sleeping in the forest,
the latter, startled suddenly out of his sleep by the appear-
ance of the monk, falls over a precipice, and as Medardus
supposes, meets his death. For a long period of time the
monk supposes that he has been the cause of Viktorin's
death.
Seinen scheinbaren Tod, vielleicht das leere Blendwerk
des Teufels, musste ich mir zuschreiben. Die That
machte mich vertraut mit dem Gedanken des Mordes,
der dem teuflischen Trug folgte. So war der in ver-
ruchter Sünde erzeugte Bruder das vom Teufel beseelte
Prinzip, das mich in die abscheulichsten Frevel stürzte
und mich mit den grässlichen Qualen umhertrieb.-4
In other words, the supposed death of his double, which
Medardus ascribes to himself, acquaints him with crime. It
is the initial act of crime, which introduces the series of
12Grisebach's, Vol. II, page 213.
13Grisebach, Vol. II, page 272.
14Grisebach, Vol. II, page 277.


Palmer Cobb
crimes which follows. Poe has taken exactly the same notion,
and made it the climax of his narrative. In the real death
of William Wilson's double, the last spark of good in the
former's soul is extinguished, and like Medardus, what fol-
lows is a history of crime. The seeming death of Medar-
dus's double marks the seeming victory of sin in the monk's
life. But Viktorin's death is only apparent, and Medardus
in the end gains his victory. Wilson, on the contrary, kills
his double in actual fact, and becomes thereby the victim of
the evil for all time.
The American author has adopted also Hoffmann's idea
of the personification of the two powers in a man's soul.
Medardus's double, Viktorin, is the personified incorporated
principle of evil. William Wilson's double, on the other
hand, is the living embodiment of the good principle. Both
authors expressly state as much. Poe bas taken this idea
from Hoffmann, but in so doing he has inverted it. William
Wilson's double is an agent of the good.
Medardus's double, Viktorin, serves the power of evil.
After Medardus confesses to the prior on his return to his
monastery, the latter says:
Es ist gewiss, dass Viktorin auf wunderbare Weise
errettet wurde aus dem Abgrunde, in den du ihn stürz-
test, dass er der wahnsinnige Mönch war, den der
Förster aufnahm, der dich als dein Doppelgänger ver-
folgte und hier im Kloster starb. Er diente der
dunklen Macht, die in dein Leben eingriff, nur zum
Spiel — ach, Bruder Medardus, noch geht der Teufel
rastlos auf Erden umher, und bietet den Menschen
seine Elixiere dar !15
And in the passage already quoted:
So war der in verruchter Sünde erzeugte Bruder das
vom Teufel beseelte Prinzip, das mich in die abscheu-
lichsten Frevel stürzte. — u. s. w.16
15Grisebach, Vol. II, page 267.
16Grisebach, Vol. II, page 277.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
Poe has used the same motive but has made William
Wilson's double an agent of the good. We hear of the
school days:
Yet at this distant day, let me do him the simple jus-
tice to acknowledge that I can recall no occasion when
the suggestions of my rival were on the side of those
errors or follies so usual to his immature age and seem-
ing inexperience; that his moral sense, at least, if not
his general talents and worldly wisdom, was far
keener than my own; that I might have today been
a better, and thus a happier man, had I less frequently
rejected the counsels embodied in those meaning
whispers which I then but too cordially hated and
too bitterly despised."?
In the scenes at Eton and Oxford, the appearance of Wil-
liam Wilson's double is always with the intent of frustrating
· his vice or crime. At Eton for example:
Upon my entering, he strode hurriedly up to me, and
seizing me by the arm with a gesture of petulant
impatience, whispered the words, “William Wilson!” in
my ear. I grew perfectly sober in an instant. There
was that in the manner of the stranger, and in the
tremulous shake of his uplifted finger, as he held it
between my eyes and the light, which filled me with
unqualified amazement; but it was not this which had i
so violently moved me. 18
Again, at Oxford, when the double exposes Wilson's
cheating at cards:
The darkness, however, was total and we could only
feel that he was standing in our midst. “Gentlemen,"
he said, “Gentlemen, I make no apology for this
behavior, because in thus behaving I am but fulfilling
my duty.”
17 Harrison, Vol. XIV, page 310.
18 Harrison, Vol. XIV, page 314.


Influence
45
Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
Medardus does not know at times whether he is speaking,
or whether it is the voice of his double which he hears. In
his flight from the castle after the murder of Hermogen:
Da lachte ich grimmig auf, dass es durch den Saal,
durch die Gänge dröhnte, und rief mit schrecklicher
Stimme: “Wahnwitzige, wollt ihr das Verhänghis
fahen, das die frevelnden Sünder gerichtet?” Aber des
grässlichen Anblicks! — vor mir — vor mir stand Vik-
torins blutige Gestalt, nicht ich, er hatte die Worte
gesprochen."
Poe has made this whisper and correspondence of voice
play a much larger and more effective role in his story. In
the description of the life of the two boys at school, we learn
that the favorite device of the second William Wilson for an-
noying his rival, was an exact imitation of his person, dress
and voice. But the first William Wilson, owing to a phy-
sical defect of speech, could not raise his voice above a
whisper:
His cue, which was to perfect an imitation of myself,
lay both in words and in action, and most admirably
did he play his part. My dress it was an easy matter
to copy; my gait and general manner were without
difficulty appropriated; in spite of his constitutional
defect, even my voice did not escape him. My louder
tones were of course unattempted, but then the key,
it was identical; and his singular whisper, it grew the
very echo of my own.
In the scene at Eton where the double appears:
It was the pregnancy of solemn admonition in the
singular, low, hissing utterance, and, above all, it was
the character, the tone, the key, of those few, simple
and familiar, yet whispered syllables, which came with
a thousand thronging memories of by-gone days, and
struck upon my soul with the shock of a galvanic bat-
tery.
21Grisebach Vol. II, pages 124-125.
216


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
47
i
expense of the weak-minded among my fellow-colleg-
ians. Such, nevertheless, was the fact:*
The treatment of the supernatural by both authors shows
a difference in degree only, and little in kind. Ellinger, Hoff-
mann's biographer, remarks:
Der ganze eigenthümliche Zusammenhang zwischen
Medardus und Viktorin einerseits und Medardus und
Aurelie anderseits, die geheimnisvollen Beziehungen,
die sich sonst gelegentlich ergeben, schweben auf der
Grenze der Möglichkeit und sind von Hoffmann mit
grosser Kunst auf dieser festgehalten. Sie sind in
hohem Grade unwahrscheinlich, ganz ausgeschlossen
sind sie, wenn man von einigen bereits berührten Ein-
zelheiten absieht, nicht, und bei der eigenartigen
Kraft, mit der der Dichter sie darzustellen gewusst
hat, gewinnen sie eine solche lebensvolle Anschaulich-
keit, dass es schwer ist, sich dem Banne der aus diesen
Verhältnissen sich ergebenden Vorstellungen zu
entziehen.
Again speaking of the relation between Medardus and
Viktorin:
Er (Viktorin) wird durch den Sturz wahnsinnig, und
im Wahnsinn hält er sich für den Medardus. Wie er
Kenntnis von der Persönlich heit des Medardus erhalten,
sagt der Dichter nicht, doch lässt sich dafür leicht eine
Erklärung finden. Wenn er aber im Wahnsinn Dinge
aus dem Leben des Medardus erzählt, die kein Anderer
als der eigentliche Medardus kennen kann, so treten
wir aus dem gebiete des Wirklichen in das des Wunder-
baren hinüber.23
Poe goes a step further and takes his material entirely
out of the realm of the natural. There is no explanation of
the resemblance between the double hero, as in Hoffmann.
It is the evident purpose of the American author to create a
setting of the supernatural and to remove his reader wholly
out of the reasonable, to transport him to the realm of the
22Harrison, Vol XIV, page 316.
23Ellinger, pages 120, 121.


48
Palmer Cobb
inexplicable, and to create an impression of awe, even terror,
by contact with the supernatural. As a means to this end,
Poe uses with striking effect the mysterious whisper as well
as the identity of voice between the two doubles.
Grisebach remarks also:
Bei der Form der Mitteilung aus dem eigenen Leben,
die Hoffmann gewählt hat, konnte ein Dichter leicht
der Versuchung nachgeben, alles Leben auf die Haupt-
person zusammenzudrängen, das übrige aber nur kurz
und skizzenhaft zu behandeln. Hoffmann hat diese
Gefahr durchaus zu vermeiden gewusst.
Poe uses, of course, the same form of narrative, and he
has done just what Hoffmann "knew how to avoid.” But in
so doing he has achieved a more telling, striking effect than
has the German author. In so doing he has sacrificed all
detail, all characterization, and the love episode, in order to
centre all action and interest around his double hero. Hoff-
mann vacillates on the border of the supernatural, crossing
and re-crossing it, and leaving his reader in doubt as to
whether the author himself believes in it or not. Poe leads
at once, and boldly, into another world, and keeps us in this
region of mystery, at least as long as we are reading his
story.
William Wilson is constructed after Poe's own receipt.
He has started out to produce an effect of awe-inspiring mys-
tery, and he has gathered and gleaned such motives as best
served his purpose, remolding them and fitting them together
in such a way as to make of the finished product something
all his own. In "looking about him for combinations of
events or tone,” he has drawn largely on Hoffmann: first, for
the idea of the double existence, and secondly, for its typifi-
cation of the good and evil forces in man's soul. Also,
various other motives of minor importance in Hoffmann's
story have been used by the American; — such as the murder-
ing of the double with its consequent extinction of the good
principle; the mysterious, solemn whisper, and the exact cor-
respondence of the double's voice; and, finally, the gambling
proclivities of William Wilson. These all have their count-
erparts in Hoffmann's story.


CHAPTER V
HOFFMANN's Magnetiseur AND Poe's Tale of the Ragged
Mountains,
Poe and Hoffmann, both ever alert for the novel and the
fantastic, were powerfully attracted by the doctrines of Mes-
mer and the theories of hypnotism. The absolute novelty of
the discovery and the fact that its principles were but half
understood, lent to the subject an additional charm of inter-
est. The disciples of the new theories tantalized themselves
with promises of the discovery of many of the deep secrets of
nature which have always allured and baffled the brain of
man. Both authors busied themselves very earnestly with
the study of the subject, and both turned to good account in
their stories the results of their investigations. Among Poe's
best known stories are perhaps Mesmeric Revelations and The
Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, both of which represent a
flight of fancy into the realm of the unknown, motivated by
the fiction of a conversation with a person hypnotized just
previous to death.
The doctrine of hypnotism plays more or less of a role in
all of Hoffmann's stories. On almost every page of his works
one finds such expressions as, “das höhere geistige Prinzip,”
"eine fremdliche feindliche Kraft,” “innige geistige Verbin-
dung,” and a dozen other similar phrases, all savoring of the
mystery of the influence of mind upon mind. In two of his
stories, Der unheimliche Gast and Der Magnetiseur, Hoff-
mann has based plot and incident upon the hypnotic relation-
ship existing between his characters. The general features
of both these stories agree, as Hoffmann himself points out."
Aside from the large role which hypnotism plays in Poe's
and Hoffmann's stories, they have also in common a large
interest if not positive belief, in the doctrine of metempsycho-
1 Grisebach, Vol. I, page 131.


50
Palmer Cobb
sis. Both authors have used this singular belief in their
stories. Ingram remarks with reference to the story Ber-
enice :
Among the peculiarities of the early draft of this work
— some of which disappeared in later versions— it will
be noted by his readers, is the first development of Poe's
assumed belief in metempsychosis, a doctrine that, in
subsequent writings, he recurred to again and again,
and which it is scarcely assuming too much to say at
times he evidently partially believed in.
This doctrine forms the basic idea of the stories Ligeia,
Morella, and Eleanora, and plays more or less of a part in
several other tales.
Hoffmann's collection of stories which he calls the Serapi-
onsbrüder (from which Poe got his idea of the Folio Club)
takes its title from the story of the hermit monk Serapion,
whose insanity consists in the belief that he is the martyred
monk Serapion, whose death had occurred four hundred years
previous to the time in which the story is told. Hoffmann,
with a characteristic mixture of realism and mystery, makes
his monk insane, but makes the wisdom of his insanity supe-
rior to that of the sanity of his fellows, who try to convince
Serapion that he is suffering from monomania or a fixed idea.
In the end, Hoffmann leaves his reader with the idea that the
monk is sane and the rest of the world too ignorant to under-
stand him. The new club is dedicated to this monk Serapion,
the members style themselves the “Serapionsbrüder,” and
"das echt-Serapionische" is the standard of excellence set up
for their productions.
There is nothing singular in the fact that both authors
should have evinced strong interest in hypnotism and in the
doctrine of metempsychosis, nor does the fact that they both
used these motives in their stories necessarily imply an influ-
ence of the one upon the other. But when we find both of
these motives united in one story, and worked out with almost
2 Page 101.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
51
exact similarity of motivation and even detail, and when we
consider the novelty of the idea, it is safe to assume that the
two authors did not accidentally hit upon the same singular
combination of singular motives, without the one having
received a suggestion from the other In Poe's Tale of the
Ragged Mountains, and in Hoffmann's Magnetiseur we find
a union of the doctrines of hypnotism and metempsychosis,
and both interwoven with almost exact correspondence in the
work of both authors. The similarity manifests itself not
only in general outlines, but is evident even in unimportant
details, so as to form a consecutive thread of resemblance.
It is worth noting also in this connection that the tale Morella,
in which Poe expresses his interest in “those mystical writ-
ings which are usually considered the mere dross of German
literature,” is also the story in which his fancy for the doc-
trine of metempsychosis is most unmistakably expressed.
Throughout the story, Poe has in mind, evidently, his Ger-
man reading. Besides these “mystical writings” of German
literature, we hear in the same story of the "pantheism of
Fichte,” and “the doctrine of Identity as urged by Schel-
ling.” In thus writing on the subject Poe admits, more or
less, a German source for his interest in the subject. But it
is in the Tale of the Ragged Mountains that he has drawn
most closely on Hoffmann, from the latter's Magnetiseur.
Hoffmann's tale suffers somewhat from lack of unity.
There are three distinct elements in the story, all of which
are somewhat loosely joined together by the participation of
the same persons in all three of the incidents. We are first
introduced to a family group, the members of which are gath-
ered around a cheerful fire on a stormy autumn evening, and
engaged in a lively discussion of the nature of dreams. This
serves as an introduction to a story which the Baron, the
head of the family, is induced to relate. The story in ques-
tion has to do with a dream or experience of his youth. He
proceeds to describe one of his instructors, an officer of colos-
sal stature, gaunt, lean, and with a “burning glance.” Hoff-
mann builds up an atmosphere of mystery around this Danish


52
Palmer Cobb
major by the description of his person, various personal attri-
butes, and finally by the hypnotic influence which he exerted
on his pupils.
· Im höchsten Grad jähzornig, konnte ihn ein Wort, ein
Blick, in Wuth setzen. Er bestrafte die Zöglinge mit
ausgedachter Grausamkeit, und doch hing alles an ihm
auf eine ganz unbegreifliche Weise.3
The Baron tells also of the influence of the Major on him,
and comes at last to the climax of the story, in which he sees
in a dream the Major enter his room, and hears the words,
Armes Menschenkind, erkenne deinen Meister und
Herrn .... Ich bin dein Gott, der dein Inner-
stes durchschaut, und alles, was du darin jemals verbor-
gen hast oder verbergen willst, liegt hell und klar vor
mir.
The Baron awakes out of his dream as the Major plunges
a dag ger into the dreamer's brain. Terrified, the Baron
throws open his window and sees the Major disappearing
through the garden into the open country beyond. The
mystery of the situation is enhanced by the fact that all
doors and exits are locked and there is no natural way to
explain the Major's presence in the garden. Other inmates
of the house being aroused, they break into the Major's room
and find him lying dead in his blood.
The Baron ends his story thus, a general discussion is
again resumed, and we hear next a second dream-story from
the Baron's son, Ottmar. The latter has his story from his
friend Alban, who is a convert to hypnotism, or, as Hoffmann
terms it, magnetism. The relation of characters is somewhat
confusing. Ottmar relates the story as he has heard it from
his friend Alban, and the story deals in its turn with another
friend of Alban's, Theobald, who is not otherwise concerned
in the action, and a stranger to the group in which the tales
are being related. Theobald is described as follows:
Seine ganze Musse – und daher sein Leben wollte er
dazu verwenden. soviel als möglich in die geheimnis-
3Grisebach, Vol. I, page 143.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
53
vollsten Tiefen der psychischen Einwirkungen zu drin-
gen, und fortwährend seinen Geist fester und fester
darauf fixierend, sich rein erhaltend von allem dem
Widerstrebenden ein würdiger Lehrling der Natur zu
werden.4
In Theobald's absence at the university, his fiancée comes
under the influence of a stranger, an Italian officer, and
becomes so enamored of the latter that she forgets her first
lover. The story hinges about the theory of dreams. The
girl is so beset by tormenting dreams of her Italian lover,
who is absent on a campaign, that she falls into insanity.
Theobald, returning home finds her in this condition. He
applies his principles of hypnotism, and effects a cure. He
proceeds in such a manner that the influence of his mind upon
that of the girl is made to supersede the influence of the Ital-
ian. Gradually, Theobald supplants the Italian lover in her
dreams, and she is restored.
Auguste empfing ihn (Theobald) mit der höchsten
Aufwallung der innigsten Liebe. Bald nachher ge-
stand sie unter vielen Thränen, wie sie sich gegen
ihn vergangen; wie es einem Fremden auf eine selt-
same Weise gelungen, sie von ihm abwendig zu
machen, so dass sie, wie von einer fremden Gewalt
befangen, ganz aus ihrem eigenen Wesen herausge-
raten sei, aber Theobalds wohlthätige Erscheinung in
lebhaften Traümen, habe die feindlichen Geister, die
sie bestrickt, verjagt; ja, sie müsse gestehen, dass sie
jetzt nicht einmal des Fremden aüssere Gestalt sich ins
Gedächtnis zurückrufen könne, und nur Theobald lebe
in ihrem Innern.5
This is the end of the second episode. The third element
forms the real centre of the tale. As Ottmar finishes his
narrative his sister Marịa, who has been present during the
narration of both tales, falls in a faint, and Ottmar's friend,
4 Grisebach; Vol. I, page 154.
5 Grsiebach; Vol. I, page 157


54
Palmer Cobb
Alban, the “Magnetiseur,” is called to attend her. The lat-
ter has been so attracted by Maria that he determines,
although she is already betrothed, to bring her under the
power of his will by means of hypnotic influence. Maria
falls into a hypnotic trance, and Alban is called to attend her.
He effects a cure, but in so doing succeeds in impressing his
will and thought with such power upon her that she exists
wholly within the sway of his will. Maria writes to her
friend:
Nur in diesem mit Ihm und in Ihm sein kann ich wahr-
haftig leben, und es müsste, wäre es ihm möglich, sich
mir geistig ganz zu entziehn, mein Selbst, in toter Öde
erstarren; ja, indem ich dieses schreibe, fühle ich nur
zu sehr, dass nur Er es ist, der mir den Ausdruck gibt,
mein Sein in ihm wenigstens anzudeuten.
On her wedding day Maria falls dead at the altar, Alban
flees, the bridegroom is killed in a duel with Ottmar, the old
Baron dies of grief, and the story ends in general misery.
At several points in the story the Baron expresses his dis-
trust of Alban. and finds a singular resemblance between him
and the Danish Major of his story. On the eve of Maria's
wedding, the old Baron, meeting Alban in the corridor, mis-
takes him for the Major in the flesh. The reader is left with
the suggestion that the Danish Major of the first part of the
story, and Alban, the “Magnetiseur,” are one and the same
person, although the Major is long since dead, and described
as an old man in the Baron's youth, while Alban is of the
same age as the Major's son. It is thus that Hoffmann uses
the theory of metempsychosis.
Poe's tale has the same elements,- hypnotism, the
inetempsychosis theory, and the dreams and visions. As fre-
quently in Poe's tales, there is no love episode. We learn
first of a singular relationship existing between the two
characters of the story, Bedloe, an invalid, and his physician,
Dr. Templeton. The latter is a disciple of Mesmer, and uses
6 Grisebach, Vol. I, page 164.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
55
the mesmeric method in the treatment of his patient. Poe
briefly explains the relationship existing between Bedloe and
Templeton, and what follows, the real story, is an account of
a dream or vision of Bedloe on a solitary walk in the moun-
tains of Virginia, Growing tired, he seats himself under a
tree for rest. He is oppressed by the closeness of the atmo-
spbere. He observes suddenly that the tree under which he is
sitting is a palm, the surrounding mist rolls away, and a pan-
orama of the orient is unfolded to his view. .
I found myself at the foot of a high mountain, and
looking down into a vast plain, through which wound
a majestic river. On the margin of this river stood an
Eastern-looking city, such as we read of in the Arabian
Tales, but of a character even more singular than any
there described . ... The streets seemed innum-
erable, and crossed each other irregularly in all direc-
tions, but were rather long winding alleys than streets,
and absolutely swarmed with inhabitants. On every
hand was a wilderness of balconies, of verandas, of
minarets, of shrines, and fantastically carved oriels.
Bazaars abounded, and in these were displayed rich
wares in infinite variety and profusion-silks, muslins,
the most dazzling cutlery, the most magnifiicent jew-
els and gems. etc.?
Bedloe arises and descends into the city. There every-
thing is tumult and confusion. Strife is raging between two
factions of the populace. Bedloe joins the weaker party, is
with his confrères overcome and compelled to seek refuge in
a kiosk. From there he observes “a vast crowd, in furious
agitation, surrounding and assaulting a gay palace that over-
hung the river. Presently from an upper window of this
palace, there descended an effeminate-looking person, by
means of a string made of the turbans of his attendants. A
boat was at hand, in which he escaped to the opposite bank
of the river." In a sally from the kiosk he is struck by an
7 Harrison, Vol. V, page 169.
8 Harrison, Vol. V, page 172.


56
Palmer Cobb
arrow. “I reeled and fell. An instantaneous and dreadful
sickness seized me. I struggled — I gasped — I died.” When
Bedloe comes to his original self again he is again in the
mountains, and proceeding on his way home, after his walk.
The narrative of the dream ends thus: “And not now, even
for an instant, can I compel my understanding to regard it as
a dream."
At the conclusion of Bedloe's narrative, Dr. Templeton,
Poe's “magnetiseur,” who is present, produces a water-color
portrait which is an exact likeness of Bedloe's features. The
explanation is as follows:
You will perceive the date of this picture - it is here,
scarcely visible, in this corner — 1780. In this year
was the portrait taken. It is the likeness of a dead
friend — a Mr. Oldeb — to whom I became much
attached at Calcutta, during the administration of
Warren Hastings. I was then only twenty years old.
When I first saw you, Mr. Bedloe, at Saratoga, it
was the miraculous similarity which existed between
yourself and the painting which induced me to accost
you, to seek your friendship, and to bring about those
arrangements which resulted in my becoming your con-
stant companion. In accomplishing this point, I was
urged partly, and perhaps principally, by a regretful
memory of the deceased, but also, in part, by an uneasy
and not altogether horrorless curiosity respecting
yourself.
In your detail of the vision which presented itself to
you amid the hills, you have described, with the minut-
est accuracy, the Indian city of Benares upon the Holy
River. The riots, the combats, the massacre, were the
actual events of the insurrection of Cheyte Sing, which
took place in 1780, when Hastings was put in immi-
nent peril of his life. The man escaping by the string
of turbans was Cheyte Sing himself. The party in the
kiosk were sepoys and British officers headed by Hast-
ings. Of this party I was one, and did all I could to


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
57
prevent the rash and fatal sally of the officer who fell,
in the crowded alley, by the poisoned arrow of a Ben-
galee. That officer was my dearest friend. It was
Oldeb. You will perceive by these manuscripts (here
the speaker produced a note book in which several
pages appeared to have been freshly written) that at
the very period in which you fancied these things amid
the hills, I was engaged in detailing them upon paper
here at home.
The tale ends with the death of Bedloe. The author's
attention is attracted to it by the announcement in the paper
of the death of a Mr. Bedlo. By a typographical error the
name has been written without the e. The reader's attention
is called to the fact that Bedlo is Oldeb reversed. Thus we
have the same suggestion, — Bedloe is the reincarnation of
Oldeb, — the doctrine of metempsychosis.
Both author's have made use of hypnotism, metempsycho-
sis, and the phenomena of dreams. In both stories these
singular motives are united. Poe and Hoffmann have built
up their tales around the same general framework.
The three parts of Hoffmann's story already outlined por-
tray a group of people all more or less subject to the will of
the "magnetiseur,” or hypnotist. In each case the centre of
interest is a man of commanding will, who exerts a mesmeric
influence over certain other persons of the tale. It is first
the Danish major of the Baron's tale, who establishes this
relationship between himself and his pupils.
So hiess es von ihm, er könne das Feuer besprechen,
und Krankheiten durch das Auflegen der Hände, ja
durch den blossen Blick heilen, und ich erinnere mich,
dass er einmal Leute, die durchaus von ihm auf diese
Art geheilt sein wollten, mit Stockschlägen verjagte.
.... Erfüllte mich nun mein Beisammensein mit
ihm auch mit einem gewissen Wohlbehagen, so war es
doch wieder eine gewisse Angst, das Gefühl eines
9Harrison, Vol. V, page 174.


Palmer Cobb
unwiderstehlichen Zwanges, das mich auf eine unna-
türliche Art spannte, ja das mich innerlich erbeben
machte. War ich lange bei ihm gewesen, ja hatte er
mich besonders freundlich behandelt und mir, wie er
denn zu tun pflegte, mit starr auf mich geheftetem
Blick meine Hand in der seinigen festhaltend, allerlei
Seltsames erzählt, so konnte mich jene ganz eigne
wunderbare Stimmung biz zur höchsten Erschöpfung
treiben. 10
In Ottmar's narrative, the same principle plays the chief
role.
Der wieder erweckte thierische Magnetismus sprach
seine ganze Seele an, (Theobald) und indem er unter
Albans Leitung eifrig alles, was je darüber geschrie-
ben, studirte, und selbst auf Erfahrungen ausging,
wandte er sich bald, jedes physische Medium, als der
tiefen Idee rein psychisch wirkender Naturkräfte
zuwider, verwerfend, zu dem sogenannten barbareiis-
chen Magnetismus, oder der älteren Schule der Spirit-
ualisten, u. s. w."
Theobald undertakes the cure of his fiancée by means of
magnetism and the control of her dreams. The real crux of
the story is the hypnotic relationship which exists between
Alban and Maria. As the latter falls into a trance, Alban
is called to attend her, and uses the magnetic treatment in
her cure. Maria describes her recovery in a letter to her
friend:
Nun muss ich dir aber etwas Besonderes sagen - näm-
lich, was mein Genesen betrifft, das habe ich einem
herrlichen Mann zu danken, den Ottmar schon früher
ins Haus gebracht, und der in der Residenz, unter all
den grossen und geschickten Ärzten der einzige sein
soll, der das Geheimnis besitzt, eine solche sonderbare
Krankheit, wie die meinige, schnell und sicher zu heilen
10Grisebach, Vol. I, page 143.
11Grisebach, Vol. I, 153.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
59
.... So wie Alban überhaupt in seiner Bildung,
in seinem ganzen Betragen, eine gewisse Würde, ich
möchte sagen, etwas Gebietendes hat, das ihn über
seine Umgebung erhebt, so war es mir gleich, als er
seinen ernsten durchdringenden Blick auf mich rich-
tete; ich müsste alles unbedingt thun, was er gebieten
würde, und als ob er meine Genesung nur recht lebhaft
wollen dürfe, um mich ganz herzustellen."
We have also Alban's standpoint, in a letter to a friend.
Maria fiel bald darauf in einen fantastichen Zustand,
den Ottmar natürlicherweise für eine neue Krankheit
balten musste, und ich kam wieder als Arzt ins Haus,
wie ich es vorausgesehen. Maria erkannte in mir den,
der ihr schon oft in der Glorie der beherrschenden Macht
als ihr Meister im Traum erschienen, und alles, was sie
nur dunkel geahnet, sah sie nun hell und klar mit ihres
Geistes Augen. Nur meines Blickes, meines festen
Willens bedurfte es, sie in den sogenannten somnam-
bulen Zustand zu versetzen, der nichts anders war, als
das gänzliche Hinaustreten aus sich selbst und das
Leben in der höheren Sphäre des Meisters. Es war
mein Geist, der sie dann willig aufnahm und ihr die
Schwingen gab, dem Kerker, mit dem sie die Menschen
überbaut hatten, zu entschweben.
Thus the theme of the whole story is the mastery of one
mind over another by means of hypnotism. The hypnotist
proceeds gradually. He wins at first an influence, more or
less powerful, over his subject. This is gradually increased
till at length the subject is wholly subservient to the mas-
ter's will. A glance, or even the mere concentration of the
hypnotist's will is sufficient to put the subject into the hyp-
notic state, which is described as “das gänzliche Hinaustre-
ten aus sich selbst und das Leben in der höheren Sphäre des
Meisters.” Hoffmann's hypnotist always controls the dreams
of his subjects while in the hypnotic state. The Baron's
12 Grisebach, Vol. I, page 163.


60
Palmer Cobb
dream of the dagger in his brain is suggested to him by his
hypnotic master, the Danish Major. There is always the
idea of the mastership of the “Magnetiseur,” and the help-
lessness of the subject, connected in each case by the dream
phenomena. The Major's words in the Baron's dream are
typical of this: “Armes Menschenkind, erkenne deinen Meis-
ter und Herrn.”
Theobald cures his fiancée's insanity by his hypnotic mas-
tery of her dream:
Er setzte sich daneben (by the side of her bed), und den
Geist mit der ganzen Kraft des Willens auf sie fixie-
rend, schaute er sie mit festem Blick an. Nachdem er
dies einige Mal wiederholt, schien der Eindruck ihrer
Träume schwächer zu werden, denn der Ton, mit dem
sie sonst den Namen des Offiziers gewaltsam hervor-
schrie, hatte nicht mehr das die ganze Seele Durch-
dringende, und tiefe Seufzer machten der gepressten
Brust Luft. Nun legte Theobald auf ihre Hand die
seinige, und nannte leise, ganz leise, seinen Namen.
Bald zeigte sich die Wirkung . . . . Bis jetzt
war Auguste am Tage still und in sich gekehrt
gewesen, aber an dem Morgen nach jener Nacht
aüsserte sie ganz unerwartet der Mutter, wie sie seit
einiger Zeit lebhaft von Theobald traüme, und warum
er denn nicht käme, ja nicht einmal schriebe. 13
Alban's mastery over Maria is achieved in the same way.
In the letter of Maria, already quoted, the following passage
occurs:
Das Besondere ist aber, dass in meinen Traumen und
Erscheinungen immer ein schöner ernster Mann im
Spiele war, der, unerachtet seiner Jugend, mir wahr-
hafte Ehrfurcht einflösste, und der bald auf diese, bald
auf jene Weise, aber immer in langen Talaren geklei-
det, mit einer diamanten Krone auf dem Haupte, mir
wie der romantische König in der märchenhaften Geis-
terwelt erschien und allen bösen Zauber löste ...
13Grisebach, Vol. I, page 157.


Palmer Cobb
At the first attempt to induce the magnetic somnolency,
the mesmerist entirely failed. In the fifth or sixth, he
succeeded very partially, and after long continued
efforts. Only at the twelfth was the triumph com-
plete. After this, the will of the patient succumbed
rapidly to that of the physician, so that, when I first
became acquainted with the two, sleep was brought
almost instantaneously by the mere volition of the
operator, even when the invalid was unaware of his
presence.16
Hoffmann's “Magnetiseur,” as has already been shown,
always controls the dreams of his subjects. The whole of
Poe's story is the narrative of a dream which the hypnotist
suggests to his patient. When Bedloe finishes the narrative
of his vision, Templeton, the hypnotist, comes forward with
this explanation:
“You will perceive by these manuscripts,” (here the
speaker produced a note-book in which several pages
appeared to have been freshly written) "that at the
very period in which you fancied these things amid the
hills, I was engaged in detailing them upon paper here
at home."'17
In other words, the explanation is that Belloe is in the
hypnotic trance, that his mind is under the control of the
hypnotist, and that the dream is the result of suggestion from
the latter, - exactly the status of affairs which exists in
Hoffmann's story between the Danish Major and his pupils,
Theobald and his fiancée, and Maria and Alban.
In addition to this use of hypnotism, the two stories have
in common a similar treatment of metem psychosis, a form of
the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, - the idea that
an individual after death may be reincarnated and lead a sec-
ond existence, and that there may be even a thread of connec-
tion between these two periods of existence. Poe and Hoff-
18 Harrison, Vol. V, page 165.
17 Harrison, Vol. V, page 165.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
mann both further accentuate the idea, and add to the mys-
terious by creating between their individuals of the first and
second existence, a physical and psychic resemblance. Such
is the relationship which exists between Hoffmann's Major
and Alban, the “Magnetiseur," and also between Poe's Oldeb
and Bedloe.
Hoffmann's description of the Major's person is as follows:
Seine Riesengrösse wurde noch auffallender durch die
Hagerkeit seines Körpers, der nur aus Muskeln und
Nerven zu bestehen schien; er mochte in jüngern Jah-
ren ein schöner Mann gewesen sein; denn noch jetzt
warfen seine grossen schwarzen Augen einen brennen-
den Blick, den man kaum ertragen konnte; ein tiefer
Funfziger hatte er die Kraft und die Gewandtheit eines
Jünglings."
Poe, in describing Bedloe, is evidently painting from this
model:
But in no regard was he (Bedloe) more singular than
in his personal appearance. He was singularly tall
and thin. He stooped much. . . . . His eyes
were abnormally large and round like those of a cat.
The pupils, too, upon any accession or diminution of
light, underwent contraction or dilation, just such as
is observed in the feline tribe. In moments of excite-
ment, the orbs grew bright to a degree almost incon-
ceivable, etc.
Bedloe is the officer Oldeb in the second existence, Alban
is the Danish officer also in the second existence.
Hoffmann, ever loath to quit absolutely the field of the
natural, suggests rather than states explicitly this state of
affairs. Early in Hoffmann's story the Baron expresses his
distrust of Alban, the “Magnetiseur.”
Als Ottmar ihn vor mehreren Monaten als seinen
innigsten Freund zu uns brachte, war es mir, els habe
ich ihn irgend einmal schon gesehen; seine Feinheit,
18 Grisebach, Vol. I, page 141.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
65
Hoffmann thus mystifies his readers by suggesting the
identity of the Major and Alban and then scouts the idea as
the result of a disordered stomach. i
Poe goes a step further, and leaves his reader to infer
that he believes in the identity of the officer Oldeb with Bed-
loe. Like Hoffmann, with his Danish Major, he makes an
atmosphere of mystery around Bedloe by the peculiarity of
the latter's person. Bedloe seems young and yet there were
moments “when one might have easily believed him to be a
hundred.” His eyes seemed “to emit luminous rays, not of a
reflected, but of an intrinsic lustre, as does a candle or the
sun; yet their ordinary condition was so totally vapid, filmy,
and dull, as to convey the idea of the eyes of a long interred
corpse."21 These touches carry with them the suggestion of
death in connection with Bedloe. Again, in Bedloe's descrip-
tion of his dream, when he comes to the point where he is
struck by an arrow, and in his dream sees himself die, the
author interrupts him by the question,
“You will hardly persist now” said I, smiling, “that
the whole of your adventure was not a dream. You are
not prepared to maintain that you are dead?”
When I said these words, I of course expected some
lively sally from Bedloe in reply; but to my astonish-
ment, he hesitated, trembled, became fearfully pallid,
and remained silent. I looked towards Templeton. He
sat erect and rigid in his chair_his teeth chattered,
and his eyes were starting from their sockets.
At the conclusion of Bedloe's narrative of his dream, Tem-
pleton (Poe's hypnotist) explains the vision as an actual
occurrence in the city of Benares in India, produces a portrait
which is the exact reproduction of Bedloe's features, and
explains that it is a likeness of his dead friend Oldeb, who
played exactly the part in the insurrection which Bedloe plays
in the dream. The story ends with this suggestion from the
author, who, shortly afterwards, reads in a local newspaper
of Bedlo's death,
21 Harrison, vol. V, page 164.


66
Palmer Cobb
"Then,” said I, mutteringly, as I turned upon my heel,
“then indeed has it come to pass that one truth is
stranger than any fiction, for Bedlo, without the e,
what is it but Oldeb conversed? And this man tells
me it is a typographical error.”
Bedloe's dream is the result of hypnotic suggestion from
Templeton, the dream itself is identified with an actual
occurrence, and Bedloe himself is identified with Oldeb, an
officer long since dead.
Parallel motives in Hoffmann's story are Alban's control of
Maria by hypnotic suggestion, especially in her dreams, and
the identity of the Danish Major and Alban.
The phenomena of dreams and sleep, especially of magnetic
sleep, interested both authors keenly. Elsewhere in Poe's
works there are numerous passages relative to this subject
which echo opinions and experiences of the German author.
For example, the dream of Bedloe, as he relates it, contains
certain elements, the suggestions for which Poe undoubtedly
drew from a dream of Medardus in “Die Elixiere des
Teufels.” It will be recalled that Bedloe in a vision saw
himself killed, and viewed with the eyes of his soul his life-
less body. Let us compare Madardus's dream with that of
Bedloe. The incident in question occurs at that point in the
story where the monk is recovering from his illness in a mon-
astery near Rome.
Der Arzt versprach meine baldige Herstellung, und in
der That empfand ich nur in den Augenblicken jenes
Delirierens, das dem Einschlafen vorherzugehen pflegt,
fieberhafte Anfälle, die mit kalten Schauern und flie-
gender Hitze wechselten. Gerade in diesen Augen-
blicken war es, als ich, ganz erfüllt von dem Bilde
meines Martyriums, mich selbst, wie es schon oft
geschehen, durch einen Dolchstich in der Brust ermor-
dert schaute ... Statt des Blutes quoll ein ekel-
hafter farbloser Saft aus der weit aufklaffenden Wunde
und eine Stimme sprach: Ist das Blut vom Märtyrer
vergossen? Ich war es, der dies gesprochen, als ich


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
67
mich aber von meinem toten Selbst getrennt fühlte,
merkte ich wohl, dass ich der wesenlose Gedanke meines
Ichs sei, und bald erkannte ich mich als das im Aether
schwimmende Rot. Ich schwang mich auf zu den
leuchtenden Bergspitzen . . . So wie ich tiefer und
tiefer niederfiel, erblickte ich die Leiche mit weit auf-
klaffender Wunde in der Brust, aus der jenes unreine
Wasser in Strömen floss. Mein Hauch sollte das Wasser
umwandeln in Blut, doch geschah es nicht, die Leiche
richtete sich auf und starrte mich an mit hohlen gräss-
lichen Augen und heulte wie der Nordwind in tiefer
Kluft. . . . Die Leiche sank nieder; alle Blumen
auf der Flur neigten verwelkt ihre Häupter, Menschen,
bleichen Gespenstern ähnlich, warfen sich zur Erde
und ein tausendstimmiger trostloser Jammer stieg in
die Lüfte. .Stärker und stärker wie des Meeres
brausende Welle, schwoll die Klage! der Gedanke
wollte zerstäuben in dem gewaltigen Ton des trostlosen
Jammers, da wurde ich wie durch einen elektrischen
Schlag emporgerissen aus dem Traum.
Bedloe's dream has all the same features and even literal
correspondences of phrase. He is describing the peculiar
arrows of the enemy:
One of them struck me upon the right temple. I reeled
and fell. An instantaneous and dreadful sickness seized
me. I struggled! I gasped! I died. For many minutes
my sole sentiment, my sole feeling, was that of dark-
ness and nonentity, with the consciousness of death.
At length, there seemed to pass a violent and sudden
shock through my soul, as if of electricity. With it
came the sense of elasticity and of light. This latter
I felt-not saw. In an instant I seemed to rise from
the ground. But I had no bodily, no visible, audible
or palpable presence. . . . Beneath me lay my
corpse, with the arrow in the temple, the whole head
22 Grisebach, Vol. II, p. 250.


68
Palmer Cobb
greatly swollen and disfigured. But all these things I
felt — not saw. . . . Volition I had none, but ap-
peared to be impelled into motion, and fitted buoyantly
out of the city, retracing the circuitous path by which
I had entered it. When I had attained that point of
the ravine in the mountains at which I had encoun-
tered the hyena, I again experienced a shock as of a
galvanic battery; the sense of weight, of volition, of
substance returned. I became my original self, and
bent my steps eagerly homeward.23
Both dreamers see themselves killed, the one by a dagger,
the other by an arrow. Separation of the soul and body fol-
lows. The soul is then dissolved into the ether, after which
the body with its gaping wounds is plainly visible. Finally,
a reunion of the body and soul takes place; in Hoffmann's
story “durch einen elektrischen Schlag,” in Poe's narrative
by a “shock as of a galvanic battery." Poe has thus adopted
Medardus's dream without change of incident, and almost
without change of language.
Other passages in Poe's works which have to do with
dreams and their attendant phenomena reveal the unmistak-
able influence of Hoffmann. Medardus's dream, quoted above,
occurs in “den Augenblicken jenes Delirierens, das dem Ein-
schlafen vorherzugehen pflegt.” The same expression occurs
in Kreisleriana. 24
Nicht sowohl im Traume, als im Zustande des Delirie-
rens, der dem Einschlafen, vorhergeht, vorzüglich wenn
ich viel Musik gehört habe, finde ich eine Uebereinkunft
der Farben, Töne and Düfte.
In Poe's Colloquy of Monos and Una, 25 there occurs a pas-
sage which embodies the same experience. The passage in
Poe occurs where the hero of the story, Monos, is describing
the sensations of death.
The senses were unusually active, although eccentric-
23 Harrison; Vol. V, page 172 and following.
24 Grisebach; Vol. I, page 46.
25 Harrison; Vol. IV, page 206.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
69
ally so - assuming often each other's functions at ran-
dom. The taste and smell were inextricably confounded,
and became one sentiment, abnormal and intense.
Again in Poe's Marginalia we find a description of a con-
dition preceding sleep which corresponds to Hoffmann's
“Augenblicken, die dem Einschlafen vorherzugehen pflegen."
Poe remarks that the common experience that certain thoughts
are beyond the compass of words is based on a fallacy:
For my own part, I have never had a thought which
I could not set down in words. . . . There is, how-
ever, a class of fancies, of exquisite delicacy, which are
not thoughts, and to which as yet I have found it abso-
lutely impossible to adapt language. I use the word
fancies at random, and merely because I must use some
word; but the idea commonly attached to the term is
not even remotely applicable to the shadows of shadows
in question. They seem to me rather psychic than
intellectual. They arise in the soul (alas, how rarely!)
only at its epochs of most intense tranquility, when
the bodily and mental health are in perfection - and
at those mere points of time when the confines of the
waking world blend with those of the world of dreams.
I am aware of these 'fancies' only when I am upon the
very brink of sleep, with the consciousness that I am
So. 26
Poe's “fancies” which he experiences “on the very brink
of sleep,” are evidently the same as Hoffmann's "Träume im
Zustand des Delierierens, der dem Einschlafen vorherzugehen
pflegt.”
Both authors also give expression to the idea that it is in
dreams that men are permitted to catch fleeting glimpses of
another world. That dreams are, in a way, a partial revela-
lation of those secrets of the universe which tantalize and
baffle the powers of the intellect.
Hoffmann's Magnetiseur opens with the proverb "Träume
sind Schäume.” In the long discussion of the subject of
26 Harrison; Vol. XVI, page 88.


Palmer Cobb
The theme of both stories is the selfishness of art, and both
authors have used exactly the same incidents to serve their
purpose. With Poe, the telling of his story is the first object,
the illustration of his theory a secondary consideration.
Hoffmann's story, on the contrary, is so thoroughly infused
with his ideas on the subject of art as to make its tone seem
at times almost didactic.
Poe adopts Hoffmann's device for the introduction of his
story, varying from the German only in the setting. Hoff-
mann's story begins in the first person. A traveler tells of
an accident to his traveling carriage which necessitated a
stop of several days, for repairs, in a small village, apparently
in South Germany. The traveler naturally casts about him
for ways and means of entertaining himself during his
enforced stay at the small country inn. He bethinks him-
self of a certain Professor in a Jesuit College located in the
town, a man known to him by reputation. Claiming the
right of his acquaintance by virtue of common friends, the
traveler seeks out the Professor, and the latter, among other
things, shows him the College and the neighboring Jesuit
Church. It is during their passage through the church that
we catch a first glimpse of the artist whose life story com-
prises the tale.
Dem Hochaltare links war ein hohes Gerüste errichtet,
auf dem ein Mann stand, der die Wände in Giallo
antik übermalte . . . Der Maler wandte sich nach
uns um; aber gleich fuhr er wieder fort zu arbeiten,
indem er mit dumpfer beinahe unvernehmbarer Stimme
sprach:“Viel Plage-krummes verworrenes Zeug-Kein
Lineal zu brauchen-Tiere-Affen-Menschengesichter
-0 ich elender Thor!" Das letzte rief er laut mit
einer Stimme, die nur der tiefste im Innersten wühlende
Schmerz erzeugt; ich fühlte mich auf die seltsamste
Weise aufgeregt, jene Worte und der Ausdruck des
Gesichts, der Blick, womit er zuvor den Professor an-
schaute, brachten mir das ganze zerrissene Leben eines
unglücklichen Künstlers vor Augen.'
1 Grisebach, Vol. III, page 90.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
773
Thus, in his very introduction, Hoffmann invests his hero
with a mystery, Going through the church, the Professor
and the traveler pass a picture which is covered. An expla-
nation follows.
“Dies Bild,” sprach der Professor, “ist das Schönste,
was wir besitzen, es ist das Werk eines jungen Künst-
lers der neueren Zeit-gewiss sein letztes, denn sein
Flug ist gehemmt-wir mussten in diesen Tagen das
Gemälde aus gewissen Gründen verhängen lassen, doch
bin ich vielleicht morgen, oder übermorgen imstande,
es Ihnen zu zeigen.”
The promise is fulfilled the next day, and the picture is
described as follows:
Die Komposition war wie Raphaels Stil, einfach und
himmlisch erhaben! Maria und Elizabeth in einem
schönen Garten auf einem Rasen sitzend, vor ihnen
die Kinder Johannes und Christus mit Blumen spiel-
end, im Hintergrunde seitwärts eine betende männ-
liche Figur! Marias holdes himmlisches Gesicht, die
Hoheit und Frömmigkeit ihrer ganzen Figur erfüllten
mich mit Staunen und tiefer Bewunderung. Sie war
schön, schöner als je ein Weib auf Erden, aber so wie
Raphaels Maria in der Dresdner Gallerie verküundete
ihr Blick die höhere Macht der Gottes-Mutter, ..
Sprachen die weichen halbgeöffneten Lippen nicht
tröstend, wie in holden Engels-Melodien, von der unend-
lichen Seligkeit des Himmels?
The picture is the work of the artist already introduced,
the features of the Virgin are those of his wife, and what
follows is the story of their lives.
Poe's introduction has identically this background with a
variation of locality and local color. Poe's traveler has been
wounded in a fight with bandits in the Apennines. He is
carried by his valet into a deserted chateau to rest and
recover. The description of the chateau is an excellent
example of the richness and variety of Poe's imagery.


Palmer Cobb
Its (the chateau's) decorations were rich, get tattered
and antique. Its walls were hung with tapestry and
bedecked with manifold and multiform armorial tro-
phies, together with an unusually great number of very
spirited modern paintings in frames of rich golden ara-
besque. In these paintings which depended from the
walls,—not only in their main surfaces, but in very
many nooks which the bizarre architecture of the cha-
teau rendered necessary,-in these paintings my incip-
ient delirium perhaps had caused me to take deep
interest; so that I bade Pedro to close the heavy shut-
ters of the room-since it was already night-to light
the tongues of a tall candelabrum which stood by the
head of my bed, and to throw open far and wide the
fringed curtains of black velvet which enveloped the
bed itself. I wished all this done that I might resign
myself, if not to sleep, at least to the contemplation
of these pictures, and the perusal of a small volume
which had been found under the pillow, and which pur-
ported to criticise and describe them,
Having thus read for a time, the traveler changes the
position of the candle in order that the light may fall more
directly on his book. The result is the discovery of the picture.
But the action produced an effect altogether unantici-
pated. The rays of the numerous candles (for there
were many) now fell within a niche of the room which
had hitherto been thrown into deep shade by one of the
bed posts. I thus saw in vivid light a picture all
unnoticed before. It was the portrait of a young girl
just ripening into womanhood. I glanced at the paint-
ing hurriedly, and then closed my eyes. Why I did
this was not at first apparent, even to my own percep-
tion. But while my lids remained shut, I ran over in
my mind my reason for so shutting them. It was an
impulsive movement to gain time for thought-to make
2 Harrison, Vol. IV, page 245.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
75
sure that my vision had not deceived me—to calm and
subdue my fancy for a more sober and more certain
gaze. In a very few moments I again looked fixedly at
the painting.
That I now saw aright I could not and would not
doubt; for the first flashing of the candles upon that
canvas had seemed to dissipate the dreamy stupor which
was stealing over my senses, and to startle me at once
into waking life.
The portrait, I have already said, was that of a young
girl. It was a mere head and shoulders, done in what
is technically called a vignette manner; much in the
style of the favorite heads of Sully. The arms, the
bosom, and even the ends of the radiant hair, melted
imperceptibly into the vague yet deep shadow which
formed the background of the whole. The frame was
oval, richly gilded and filagreed in Moresqne. As a
thing of art, nothing could be more admirable than the
painting itself. But it could have been neither the
execution of the work nor the immortal beauty of the
countenance, which had so suddenly and so vehemently
moved me. Least of all, could it have been that my
fancy, shaken from its half slumber, had mistaken the
head for that of a living person. I saw at once that
the peculiarities of the design, of the vignetting, and
of the frame, must have instantly dispelled such idea
-- must have prevented even its momentary entertain-
ment. Thinking earnestly upon these points, I remain-
ed, for an hour perhaps, with my vision riveted upon
that portrait. At length, satisfied with the true secret
of its effect, I fell back within the bed. I had found
the spell of the picture in its absolute life-likeness of
expression, which, at first startling, finally confounded,
subdued and appalled me. With deep and reverent awe
I replaced the candelabrum in its former position.3
3 Harrison, Vol. IV, page 246. and following.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
77
She is also the model for the Virgin in the picture already
described at the beginning. At the fall of the kingdom of
Naples, Berthold chances to rescue the princess, and her fam-
ily all having perished, she flees with him to Germany, and
becomes his wife. As his ideal, she has served as inspiration
for all his work, the source of his joy in all his achievement.
Now, she having become his wife, a new relationship grows up
between them. The artist loses interest in his work as well
as actual ability to paint. His wife, in time, comes to embit-
ter all of his pleasure in his work, even to be actively a hin-
drance to him. It is at this point that he conceives the plan
for the picture in the Jesuit Church.
Der einfache Gedanke, Maria und Elisabeth in einem
schönen Garten auf einem Rasen sitzend, die Kinder
Christus und Johannes vor ihnen im Grase spielend,
sollte der ganze Vorwurf des Bildes sein, aber verge-
bens war alles Ringen nach einer reinen geistigen An-
schauung des Gemäldes. So wie in jener unglück-
lichen Zeit der Krisis, verschwammen ihm die Gestal-
ten, und nicht die himmlische Maria, nein, ein irdisches
Weib, ach, seine Angiola selbst stand auf greuliche
Weise verzerrt, vor seines Geistes Augen. ...
Aber seine Kraft war gebrochen, all sein Bemühen, so
wie damals, nur die ohnmächtige Anstrengung des
unverständigen Kindes. Starr und leblos blieb, was er
malte, und selbst Angiola -- Angiola, sein Ideal, wurde,
wenn sie ihm sass und er sie malen wollte, auf der
Leinwand zum toten Wachsbilde, das ihn mit gläsernen
Augen anstierte.
His disappointment and anger is vented on his wife.
Nein — sie war nicht das Ideal, das mir erschien, nur
mir zum rettungslosen Verdeben hatte sie trügerisch
jenes Himmelsweibes Gestalt und Gesicht geborgt. In
wilder Verzweiflung fluchte ich ihr und dem unschul-
digen Kinde. Ich wünschte beider Tod, damit ich
6 Grisebach, Vol. III, page 111.


Palmer Cobb
erlöst werden möge von der unerträglichen Qual, die
wie mit glühenden Messern in mir wühlte. Gedanken
der Hölle stiegen in mir auf. Vergebens las ich in
Angiolas leichenblassem Gesicht, in ihren Thränen
mein rasendes freveliches Beginnen – du hast mich um
mein Leben betrogen, verruchtes Weib, brüllte ich auf,
und stiess sie mit dem Fusse von mir, wenn sie ohn-
mächtig niedersank, und meine Knie umfasste.?
Berthold's brutality causes his wife's death, and we are
given to understand that not until after her death does he suc-
ceed in giving life-likeness to her picture. In other words,
the price of the success of the picture is the life of the model.
Berthold erschien bald darauf (after his wife's death)
zu N, in Oberschlesien; er hatte sich seines Weibes und
Kindes entledigt, und fing voll heitern Mutes an, das
Bild zu malen, das er in N. vergebens begonnen hatte.8
The major portion of Poe's story is comprised in the intro-
duction and the description of the picture. The story of the
artist he professes to take from a book in the chateau.
She was a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely
than full of glee. And evil was the hour when she
saw, and loved, and wedded the painter. He passion-
ate, studious, austere, and having already a bride in his
art; she, a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more love-
ly than full of glee; all light and smiles, and frolic-
some as a young fawn; loving and cherishing all
things; hating only the Art which was her rival; dread-
ing only the pallette and the brushes and other unto-
ward instruments which deprived her of the countenance
of her lover. It was thus a terrible thing for this lady
to hear the painter speak of his desire to portray even
his young bride. But she was humble and obedient,
and sat meekly for many weeks in the dark high turret-
chamber where the light dripped upon the pale canvas
7 Grisebach, Vol. II, page 112.
8 Grisebach, Vol. III, page 112.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
79
only from overhead. But he, the painter, took glory
in his work, which went on from hour to hour, and
from day to day. And he was a passionate and wild
and moody man, who became lost in reveries; so that he
would not see that the light which fell so ghastly in
that lone turret withered the health and the spirits of
his bride, who pined visibly to all but him. Yet she
smiled on and still on, uncomplainingly, because she
saw that the painter (who had high renown, took a
fervid and burning pleasure in his task, and wrought
day and night to depict her who so loved him, yet who
grew daily more dispirited and weak. And in sooth
some who beheld the portrait spoke of its resemblance
in low, words, as of a mighty marvel, and a proof not
less of the power of the painter than of his deep love
for her whom he depicted so surpassingly well. But at
length as the labor drew near to its conclusion, there
were admitted none into the turret; for the painter had
grown wild with the ardor of his work, and turned his
eyes from the canvas rarely, even to regard the counte-
nance of his wife. And he would not see that the tints
which he spread upon the canvas were drawn from the
cheeks of her who sat beside him. And when many
weeks had passed, and but little remained to do, save
one brush upon the mouth, and one tint upon the eye,
the spirit of the lady again flickered up as the flame
within the socket of the lamp. And then the brush
was given, and then the tint was placed; and for one
moment the painter stood entranced before the work
which he had wrought; but in the next, while he yet
gazed, he grew tremulous and very pallid, and aghast,
and crying with a loud voice, “This is Life indeed!”
turned suddenly to regard his beloved:- She was dead.
To Poe belongs the credit of superior dramatic effect. He
has adopted Hoffmann's motives and the latter's guiding
thought, but the American's story is more closely constructed
and more impressive in its climax.


CHA PIT ER VII
HOFFMANN's Doge und Dogaressa AND Poe's The
Assignation
The resemblances between Hoffmann's story, Doge und
Dogaressa, and Poe's The Assignation, have been cited in
support of Poe's debt to the earlier author by most of the
critics who have argued in favor of such a debt. Stedman,
in the introduction to the Woodberry-Stedman edition of Poe,
remarks relative to the two tales:'
The Assignation derives from Hoffmann's Doge und
Dogaressa, and the tableau with the Marchesa is a
radiantly poetic variation upon the balcony scene in
the earlier tale.
In Lauvrière's Life of Poe,' the same suggestion occurs.
On a bien dit que la chute de la Maison Usher, la
scène du balcon dans L'assignation, et le Portrait Ovale
devraient beaucoup au Majorat, au Doge et Doga-
ressa, etc.
The story of the Venetian Doge, Marino Faliero, (1354),
forms the historical setting for Hoffmann's tale. The first
suggestion for his work came, as he himself tells us in the
beginning of the story, from a picture which he saw at an
exhibition in Berlin in 1816. The picture portrays an old
Doge standing with his young and beautiful Dogaressa at his
side, with a panorama of Venice as a backgrouud. A discus-
sion among a group of friends as to whether the picture was
intended to portray a historical event, or whether the subject
was simply an invention of the artist, calls forth the story of
old Faliero and his youthful bride, Annunziata.
Hoffmann introduces his story with a somewhat extended
extract from Venetian history, having to do with the causes
1 Page 96.
2 Page 595.


82
Palmer Cobb
which led up to and resulted in the calling to the ducal throne
of the old warrior, Faliero. This is an element of the story
which may be here disregarded. The old Doge is described
as a gray-headed octogenarian, but a man still possessed of
great strength of body, acuteness of mind, and decision of
action. At his first entry into Venice, after his election, his
life is endangered by a storm which threatens for a time to
engulf his barque. He is saved and landed at St. Mark's by
a common gondolier. The latter, the hero of the story, has
already been introduced by Hoffmann as follows:
Gerade in dem Augenblick, als nämlich Marino Falieri3
den Bucentoro zu besteigen im Begriff stand, und das
war am dritten Oktober abends, da schon die Sonne zu
sinken begann, lag vor den Säulen der Dogana, auf
dem harten Marmorpflaster ausgestreckt, ein armer.
unglücklicher Mensch. Einige Lumpen gestreifter
Leinwand, deren Farbe nicht mehr kenntlich' und die
sonst einem Schifferkleide, wie das gemeinste Volk der
Lastträger und Ruderknechte es trägt, angehört zu
haben schienen, hingen um den abgemagerten Körper.
Vom Hemde war nichts mehr zu sehen, als die eigne
Haut des Armen, die überall durchblickte, aber so
weiss und zart war, dass sie der Edelsten einer ohne
Scheu und Scham hätte tragen können. So zeigte
auch die Magerkeit nur desto besser das reinste
Ebenmass der wohlgebauten Glieder und betrachtete
man nun vollends die hell kastanienbraunen Locken,
die zerzaust und verworren die schönste Stirn umschat-
teten, die blauen nur von trostlosem Elend verdüster-
ten Augen, die Adlernase, den fein geformten Mund
des Unglücklichen, der höchstens zwanzig Jahre zu
zählen schien, so war es gewiss, dass irgend ein feind-
seliges Schicksal den Fremdling von guter Geburt in
die unterste Klasse des Volks geschleudert haben
musste.
3 Hoffmann spells the name with a final i instead of o.
4 Grisebach; Vol. VII, page 105.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
83
Hoffmann thus suggests that his hero does not belong by
birth in the class of society in which we find him.
The next step in the development of the story makes the
reader the witness of a scene between the newly chosen Doge
and one Bodoeri, the latter a Venetian noble and a member of
the Council of Ten. Bodoeri, in the furtherance of his polit-
ical ambition, wishes to marry his niece, a young girl of
eighteen, to the old Doge. Bodoeri so skilfully depicts the
charms of the young girl to the old warrior that the latter is
soon obsessed with the idea, and the marriage is arranged.
In the meantime, the story of the Doge's rescuer, the lat-
ter now occupying another position in life by means of the
gold which he has received as reward, is continued. Young
Antonio learns from his former nurse the story of his German
parentage, an attack of the plague having obliterated entirely
the memory of his childhood and youth. To the days of this
childhood and youth belongs a love affair with Annunziata,
Bodoeri's niece, and now the young Dogaressa. The sight of
her bridges the gulf between him and his past, awakens
within him all the recollections of his childhood, and arouses
with renewed ardor his love for the sweetheart of his child-
hood, now old Faliero's wife. The love of the young Antonio
for the old Doge's young wife is the key to the tragic culmin-
ation of the tale. What follows is the story of Antonio's
intrigue to gain an interview with Annunziata. In order to
be near her, he bribes the old Doge's gondolier, and serves
himself as a gondolier. Also by means of a bribe he suc-
ceeds in taking the place of the man who, on “Giovedi
grasso,” according to the old Venetian custom, descends by
means of corás and pulleys from the top of St. Mark's to the
balcony of the Doge (erected in the square), and presents a
bouquet to the Dogaressa. Finally, by means of an intrigue
which is aided and abetted by his old nurse, Antonio gains
admittance to the Ducal Palace. Instead of keeping tryst
with his mistress, however, Antonio becomes involved in a
revolution which he finds brewing, the purpose of which is
to overthrow old Faliero. Later, in the consequent uproar


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
85
wife, the latter's lover, and the tragic death of the last two
at the climax. But Poe's method of execution is quite differ-
ent. He omits all introductory facts of history, disregards
entirely characterization, and reduces the number of charac-
ters to three. The technique is of the simplest. The story
is presented in two pictures, the first of which is strikingly
similar to the corresponding scene in Hoffmann's story.
Hoffmann's story opens with a description of the picture,
painted by Kolbe and exhibited in Berlin in 1816, which
inspires his story:
Mit diesem Namen war in dem Katalog der Kunst-
werke, die die Akademie der Künste zu Berlin im Sep-
tember, 1816, ausstellte, ein Bild bezeichnet, das der
wackre tüchtige C. Kolbe, Mitglied der Akademie,
gemalt hatte und das mit besonderm Zauber jeden
anzog, so dass der Platz davor selten leer blieb. Ein
Doge in reichen prächtigen Kleidern schreitet, die
ebenso reich gesmückte Dogaressa an der Seite, auf
einer Balustrade hervor, er ein Greis mit grauem Bart,
sonderbar gemischte Züge, die bald auf Kraft, bald auf
Schwäche, bald auf Stolz und Übermut, bald auf Gut-
mütigkeit deuteten, im braunroten Gesicht; sie ein
junges Weib, sehnsüchtige Trauer, träumerisches Ver-
langen im Blick, in der ganzen Haltung. Hinter ihnen
eine ältliche Frau und ein Mann, der einen aufge-
spannten Sonnenschirm hält. Seitwärts an der Bal-
ustrade stösst ein junger Mensch in ein muschel-
förmig gewundenes Horn und vor derselben im Meer
liegt eine reich verzierte mit der venetianischen Flagge
geschmückte Gondel, auf der zwei Ruderer befindlich.
Im Hintergrunde breitet sich das mit hundert und aber
hundert Segeln bedeckte Meer aus, und man erblickt
die Türme und Paläste des prächtigen Venedig, das
aus den Fluten emporsteigt. Links unterscheidet man
San Marco, rechts mehr im Vorgrunde San Giorgio
Maggiore,
6 Grisebach, Vol. VII, page 101.


86
Palmer Cobb
Poe, with a masterful stroke and with a half dozen sen-
tences, conjures up the mystery and romance of Venice, and
in this setting paints a picture which is strikingly like the
one just quoted from Hoffmann:
Yet I remember-ah! how should I forget?—the deep
midnight, the Bridge of Sighs, the beauty of woman,
and the Genius of Romance, that stalked up and down
the narrow canal.
It was a night of unusual gloom. The great clock of
the Piazza had sounded the fifth hour of the Italian
evening. The Square of the Campanile lay silent and
deserted, and the lights of the old Ducal Palace were
dying fast away. I was returning home from the
Piazetta by way of the Grand Canal. But as my gon-
dola arrived opposite the mouth of the Canal San
Marco, a female voice from its recesses broke suddenly
upon the night in one wild, hysterical and long-contin-
ued shriek. ... Like some huge and sabled feath-
ered condor, we were slowly drifting down towards the
Bridge of Sighs, when a thousand Aambeaux flashing
from the windows and down the staircase of the Ducal
Palace, turned all at once that deep gloom into a livid
and preternatural day.
A child, slipping from the arms of its own mother, had
fallen from an upper window of the lofty structure into
the deep and dim canal. The quiet waters had closed
placidly over their victim; and, although my own gon-
dola was the only one in sight, many a stout swimmer,
already in the stream, was seeking in vain upon the
surface the treasure which was to be found, alas! only
within the abyss. Upon the broad black marble flag-
stones at the entrance of the palace, and a few steps
above the water, stood a figure which none who then
saw can have ever since forgotten. It was the Mar-
chesa Aphrodite—the adoration of all Venice—the
7 Harrison, Vol. II, page 110.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
87
gayest of the gay-the most lovely where all were
beautiful—but still the young wife of the old and
intriguing Mentoni, and the mother of that fair child,
her first and only one, who now, deep beneath the
murky water, was thinking in bitterness of heart upon
her sweet caresses, and exhausting its little life in
struggles to call upon her name.
She stood alone. Her small, bare and silvery feet
gleamed in the black marble beneath her. Her hair,
not as yet more than half loosened for the night from
its ball-room array, clustered amid a shower of dia-
monds round and round her classical head, in curls like
those of the young hyacinth. A snowy-white and
gauzelike drapery seemed to be nearly the sole covering
to her delicate form; but the midsummer and midnight
air was hot, sullen and still, and no motion in the
statue-like form itself stirred even the folds of that
raiment of very vapour which hung around it as the
heavy marble hangs around the Niobe. Yet, strange
to say, her large lustrous eyes were not turned down-
wards upon that grave wherein her brightest hope lay
buried — but riveted in a widely different direction.
The prison of the Old Republic is, I think, the state-
liest building in all Venice; but how could that lady
gaze so fixedly upon it, when beneath her lay stifling
her own child? . . .
Many steps above the Marchesa, and within the arch
of the water-gate, stood, in full dress, the satyr-like
figure of Mentoni himself. He was occasionally occu-
pied in thrumming a guitar, and seemed ennuyé to the
very death, as at intervals he gave directions for the
recovery of the child ....
Poe's use of the motive of the drowning child is a device
for the introduction of the hero:
All efforts proved in vain. Many of the most energetic
in the search were relaxing their exertions, and yield-
ing to a gloomy sorrow. There seemed but little hope.


Palmer Cobb
for the child (how much less then for the mother!), but
now, from the interior of that dark niche which has
already been mentioned as forming a part of the Old
Republican prison, and as fronting the lattice of the
Marchesa, a figure muffled in a cloak stepped out within
reach of the light, and pausing a moment upon the
verge of the giddy descent, plunged headlong into the
canal. As in an instant afterwards he stood with the
still living and breathing child within his grasp upon
the marble flagstones by the side of the Marchesa, his
cloak heavy with the drenching water became unfas-
tened, and, falling in folds about his feet, discovered to
the wondering spectators the graceful person of a very
young man, with the sound of whose name the greater
part of Europe was then ringing. 8
Poe mentions the singular lack of emotion displayed by
the mother at the rescue of her child, and comments upon the
fact that she blushes as she receives the child from the hands
of its deliverer. The relationship between the Marchesa and
the rescuer of her child is then suggested in the following
paragraph:
Why should the lady blush? To this demand there is
no answer — except, having left in the eager baste and
terror of a mother's heart, the privacy of her own bou-
doir, she has neglecled to throw over her Venetian
shoulders that drapery which is their due. What other
possible reason could there have been for her so blush-
ing? for the glance of those wild appealing eyes? for
the unusual tumult of that throbbing bosom? for the
the convulsive pressure of that trembling hand? that
hand which fell, as Mentoni turned into the palace,
accidentally, upon the hand of the stranger. What
reason could there have been for the low, the singularly
low tone of those unmeaning words which the lady
uttered hurriedly in bidding him adieu? “Thou hast
8 Harrison, Vol. II, page 112.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
89
conquered,” she said, or the murmur of the waters
deceived me; "thou hast conquered — one hour after
sunrise — we shall meet — so let it be.”
This is the “Assignation,” and this picture of the old
Mentoni and his young wife forms the first part of Poe's
story,
The second part describes a visit to the palazzo of the
stranger, early in the morning of the next day. It is largely
a typical Poe description, the gorgeous description of the gor-
geous apartments of the stranger, the rescuer of the previous
evening. This description of the princely magnificence” of
the Venetian palazzo belongs to Poe's best descriptive work,
and is evidently entirely the product of his fertile imagina-
tion. Among the paintings described is a portrait of the
Marchesa di Mentoni:
Human art could have done no more in the delineation
of her superhuman beauty. The same ethereal figure
which stood before me the preceding night upon the
steps of the Ducal Palace, stood before me once again.
But in the expression of the countenance, which was
beaming all over with smiles, there still lurked (incom-
prehensible!) that fitful strain of melancholy which
will ever be found inseparable from the perfection of
the beautiful. Her right arm lay folded over her
bosom. With her left she pointed downward to a curi-
ously fashioned vase. One small fairy foot, alone visi-
ble, barely touched the earth; and scarcely discernible
in the brilliant atmosphere which seemed to encircle
and enshrine her loveliness, floated a pair of most deli-
cately imagined wings.
An hour after sunrise, the two men pledge each other in
goblets of wine, and the stranger quotes these lines:
Stay for me there! I will not fail
To meet thee in that hollow vale-
He throws himself upon an ottoman, confessing the power
of the wine. At this moment an interruption occurs:
9 Harrison, Vol. II, page 122.


90
Palmer Cobb
A quick step was now heard upon the staircase and a
loud knock at the door rapidly succeeded. I was has-
tening to anticipate a second disturbance, when a page
of Mentoni's household burst into the room, and fal-
tered out, in a voice choking with emotion, the inco-
herent words, “My mistress!—my mistress-poisoned-
poisoned— ," etc.
Bewildered, I flew to the ottoman, and endeavored to
arouse the sleeper to a sense of the startling intelli-
gence. But his limbs were rigid in death. I staggered
back towards the table — my hand fell npon a cracked
and blackened goblet — and a consciousness of the
entire and terrible truth flashed suddenly upon my
soul.to
The lovers have kept their tryst. They poison themselves
simultaneously, and this is the “Assignation."
Hoffmann's denouement is certainly more in harmony with
the setting of his story. He makes copious use of the Venet-
ian legends of the sea, and in the end it is the sea that claims
the lovers as its victims.
The Venetian setting, the story of the old Venetian noble
and his young wife, the latter's lover, and the tragic death of
the two lovers. These are elements for the suggestion of
which Poe is indebted to Hoffmann. In the development of
his story he departs radically, both as to method and inci-
dent, from his model. It is in the picture of the young and
beautiful Marchesa and her gray-headed husband, as they
appear in the opening pages of Poe's story, that one recog-
nizes most readily their prototypes from Hoffmann's tale,
namely, the old Doge Falieri, his young and beautiful wife,
Annunziata, and the latter's lover, Antonio."
10 Harrison, Vol. II, page 124.
11 This same story has been made the subject of a tragedy by Byron and
by Casimir Delavigne. Cf. Kaiser, Ueber Byron's und Delavigne's Marino
Falieri, Schulprogramm Düsseldorf, 1870. Byron and Delavigne make the
conspiracy of the old Doge and his tragic end the subject of their dramas.
Hoffmann and Poe disregard this element, making the fate of the young Do-
garessa and her lover of paramount interest in their stories.


92
Palmer Cobb
vening between the opening words and their repetition.
The second type is that in which a statement
is made and followed by a parenthetical explanation or
interruption, whereupon the first words are repeated
with “I say!” E. g., “Do you know, however,” contin-
ued he musingly, “that at Sparta (which is now Pal-
aeschori), at Sparta, I say, to the west of the citadel,”
etc.
There is a sub-class of this type in which the phrase
“I say" is omitted. As, "The person of the stranger
- let me call him by this title, who to all the world
was still a stranger – the person of the stranger is one
of these subjects,” etc.5
The third type is a mere repetition with or without
any parenthetical phrase, but with a change to
strengthen the opening statement. E. g., “Very well!
– very well, sir! Very well indeed, sir!” said his Maj-
esty, etc. “See! See!" cried he, shrieking in my ears,
:“Almighty God! See! See!!!!
Prof. Gruener cites many examples of these types of repe-
tition from Poe's works and observes further that they “can
be accounted for only as a habit, a trick of style, which, as
far as I have been able to recall or learn by inquiry, is pecul-
iar to Poe, at least among English writers.” In a foot-note
he states that he has applied to Professors Lounsbury, Beers
and Cross, who “were unable to recall any other English
writer who shows this peculiarity to anywhere near such an
extent, if at all.
Prof. Gruener then calls attention to the fact that
examples of such repetition abound in the works of Hoffmann.
He quotes a correspondingly large number of examples from
the latter's tales. After examining the facts, he reaches the
following conclusion:
4 The Assignation. Vol. II, page 117.
5 The Assignation. Vol. II, page 114.
6 Bon Bon. Vol. II, page 140.
7 M. S. Found in a Bottle.


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
95
making any further signal for her to be seated, "that you are
the young person,” etc. (Page 83.)
“Avaunt,” cried he, in a tremendous voice, “Avaunt!
sacrilegious boy!" (Page 129.)
To a less degree the same device is found in Horace Wal-
pole's Castle of Otranto. •
“I sent for you, lady,” said he, and then stopped under
great appearance of confusion. "My Lord! Yes, I sent
for you on a matter of great moment,” resumed he. (Page
72.)
"Theodore!” said Manfred, mournfully, and striking his
forehead; “Theodore, or a phantom, he has unhinged the soul,
of Manfred.” (Page 168.)
"Thou art no lawful prince,” said Jerome, “thou art no
prince;" (Page 191.)
"Forgive him, dearest mother - forgive him my death."
(Page 215.)
From Hawthorne such quotations could be multiplied indef-
initely." A few will suffice.
“Thou knowest,” said Hester, for depressed as she was, she
could not endure this last quiet stab at the token of her shame
- “thou knowest that I was frank with thee.” (Page 97.)
“Where," asked he, with a look askance at them for it
was the clergyman's peculiarity that he seldom, nowadays,
looked straight forth at any object, whether human or inani-
mate — "Where, my kind Doctor,” etc. (Page 160.)
“Thus, a sickness,” continued Roger Chillingsworth,
going on in an unaltered tone without heeding the interrup-
tion — but standing up and confronting the emaciated and
white-cheeked minister, with his low, dark and misshaped
figure — "a sickness, a sore place,” etc. (Page 166.)
The following examples are from the House of Seven
Gables.
10 Philadelphia: 1826.
11 The Riverside Edition of Hawthorne's Works,
12 The Scarlet Letter.


Palmer Cobb
“Strangel forsooth! very strange!” cried the lieutenant.
(Page 21.)
"Poor business!” responded Dixey, in a tone as if he
were shaking his head, — "poor business!" (Page 59.)
“Well, child,” said she, taking heart at sight of a person
so little formidable, “well, my child, what did you wish
for?” (Page 61.)
“For what end,” thought she, giving vent to that feeling
of hostility which is the only real abasement of the poor in
the presence of the rich, - "for what good end, in the wis-
dom of Providence, does that woman live?” (Page 67.)
"Take it as you like, Cousin Jaffrey!" muttered the maiden
lady, as she drew back, after cautiously thrusting out her
head, and looking up and down the street - "take it as you
like!" (Page 71.)
“So you have really begun trade,” said he — “really begun
trade." (Page 75.)
“Ah! but these hens,” answered the young man, — "these
hens of aristocratic lineage would scorn to understand the vul-
gar language of a barn-yard fowl.” (Page 107.)
“There is nothing but love here, Clifford,” she added,
“nothing but love!” (Page 125.)
“I like that, Cousin Phoebe!” cried he, with an emphatic
nod of approbation. “I like it much, my little cousin!"
(Page 139.)
The following examples are from Mosses from an Old
Manse.
“Nay, pluck it,” answered Aylmer, — "pluck it, and inhale
its brief perfume while you may.” (The Birthmark, page 52.)
“Carefully now, Aminidab; carefully, thou human ma-
chine; carefully, thou man of clay.” (The Birthmark, page
63.)
"It is nonsense,” murmured the Oldest Inhabitant, who,
as a man of the past, felt jealous that all notice should be
withdrawn from himself to be lavished in the future, -
'sheer nonsense to waste," etc. (A Select Party, page 76.)
“O, how stubbornly does love, — or even that cunning
semblance of love which flourishes in the imagination, but


98
Palmer Cobb
“As yet,” cried the stranger, - his cheek glowing and his
eye flashing with enthusiasm - "as yet, I have done nothing."
(The Ambitious Guest, page 368.)
“The children,” said he to himself — and sighed and
smiled — "the children are to be my charge.” (The Three-
fold Destiny, page 536.)
The following are from Tanglewood Tales:
“Oh! I am stung!” cried he, “I am stung!” (The Par-
adise of Children, page 94.)
“Oh, tell us,” they exclaimed, — "tell us what it is."
(The Paradise of Children, page 100.)
“Go back," cried they all, -- "go back to your own home!”
(The Three Golden Apples, page 113.)
Many other examples could be adduced from Hawthorne's
works. The foregoing will suffice to show that he made a
large use of this form of repetition in his dialogue.
In the novels of James Fenimore Cooper the same trick of
repetition is to be found on almost every page,
From The Pathfinder."3 Vol. 17.
“More's the pity, boy; more's the pity.” (Page 17.)
“You are wrong, — you are wrong, friend Cap; very wrong
to distrust the power of God in anything." (Page 20.)
į "It's no great secret — no great secret,” returned Path-
finder. (Page 22.)
“Call him in,” whispered Jasper, scarce able to restrain
his impatience; “call him in, or it will be too late." (Page
54.)
“I ask your pardon, Pathfinder,” said the repentant Jas-
per, eagerly grasping the hand that the other permitted him
to seize, “I ask your pardon humbly and sincerely.” (Page
57.)
"Keep well up the current, Jasper,” shouted the gallant
guide, as he swept the water with long, steady, vigorous
strokes of the paddle; “keep well up the current.” (Page 64.)
13 Mohawk Edition of Cooper's Works, New York, 1897.
'


Influence of Hoffmann on the Tales of Poe
101
pose that Poe acquired this stylistic habit from Hoffmann.
This other evidence is lacking. A careful reading of the two
authors can but lead to the conviction that Poe's acquaint-
ance with Hoffmann was not of so intimate a nature as to
have left stylistic traces in the former's work. They both, to
be sure, work with the same general romantic material —
with the same superlative vocabulary of the weird tale of mys-
tery; but Poe was not so saturated with Hoffmann as to have
absorbed from him any of those characteristics of style which
were peculiarly his own. The American is indebted to the
German for motives and combinations of motives, not for
stylistic attributes.
With reference to this form of repetition in Hoffmann's
works, it is worthy of note, that he most likely acquired it
from Schiller, who made a large use of it in die Geisterseher,
and to less extent in die Raüber. Hoffmann's style was
undoubtedly influenced by Schiller."
Die Einkleidung dieser Ideen (Hoffmann's Vision auf
dem Schlachtfelde zu Dresden) ist indessen offenbar
beinflusst von dem Traum des Franz im fünften Akt
der "Räuber', wie denn überhaupt die Räuber, wahr-
scheinlich schon seit Hoffmanns Jugendzeit eine nach-
haltige Wirkung auf sein Phantasieleben ausgeübt ha-
ben; auch in den rollenden Worten der Vision glaubt man
einen Nachhall von Schillers Sprache zu vernehmen,
Again:
Schillers 'Geisterseher' wird zwar in den Briefen nicht
erwähnt, aber wir wissen aus späteren Bekentnissen,
wie stark das Buch gerade damals auf seine Phantasie
gewirkt hat.
This, taken in connection with the fact that in Schiller's
Geisterseher examples of such repetition are found on every
few pages, establishes, at least a probability that Hoffmann's
use of this trick of style was acquired from Schiller, and that
it was not a thing “natural, self-developed,” as suggested by
14 Cf. Ellinger.


102
Palmer Cobb
Prof. Gruener. Space permits the enumeration of a few
examples from the Geisterseher.15
“Sie haben uns,” sagte er, indem er ihm zugleich einige
Goldstücke in die Hand drückte, "sie haben uns aus den
Händen eines Betrügers gerettet.” (Page 254.)
“In der Tat," rief der Prinz mit einer Miene zugleich des
Verdrusses und der Verwunderung, indem er mir besonders
einen bedeutenden Blick gab, “in der Tat," rief er aus.” etc.
(Page 260.)
“Ihr Trauring!” rief der Prinz mit Befremdung. "Ihr
Trauring!" (Page 277.)
“Das wir unter einander da so glücklich sind,” hub end-
lich der Greis an, der allein unter uns allen den Unbekannten
nicht zu bemerken oder sich doch nicht über ihn zu verwun-
dern schien: "Das wir so glücklich sind,” sagte er, etc.
(Page 280.)
15 y. d. Hellen, Vol. 2.


CONCLUSION
In conclusion, one may sum up the facts relative to the
question which this work undertakes to discuss, as follows:
First, from about the year 1825 there was a constantly
increasing interest in current German literature in England
and America. The expression of this interest is to be
observed in the numerous translations from the German, as
well as the frequent articles which deal with German litera-
ture in the magazines and periodicals of the time.
Secondly, Poe, as a magazine editor and a contributor to
the magazines, followed closely English and American peri-
odicals, and therefore must have been affected more or less by
this interest. His attention was probably first attracted to
Hoffmann by Scott's article in the Foreign Quarterly Review,
and the interest this article aroused in him led to a closer
acquaintance with Hoffmann's works.
Thirdly, Poe possessed the ability to read German, although
his reading of Hoffmann was by no means dependent upon this
ability, since he might have read him in both English and
French translations.
Fourthly, five stories of Poe show the indubitable influence
of Hoffmann. These five stories are, in the order of their
publication, The Assignation, Southern Literary Messenger,
July, 1835; Fall of the House of Usher, Burton's Gentleman's
Magazine, September 1839; William Wilson, Burton's Gen-
tleman's Magazine, October, 1839; The Oval Portrait, Gra-
ham's Magazine, April, 1842; and The Tale of the Ragged
Mountains, Godey's Lady's Book, April, 1844. It cannot be
claimed that Hoffmann's influence dominated Poe during
this whole period, 1835 to 1844. It was rather a question of
his “looking about him for such combinations of events or
tone”,' and finding in Hoffmann's works at various times such
motives as struck his fancy, or suited his purpose. Above all,
1 Harrison, Vol. XIV, page 194.


104
Palmer Cobb
it was probably Hoffmann's interest in mesmerism and
metempsychosis that attracted Poe's attention. At that per-
iod when these subjects were absorbing his interest, he went
naturally to Hoffmann's tales, and drew from them in his own
work dealing with the same subject.
This interest in mesmerism, metempsychosis, etc., and the
expression of this interest in the prose tale was, of course,
not confined to Poe and Hoffmann alone. These subjects, as
well as other motives used by Poe and Hoffmann, play a part
in that tale of terror the principal exponents of which were
Mrs. Radcliff, Horace Walpole, and M. G. Lewis. The kin-
ship of Poe's tales to those of Hoffmann is not attested by
the fact that the motives in question are peculiar to Poe and
Hoffmann. They may be found in other sources both Eng-
lish and German.
The verification of Poe's indebtedness to the German is to
be sought in the similarity of the treatment of the same
motives in the works of both authors. The most convincing
evidence is furnished by the way in which Poe has combined
these themes in the exact agreement with the grouping
employed by Hoffmann. Notable examples of this are the
employment of the idea of the double existence in conjunction
with the struggle of the good and evil forces in the soul of
the individual, and the combination of mesmerism and metemp-
sychosis as leading motives in one and the same story.
Finally, Hoffmann's influence on Poe did not extend to the
latter's style. It was solely a borrowing and adaptation of
motives.


VITA
I was born near Blackwell, Caswell County, N. C., April 1,
1880. My youth was spent in Danville, Virginia, to which
place my parents had removed when I was two years old.
I attended various private schools in Danville. My prepara-
tion for college was received at the Danville Military Insti-
tute. I entered the University of North Carolina in Febru-
ary, 1898, and received the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy
in 1901. The following year, 1901-02, I was Instructor in
French and German in the same university. 1902-03, I was
Scholar in German, Columbia University, New York. From
this institution I received the degree of Master of Arts in
1903. During the summer of 1903 I was a student at the
University of Jena, Germany. In September 1903, I was
appointed Tutor in German in the College of the City of New
York, which position I held until June, 1907, except for the
academic year 1905-06, during which time I was on leave
and a student at the University of Kiel, Germany. In June,
1907, I was appointed Associate Professor of German in the
University of North Carolina.
It is a pleasure to acknowledge here my indebtedness to
Professor W. H. Carpenter, of Columbia University, Profes-
sor Friedrich Kauffmann and Professor Ferdinand Holthau-
sen of the University of Kiel, Germany, for kindly advice and
suggestion.
To Professor Calvin Thomas of Columbia University my
especial thanks are due for proof reading, valuable criticism,
and guidance in the preparation of this dissertation. More
especially for that spirit of ready helpfulness and sympa-
thetic interest which characterizes his relationships with
those who are privileged to do work under his direction.



STUDIES IN PHILOLOGY
PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION ON
THE PHILOLOGICAL CLUB OF THE UNIVERSITY OF
NORTII CAROLINA
COL II
The Influence of E. T. A. Hoffmann on the
Tales of Edgar Allan Poe
PALMER COBB
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF GERMAN IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA -
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the Faculty
of Philosophy, Columbia University
CHAPEL HILL
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1908



STUDIES IN PHILOLOGY
PUBLISHED INDIR TO DRTION OP
THE PHILOLOGICAL CLUB OF THE UNIVERSITY OF
NORTH CAROLINA
C. ALPHONSO SNITII, Eorror
Vol. I. Chaucer's Relative Constructions. By Louis Round
Wilson.
Vol. II. Studies in the Syntax of the King James Version.
By James Moses Grainger.
Vol. III. The Influence of E. T. A. Hoffmann on the Tales
of Edgar Allan Poe. By Palmer Cobb.














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