Irony in Hoffmann's fairy tale baby tsakhes - abstract. History of foreign literature of the 19th - early 20th centuries Analyze the motive structure of the text
Federal Agency for Education
SEI HPE "Ural State Technical University - UPI named after the first president B.N. Yeltsin"
Physics and Technology Faculty
Department of Foreign Languages
Specialty "Translation and translation studies"
Allow for protection
head department Zh.A. Khramushina
cand. ped. Sciences, Associate Professor
"___" _____________ 2010
COURSE WORK
Irony in the fairy tale by E. T. A. Hoffmann “Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober”
Explanatory note
Supervisor
Candidate of Philology
teacher of the department of foreign languages Porshneva Alisa Sergeevna
FT group 191001 Sinitsina Polina Andreevna
Introduction
This work is devoted to the analysis of romantic irony in the work of E. T. A. Hoffmann “Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober”.
object course research are various manifestations of irony, characteristic of romanticism, in the fairy tale by E. T. A. Hoffmann “Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober”.
Relevance of this work lies in the fact that such a genre as a fairy tale is being explored; This book can be read by both children and adults. Everyone can endure for themselves useful moments played out in a fairy tale with the help of irony.
Item research is a manifestation of irony in various aspects of a fairy tale.
aim This work is an understanding of how irony works in Hoffmann's fairy tale, and the realization that it manifests itself in the example of different situations and heroes of this fairy tale.
Achieving the goal involves solving the following tasks:
Understand what irony is, in general;
Analyze the features of the irony of romantic writers;
To reveal what is the role of irony for Hoffmann taken separately on the example of his fairy tale "Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober".
Work structure. The course work consists of an introduction, three chapters and a conclusion. The first chapter introduces the concept of "irony" and provides some research on this topic; in the second chapter, irony about the heroes can be traced on the example of some of them; the third shows some situations in which the author uses such a technique as romantic irony.
Chapter 1. The concept of "irony".
Irony (from other Greek εἰρωνεία - “pretense”) is a trope in which the true meaning is hidden or contradicts (opposed) to the obvious meaning.
Irony creates the feeling that the subject matter is not what it seems.
According to Aristotle, irony is “a statement containing mockery of those who really think so.”
Irony is the use of words in a negative sense, directly opposite to the literal one.
Irony is a category of aesthetics and originates from the tradition of ancient rhetoric. It was ancient irony that gave birth to the European ironic tradition of modern times, which received special development starting from the last third of the 19th century. Irony, as a means of comic presentation of material, is a powerful tool for the formation of a literary style, built on the opposition of the literal meaning of words and statements to their true meaning. An elementary model of the ironic style is the structural and expressive principle of various speech techniques that help to give the content an opposite or ideologically emotionally revealing meaning with its hidden context. In particular, the method of self-irony is used to remove the pretentiousness or pomposity of the narrative, which makes it possible to convey the author's attitude to the literal description of the plot moment. As a veiled demonstration of a negative position, the method of irony is used, pseudo-assertion is used to destroy any attribute of social consciousness, and pseudo-negation is used to confirm real truths. The ironic technique of superiority often becomes the dominant way of ridiculing the heroes of a literary work through an outwardly neutral presentation of their characteristics, and the technique of ironic indulgence is used by the authors for a pessimistic assessment of the significance of the characters. An effective ironic way of short forms of the genre of humor is a connotational clause, designed for a quick reaction of the reader or viewer.
More rigid, uncompromising forms of irony can be considered sarcasm and grotesque.
Direct irony is a way to belittle, give a negative or funny character to the described phenomenon.
Socratic irony is a form of self-irony constructed in such a way that the object to which it is addressed, as it were, independently comes to natural logical conclusions and finds the hidden meaning of the ironic statement, following the premises of the “not knowing the truth” subject.
An ironic worldview is a state of mind that allows you not to take common statements and stereotypes on faith, and not to take various "generally recognized values" too seriously.
1.1. Irony in the period of romanticism.
The principle of romantic irony was of paramount importance for the aesthetics of romanticism - it became the starting point for the creation of a new, “universal romantic art.
Not being able to change anything in reality, the imperfection of which they perceived with great acuteness, the romantics felt a deep contradiction between their aspirations and possibilities. Romantic irony was supposed to help overcome it by an act of consciousness.
“There are ancient and new works of poetry, in their entire being imbued with the spirit of irony. The spirit of genuine transcendental buffoonery lives in them. A mood reigns inside us, which looks at all things from a height, infinitely rising above everything conditioned, including here our own art, and virtue, and genius, ”says Friedrich Schlegel in one of his fragments. The action of romantic irony no longer has limits, its significance becomes absolute. Such a visible resolution of the contradiction does not, of course, remove the tragic nature of the perception of life, but from a certain moment it is recognized as ambivalent: a tragic sense of well-being, coming from reality, and ironic, introduced, philosophical. This fundamental duality determined the originality of all "romantic-ironic" literature. The universal purpose and ambivalence as the main properties of romantic irony were also emphasized in his works by K. V. F. Solger. According to Solger, "irony is not a single random mood of the artist, but the inner essence of every art in general." “... Truly humorous,” he says elsewhere, “is never only funny, but always has a shade of some sadness, while the tragic always has some kind of comic sound.”
Humor introduces some new emotional content into things and phenomena surrounding a person - the very attitude of a person towards them. And then, having received a new spiritual power over the world, a person reconciles with it. Thus, romantic irony becomes a means of knowing life and mastering it. The fact that objectively funny can be at the same time a genuine tragedy was the first to understand the romantics, for life itself proved it to them. Since the old values were losing their significance, and the new ones had not yet been established, both of them seemed doubtful. Increasingly, irony became the worldview - an expression of skepticism in the form of a comic. Such irony is always consonant with the comedy of the “last phase of the world-historical form”, and it is thanks to it that humanity, if possible, “gaily partes with its past”. The sharper the contradictions in society, the more distinct the manifestation of the spirit of irony in it. Romantic irony is directly related to the artist's dissatisfaction with the world around him; she is characterized by "overcoming" reality with laughter, an ironic belittling of the latter.
"The most striking and characteristic figure of German romanticism was Hoffmann, the greatest humorist and satirist, a wonderful master of fairy tales and fantastic short stories." It was in the tale that the interaction of romantic irony and satire, characteristic of Hoffmann, manifested itself with the greatest fullness and brightness. Especially indicative in this regard is the fairy tale "Little Tsakhes".
The main character of this Hoffmann’s work is endowed with a “strange mysterious gift”, “by virtue of which everything wonderful that anyone else thinks, says or does in his presence will be attributed to him, and he, in the company of beautiful, reasonable and intelligent people, will be recognized beautiful, sensible and intelligent, and in general will always be honored as the most perfect of the kind with which he comes into contact. This plot (“strange mysterious gift”) controls the remaining components of the tale, defines and transforms them, ensuring the integration of its structure. Ultimately, it is the vagueness of the nature of this “magic gift” that gives rise to that special form of satire in a fairy tale, where the absence of a rational explanation for the cause of the conflict corresponds to the sharpest criticism of the social order.
ACTIVITY 1
Theme: "Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober" - a romantic tale - a short story with a deep socio-psychological content
PLAN
The satirical and metaphorical meaning of the tale.
Good forces (fairy Rosabelverde, doctor Prosper Alpanos) and their role in the fairy tale.
The world of the townsfolk is introduced (Fabian, Candida, Mosh Terpin, prince, barons).
The image of Prince Pafnutiy.
Contrasting a creative person with an unspiritual philistine (Balthazar and Tsakhes).
Anti-enlightenment motives in the work.
The specifics of Hoffmann's romanticism.
Tasks for the preparatory period
Think about the position of the author in the story.
Review information on literary theory about travesty, parody, grotesque and romantic irony. The story is a fairy tale as a genre of romantic literature.
Give an interpretation to the words: Tsakhes, alraun, compendium, pumpernickel, referandary, line monkey, Beelzebub, filister.
Compose drugs, puzzles, crossword puzzles, poems, literary games.
Literature
Berkovsky N. Ya. Romanticism in Germany. - L, 1973
History of German Literature, T.N. - M., 1966
Artistic world of Hoffmann: Sat. articles. - M., 1983
Loboda O. 20 class questions // Foreign Literature. - 2003. - No. 46. - S. 2 - S
Seredyuk T. Comic in E. T. A. Hoffman's fairy tale "Little Tsakhes" // Foreign Literature. - 2001. - No. 40. - p. 40
Savchuk O. Fantastic story of the rise and fall of Tsakhes. E. T. A. Hoffman. "Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober." 8 cells // Foreign literature. - 2004. - No. 47. - S. 8 - 9
Ostapchuk V., E.T. A. Hoffman "Baby Tsakhes nicknamed Zinnober". Mystery lesson. // Foreign literature. - 2001. - No. 11. - S.S
Pokolodny L., Vechirko A.E.T.A. Hoffman “Baby Tsakhes nicknamed Zinnober” (Materials for one of the lesson options) 8 cells. // World Literature in Secondary Educational Institutions of Ukraine. - 2002. - No. 1. - S. 21 - 22
Instructional materials
Hoffmann's world is a special artistic world created by the powerful imagination of the author. Almost always in the center of his attention was the confrontation between the two worlds - the romantic and the ordinary, the illusory and the real. According to the writer's definition, "Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober" is a "fairy tale about the real", in which he gave his own philosophical vision of the meaning of human life. In the story - a fairy tale, the action unfolded in a fairy-tale country - the principality of Kerpes. Among the heroes were magicians, fairies who influenced the lives of ordinary people (the fairy Rosabelierde gave Tsakhes three magical hairs to protect the small monster). Hoffmann also resorted to magical things and magical transformations when depicting the main events in the work. The author used the technique of duality of action in order to highlight the problems of real life in Germany (“micro-principalities”, German names of most heroes, typical German food, etc.).
The protagonists of the work are the dwarf Tsakhes, the Rosabelverde fairy, students Balthazar and Fabian, Professor Mosh Terpin and his daughter Candida, the magician Prosper Alpanus. The story was told from the perspective of the author. The story of the little monster exposed the life and customs of the dwarf principalities that still took place in Germany.
Satirical denunciation of the society of the inhabitants introduced:
Leaders of the German Principality;
The then politics and education;
scientists and officials.
METAPHORICAL
The intervention of fairy tale characters in the general course of the plot.
The theme of the story: showing the spiritually limited world of the inhabitants is introduced, in which there is no place for enthusiasts.
Idea: exposure of negative personality traits (thirst for power, cruelty, deceit); condemnation of the administrative system, glorification of a creative person.
Issues: - money and power;
6. class of moral and ethical problems;
7. love;
8. education;
9. good and evil;
10. a creative person, an unspiritual philistine.
Hoffmann's heroes are also divided into two camps - commoners introduced and enthusiasts. Limited inhabitants are people who are quite satisfied with life and everything that surrounds them; they did not know and did not want to know any high impulses, they are the majority. They are the owners and inhabitants of the real world, in which they valued only the high blessings of life, and everything else is worthless to them. All these heroes are rather prosaic, realistic, soulless and limited people, their life is boring and uninteresting. Such a “sick society” gave rise to “Tsakhesiv”, they lost their spiritual and moral guidelines.
The world of the townsfolk introduced Hoffmann exposed with the help of irony:
the “enlightenment” activity of Pafnutiy the Great had pseudo-educational consequences, violating the usual harmonious life of people;
Prince Barzanuf loved rewards, such hobbies testified to the limitedness and vanity of the ruler;
Professor Mosh Terpin is a pathetic rationalist, his research and discoveries are senseless and had nothing to do with science and education;
Candida (Balthazar's favorite) is a beautiful, rather ordinary and a little frivolous girl, not very educated, she loved only fun entertainment.
Hoffmann contrasted the philistines with the enthusiasts. They lived as if in another dimension, their world is much wider, more complex, but more beautiful. Those values that worried the townsfolk had no power over them. Deep spirituality and a sincere sense of beauty are their distinguishing features.
The main conflict of the work is the confrontation between the artist (Balthasar), who saw and appreciated the beautiful, lived and worked according to the laws of higher spirituality, and the philistine (Zinnober), who worshiped gold, lost valuable landmarks, lived according to the laws of naked practicality.
For the first time, Balthazar and Tsakhes suddenly crossed paths among the university people. Everyone admired the grace and dexterity of Zinnober (as Tsakhes was now called), he charmed even Candida, with whom Balthasar was most in love. Zinnober's spell affected all people, their condition was similar to mass psychosis. If someone in the presence of Tsakhes says something witty, everyone believed that Zinnober said it, but if he mewed vilely, they blamed not him, but someone else. Only two students - Balthazar (according to the author's plan, he zealously guarded the fabulous world of nature and poetry from the invasion of vulgarity and everyday life) and Fabian - noticed that the dwarf was actually ugly and evil. The deep intention of the author is embodied in the unusual fate of the freak Tsakhes, which is due to that mysterious law for a romantic, according to which material and spiritual wealth in bourgeois society are not distributed equally: those who had power appropriated the fruits of the mind and hands of those who had nothing.
| Philistine | Creative person |
| Tsakhes is a freak, a thief and a careerist (the embodiment of the dark sides of a person, his greed). He brought misfortune to all who met him. Taking credit for others. | Balthasar is a young man of 23, a respectful, modest poet, who lived in harmony with nature. I saw people for who they really were. He wrote poems about the beauty of nature. |
CONCLUSION:
The Tsakhesi and their ilk appear and prosper, and the Balthazars go into exile, or even to prison, or they are "tamed" thanks to:
A blinded society that has lost spiritual values and created an idol for itself;
The power of money (their symbol is 3 golden hairs in Tsakhes).
The author came to the conclusion: wealth and human deafness, the fact that people forgot the laws of nature and beauty - all this led to the dominance of absurdity and vulgarity. But Hoffmann believed in the great power of art - victory on the pages of his fairy tale is possible, but in the world of people everything is much more complicated. This explains the ironic ending of the work. Thus, the decline of lack of spirituality led to an increase in the philistine world, and its revival, on the contrary, to the prosperity of life in society.
The image and character of Tsakhes
In the center of the work is the story of a disgusting freak, endowed with a magical gift to appropriate the merits of others. An insignificant creature, thanks to three golden hairs, enjoys universal respect, causing admiration, and even becomes an all-powerful minister. Tsakhes is disgusting, and the author spares no expense to impress this on the reader. Comparing it either with a stump of a gnarled tree, or with a forked radish. Tsakhes grumbles, meows, bites, scratches. He's scary and funny at the same time. He is terrifying because he absurdly tries to be known as an excellent horseman and a virtuoso cellist, and terrifying because, with his imaginary talents, he has clear and undeniable power.
Artwork details
This fairy tale was created in the second period of Hoffmann's work. For the last eight years of his life, he lives in Berlin, serving in the state court. The inadequacy of the existing judiciary instilled him into conflict with the Prussian state machine, and changes are taking place in his work: he moves on to social criticism of reality and falls upon the social order of Germany. His satire becomes sharper, more politically tinged. This is the tragedy of Hoffmann's fate and his high destiny. You can understand this with the help of the details of this work. Firstly, the grotesque-fantastic image of Tsakhes: in it he expressed his rejection of reality. In addition, in a fairy-tale form, the author reflected a world where the blessings of life and honor are given not according to work, not according to mind and not according to merit. The action of the fairy tale takes place in a fairy-tale kingdom, where wizards and fairies exist on an equal footing with people - in this Hoffmann depicted the real existence of small German principalities. The image of Belthazar is the opposite image of Chakhes, he is a writer of a bright ideal. He alone reveals the insignificant essence of the little freak who took his bride and glory from him.
The essence of the final
At the end of the tale, Baltazar crowns his victory over Tsakhes by marrying the beautiful Kandina and receives a gift from his patron a house with magnificent furniture, a kitchen where food never boils over and a garden where lettuce and asparagus ripen earlier than others. Ridicule extends not only to the hero himself, but also to fairy-tale fiction itself. There is doubt about the possibility and necessity of escaping from actual reality into broad romantic dreams.
Hoffmann's fairy tale completes the development of the German romantic literary tale. It reflects many problems associated not only with the aesthetics and worldview of romanticism, but also with modern reality. The fairy tale masters the layers of modern life, using "fabulous" artistic means. In "Little Tsakhes" there are traditional fairy-tale elements and motifs. These are miracles, the clash of good and evil, magical items and amulets; Hoffmann uses the traditional fairy-tale motif of a bewitched and kidnapped bride and the test of heroes with gold. But the author combined a fairy tale and reality, thereby violating the purity of the fairy tale genre.
Hoffmann defined the genre of "Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober" as a fairy tale, but at the same time he abandoned the principle of fairy-tale harmony. In this work, there is a compromise between the “purity” of the fairy tale genre and the seriousness of the worldview: both are half-hearted, relative. The author saw the fairy tale as the leading genre of romantic literature. But if in Novalis the fairy tale turns into a continuous allegory or into a dream in which everything real, earthly disappeared, then in Hoffmann's fairy tales the basis of the fantastic is reality.
Although the actions in "Little Tsakhes" take place in a conditional country, but by introducing the realities of German life, noticing the characteristic features of the social psychology of the characters, the author thereby emphasizes the modernity of what is happening.
The heroes of the fairy tale are ordinary people: students, officials, professors, court nobles. And if something strange sometimes happens to them, they are ready to find a plausible explanation for this. And the test of the enthusiastic hero for fidelity to the wonderful world lies in the ability to see and feel this world, to believe in its existence.
The fabulous side of the work is connected with the images of the fairy Rasabelverde and the magician Prosper Alpanus, but the nature of the presentation of the fantastic changes: the magical heroes have to adapt to real conditions and hide under the masks of the canoness of the orphanage for noble maidens and the doctor. The narrator plays an "ironic game" with the style of narration itself - miraculous phenomena are described in a deliberately simple, everyday language, in a restrained style, and the events of the real world suddenly appear in some kind of fantastic lighting, the narrator's tone becomes tense. Displacing the high romantic plan into the low worldly one, Hoffmann thereby destroys it, nullifies it.
Of particular importance is a new category for the fairy tale genre - theatricality, which enhances the effect of the comic in the fairy tale. Theatricality determines the principles of constructing plot situations, the nature of their presentation, the choice of background, the expression of feelings and intentions by the characters. All these aspects emphasize the conditionality of what is happening, its artificiality.
Federal Agency for Education
SEI HPE "Ural State Technical University - UPI named after the first president B.N. Yeltsin"
Physics and Technology Faculty
Department of Foreign Languages
Specialty "Translation and translation studies"
Allow for protection
head department Zh.A. Khramushina
cand. ped. Sciences, Associate Professor
"___" _____________ 2010
COURSE WORK
Irony in the fairy tale by E. T. A. Hoffmann “Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober”
Explanatory note
Supervisor
Candidate of Philology
teacher of the department of foreign languages Porshneva Alisa Sergeevna
FT group 191001 Sinitsina Polina Andreevna
Ekaterinburg
Introduction 3
Chapter 1. The concept of "irony". 4
1.1. Irony in the period of romanticism. 5
Chapter 2. Irony about the heroes. eleven
2.1. Little Tsakhes. eleven
2.2 Enthusiast - Balthazar. 13
2.3 Candida. 14
2.4 Mosh Terpin. 15
2.5 Officials and Prince Pafnuty. 16
So, the people ruling in the principality absolutely do not deserve this, over which Hoffmann is actively ironic. Each official is depicted as a complete fool and lazy person. 16
2.6 Summary. 16
Chapter 3. Irony about the situation. 18
3.1 Irony on the example of some situations. 18
3.2 Results 25
Conclusion. 26
Bibliography. 27
Introduction
This work is devoted to the analysis of romantic irony in the work of E. T. A. Hoffmann “Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober”.
object course research are various manifestations of irony, characteristic of romanticism, in the fairy tale by E. T. A. Hoffmann “Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober”.
Relevance of this work lies in the fact that such a genre as a fairy tale is being explored; This book can be read by both children and adults. Everyone can endure for themselves useful moments played out in a fairy tale with the help of irony.
Item research is a manifestation of irony in various aspects of a fairy tale.
aim This work is an understanding of how irony works in Hoffmann's fairy tale, and the realization that it manifests itself in the example of different situations and heroes of this fairy tale.
Achieving the goal involves solving the following tasks:
Understand what irony is, in general;
Analyze the features of the irony of romantic writers;
To reveal what is the role of irony for Hoffmann taken separately on the example of his fairy tale "Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober".
Work structure. The course work consists of an introduction, three chapters and a conclusion. The first chapter introduces the concept of "irony" and provides some research on this topic; in the second chapter, irony about the heroes can be traced on the example of some of them; the third shows some situations in which the author uses such a technique as romantic irony.
Chapter 1. The concept of "irony".
other Greek εἰρωνεία - “pretense”) - a trope in which the true meaning is hidden or contradicts (opposed) to the explicit meaning.
Irony creates the feeling that the subject matter is not what it seems.
Aristotle, irony is "a statement containing a mockery of those who really think so."
Irony is the use of words in a negative sense, directly opposite to the literal one.
Irony is a category of aesthetics and originates from the tradition of ancient rhetoric. It was ancient irony that gave birth to the European ironic tradition of modern times, which received special development starting from the last third of the 19th century. Irony, as a means of comic presentation of material, is a powerful tool for the formation of a literary style, built on the opposition of the literal meaning of words and statements to their true meaning. An elementary model of the ironic style is the structural and expressive principle of various speech techniques that help to give the content an opposite or ideologically emotionally revealing meaning with its hidden context. In particular, the method of self-irony is used to remove the pretentiousness of the pomp of the narration, which allows conveying the author's attitude to the literal description of the plot moment. As a veiled demonstration of a negative position, the method of irony is used, pseudo-assertion is used to destroy any attribute of social consciousness, and pseudo-negation is used to confirm real truths. The ironic technique of superiority often becomes the dominant way of ridiculing the heroes of a literary work through an outwardly neutral presentation of their characteristics, and the technique of ironic indulgence is used by the authors for a pessimistic assessment of the significance of the characters. In an effective, ironic way, short forms of genre humor are a connotational clause designed for a quick reaction of the reader or viewer.
Sarcasmgrotesque can be considered more rigid, uncompromising forms of irony.
Direct irony is a way to belittle, give a negative or funny character to the described phenomenon.
Socratic irony is a form of self-irony, constructed in such a way that the object to which it is addressed, as if on its own, comes to natural logical conclusions and finds the hidden meaning of the ironic statement, following the premises of the “not knowing the truth” subject.
worldview - a state of mind that allows you not to take on faith the common statements of stereotypes, and not to take too seriously various "generally recognized values". 1
1.1. Irony in the period of romanticism.
The principle of romantic irony was of paramount importance for the aesthetics of romanticism - it became the starting point for the creation of a new, “universal romantic art.
Not being able to change anything in reality, the imperfection of which they perceived with great acuteness, the romantics felt a deep contradiction between their aspirations and possibilities. Romantic irony was supposed to help overcome it by an act of consciousness.
“There are ancient and new works of poetry, in their entire being imbued with the spirit of irony. The spirit of genuine transcendental buffoonery lives in them. A mood reigns inside us, which looks at all things from a height, infinitely rising above everything conditioned, including here our own art, and virtue, and genius, ”says Friedrich Schlegel in one of his fragments. 1 The action of romantic irony no longer has limits, its significance becomes absolute. Such a visible resolution of the contradiction does not, of course, remove the tragic nature of the perception of life, but from a certain moment it is recognized as ambivalent: a tragic sense of well-being, coming from reality, and ironic, introduced, philosophical. This fundamental duality determined the originality of all "romantic-ironic" literature. The universal purpose and ambivalence as the main properties of romantic irony were also emphasized in his works by K. V. F. Solger. According to Solger, "irony is not a single random mood of the artist, but the inner essence of every art in general." 2 “... Truly humorous,” he says elsewhere, “is never only funny, but always has a shade of some sadness, while the tragic always has some kind of comic sound.” 3
Humor introduces some new emotional content into things and phenomena surrounding a person - the very attitude of a person towards them. And then, having received a new spiritual power over the world, a person reconciles with it. Thus, romantic irony becomes a means of knowing life and mastering it. 4 The fact that objectively funny can be at the same time a genuine tragedy was the first to understand the romantics, for life itself proved it to them. Since the old values were losing their significance, and the new ones had not yet been established, both of them seemed doubtful. Increasingly, irony became the worldview - an expression of skepticism in the form of a comic. Such irony is always consonant with the comedy of the “last phase of the world-historical form”, and it is thanks to it that humanity, if possible, “gaily partes with its past”. The sharper the contradictions in society, the more distinct the manifestation of the spirit of irony in it. Romantic irony is directly related to the artist's dissatisfaction with the world around him; she is characterized by "overcoming" reality with laughter, an ironic belittling of the latter. 1
"The most striking and characteristic figure of German romanticism was Hoffmann, the greatest humorist and satirist, a wonderful master of fairy tales and fantastic short stories." 2 It was in the fairy tale that the interaction of romantic irony and satire, characteristic of Hoffmann, manifested itself with the greatest fullness and brightness. Especially indicative in this regard is the fairy tale "Little Tsakhes".
The main character of this Hoffmann’s work is endowed with a “strange mysterious gift”, “by virtue of which everything wonderful that anyone else thinks, says or does in his presence will be attributed to him, and he, in the company of beautiful, reasonable and intelligent people, will be recognized beautiful, sensible and intelligent, and in general will always be honored as the most perfect of the kind with which he comes into contact. This plot (“strange mysterious gift”) controls the remaining components of the tale, defines and transforms them, ensuring the integration of its structure. Ultimately, it is the vagueness of the nature of this “magic gift” that gives rise to that special form of satire in a fairy tale, where the absence of a rational explanation for the cause of the conflict corresponds to the sharpest criticism of the social order. 3
One of the features of Hoffmann's irony in this tale is that the contradiction between the appearance and the essence of the title character arises and is realized only in the society that creates this appearance. This contradiction is of a social nature and is not inherent in the very image of Tsakhes, whose spiritual ugliness fully corresponds to physical ugliness. The comic of inconsistency arises only when society, endowing Zinnober with all sorts of talents and all sorts of virtues, gradually inflates his fame.
This society itself was initially predisposed to the prosperity of Zinnober: his “strange mysterious gift” and the amazing effect of this gift are far from being a curiosity and not a novelty for Kerepes. Here people are valued not according to their true qualities, awards are given not according to labor and not according to real merit. The peasant woman Lisa (Tsakhes' mother) and her husband work hard and can barely satisfy their hunger; the maiden Rosengrunschen is refused to be placed in an orphanage for noble maidens because she cannot put her lineage into thirty-two ancestors; the valet of Prince Paphnutius becomes a minister because he lends his master, who has forgotten his wallet, six ducats and so on in time.
To ridicule Hoffman is not the “stepson of nature” of little Tsakhes, the stupid and helpless chosen one of the fairy, but the environment conducive to the prosperity of Zinnober, that society that tends to take a freak for a handsome man, mediocrity for talent, absolute stupidity for wisdom, a subhuman for “decoration fatherland". 1
However, at the same time, Hoffmann, satirically and very accurately showing the symptoms of the “disease of the century”, evades rational explanations of its causes. In "Little Tsakhes" there are several assumptions about the source of the Zinnobers, each of which still remains an unsaid (and unsaid) hypothesis. These are: the power of money, human madness, various manifestations of magical powers. So there is a specific parallelism of versions associated with romantic irony. N. Ya. Berkovsky wrote: “In a purely cognitive sense, irony meant that the particular way of mastering the world that is practiced in this work is recognized by the author himself as inconclusive, but going beyond it is also just subjective and hypothetical.” 2
For the author, as for the reader, the gift of the Rosabelverde fairy to a little freak is "... a very conditional root cause of the absurdities that are happening in the story." 3 But the fairy tale genre chosen by Hoffmann justified this conditional ironic assumption, since “the reflection of social processes in a fairy tale is very complex and has not a “naturalistic” or “symbolic”, but a generalized typifying character. 1 This "generalized typing character" manifests itself in the picture of the world depicted by the writer.
The moral way of mastering the world is not a simple reflection, but a way of orientation in the social environment. Romantics, masterfully using the technique of irony, tried to solve the problem of the coincidence or non-coincidence of the "mask" with the actual content of the structure of the moral consciousness of the individual. Hence, the problem of the double arises in the literature (short stories by E.-T. Hoffmann, stories by N.V. Gogol, etc.).
Romanticism, as a major historical epoch, thus develops and consolidates an ideologically, morally, psychologically definite idea of man as a social subject. The new situation at the beginning of the 19th century led to a turn of attention to the person, his actions and the inner world. The problems of the individual, his initiatives, creativity and destiny become the center of spiritual life, expressing themselves in their own way in morality, philosophy, art, religion. 2
An ironic attitude to reality leads the writer to satire. The ugly Principality of Barsanuf represents the whole of post-Napoleonic Germany, celebrating, as Hegel put it, "the triumph of mediocrity." And modern Hoffmann Germany, its socio-political life, having fallen into the field of romantic irony, is exposed to the forces of the comic. Irony gives birth to satire, and, in turn, satire more clearly reveals romantic irony. Irony allows the author to see life as a multifaceted and multi-valued phenomenon, outlines trends towards an “objective” depiction of life. 3
It seems that it was Hoffmann, who possessed an exceptional ability to see everything funny and gloomy in life, who, by the very nature of his talent, was called upon to reproduce in images and pictures all the pitiful tragicomedy of the German feudal-absolutist state, in whose thirty-six dungeons the German people languished and suffered. 1
Chapter 2 Irony about the characters.
2.1. Little Tsakhes.
Little Tsakhes, perhaps, is the hero most subject to the author's irony in a fairy tale. The ugly dwarf turns out to be even more ugly and presumptuous on the inside. In none of the situations cited by Hoffmann did he admit that the fairy had cast a spell on him. He sometimes believes himself that he deserves all the honors shown to him, which speaks of his deepest exorbitant stupidity.
The image of Tsakhes-Zinnober is characterized by puppetry. Already by his appearance, Tsakhes looks more like some kind of outlandish doll, a terrible ugly toy, than a person. His movements are comical because of their primitive mechanicalness, frivolity in manners. Tsakhes sometimes jumps, then hobbles, then meows or makes strange sounds, similar to champing.
But little Tsakhes is a puppet and by and large. He is permanently under the influence of the “strange mysterious gift” of Rosabelverde, which acts automatically and sometimes not in favor of the freak, if we recall the scene in the prince’s zoological office, where foreigners, delighted with a certain monkey, offer sweets to Zinnober: “God knows how it happened, but only foreigners continued to take
him for the most beautiful, rarest monkey they ever
had a chance to see him, and they certainly wanted to treat him with Lombard nuts, which they pulled out of their pockets. Zinnober became so furious that he could not rest, and his legs gave way. The valet, who was called, was forced to take him in his arms and carry him into the carriage. 1
The gift of Zinnober received from above is distant from its bearer; Tsakhes, like the people affected by witchcraft, is only the object of his blind action.
It has become a tradition in literary criticism to interpret the conflict and the idea of a fairy tale based on the image of the protagonist. Numerous attempts were made to present Tsakhes as a “god of money circulation” 1 , a werewolf wielding the mysterious power of “animal magnetism” 2 , a “bureaucratic demon” 3 , an embodiment of Hoffmann’s own experiences of a discrepancy between appearance and essence, being and success 4 and so on.
However, such attempts were not recognized. In essence, they were rationalistic, the interpretation of the image of Tsakhes and the themes and ideas of the fairy tale related to him encounter resistance from the very nature of the romantic grotesque, which, in turn, was formed thanks to the author's irony. The contradiction that Kharik 5 wrote about, for example, is undoubtedly present in the image of the character, but it is not the basis of the content of the tale. Rather, this contradiction that takes place in the work is the basis of its comedy.
Tsakhes is completely inactive. Everything turns out by itself, due to the operation of some unknown, but obviously unfair law of human social life. Tsakhes only willingly accepts what floats into his hands. According to Rosabelverde, his fault is that an inner voice has not awakened in his soul that would say: “You are not the one for whom they take you, but strive to be equal to those on whose wings you, weak, wingless, take off upwards” . 6
Thus, Hoffmann's irony captures Tsakhes entirely. A weak freak, unable to connect a pair of words, does not even depend on himself. All he has is the magic charms of the fairy Rosabelverde, received by him only out of pity. Tsakhes does not have the opportunity to do anything on his own, but the character seems to be a significant figure to himself and to those around him.
2.2 Enthusiast - Balthazar.
For romantic writers, enthusiasts are the main guardians of goodness and beauty. But they are an extremely strange phenomenon from the point of view of the surrounding world, that traditional social hierarchy, where the significance of each is determined only by the place he occupies in this system. Everything that has weight in this society is alien to the enthusiast - money, titles, name, career, honor - everything that is connected with common sense and benefit. An enthusiast is a tragic figure by nature, he is doomed to misunderstanding, loneliness and isolation.
It is precisely with such qualities and such a fate that Hoffmann's hero Balthazar is endowed. An educated young man from a good, intelligent family, he lives in his own romantic world. Balthasar is in love with the daughter of Professor Alpanus, he does not have a soul in her, although he has no reasons for this, which is emphasized by the author, again, with the help of irony, in the description of the "beautiful" Candida. Yes, she is pretty, but between the lines we read that this girl is not worthy of the student's crazy love.
The romanticism of Balthasar is clearly exaggerated by Hoffmann. As befits a romantic hero, he is a creative person, understands the language of nature and is in love. However, Hoffmann presents his object of love with such a characteristic that Balthasar looks very ironic.
Balthasar is similar to the main character of the "Golden Pot" Anselm; they are united by enthusiasm, opposition to the philistine routine, striving for the ideal, but at the same time different from it. For Balthazar there is no way out into the poetic Atlantis. The gift of Prosper Alpanus turns him into a prosperous owner at the end of the story. Balthazar does not seek the realization of any romantic dream, but receives only philistine peace and tranquility as a reward.
Also, the episode with the seclusion of Balthazar shows him far from the best side. The hero is offended by everyone who helped him expose the "insidious" Zinnober, he withdraws into himself and complains about his life.
Thus, it turns out that Hoffmann does not idealize his romantic hero at all. Based on this, we can conclude that the writer does not identify the philistines as people with a minus sign, but shows, with the help of irony, the imperfections of the enthusiast.
2.3 Candida.
“Candida had radiant, heart-piercing eyes and slightly swollen scarlet lips, and she - everyone is forced to agree with this - was a hand-written beauty. I don’t remember whether her beautiful hair, which she knew how to style so bizarrely, braiding it into marvelous braids, should be called blond or chestnut, I only remember their strange feature very much: the longer you look at them, the darker and darker they become. She was a tall, slender, easy-going girl, the embodiment of grace and affability, especially when she was surrounded by busy society; with so many charms, they very willingly forgave her for the fact that her arms and legs could, perhaps, be smaller and more graceful. 1
That is, even the narrator, who must describe everything exactly, does not remember the color of Candida's “beautiful hair”. This cannot be explained by anything other than romantic irony. The author claims that Candida is a written beauty, not knowing such an important detail as the color of her hair. Despite the grace and friendliness of the girl, appearing in the presence of society, her limbs, according to the narrator, are not at all small. Such a setting of things is nothing but the appearance, again, of irony.
“Moreover, Candida read Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, Schiller's poems and Fouquet's Magic Ring and managed to forget almost everything that was said there; she played the piano tolerably well and sometimes even sang along; she danced the latest gavottes and French quadrilles, and in a very legible and delicate handwriting wrote down the linen scheduled for washing. And if it is absolutely necessary to find faults in this dear girl, then, perhaps, one could not approve of her rude voice, that she dragged on too tightly, was too happy with a new hat for too long and ate too much cake with tea. 1
Again, Hoffmann is ironic about his hero. Naturally, no one could love Candida for her beautiful handwriting, for the fact that she sang along or danced along, or for the fact that she read a couple of books. Such an ironic attitude towards her is a reflection of the fact that everyone sees Candida as an ideal girl. As we can see, society often deceives itself and does not notice that it elevates the unworthy, because all its advantages are sham, designed only to make a good impression on others. They are not supported by anything, and this is what Hoffmann's irony helps us to see.
2.4 Mosh Terpin.
Philistinism from science is represented in the fairy tale by the comic figure of natural science professor Mosh Terpin. Unlike the student-enthusiast Balthazar, who zealously guards the fairy-tale world of nature and poetry from the intrusion into it by the alien to the true beauty of everyday life, Mosh Terpin acts as the bearer of the utilitarian and rude attitude to nature hated by Hoffmann, as a representative of the mechanization of life. He is not of the nature of the "enlightened" philistines who grew abundantly on the soil of German squalor. Mosh Terpin had an illogical answer to every question, as if pulled out of a drawer. Zinnober appoints him general director of all natural sciences in the principality, thanks to which he gets the opportunity, without leaving his office, to study all kinds of birds and animals in a fried form, and for his treatise on why wine has a different taste than water, to conduct research in the prince's wine cellar. In addition, his duties included editing all solar and lunar eclipses, as well as scientifically proving to the princely tenants that if the hail broke their crops, then they themselves were to blame.
So, the figure of Mosh Terpin is thoroughly saturated with irony. He is a respected person in the principality who is obliged to explain everything to everyone, although all his explanations are illogical and absurd.
2.5 Officials and Prince Pafnuty.
Puppetry and subordination in the tale are fully represented by such heroes as Prince Pafnutiy and his assistants from the ministry. In fact, they do nothing for the benefit of the principality. They are always busy with secondary tasks like dinner parties or sewing new suits.
Prince Paphnutius himself received such a high position only due to the fact that he lent a small amount to his predecessor Demetrius, which is also significant: ranks in the principality are distributed not on the basis of deeds and merit, but by chance.
“Prince Barsanuf, one of the successors of the great Paphnutius, dearly loved his minister, for he had an answer ready for every question; during the hours appointed for rest, he played skittles with the prince, knew a lot about money transactions and danced the gavotte incomparably. 1 Such skills testify not to the professionalism of officials, but to their unwillingness to do something for the benefit of the state.
So, the people ruling in the principality absolutely do not deserve this, over which Hoffmann is actively ironic. Each official is depicted as a complete fool and lazy person.
2.6 Summary.
All the heroes of the fairy tale are subject to Hoffmann's irony. Each of them is shown in its own way, but, nevertheless, the author ironically over each, even over the "favorite" of the romantics - the enthusiast. This suggests that Hoffmann, unlike his predecessor, does not idealize romantic heroes, but believes that not a single philistine is to blame for being born like that.
Here, irony helps to look at the characters from the other side, to identify their shortcomings and to accept, if possible, the hidden point of view of the author.
Chapter 3 Irony about the situation.
3.1 Irony on the example of some situations.
First of all, it is worth noting that in the work “Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober”, Hoffmann depicts two worlds - real and fantastic, as Gulyaev writes, “he collides reality, devoid of beauty, with the world of his romantic dreams.” 1 The heroes of the novel, on the one hand, are ordinary people - students, officials, professors, court nobles. And if something strange sometimes happens to them, they are ready to find a plausible explanation for this. The fabulous side of the work is associated with the images of the fairy Rasabelverde and the magician Prosper Alpanus. However, magical heroes have to adapt to real conditions and hide under the masks of the canoness of the orphanage for noble maidens and the doctor. Already this situation is saturated with unconcealed and ubiquitous Hoffmannian irony. It was this technique that became the "calling card" of the writer. After the publication of his story "Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober", the romantic writer Shamisso called him "our undeniably first humorist" 2 .
Student Balthazar is an "enthusiast", a romantic hero-dreamer, dissatisfied with the society of philistines around him, the scholasticism of university lectures, and finds oblivion and rest only in solitude in the bosom of nature. He is a poet by nature, composes poems about the nightingale, putting passion for the beautiful Candida into stable poetic images. It is not so important whether Balthazar's creations are talented or not, but it is important that he has a poetic worldview. 3 Balthazar is a poet, he sees the people around him as they really are, witchcraft cannot make him deceived and see a worthy person in Tsakhes. Therefore, he is a true romantic hero, who enters into a duel with a villain who steals everything that falls into his field of vision.
In connection with the image of the hero, Hoffmann, using the irony characteristic of romantics, skillfully plays up the following situation: Balthasar, disappointed in everything around him, went into the forest and despaired.
“In utter despair of everything that a friend wrote to him, Balthazar fled
into the very thicket of the forest and began to lament loudly.
Hope! he exclaimed. - And I still have to hope, when any
hope vanished when all the stars faded and the dark dark night
embraces me, inconsolable? Bad rock! I'm defeated by dark forces
perniciously intruding into my life! Madman, I've put my hopes on
Prosper Alpanus, who, with his infernal art, lured me and removed me from
Kerepes, by making sure that the blows that I applied to the image in the mirror,
actually fell on Zinnober's back. Ah, Candida! When would
only I could forget this heavenly child! But the spark of love is burning in me
stronger and hotter than before. Everywhere I see a lovely image
beloved, who with a gentle smile, longingly stretches out her arms to me.
I do know! You love me, beautiful, sweetest Candida, and that's my
inconsolable, mortal torment that I am unable to save you from dishonorable
the spell that entangled you! Treacherous Prosper! What have I done to you, what are you
fooling me so cruelly?
It was getting dark: all the colors of the forest were mixed in a thick gray haze. 1
This situation conveys Hoffmann's irony over his hero. Blinded, Balthazar did not appreciate what the magician had done for him. He finally remembered his immense love for Candida - an "educated" girl who had read only a couple of books, distinguished by her special beauty, although no one could even remember the color of her hair. So, Balthasar is a truly romantic hero: having found himself in a difficult situation for the first time and imagining himself a hermit, he went into the forest.
Here we recall an earlier romantic writer - Ludwig Tieck, who often uses the motif of hermitage and solitude. For example, in the short story "Blond Ekbert" the protagonist goes on an unplanned journey after the death of his wife and the murder of a friend, committed by him. Moreover, the gradually coming madness pushes him to such solitude: in every man, Ekbert saw his murdered friend Walter. Directly during the hermitage, Ekbert meets an old woman who, in her youth, was deceived by his wife, also becoming a kind of hermit. The old woman opens the hero's eyes to many things: it turns out that it was she who was both Walter and the knight who met Ecbert during the trip, and was connected with his father, and Ecbert's dead wife was his sister. As you can see, Thicke presents the idea of solitude without any irony. The circumstances that forced Ecbert to become a hermit are much more serious than those because of which Balthazar went into the forest.
Also, the motif of solitude can be traced, for example, throughout Ludwig Tieck's novel The Wanderings of Franz Sternbald. The protagonist wanders in search of blood parents. No needs, treasures or temptations can stop the young man, he leads a solitary life and does not stay anywhere for a long time. Throughout his journey, Franz is faced with extremely serious problems and circumstances, that is, Tik has no irony.
“In Little Tsakhes, the story of a vile freak is also funny, with the help of magic spells received from a fairy, he bewitched an entire state and became the first minister in it, but the idea that formed its basis is rather terrible: a nonentity seizes power by appropriating merit, he is not belonging, and a blinded, stupefied society that has lost all value criteria no longer simply takes "an icicle, a rag for an important person," but also, in some kind of perverted self-beating, creates an idol out of a half-wit. 1
Tsakhes uses magical charms, which, although he was not invented and put into practice by himself, as something taken for granted - he uses them as soon as possible. He turns up his nose, believing that he actually has a reason to treat him well. But he himself and the inhabitants of a small state were deceived by none other than the Rosabelverde fairy. Of course, she was driven not by malicious intent, but by the desire to help the little freak and his mother, the peasant woman Liza. Who gave her the right to mislead society and the dwarf himself? Naturally, she had no right to do this, that is, the fairy used her skills to the detriment of the principality and its inhabitants. After all, who knows what could have become of a state that had such a stupid, arrogant, uneducated minister.
So, Rosabelverde was driven only by good intentions and pity for the dwarf. This situation is also an example of Hoffmann's irony. The impudent fairy, who was generally hardly left to live in the principality, abuses the abilities given to her from above. And no one gave her the right to control other people's destinies, either from above or from anywhere else. But, again, she treats the freak Tsakhes with maternal awe and care, and Tsakhes himself does not appreciate this. So, a woman endowed with a magical gift managed to endanger the well-being of an entire state in order to help her “baby”. Only the author's irony does not end there: Rosabelverde maintains his charms and every ninth day combs Tsakhes with a magic comb, that is, he cannot change his mind and helps the "kid" to further fool the officials and everyone around him.
Indeed, in general, the situation that society accepted a previously unknown, insignificant freak, seeing in him a charming young man, and even elevated it, is indicative. Here the author is ironic about any society as a whole. Sometimes we ourselves create idols, and then follow them like a mindless herd. In politics, there are enough examples of such an ascension of not quite worthy people - this happened in Hoffmann's fairy tale. More precisely, the situation shown in the fairy tale is a projection on everyday life, and it is in everyday life that we often do not think about such things. And it is irony that helps people to understand what position they are in, to look at themselves from the outside, to realize everything, to correct themselves.
A similar worship of a false idol is present in N.V. Gogol's play The Inspector General. 1 In comedy they took "an icicle, a rag for an important person." They also take the ugly, insignificant Tsakhes for an important person: “... everyone took him for a handsome, stately man and an excellent rider” 2, exalt him as “the smartest, most learned, most beautiful student gentleman among all those present” 3; exorbitant praise was lavished on him as a most excellent poet. He is the smartest and most skillful official in the office, “... the same one who composes reports in such a beautiful style and rewrites reports in such an elegant handwriting ...” 4 . From all sides one hears: “What a talent! What diligence!”; “What dignity, what greatness in deeds!”; “What a creation! How much thought! How much fantasy! The "divine" Zinnober is mistaken for an "inspired composer", he is a minister! And Professor Mosh Terpin declares: “He will marry my daughter, he will become my son-in-law, through him I will enter into favor with our glorious prince ...”. 5 Here we recall Gogol's mayor with his attitude towards Khlestakov.
As N. Ya. Berkovsky noted, “in its super-insignificance, Tsakhes is, as it were, a premonition of our Ivan Aleksandrovich Khlestakov: when in the afternoon he begins to boast to the county society, then this scene is a kind of Tsakhism; if you like, like Tsakhes, Ivan Alexandrovich fills all high positions in his stories and authorizes all famous works. 6
Further, Hoffmann plays on the ceremony of appointing Zinnober as a minister. The tiny principality cannot pursue any independent policy. Hoffmann takes every opportunity to ridicule the meager nature of the activities in the dwarf German states; thus, the State Council at Barsanuf sat for seven days straight in order to attach the sash to the ugly figure of Tsakhes. Members of the chapter of orders, in order not to overload their brains, were forbidden to think a week before the historic meeting, and during it in the palace "everyone walked around in thick felt shoes and explained himself by signs." Even if you look at the very situation when Zinnober was made a minister, you can see that the main trick in it is irony. In it, the system of appointing officials, their initiation, the prince himself, Zinnober, as well as all the assenting officials present, are also subject to irony. It is also noteworthy how, after much deliberation, the commission only makes a decision to invite a tailor, who is then put on almost the same ribbon as Zinnober's. Zinnober himself, again, cannot even read, which once again testifies to the ignorance and unsuitability of officials for life.
The whole system of feudal statehood is subjected to romantic irony in "Little Tsakhes": its spiritual and material life, miserable attempts at reforms with great pretensions, the system of ranks, the chapter of orders. Such irony is aimed at ridiculing the philistine world and the philistine hero, as well as ridiculing romantic enthusiasm and the romantic hero himself.
A powerful means of criticizing laughter is the romantic grotesque, which to a certain extent was “... a reaction to those elements of classicism and the Enlightenment that gave rise to the limitedness and one-sided seriousness of these currents: to narrow rational rationalism, to state and formal-logical authoritarianism, to the desire for readiness, completeness and unambiguity, to the didacticism and utilitarianism of the enlighteners, to naive or official optimism, etc.” 1
The very introduction of education into the country has a pronounced ironic background: the prince simply one day announces to the inhabitants that education has been introduced. He orders to post announcements about this (and printed in large letters), cut down forests, make the river navigable, plant potatoes, improve rural schools, plant acacias and poplars, teach youth to sing morning and evening prayers in two voices, lay highways and instill smallpox. 1 The prince also believes that it is necessary to expel from the state all people of a dangerous way of thinking, who are deaf to the voice of reason and seduce the people into various foolishness. How all these measures could contribute to real enlightenment is not clear.
Irony haunts Hoffmann's heroes to the very end, even to a happy ending. Alpanus, having arranged for a safe reunion of Balthazar with his beloved, gives them a wedding gift - a “country house”, on the plot of which excellent cabbage grows, pots never boil in the magic kitchen, porcelain does not beat in the dining room, carpets do not get dirty in the living room. “The ideal, which, having come to life, by the cunning will of Hoffmann, turns into quite philistinical comfort, thus which the hero shunned and fled; this is after the nightingales, after the scarlet rose - the ideal cuisine and excellent cabbage! 2 Here, please, in the story are kitchen paraphernalia.
"Remaining true to the principles of the romantic genre, the writer, perhaps imperceptibly to himself, makes significant adjustments to it." 3 Indeed, we can see that the narrative includes elements of real life - the author places the action of the tale in recognizable everyday circumstances (the German names of most of the characters; food supplies are typical for Germany: pumpernickel, rheinwein, Leipzig larks). Depicting a fabulous dwarf state, Hoffmann reproduces the orders of many German states. So, for example, when listing the most important educational actions, he includes in this list what was really done in Prussia on the orders of King Frederick II.
The main conflict for every romantic - the discord between dream and reality, poetry and truth - takes Hoffmann an inexorably tragic character, but the romantic writer, on the one hand, masks, and on the other, emphasizes all the tragedy of the situations described in his short story, with help of irony.
3.2 Summary
Hoffmann's irony, about which much has already been said and written, exists in his short story "Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober" on the border of the magical and philistine worlds, that is, in the zone of their contact. The dual world, characteristic of the romantics, is present in many writers, in Hoffmann it is skillfully played up with the help of irony. On the one hand, the author is ironic about the cases that happened to Tsakhes, who is under the influence of magic spells, and on the other hand, about what happens to Balthazar and other heroes who are not under the influence of Rosabelverde magic.
Conclusion.
Romantic irony is a universal way to look at ourselves and at various situations from the outside. With the help of his fairy tale “Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober”, Hoffmann ironically refers to the small German states in which riots were happening, similar to those depicted in the fairy-tale world and in the principality of Barsanuf.
After analyzing the tale, we see that Hoffmann is ironic about various situations for a reason: he draws the reader's attention to what happens to him in real life. Having ridiculed such things, the reader may wonder if the same thing happens to him, or may begin to relate more easily to such situations in his real life.
Thus, it can be seen that romantic irony is very useful for every reader. Having presented social problems in the form of a fairy tale, Hoffmann does not speak openly about anything, but we can guess that his fairy-tale irony is actually an irony over real life.
Bibliography.
Hoffman E. T. A. Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober. - Moscow, 1956. - 158 p.
Osinovskaya I. Ironic wandering. Ironic as a satyr and a god / I. A. Osinovskaya. - M. : Sovremennik, 2007. - 563 p.
The Artistic World of E. T. A. Hoffmann. – M. : Nauka, 1982. – 295 p.
Solger K. W. F. Vorlesungenüber Asthetik. Berlin, 1829.
Mirimsky I. V. Hoffman. - In the book: History of German Literature. M. : Education, 1966. - 420 p.
Berkovsky N. German romantic story. - M, L., 1935.
Botnikova A. B. E. T. A. Hoffman and Russian Literature - Voronezh, 1982. - 246 p.
Meletinsky E. M. The hero of a fairy tale. - Moscow, 1958.
Stepanova N.N. Romanticism as a cultural-historical type: an experience of interdisciplinary research. St. Petersburg. , 2001. - 389 p.
Mirimsky I.V. Little Tsakhes, nicknamed Zinnober / Foreword. - M., 1956.
Berkovsky N. Ya. Romanticism in Germany. - L., 1973.
Shneck E. Ein Kampf um das Bild des Menschen. - Berlin, 1939.
Thalmann M. Das Marschen und die Moderne. – Stuttgart, 1961.
Harich W. E. T. A. Hoffmann. Das Leben eines Kunstlers. – Berlin, .
Gulyaev N.A. etc. History of German literature: textbook for students faculty. and institutes of foreign languages - M., 1975.
Hoffman E.T.A. Collected works. In 6 vols. T.1. / A. Karelsky. - M.: Khudozh.lit., 1991.
Pronin V.A. History of German literature: textbook. allowance - M., 2007.
Gogol N. V. Auditor. - M., 1984.
Botnikova A. B. On the genre specifics of the German romantic fairy tale / A. B. Botnikova // Interaction of genre and method in foreign countries. lit. 18th-20th centuries - Voronezh, 1982.
1 Osinovskaya I. Ironic wandering. Ironic as a satyr and a god - Moscow, 2007. - p. 84-104
1 The Artistic World of E. T. A. Hoffmann. - Moscow, 1982. - p. 219.
2 Solger K. W. F. Vorlesungenüber Asthetik. Berlin, 1829, S.245.
3 Ibid. - p.217. 2 See: Botnikova A.B. On the genre specifics of the German romantic fairy tale. - Voronezh, 1982. Fairy tale >> Literature and Russian language
Genre characteristics (lyrical poem, story, fairy tale and a critical article, again a poem, a novel... Irony present in the story "The Undertaker". The plot is reminiscent of romantic works in the spirit of Hoffmann. But...
Composition
In "Little Tsakhes" there are traditional fairy-tale elements and motifs. These are miracles, the clash of good and evil, magical items and amulets. Hoffman uses the traditional fairy-tale motif of the enchanted and kidnapped bride and the test of heroes with gold. But the writer violated the purity of the fairy tale genre. Combining the real with the fantastic, the real with the fictional, the interweaving of reality and unrestrained fantasy is a feature of Hoffmann's poetics. Fantastic fabulous moments lose their intrinsic value and play a secondary role. Although the actions in “Little Tsakhes” take place in a conditional country, but by introducing the realities or cultural concepts of German life, noticing the characteristic features of the social psychology of the characters, the author thereby emphasizes the modernity of the events that take place.
Such “national information” can be attributed to background knowledge, which “are characteristic of the inhabitants of a particular country and are mostly unknown to foreigners, which, as usual, complicates the process of communication.” The heroes of the fairy tale (Balthazar, Candida, Fabian, Mosh Terpin, Barsanuf and others) are ordinary people: students, officials, professors, court nobles. If something strange happens to them from time to time, they are ready to find a plausible explanation for this. And the test of the hero-enthusiast Balthasar for loyalty to the wonderful world lies in the ability to see and feel this world, to believe in its existence. The fabulous side of the work is associated with magical characters, just like in the fairy tale “Cinderella”.
The main events in "Little Tsakhes" take place with the participation of the Rosabelverde fairy and the magician Prosper Alpanus. But in Hoffmann the nature of the presentation of the fantastic changes: these magical heroes have to adapt to real conditions and hide under the masks of a shelter for noble girls and a doctor. The narrator plays an “ironic game” with the very style of the story - strange phenomena are described in everyday language, in a restrained style, and the events of the real world suddenly appear in some kind of fantastic lighting, the tone of the narrator becomes tense. Mixing a high romantic tone and a low life tone, Hoffmann thereby destroys it and nullifies it. Tsakhes is the son of a poor peasant woman, Lisa, who frightens those around him with his appearance, “Senseless Freak,” until the age of two and a half, he never learned to speak and walk well.
Given that Tsakhes operates in an ugly social environment, Zinnober's mutilation can be considered symbolic. Taking pity on the poor peasant woman, the Rosabelverde fairy endows her little geek son with a wonderful gift, thanks to which everything significant and talented is attributed to Tsakhes. In the desire of the fairies to eliminate the imperfection that was allowed by nature, a good start was laid. Tsakhes makes a brilliant career. And all this was due to the fact that others, in fact, worthy, undeservedly felt resentment, shame and collapse in their careers or in love. The good done by the fairy turns into an endless source of evil. The teacher poses a question to high school students: “Why is a good deed of a fairy the beginning of a great evil?”. The analysis of Tsakhes's actions takes place in the following sequence: * - childhood: “by the day of St. Lawrence, the child was two and a half years old, and he still does not control his spider legs, and instead of speaking, he only purrs like a cat”; “the evil freak floundered and resisted, grumbled and strove to bite the maid of honor by the finger”, etc.;
* - activity: “Zinnober knew nothing, absolutely nothing, instead of answering he sniffled and croaked, and carried some kind of inexpressive nonsense that no one could make out, and because at the same time he kicked obscenely with his legs, and several times fell from a high chair"; “Zinnober was talking nonsense, grumbling and grumbling, but the minister took the paper from his hands and began to read it himself,” etc.;
* - the end of life: “but because Zinnober did not respond, the valet saw with his own eyes that very small thin legs stick out of a beautiful silver vessel with a handle, which always stood next to the toilet”; “the danger in which their clairvoyance was, and that the time had come to renounce all respect. He grabbed Zinnober by the legs and pulled him out. Oh, dead, he was dead - their little clairvoyance! “The burial of Minister Zinnober was one of the most monstrous that had ever been seen in Kerepes…”.
The timely intervention of a good wizard puts an end to Tsakhes' chimerical career. Having lost his magical hairs, he became what he really was - a pitiful semblance of a man. Fear of the crowd, which suddenly saw a small monster in the window of the minister's house, makes Zinnober look for a safe shelter in a chamber pot, where he dies, as the doctor states, "died of fear." The fact that he fell victim to an undeserved dizzying success, defining his fatal mistake, the fairy realized that if Tsakhes had not risen from insignificance and remained a little uncouth fool, he would have avoided a shameful death.
During the analysis, we noted that the author ridicules not only the insignificance and liar Tsakhes, who absorbed much of what was hostile to the world of poetry, love, beauty, justice, goodness, happiness. The adventures of the satirical Tsakhes are not at all personal, they are determined by the structure of the state and its secret or obvious needs. During the conversation, the teacher notes that Tsakhes is a precedent name, acquaintance with which makes it possible to understand the peculiarities of the worldview of the national society of that time, which created such a satirical character.
