“From the Writings of Aubépine”

Metafiction in Hawthorne and Hoffmann

Abstract

Through a comparative analysis of Hawthorne’s tale “Rappaccini’s Daughter” from 1844 and two of the German romanticist E.T.A. Hoffmann’s most famous fantastic tales, “Der goldene Topf” (1814) and “Der Sandmann” (1816), the present study examines the stylistic and thematic affinities between the works of the two authors. The first part of the essay illustrates the limited extent of scholarship pointing to this transatlantic connection, while the second part presents a comparative analysis of the three tales with focus on thematic and formal similarities. A major parallel theme is the problem of distinction between real and imaginary, expressed both thematically and formally through ambiguity and indeterminable, limited perception. The protagonists and the narrators prove themselves to be unreliable, consequently producing a disorienting and uncanny reading experience. This study discusses how this effect on the reader in turn indicates the limited capacity of the narration itself to convey a true and distinct version of reality. In the last and more extensive part of the essay, this theme of the limitation of narration is approached from yet another angle: the literary technique of metafiction employed, albeit in different manners, in all the three tales.