The artistic meaning of the symbolic objects of the golden pot. Analysis of the work “The Golden Pot” (Hoffmann)

There are two stages in the history of romanticism: early and late. The division is not only chronological, but based on philosophical ideas era.

The philosophy of early romanticism defines a two-sphere world: the world of “infinite” and “finite” (“become”, “inert”). “Infinite” - Cosmos, Genesis. “Finite” - earthly existence, everyday consciousness, everyday life.

The artistic world of early romanticism embodies the dual world of “infinite” and “finite” through the idea universal synthesis. The dominant attitude of the early romantics was a joyful acceptance of the world. The universe is a kingdom of harmony, and world chaos is perceived as a bright source of energy and metamorphosis, the eternal “flow of life.”

The world of late romanticism is also a two-sphere world, but already different, it is a world of absolute two-worldness. Here the “finite” is an independent substance, opposite to the “infinite”. The dominant attitude of the late romantics is disharmony, cosmic chaos is perceived as a source of dark, mystical forces.

Hoffmann's aesthetics are created at the intersection of early and late romanticism, their philosophical interpenetration.

In the world of Hoffmann’s heroes, there is no single correct space and time; each has its own reality, its own topos and its own time. But the Romantic, describing these worlds, in his own mind connects them into a holistic, albeit contradictory, world.

Hoffmann's favorite character, Kreisler, in The Musical Sorrows of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler, describes a “tea evening” to which he was invited as a pianist playing at a dance:

“...I... am completely exhausted... A disgusting lost evening! But now I feel good and easy. After all while playing, I took out a pencil and with my right hand sketched in numbers on page 63 under the last variation several successful deviations, while left hand never stopped struggling with the flow of sounds!.. I keep writing on the back blank side<…>As a recovering patient who never ceases to talk about what he suffered, I describe in detail here the hellish torment of today’s tea evening.” Kreisler, Hoffmann's alter ego, is able to overcome the drama of reality through spiritual existence.

In Hoffmann’s work, the structure of each text is created by “two worlds,” but it enters through “ romantic irony».

In the center of Hoffmann's universe - creative person, poet and musician, the main thing for whom is act of creation, according to the romantics, is “music, the being of being itself.” Aesthetic act and resolves the conflict between the “material” and the “spiritual”, life and existence.

A fairy tale from modern times “The Golden Pot” was the focus of Hoffmann's philosophical and aesthetic concept.

The text of the fairy tale reflects the “extra-textual” world and at the same time the individual character that characterizes Hoffmann’s personality. According to Yu. M. Lotman, the text is “ author's model of the world", through all the structural components of which, the chronotope and heroes, the real world is embodied. The philosophy of romantic dual worlds determines the plot and plot of the tale, composition and chronotope.

To parse the text we need theoretical concepts, without which students, as a rule, call Anselm the main character of the tale, and from art spaces two are distinguished - the city of Dresden and the magical and mystical world in its two guises - Atlantis (the bright beginning) and the space of the Old Woman (the dark beginning). Thus delineated chronotope of the tale cuts off individual parts of the composition, reduces the plot by half, reducing it to the plot about Anselm.

If for actor the characters of this plot Anselm, Veronica, Geerbrand, Paulman, Lindgorst and the old woman Lisa are sufficient for the creative fantasies of stage embodiment, then for director this compositional deconstruction leads to the loss of the meaning of the Fairy Tale and its main character - Romance.

Theoretical concepts become indicators of artistic and ideological meanings.

Chronotope - “... relationship spatial and temporal relations, artistically mastered in literature" [p. 234].

Author-creator - a real man, the artist is “distinguishable from the image author, narrator and narrator. Author-creator = composer both in relation to the work as a whole, and to a separate text as a particle of the whole” [p. 34].

The author is “the bearer of the intensely active unity of the completed whole, the whole hero and the whole work.<...>The author’s consciousness is the consciousness that embraces the consciousness of the hero, his world” [p. 234]. The author’s task is to understand the form of the hero and his world, i.e. aesthetic assessment of someone else's knowledge and action.

Narrator (narrator, narrator) - “this created figure, which belongs to the entire literary work." This role invented and adopted by the author-creator. “The narrator and characters, by their function, are “paper creatures”, Author story (material) cannot be confused with narrator this story."

Event. There are two types of Events: an artistic event and a story event:

1) An artistic event - in which the author-creator and the reader take part. So in “The Golden Pot” we will see several similar Events, about which the characters “do not know”: this structural division, the choice of genre, the creation of a chronotope, as Tynyanov notes, such an Event “introduces not the hero, but the reader into prose.”

2) The plot event changes the characters, situations, dynamic deployment of the plot in the space of the entire plot.

The text of the “Golden Pot” is a system of several artistic events, fixed in the structure of the composition.

The beginning of these Events is the division into “printed” text and “written” text.

First Event- this is the text “printed”: “The Golden Pot” A fairy tale from modern times.” It was created by Hoffmann - Author-creator - and has general character with the rest of Hoffmann's work - this is Kreisler, main character"Crayslerians".

Second Event. Author-Creator to your text introduces another author - Author-narrator. In the literature such author-narrator always exists as an alter ego of the real author. But often the author-creator endows him with the subjective function of the author-storyteller, who turns out to be a witness or even a participant real story, which it tells about. “The Pot of Gold” has just such a subjectified author - a romantic writer who writes “his own text” - about Anselm (“the text being written”).

Third Event- this is the “written text” about Anselm.

I event

Let's turn to First art event: creation by the Author-Creator of the “Golden Pot”.

The “printed” text is the result of the work of the Author-Creator - E. T. A. Hoffman.

He gives the title to the work (the semantics of which the reader still has to think about), defines the genre ( A tale from new times), plot, compositional structure, including such a compositional element as division into chapters, in in this case « vigilia" It is through this title of the chapter of the vigil that the Author-Creator defines the space of the narrator - the Author-Romantic and conveys the “word” to him. It is he who romantic narrator, firstly, shows the reader the process of writing history, how and where it happens (place and time) and, secondly, presents what he created ( by the author) text about Anselm.

firstly, he structures his text “The Golden Pot”;

secondly, it includes two more Events:

Text of Romance (the story of Anselm).

In addition, by introducing the name of Kreisler, the hero of his other text, the author-creator integrates the text about Anselm and the “Golden Pot” as a whole into the artistic holistic system of his work.

At the same time, Hoffman includes “The Golden Pot” in the cultural series. The title of the fairy tale “The Golden Pot” refers to the Novalis fairy tale “Heinrich von Ofterdingen”. In it, the main character dreams of a blue flower, and the whole novel is illuminated by the sign blue color. The symbolism of the blue flower, like the color itself (blue, blue) is a sign of world synthesis, the unity of the finite and the infinite, as well as the journey of human discovery through self-knowledge.

E. T. A. Hoffmann also offers his hero a certain goal - a golden pot. But the symbolism of the “golden pot” is bourgeois gilded happiness, which profanes the romantic sign. “The Golden Pot” in the context of the works of E. T. A. Hoffmann receives a meaning, which in turn refers the reader to another sign. In Hoffmann's fairy tale "Little Tsakhes" the hero ingloriously drowns in night potty Thus, the sign of the “golden pot” is even more profaned by the definition of “night”. It turns out that the author-creator begins a dialogue with the reader already with the title of the fairy tale.

First event, dispersing space and time, assigning them to different authors and characters, introduces a philosophical motive search for truth: what really exists or does everything depend on our perception?

Immediately after the name and definition of the genre, the reader is “slipped” into a temporal and spatial marker of the transition to “ test of another author." This is the title of the first “chapter” (and there are 12 of them in the fairy tale) - Vigilia .

Vigilia (lat. vigil a) - night watch in ancient Rome; here - in the sense of “night vigil”.

Night Very important time days for the aesthetics of romanticism: “Night is the guardian. This image belongs to the spirit,” wrote Hegel.

According to romantics, it is at night human soul comes into intimate contact with the spiritual content of the world, feelings come to life and awaken in her, drowned out during the day by the external (often imaginary) surface of life. A significant role in this process, as studies by psychologists have shown, is played by brain patterns, different functions right and left hemispheres. The left (“day”) hemisphere is responsible for mental operations, the right (“night”) hemisphere is responsible for Creative skills personality. Night - and not only among romantics - is a time of activity of the right hemisphere and productive creative work.

Through artistic marker - “vigilia” and the first time and space are set in the “Golden Pot”: the personified figure of the narrator, invented by the Author-Creator, is introduced - new Author- romance.

one - demonstration history creation process about Anselm,

second - herself Anselm's story.

Second And third Events

occur in different time and on different levels text of “The Golden Pot”: plot and plot.

Fabula - “vector-time and logically determined sequence facts of life, chosen or imagined by the artist" [S. 17].

Plot is “a sequence of actions in a work, artistically organized through space-time relationships and organizing a system of images; the totality and interaction of a series of events at the level of the author and characters” [Ibid., p. 17].

Considering the space and time of “The Golden Pot” as plot and plot, we will use these definitions.

Story space- “multidimensional, multifaceted, mobile, changeable. Fabulous space exists in the real dimensions of reality, it is one-dimensional, constant, attached to certain parameters and in this sense static.”

Fabulous time -"time of occurrence of the event." Story time- “the time of telling about an event. Plot time, unlike plot time, can slow down and speed up, move zigzag and intermittently. Fable time exists not outside, but inside plot time” [P. 16].

Second Event- the creative process experienced by the Romantic, the creation of his own Text. In the structure of the entire fairy tale, it organizes plot space and time. The main task of the Event is to create a “story of Anselm”, which has its own time and place.

Twelve vigils, twelve nights the Author writes - this is what it is story time. We become witnesses creative process: in our presence a story about Anselm is being written and “for some reason” the 12th Vigil does not work out. All the Author’s activity is aimed, first of all, at composing the composition of his work: he selects heroes, places them in a certain time and place, connects them with plot situations, i.e. forms the plot of “Anselm’s story.” As an author, he is free to do whatever he wants with his text. Thus, before the reader’s eyes, he performs the function of the “Author of the Creator” of the text where Anselm is the main character.

The subjective narrator and at the same time the character of the Fairy Tale from New Times “The Golden Pot”, the romantic artist creates a text about an unusual person Anselme, whose individuality does not fit into the society of Dresden, which brings him into the world of Lindhorst, the magician and master of the kingdom of Atlantis.

This magician and sorcerer Lindgorst, in turn, turns out to be familiar with the musician, bandmaster Kreisler, the hero of “another text” - “Kreisleriana”, owned by the Author-Creator - Hoffmann. Mention of Kreisler as Romantic's beloved friend, i.e. author of the text about Anselm, connects fictional worlds (from different texts Hoffman) and the real world in which Hoffman creates.

It is in this connection, and not in the story of Anselm, that the romantic idea of Hoffmann himself is embodied - the indissolubility of two worlds, the synthesis of the “infinite” and the “finite”. But Hoffman connects these worlds through the artistic device of romantic irony. “Irony is a clear consciousness of eternal liveliness, chaos in its endless wealth,” according to F. Schelling. The entirety of world life in irony and through irony holds its judgment against flawed phenomena that claim independence. Hoffmann's romantic irony chooses collisions that pit the whole against the whole, the world of romanticism against the bourgeois world, the world of creativity against the mediocre, being against everyday life. And only in this opposition and indissolubility does the fullness of life appear.

So, romantic Artist in the “Golden Pot”, performs 3 functions:

2) He is the same a character in his own story about Anselm, which we discover in the 12th vigil (his acquaintance with the character he himself invented - Lindhorst).

3) He is the same "romantic artist" breaking the boundaries of the “story of Anselm” he invented. The introduction into his story of the figure of Kreisler, the hero of the “other text”, belonging only to the Author-Creator, thereby allows the Romantic, the author about Anselm, enter Hoffmann's world as his second self - alter ego.

Plot topos of the second Event constitute the own space of the Romantic author and the text he created. His home is a “closet on the fifth floor” in the city of Dresden. Of all the attributes that belong to him, the reader sees a table, a lamp and a bed. Here they bring him a note from Lindgorst (a character in the text he wrote as the author). The Lindhorst character offers help to his creator: “... if you want to write the twelfth vigil<...>come to me" [p. 108]. From their meeting in Lindgorst's house (the plot topos text about Anselm and the plot topos of “The Golden Pot”) we learn that best friend The author is Kapellmeister Johann Kreisler (a very significant character who is a true enthusiast for Hoffmann himself; it is through this image that the “Golden Pot” is united with other works of Hoffmann).

We also learn about the author’s presence of “a decent manor as a poetic property...” in Atlantis (the invisible space of the Romantic author). But in the plot topos this space poetic manor performs the role of connection, identification of the Author and the Author-Creator, the creator of the “Kreisleriana”.

firstly, he lives in the city of Dresden,

secondly, in Atlantis he has a manor or estate,

thirdly, he writes “the story of Anselm”,

fourthly, he meets the hero of his own work (Lindhorst),

and finally, fifthly, he learns about the visit of Kreisler, the hero of another text by Hoffmann.

Author's materialized space(his home) subjective space (Manor, readers), finally, fictional space- a text about Anselm, and the process of writing it - all this elements of space II Events.

The development of the “story of Anselm”, its chronotope - plot space and time.

But since this is the story of the spiritual state of the Romantic author, its “materialization” simultaneously becomes the plot of the Second Event, forming a text within a text. The Romantic Author occupies a certain spatial position in the “Golden Pot” along with the Text he created.

Time, during which the Text is written (12 nights), “outgrows” the plot (vector) dimension and turns out to be plot time. Because this is not only perceptual time, calculated in 12 days (or nights), but also subjective, conceptual time. Before the reader’s eyes, linear time turns into timelessness, through the world of the created text it emerges into spiritual world poetry - into eternity.

Time and space lose their plot meaning through playing with “story plots” in the plot, lose their formal characteristics and become spiritual substances.

Third Art Event- this is a text by the Romantic Author, a story dedicated to the “quest” of a young man named Anselm.

Fabulous space of history: Dresden and the mystical world - the kingdom of Atlantis and the Witches. All these spaces exist autonomously, changing the overall configuration due to the movements of the characters.

In parallel to the “material” Dresden, two opposing forces secretly rule: the prince of good spirits of the kingdom of Atlantis, Salamander, and the evil Witch. While clarifying their relationship, they at the same time try to win Anselm over to their side.

All events begin with an everyday incident: Anselm turns over a basket of apples at the market and immediately receives a curse: “You will fall under glass,” which fable immediately determines the presence of another space - the mystical world.

The story of Anselm mostly takes place in Dresden, an ordinary provincial German town in Hoffmann's time. Its historical, “temporary” parameters: the city market, the embankment - a place for evening walks of townspeople, the bourgeois house of the official Paulman, the office of the archivist Lindhorst. This city has its own laws and its own philosophy of life. We learn about all this from the characters, that is, the residents of Dresden. Thus, rank, profession, and budget are valued above all else; they are the ones who determine what a person can do and what he cannot. The higher the rank, the better; for young people this means being in the position of gofrat. And the ultimate dream of the young heroine Veronica is to marry a gofrat. Thus, Dresden is a burgher-bureaucratic city. Everything is immersed in everyday life, in the vanity of vanities, in the game of limited interests. Dresden, from the point of view of contrasting spiritual and material values, within the framework of space-time oppositions acts as a closed, “finite” place.

At the same time, Dresden is under the sign of old Lisa, who embodies the devilish, witchy beginning of the universe, and under the sign of Lindhorst and his bright, magical Atlantis.

Third event Anselm’s story is quite easily read by students, and is perceived as the direct content of the fairy tale “The Golden Pot” and, when independently analyzing the text, most often remains the only story of the entire plot...

...And only deep analysis, knowledge theoretical concepts and knowledge of artistic laws help to see and understand the holistic picture of the text, to maximize the field of meaning and one’s own imagination.

“The Closed Trading State” (1800) is the name of the treatise by the German philosopher I. G. Fichte (1762-1814), which caused great controversy.

"Fanchon" - opera German composer F. Gimmel (1765-1814).

General Bass - doctrine of harmony.

Iphigenia- V Greek mythology daughter of the leader of the Greeks, King Agamemnon, who in Aulis sacrificed her to the goddess of hunting Artemis, and the goddess transferred her to Tauris and made her her priestess.

Tutti(Italian) - simultaneous play of all musical instruments.

Alcina Castle- The castle of the sorceress Alcina in the poem of the Italian poet L. Ariosto (1474-1533) " Furious Roland"(1516) were guarded by monsters.

Euphon (Greek) - euphony; here: the creative power of a musician.

Orc Spirits- in the Greek myth of Orpheus, perfume underground kingdom, where the singer Orpheus descends to bring out his deceased wife Eurydice.

"Don Juan"(1787) - opera by the great Austrian composer W.A. Mozart (1756-1791).

Armida- a sorceress from the poem by the famous Italian poet T. Tasso (1544-1595) “Jerusalem Liberated” (1580).

Alceste- in Greek mythology, the wife of the hero Admetus, who sacrificed her life to save her husband and was freed from underworld Hercules.

Tempo di Marcia (Italian)- March

Modulation- changes in tonality, transitions from one musical system to another.

Melism (Italian)- melodic decoration in music.

Lib.ru/GOFMAN/gorshok.txt copy on the website Translation from German by Vl. Solovyova. Moscow, " Soviet Russia", 1991. OCR: Michael Seregin. The translation by V. S. Solovyov ends here. The final paragraphs were translated by A. V. Fedorov. - Ed.

“The Musical Sufferings of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler” // Hoffmann Kreislerian (From the first part of “Fantasies in the Manner of Callot”). - THIS. Hoffmann Kreisleriana. Everyday views of the cat Murra. Diaries. – M.: USSR Academy of Sciences Literary monuments, 1972. - pp. 27-28.

Bakhtin M.M. Questions of literature and aesthetics: – M.: 1975, p. 234

Ibid., 34.

Think about these concepts again; in a specific analysis of the text, they will help you understand the meaning of the entire text.

See 4 and 12 vigils of the Golden Pot.

Egorov B.F., Zaretsky V.A. and others. Plot and plot // In the collection: Questions of plot composition. - Riga, 1978. P. 17.

Tsilevich L.M. Dialectics of plot and plot // In the collection: Questions of plot composition. - Riga, 1972. P.16.

On Ascension Day, around three hours In the afternoon, in the area of the Black Gate in Dresden, student Anselm runs into a seller of apples and pies. He gives her his wallet to replace the damaged goods, but in return receives a curse. At the Link Baths, a young man realizes that the holiday is passing him by. He chooses a secluded place under an elderberry bush, fills his pipe with the healthy tobacco of Conrector Paulmann, and begins to complain about his own clumsiness. In the rustling of the branches, Anselm hears the gentle singing of snakes shining with green gold. He sees dark blue eyes fixed on him and begins to experience a sensual attraction to them. With the last ray of sunshine, a rough voice calls the snakes home.

Second Vigil

The young man comes to his senses from a townswoman’s remark about his madness. The woman's husband thinks the student drank too much. Having escaped from the venerable family, Anselm meets Conrector Paulman with his daughters and registrar Heerbrand by the river. While riding along the Elbe with them, he almost jumps out of the boat, mistaking the reflection of fireworks for golden snakes. Conrector Paulman does not take Anselm’s story about what happened to him under the elder tree seriously: he believes that only madmen and fools can dream in reality. His eldest daughter- Sixteen-year-old Veronica stands up for Anselm, saying that he must have had a dream, which he mistook for the truth.

The festive evening continues at the house of Conctor Paulman. Registrar Geerbrand offers Anselm a job as a copyist for the archivist Lindhorst, where the student appears the next day, fortifies himself with Conradie's gastric liqueur for courage, and once again encounters the apple seller, whose face he sees in the bronze door figure. Anselm grabs the bell, the cord of the latter turns into a snake that strangles the student until he loses consciousness.

Vigilia the third

Archivist Lindgorst tells the guests of the coffee shop the story of the creation of the valley in which the love of the Fire Lily and the beautiful young man Phosphorus was born. From a kiss last girl flared up and in its fire a new creature emerged, leaving both the valley and its lover. A black dragon emerging from the rocks caught the wonderful creature and in his arms it again turned into a Fire Lily. The young man Phosphorus challenged the dragon to a duel and freed his beloved, who became the queen of the beautiful valley. He calls himself a descendant of the Fire line. Everyone laughs.

Archivist Lindgorst says that he told them the honest truth, after which he tells new story- about a brother who was angry that his father bequeathed a luxurious onyx not to him, but to his brother. Now he is a dragon living in a cypress forest near Tunisia and guarding the famous mystical carbuncle of a necromancer living in a country house in Lapland.

Registrar Geerbrand introduces student Anselm to the archivist. Lindgorst says that he is “pleased” and quickly runs away.

Vigilia IV

The author tries to explain to the reader what state the student Anselm was in at the time he began working with the archivist Lindgorst: the young man fell into dreamy apathy and dreamed of a different, higher existence. He walked alone through the meadows and groves and dreamed of a green and golden snake under an elder tree. One day the archivist Lindgorst came across him there. In the voice of the latter, Anselm recognized the man who was calling the snakes home. The student told the archivist everything that happened to him on Ascension. Lindhorst explained to Anselm that he saw his three daughters and fell in love with the youngest, Serpentina. In an emerald mirror formed from rays gemstone on the ring, the archivist showed the student his beloved and once again invited him to rewrite the manuscripts. Anselm explained why he didn't show up for work last time. Lindgorst handed him a small bottle of golden-yellow liquid and ordered him to splash it into the bronze face of the apple vendor, after which he said goodbye to the student, turned into a kite and flew off to the city.

Vigilia fifth

Conrector Paulman considers Anselm an unfit subject. Registrar Geerbrand stands up for the student and says that he could become a collegiate assessor or court councilor. Veronica dreams of becoming Madam Court Councilor Anselm. A student who drops in for a few minutes deftly kisses her hand. A hostile image destroys the girl’s romantic illusions. Veronica tells her friends, the Osters ladies, about the little gray man who came to her for tea. The eldest, Angelica, shares her joy about the imminent return of her lover - wounded in right hand officer Victor. She gives Veronica the address of the clairvoyant - Frau Rauerin, where the girl goes after breaking up with her friends.

Frau Rauerin, in whom the reader can recognize the apple seller, advises Veronica to abandon Anselm, who entered the service of the salamanders and dreams of a wedding with a snake. Veronica, angry at her words, wants to leave. Frau Rauerin throws herself on her knees and asks her to recognize the old Lisa. The former nanny promises Veronica help in getting Anselm. She makes an appointment for the girl on the night of the autumn equinox at a crossroads in a field.

Vigilia sixth

Student Anselm decides to refuse to drink gastric liqueur before visiting the archivist, but this does not save him from a vision of an apple vendor, into whose bronze face he splashes the liquid given to him by Lindhorst.

Anselm goes to his place of work through a beautiful greenhouse filled with amazing talking birds. In the blue hall with golden columns he sees a wonderful golden pot. The student copies the first manuscript in a high room with bookcases. He understands that the blots that he saw on the samples of his work did not appear there by chance, but he does not say anything about this to Lindgorst. Serpentina invisibly helps Anselm in his work. Lindhorst turns into a majestic prince of spirits and predicts the student's fate.

Seventh Vigil

Bewitched by the apple seller, Veronica can't wait for the autumn equinox and, as soon as it arrives, she immediately hurries to meet the old woman. At night, in a storm and rain, the women go out into the field, where old Lisa digs a hole in the ground, throws coals into it, sets up a tripod, puts a cauldron in which she begins to brew a magic potion, while Veronica constantly thinks about Anselme.

The author appeals to the imagination of the reader, who could find himself on September 23 on the road leading to Dresden. He depicts the beauty and fear of Veronica, the ugliness of the old woman, the hellish magic glow and assumes that anyone who saw this would want to break the evil spell.

Veronica sees student Anselm emerging from the cauldron. A huge eagle descends on old Lisa. The girl loses consciousness and comes to her senses during the day, in her own bed. Younger sister- Twelve-year-old Frenzchen gives her tea and shows her a wet raincoat. On her chest, Veronica finds a small round, smoothly polished metal mirror, in which she sees the student Anselm at work. Dr. Eckstein prescribes medication for the girl.

Eighth Vigil

Student Anselm works hard for the archivist Lindgorst. One day, he takes him to an azure hall with a table covered with a purple blanket and a velvet chair and offers him a manuscript, originally looking like a palm leaf, for copying. Anselm realizes that he will have to work on the story of the marriage of Salamander with a green snake. Serpentina comes out to the student. She hugs the young man and tells him about magical land Atlantis, where he reigned mighty prince spirits Phosphorus, served by elemental spirits. One of them, Salamander, once saw a beautiful green snake in the garden, fell in love with it and stole it from his mother, Lily. Prince Phosphorus warned Salamander about the impossibility of marriage with a unique lover, who, like her mother, flared up and was reborn into a new creature, after which the unfortunate lover fell into grief, burned Phosphorus’ beautiful garden and was cast down to the earthly spirits. The Prince of Spirits said that he would return to the magical land of Salamanders no earlier than the time of universal blindness on earth, he himself would marry Lily and receive from her three daughters, each of which will be loved by an earthly youth who believes in the fabulous Atlantis. One of the earthly spirits gave the snake girls a magic pot as a gift. The apple merchant, according to Serpentina, is the product of one of the dragon feathers and some kind of beetroot, a creature hostile to both Salamander and Anselm.

Serpentina's story ends at six in the evening. The student is surprised to find it on the parchment. He spends the evening with Lindgorst and Geerbrand in the Link Baths.

Vigilia Ninth

Against his will, Anselm begins to think about Veronica. Conrector Paulman, who met a friend on the street, invites him to visit. A girl captivates a student a fun game While trying to catch up, he accidentally breaks her box and finds a magic mirror, looking into which he begins to mistake the story with Serpentina for a fairy tale. Anselm is late for the archivist. The Paulmans treat him to soup. In the evening, Registrar Geerbrand arrives. Veronica is preparing punch. Under the influence of wine fumes, Anselm again begins to believe in miracles. The company gets drunk. At the height of the fun, he enters the room small man in a gray coat and reminds the student about working for Lindgorst.

The next morning, the sober Anselm, who dreams of becoming a court councilor and marrying Veronica, puts an ink on the parchment and ends up in a glass flask on the table in the archivist’s library.

Vigilia tenth

The student endures incredible torment. He constantly calls out to Serpentina, who eases his suffering. Next to him on the table, he sees five more young people, imprisoned in banks, but believing that in fact they are having fun, walking around taverns with Lindhorst's money. The apple vendor mocks Anselm and tries to steal the golden pot. Archivist Lindgorst enters into a fight with her and wins. The witch's black cat is overcome by a gray parrot. The archivist frees Anselm from under the glass.

Vigilia Eleventh

Conrector Paulman doesn’t understand how it was possible to get so drunk the day before? Registrar Geerbrand blames Anselm for everything, whose madness spread to the others. Conctor Paulman rejoices in the absence of a student in his house. Veronica explains to her father that the latter cannot come because he fell under glass. The girl is sad. Dr. Eckstein prescribes his entertainment.

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Specifics of Hoffmann's romanticism: short story "Pot of Gold"

The literature of the Romantic era, which valued, above all, non-normativity and freedom of creativity, actually still had rules, although, of course, they never took the form of normative poetic treatises like Boileau’s Poetics.

Analysis literary works era of romanticism, carried out by literary scholars over two centuries and already generalized many times, showed that romantic writers use a stable set of romantic “rules”, which are referred to as features of the construction of the artistic world (two worlds, an exalted hero, strange incidents, fantastic images), as well as the structural features of the work, its poetics (the use of exotic genres, for example, fairy tales; the author’s direct intervention in the world of the characters; the use of the grotesque, fantasy, romantic irony, etc.).

Let us consider the most striking feature of Hoffmann’s fairy tale “The Golden Pot”, which indicates that it belongs to the era of romanticism.

The world of Hoffmann's fairy tale has pronounced signs of a romantic dual world, which is embodied in the work in various ways. Romantic dual worlds are realized in the story through the characters’ direct explanation of the origin and structure of the world in which they live.

There is this world, the earthly world, the everyday world, and another world, some magical Atlantis, from which man once originated. This is exactly what is said in Serpentina's story to Anselm about her father, the archivist Lindgorst, who, as it turned out, is the prehistoric elemental spirit of fire Salamander, who lived in the magical land of Atlantis and was exiled to earth by the prince of spirits Phosphorus for his love for his daughter Lily the snake. Hoffmann romanticism golden pot

This fantastic story is perceived as an arbitrary fiction that has no serious significance for understanding the characters of the story, but it is said that the prince of spirits Phosphorus predicts the future: people will degenerate (namely, they will cease to understand the language of nature) and only melancholy will vaguely remind of the existence of another world ( ancient homeland man), at this time the Salamander will be reborn and in its development will reach man, who, having been reborn in this way, will begin to perceive nature again - this is already a new anthropodicy, the doctrine of man. Anselm belongs to the people of the new generation, since he is able to see and hear natural miracles and believe in them - after all, he fell in love with a beautiful snake that appeared to him in a blooming and singing elderberry bush.

Serpentina calls this "naive poetic soul“, which is possessed by “those young men who, due to the excessive simplicity of their morals and their complete lack of so-called secular education, are despised and ridiculed by the crowd.” A man is on the verge of two worlds: partly an earthly being, partly a spiritual one. In essence, in all of Hoffmann’s works the world works exactly like this.

Duality is realized in the character system, namely in the fact that the characters clearly differ in their affiliation or inclination to the forces of good and evil. In The Golden Pot, these two forces are represented, for example, by the archivist Lindgorst, his daughter Serpentina and the old witch, who turns out to be the daughter of a black dragon feather and a beetroot. The exception is the main character, who finds himself under the equal influence of one and the other force, and is subject to this changeable and eternal struggle between good and evil.

Anselm’s soul is a “battlefield” between these forces, see, for example, how easily Anselm’s worldview changes when he looks into Veronica’s magic mirror: just yesterday he was madly in love with Serpentine and wrote down the history of the archivist in his house with mysterious signs, and Today it seems to him that he was only thinking about Veronica, “that the image that appeared to him yesterday in the blue room was again Veronica and that fantastic fairy tale about the marriage of Salamander with the green snake was only written by him, and not told to him in any way. He himself marveled at his dreams and attributed them to his exalted state of mind, due to his love for Veronica...” Human consciousness lives in dreams and each of such dreams always, it would seem, finds objective evidence, but in essence all these mental states are the result of the influence of the fighting spirits of good and evil. The ultimate antinomy of the world and man is characteristic feature romantic attitude.

The dual world is realized in the images of a mirror, which are found in large numbers in the story: the smooth metal mirror of the old fortune teller, the crystal mirror made of rays of light from the ring on the hand of the archivist Lindgorst, the magic mirror of Veronica that bewitched Anselm.

The color scheme used by Hoffmann in the depiction of objects from the artistic world of “The Golden Pot” reveals that the story belongs to the era of romanticism. These are not just subtle shades of color, but necessarily dynamic, moving colors and entire color schemes, often completely fantastic: “pike-gray tailcoat”, snakes shining with green gold, “sparkling emeralds fell on him and entwined him with sparkling golden threads, fluttering and playing there were thousands of lights around him”, “blood spurted from the veins, penetrating the transparent body of the snake and coloring it red”, “rays emerged from the precious stone, like from a burning focus, in all directions, which, combining, made up a brilliant crystal mirror” .

Sounds in art world works by Hoffmann (the rustle of elderberry leaves gradually turns into the ringing of crystal bells, which, in turn, turns out to be a quiet, intoxicating whisper, then bells again, and suddenly everything ends in rough dissonance, the sound of water under the oars of a boat reminds Anselm of a whisper.

Wealth, gold, money, jewelry are presented in the artistic world of Hoffmann's fairy tale as mystical item, a fantastic magical remedy, an object somewhat from another world. Spetsies thaler every day - it was this kind of payment that seduced Anselm and helped him overcome his fear in order to go to the mysterious archivist; it was this spices thaler that turns living people into shackled ones, as if poured into glass. Lindgorst's precious ring can charm a person. In her dreams of the future, Veronica imagines her husband, court councilor Anselm, and he has a “gold watch with a rehearsal”, and he gives her the latest style of “cute, wonderful earrings”.

The heroes of the story are distinguished by their obvious romantic specificity.

Profession. Archivist Lindgorst is the keeper of ancient mysterious manuscripts containing, apparently, mystical meanings; in addition, he also deals with mysterious chemical experiments and does not allow anyone into this laboratory. Anselm is a copyist of manuscripts who is fluent in calligraphy. Anselm, Veronica, Kapellmeister Geerbrand have musical ear, are able to sing and even compose music. In general, everyone belongs to the scientific community and is associated with the production, storage and dissemination of knowledge.

Often romantic heroes suffer incurable disease, which makes the hero seem to be partially dead (or partially unborn!) and already belonging to another world. In The Golden Pot, none of the characters are distinguished by ugliness, dwarfism, etc. romantic illnesses, but there is a motive of madness, for example, Anselm, for his strange behavior, is often mistaken by those around him for a madman: “Yes,” he added, “there are frequent examples that certain phantasms appear to a person and disturb and torment him a lot; but this is a bodily illness, and leeches are very helpful against it, which should be placed, if I may say so, on the backside, as proven by one famous scientist who has already died,” he himself compares the fainting that happened to Anselm at the door of Lindhorst’s house with madness, the statement of a drunken man Anselm’s “after all, you, Mr. Conrector, are nothing more than an owl bird curling a toupee” immediately aroused the suspicion that Anselm had gone crazy.

The nationality of the heroes is not definitely mentioned, but it is known that many heroes are not people at all, but magical creatures born from marriage, for example, a black dragon feather and a beetroot. Nevertheless, the rare nationality of the heroes as an obligatory and familiar element romantic literature is still present, although in the form of a weak motive: the archivist Lindgorst keeps manuscripts in Arabic and Coptic, as well as many books “such as are written in some strange characters that do not belong to any known language.”

Everyday habits of the characters: many of them love tobacco, beer, coffee, that is, ways of bringing themselves out of an ordinary state into an ecstatic one. Anselm was just smoking a pipe filled with “useful tobacco” when his wonderful encounter with an elderberry bush took place. The registrar Geerband “invited the student Anselm to drink every evening in that coffee shop on his account, the registrar, a glass of beer and smoke the pipe until he one way or another he will not meet the archivist... which the student Anselm accepted with gratitude.”

The style of “The Golden Pot” is distinguished by the use of the grotesque, which is not only Hoffmann’s individual originality, but also that of romantic literature in general. “He stopped and looked at a large door knocker attached to a bronze figure. But just as he wanted to take up this hammer at the last sonorous strike of the tower clock on the Church of the Cross, suddenly the bronze face twisted and grinned into a disgusting smile and the rays of its metal eyes sparkled terribly. Oh! It was an apple vendor from the Black Gate...", "the bell cord went down and turned out to be a white, transparent, gigantic snake...", "with these words he turned and left, and then everyone realized that the important man was, in fact, a gray parrot."

Fiction allows you to create the effect of a romantic two-world: there is a world here, a real one, where ordinary people they think about a portion of coffee with rum, double beer, dressed up girls, etc., but there is a fantasy world where “the young man Phosphorus, dressed in brilliant weapons that played with a thousand multi-colored rays, and fought with a dragon, which struck the shell with its black wings ..." Fantasy in Hoffmann's story comes from grotesque imagery: with the help of the grotesque, one of the characteristics of an object is increased to such an extent that the object seems to turn into another, already fantastic one. For example, the episode with Anselm moving into the bottle.

The image of a man chained in glass, apparently, is based on Hoffmann’s idea that people sometimes do not realize their lack of freedom - Anselm, having found himself in a bottle, notices the same unfortunate people around him, but they are quite happy with their situation and think that they are free, that they they even go to taverns, etc., and Anselm has gone crazy (“he imagines that he is sitting in a glass jar, but is standing on the Elbe Bridge and looking into the water.”

Author's digressions appear quite often in the story's relatively small text volume (in almost every one of the 12 vigils). Obviously, the artistic meaning of these episodes is to clarify the author's position, namely the author's irony. “I have the right to doubt, gentle reader, that you have ever happened to be sealed in a glass vessel...” These obvious authorial digressions set the inertia of perception of the rest of the text, which turns out to be completely permeated with romantic irony.

Finally, the author's digressions fulfill one more important role: in the last vigil the author said that, firstly, he would not tell the reader how he knew all this secret history, and secondly, that Salamander Lindhorst himself proposed to him and helped complete the story of the fate of Anselm, who, as it turned out, migrated, together with Serpentina, from ordinary earthly life to Atlantis. The very fact of the author’s communication with the elemental spirit Salamander casts a shadow of madness over the entire narrative, but last words the stories answer many of the reader’s questions and doubts, reveal the meaning of key allegories: “Anselm’s bliss is nothing more than life in poetry, through which the sacred harmony of all things is revealed as the deepest of nature’s secrets!”

Sometimes two realities, two parts of a romantic dual world intersect and give rise to funny situations. So, for example, a tipsy Anselm begins to talk about the other side of reality known only to him, namely about true face archivist and Serpentina, which looks like nonsense, since those around are not ready to immediately understand that “Mr. Archivist Lindgorst is, in fact, Salamander, who devastated the garden of the prince of spirits Phosphorus in his hearts because the green snake flew away from him.” However, one of the participants in this conversation - registrar Geerbrand - suddenly showed awareness of what was happening in a parallel real world: “This archivist is really a damned Salamander; he flicks fire with his fingers and burns holes in his coats in the manner of a fire pipe.” Carried away by the conversation, the interlocutors completely stopped reacting to the amazement of those around them and continued to talk about characters and events that only they understood, for example, about the old woman - “her dad is nothing more than a torn wing, her mother is a bad beet.”

The author's irony makes it especially noticeable that the heroes live between two worlds. Here, for example, is the beginning of Veronica’s remark, who suddenly entered the conversation: “This is vile slander,” Veronica exclaimed with her eyes sparkling with anger...”

For a moment, it seems to the reader that Veronica, who does not know the whole truth about who the archivist or the old woman is, is outraged by these crazy characteristics of her acquaintances, Mr. Lindhorst and old Lisa, but it turns out that Veronica is also aware of the matter and is outraged by something completely different: “... Old Lisa is a wise woman, and the black cat is not an evil creature at all, but an educated young man of the most subtle manner and her cousin germain.”

The conversation between the interlocutors takes on completely ridiculous forms (Gerbrand, for example, asks the question “can Salamander eat without burning his beard?”), any serious meaning is completely destroyed by irony.

However, irony changes our understanding of what happened before: if everyone from Anselm to Geerband and Veronica is familiar with the other side of reality, then this means that in ordinary conversations that happened between them before, they hid their knowledge of another reality from each other, or these conversations contained contains hints, ambiguous words, etc., invisible to the reader, but understandable to the characters. Irony, as it were, dispels the holistic perception of a thing (person, event), instills a vague feeling of understatement and “misunderstanding” of the surrounding world.

The listed features of Hoffmann's story “The Golden Pot” clearly indicate that the work belongs to the era of romanticism. Many remained unexamined and even untouched important questions the romantic nature of this tale by Hoffmann. For example, the unusual genre form “a fairy tale from modern times” influenced the fact that Hoffmann’s fantasy is not inclined to the forms of implicit fantasy, but, on the contrary, turns out to be explicit, emphasized, magnificently and unrestrainedly developed - this leaves a noticeable imprint on the world order romantic fairy tale Hoffman.

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Golden pot. Summary

Hoffmann's tale The Golden Pot consists of twelve vigils - symbolic chapters of Anselm's story. Vigilma in a general sense means refusal to sleep at night, thereby Hoffmann says that his fairy tale is not a dream, not reality, but something happening in a completely different dimension and understanding.

The summary of the fairy tale The Golden Pot is as follows:

Anselm accidentally knocks over a basket of fruit belonging to an old woman, who curses him. The upset young man hurries to hide, turns onto a quiet street and walks along it, complaining out loud about his boring and unremarkable life.

Stumbling upon an elderberry bush, Anselm sees golden-green snakes, one of which looks at him with its blue eyes, bringing feelings of joy and sorrow at the same time. The young man is overcome by an unprecedented melancholy, and he talks loudly to himself, attracting the attention of passers-by, who shy away from him as if from a madman.

Escaping from there, Anselm meets friends, accepting their invitation to dinner. Having heard enough strange speeches and feeling sorry for him, one of his friends, Registrar Geerbrand, helps young man with work, getting a job with the archivist Lindgorst.

The next morning, Anselm goes to work, approaches the archivist’s house and does not have time to touch the door... An old witch appears to him, completely frightening the young man.

Anselm lost consciousness and woke up only at Concrete Paulman's. No one could persuade the poor young man to come back to work, so his friends organized a meeting with the archivist in a cafe, where he told Anselm unusual story about lilies, which greatly impressed him.

In the evenings, the young man spent all his time next to the elderberry, seeing this, and after listening to the guy’s story full of eccentricities, the archivist Lindgorst declared that the beautiful snake was his youngest daughter Serpentina, and in protection from the old woman he gave him a magic potion. At the same time, Veronica, the daughter of Concrete Paulman, dreamed of becoming Anselm’s wife and, in order to win him, she went to a fortune teller, who made her a magic silver mirror.

Anselm did an excellent job as an archivist copying manuscripts. One day his beloved Serpentina came to him and told him the story that the snake was the daughter of a lily, on whom a spell had been cast. On the day of her betrothal, she will receive as a dowry a Golden Pot, from which a beautiful fiery lily will grow, helping her to comprehend many things and allowing her to live in the mysterious Atlantis.

In E. Hoffmann’s fairy tale “The Golden Pot” (1814), as in the short story “Cavalier Gluck,” the “kingdom of dreams” and the “kingdom of night” collide in the heavenly, higher, metaphysical space; earthly dual worlds are elevated to the superreal, becoming a variable reflection of the “archetypal” dual worlds.

The kingdom of the night is embodied in the old witch, apple trader Lisa Rauerin. The witch theme transforms philistine Dresden, the residence of the witch Lisa, into a hyper-real devilish place. Dresden is opposed by Atlantis - the “kingdom of dreams”, the residence of Lindhorst. The witch Lisa and Lindgorst are fighting for the souls of people, for Anselm.

Anselm's tossing between Veronica and Serpentina is determined by varying success in the fight higher powers. The finale depicts Lindhorst's victory, as a result of which Anselm is freed from the power of Dresden and moves to Atlantis. The struggle between Lindhorst and the witch Lisa is elevated to the struggle of higher cosmic forces - the Prince of Spirits Phosphorus and the Black Dragon.

The characters in The Golden Pot are symmetrical and opposed to each other. “Each hierarchical level of world space is represented by characters interconnected by similar functions, but pursuing opposite goals.” At the highest cosmic level, Phosphorus is opposed by the Black Dragon; their representatives, Lindhorst and the witch Lisa, acting on the earthly and heavenly levels, are also opposed to each other; on the earthly level, Lindhorst, Serpentina and Aselm are opposed to the philistine world represented by Paulmann, Veronica and Heerbrandt.

In The Golden Pot, E. Hoffmann creates his own mythologized heroes and “reconstructs” images associated with mythology different countries and the broadest cultural and historical tradition.

It is no coincidence that E. Hoffmann’s image of Lindhorst-Salamander is not accidental. A salamander is a cross between a water dragon and a water snake, an animal that can live in fire without being burned, the substance of fire. In medieval magic, the Salamander was considered the spirit of fire, the embodiment of fire and a symbol philosopher's stone, mystical mind; in iconography, Salamander symbolized the righteous man who kept peace of soul and faith amid the vicissitudes and horrors of the world. Translated from German language"Lindhorst" means refuge, a nest of relief, tranquility. Lindgorst's attributes are Water, Fire, and Spirit. The personification of this series is Mercury. Mercury’s task is not only to ensure trade profits, but also to indicate buried treasure, reveal the secrets of art, be the god of knowledge, patron of the arts, an expert in the secrets of magic and astronomy, “knowing,” “wise.” Lindhorst, who reveals the inspired world of poetry to Anselm, is associated with Mercury and symbolizes initiation into the mystery of spiritual existence.

Anselm falls in love with Lindhorst's daughter, Serpentina, and begins to comprehend the world of the “ought.” In the very semantics of the name “Serpentina” (snake) there is an identification with the savior, the deliverer. Lindhorst and Serpentina open to Anselm the inspired world of poetry, take him away from the banal vulgar reality into the beautiful kingdom of the spirit, help him find harmony and bliss.

The story about the lily told by Lindhorst is “predetermined” by Hindu philosophy, where the lily is associated with the female deity Lakshmi - the goddess of love, fertility, wealth, beauty, wisdom.

The “increase” of meaning inherent in the semantics of the mythological images of the “Golden Pot” places philosophical and mythological accents in the perception of the heroes and plot of the story; the struggle of the heroes of the story turns out to be a projection of the universal struggle between good and evil, which is permanently going on in space.

In “The Golden Pot,” Anselm’s obstacles are created by an old witch – “a woman with a bronze face.” V. Gilmanov makes the assumption that E. Hoffman took into account the statement of the 16th century English poet Sidney, who wrote: “The natural world is bronze, only poets make it golden.”

I.V. Mirimsky believes that the golden pot Anselm received as a wedding gift is an ironic symbol of the bourgeois happiness Anselm found in reconciliation with life, at the cost of abandoning groundless dreams.

V. Gilmanov offers a different explanation of the meaning of this image. Philosophers-alchemists characterized people of true spirituality as “children of the golden head.” The head is a symbol of oracular revelation, the discovery of truth. In German, the words for “head” (kopf) and “pot” (topf) differ only in the first letter. E. Hoffman, creating his constantly changing world, “flowing” into each other artistic images, turned to the symbolic play of meanings, to lexical metamorphoses and consonances. In medieval literature, there is a widespread story about the search for the vessel of the Holy Grail by knights-errant. The Holy Grail was the cup that was at Christ's Last Supper, as well as the cup into which Joseph collected the blood that flowed from Christ. The Holy Grail symbolizes man's eternal search for an ideal, holy harmony, and the fullness of existence. This gives grounds for V. Gilmanov to interpret the golden pot in a fairy tale.

ke E. Hoffman as a mediator who removes the opposition “spirit - matter” through the integration of poetry into reality

“The Golden Pot” is built on the principles of musical composition. Speaking about the composition of “The Golden Pot”, I.V. Mirimsky limits himself to pointing out the chaotic nature, capriciousness, “an abundance of romantic scenes that sound more like music than a verbal narrative.” ON THE. Basket suggests viewing the composition of “The Golden Pot” as a unique illustration of the sonata allegro form.

Sonata form consists of exposition, development (the dramatic center of the sonata form) and reprise (the denouement of the action). The exposition begins the action, sets out the main and secondary parts and the final part (the transition to development). Usually main party- objective, dynamic, decisive character, and the lyrical side part has a more contemplative character. In development, the themes presented in the exhibition collide and are widely developed. The reprise partly modifies and repeats the exposition. The sonant form is characterized by repeating, connecting themes and cyclical development of the image.

Exposition, development and reprise are present in The Golden Pot, where prose and poetic themes are given in collision and are presented similarly to the development of themes in the form of a sonata allegro. A prosaic theme sounds - it is depicted everyday world philistines, well-fed, self-satisfied, successful. Prudent ordinary people lead a solid, measured life, drink coffee, beer, play cards, serve, and have fun. At the same time, a poetic theme begins to sound - the romantic country of Lindgorst is contrasted with the everyday life of the director Paulman, the registrar Geerbrandt and Veronica.

The chapters are called “vigils,” that is, night guards (although not all episodes take place at night): this refers to the “night vigils” of the artist himself (Hoffmann worked at night), “the night side of nature,” and the magical nature of the creative process. The concepts of “sleep”, “dream”, “vision”, hallucination, play of imagination are inseparable from the events of the story.

The exposition (first vigil) begins with a prosaic theme. Anselm, filled with prosaic dreams of beer and coffee, is upset by the loss of money with which he was counting on spending the holiday. The clumsy and absurd Anselm ends up in the apple basket of the ugly Lisa, a witch personifying the evil forces of profit and philistinism. The old woman’s cry: “You’ll end up under glass, under glass!” - becomes fatal and pursues Anselm on the way to Atlantis. Obstacles to Anselm create real characters(Veronica, Paulman, etc.) and fantastic (witch Lisa, black cat, parrot).

Under the elderberry bush, Anselm heard “some kind of whispering and babbling, and the flowers seemed to be ringing like crystal bells.” The second “musical” theme enters – the world of the poetic. To the sound of crystal bells, three golden-green snakes appeared, which in the fairy tale became a symbol of the wonderful world of poetry. Anselm hears the whisper of bushes, the rustle of grass, the breeze, and sees the radiance of the sun's rays. Anselm has a feeling of the mysterious movement of nature. An ideal, beautiful love arises in his soul, but the feeling is still unclear, it cannot be defined in one word. From this moment on, the world of poetry will constantly be accompanied by its “leitmotifs” - “three snakes shining with gold”, “two wonderful dark blue eyes” of Serpentina, and whenever Anselm finds himself in the magical kingdom of the archivist, he will hear “the ringing of clear crystal bells."

In development (vigilia two to eleven), the themes of prose and poetry develop and are in close interaction. The miraculous reminds Anselm of itself all the time. During the fireworks display near the Antonovsky Garden, “it seemed to him that he saw three green-fiery stripes in the reflection. But when he then peered longingly into the water to see if any lovely eyes would peek out from there, he became convinced that this radiance came solely from the illuminated windows of nearby houses.” The world around Anselm changes color scheme depending on the poetic or prosaic mood of the hero’s soul. While playing music in the evening, Anselm again hears crystal bells, and he does not want to compare their sound with the singing of the prosaic Veronica: “Well, that’s not true! - the student Anselm suddenly burst out, he didn’t know how, and everyone looked at him in amazement and embarrassment. “The crystal bells ring in the elder trees, amazingly, amazingly!” . The kingdom of Lindhorst has its own color scheme (azure blue, golden bronze, emerald), which seems to Anselm the most delightful and attractive in the world.

When Anselm is almost completely imbued with the poetic spirit of this kingdom of dreams, Veronica, not wanting to part with the dream of court advisor Anselm, resorts to the charms of the sorceress Lisa. Poetic and prosaic themes begin to intricately intertwine, double, in a strange way replace each other (such development is main feature development of themes for sonata allegro). Anselm, experiencing the power of the evil spell of the sorceress Lisa Rauerin, gradually forgets the miracles of Lindhorst and replaces the green snake Serpentine with Veronica. The Serpentine theme is transformed into the Veronica theme, and a temporary victory of philistine forces over the forces of beauty occurs. For his betrayal, Anselm was punished by being imprisoned in glass. The ominous Lisa's prediction came true. In the tenth vigil there is a struggle between the dark and the poetic magical powers for Anselm.

In The Golden Pot, fantastic and real elements interpenetrate each other. The poetic, the highest materialized world of poetry is transformed before our eyes into the prosaic world of vulgar everyday life. Under the influence of the witch’s witchcraft, Anselm, who has just seen Atlantis as a “kingdom of dreams,” perceives it as Dresden, the kingdom of everyday life. Deprived of love and poetry, falling into the power of reality, Anselm temporarily immerses himself in the objective-sensory sphere and betrays the Serpentine and the kingdom of the spirit. When love and poetry take over, then in Dresden Anselm again sees the beyond, hears echoes of the heavenly harmony of the spheres. E. Hoffmann demonstrates the world simultaneously from the point of view of an artist and a philistine, assembles different visions of the world, and depicts the poetic and prosaic on the same plane.

The final vigil of the twelfth is the “reprise”, where the “restoration of balance, a return to a more stable balance of forces, the need for peace, unification” characteristic of a reprise of a sonata allegro occurs. The Twelfth Vigil consists of three parts. In the first part, the poetic and prosaic interchange into each other and sound in the same key. It turns out that Lindhorst was not entirely disinterested in his struggle for Anselm’s soul: the archivist had to marry off his youngest daughter. Anselm leads a happy life in Atlantis, in a nice estate that he owns. E. Hoffmann does not remove the high halo from the world of beauty and sings a hymn to it in the twelfth vigil, and yet the second meaning is a comparison and a certain mutual continuation of the poetic and prosaic.

go - does not leave the work.

In the second part of the twelfth vigil, the world of the poetic is glorified in a complex dynamic form. The second part of the finale – the “reprise” – brings together all the images of Lindhorst. It is built not only as a repetition of the images of the first Vigil, but also in common with it musical principle: verse-chorus (or refrain). ON THE. Basket notes that the "song" in the first vigil and the "song" in the twelfth vigil create a compositional ring. The third part of the twelfth vigil - the “coda” - finally sums up the results, evaluates the previous part as “life in poetry, in which the sacred harmony of all things is revealed as the deepest of the secrets of nature.”

In the exhibition, all the forces of nature inspired by poetry strive to communicate and unite with Anselm. The reprise almost literally repeats the hymn of love to the creative forces of nature. But, as N.A. notes. Basket, in the vigil the first to use syntactic constructions with the particle “not”, as if indicating the incompleteness, imperfection of Anselm’s poetic feeling; in the twelfth vigil such constructions are completely replaced by affirmative ones, for the understanding of the essence of nature and all living things was finally achieved by Anselm through love and poetry, which for Hoffmann is the same thing. The final hymn to the forces of nature that ends the tale is itself a closed structure, where each “verse” is connected to the next repeated “motive-refrain”.

Music is playing in the Golden Pot big role in recreating the romantic ideal, which has its own arrangement: the sounds of bells, aeolian harps, harmonic chords of heavenly music. The liberation and complete victory of poetry in Anselm’s soul comes with the ringing of bells: “Lightning passed inside Anselm, the triad of crystal bells rang out stronger and more powerful than ever; his fibers and nerves shuddered, but the chord thundered more and more fully throughout the room - the glass in which Anselm was imprisoned cracked, and he fell into the arms of sweet, lovely Serpentine.

The world of the “ought” is recreated by E. Hoffmann using synthetic images: musical image is in close associative connections with smells, color and light: “Flowers were fragrant all around, and their aroma was like the wonderful singing of a thousand flutes, and the golden evening clouds, passing, carried with them the echoes of this singing to distant lands.” Hoffmann compares the musical sound with a sunbeam, thereby giving visibility, “tangibility” to the musical image: “But suddenly rays of light cut through the darkness of the night, and these rays were sounds that enveloped me in a captivating radiance.”

When creating images, E. Hoffman draws on unexpected, unusual comparisons and uses painting techniques (portrait of Lisa).

In “The Golden Pot,” the characters often behave like theater performers: Anselm runs onto the stage theatrically, exclaims, gesticulates, overturns baskets of apples, almost falls out of a boat into the water, etc. “Through the theatricality of the behavior of enthusiasts, the author shows their internal incompatibility with the real world and, as a consequence of this incompatibility, the emergence and development of their connection with the magical world, the duality of the heroes between the two worlds and the struggle for them between good and evil forces.”

One of the manifestations of romantic irony and theatricality

Ty is the embodiment in Lindgorst of two different and at the same time non-antagonistic hypostases of one personality (the fiery Salamander and the venerable archivist).

Features of theatricality in the behavior of the characters are combined with individual elements of opera buffa. A significant place in The Golden Pot is occupied by episodes of fights (a buffoon fight is a purely theatrical technique). The duel between the great elemental spirit Salamander and the old merchant woman is cruel, terrible and the most spectacular; it ironically combines the great with the small. Thunder rumbles, lightning flashes, fiery lilies fly from Lindgorst's embroidered dressing gown, fiery blood flows. The finale of the battle is presented in a deliberately reduced tone: the old woman turns into a beet under Lindgorst's dressing gown thrown over her, and she is carried away in the beak of a gray parrot, to whom the archivist promises to give six coconuts and new glasses as a gift.

Salamander's weapons are fire, lightning, fire lilies; the witch throws sheets of parchment from the tomes in the archivist's library at Lindgorst. “On the one hand, the educational culture and, as its symbol, books and manuscripts, fight against the evil spell magical world; on the other hand, living feelings, forces of nature, good spirits and magicians. The forces of good win in Hoffmann's tales. In this, Hoffmann follows exactly the pattern folk tales» .

The category of theatricality determines the stylistic features of The Golden Pot. Miraculous episodes are described in a restrained style, deliberately simple, everyday language, and events real world are often presented in fantastic lighting, while the colors thicken and the tone of the narrative becomes tense.

Questions and suggestions

for self-test

1. Mythological thinking in E. Hoffmann’s fairy tale “The Golden Pot”. The element of universal life and the burgher world of the inhabitants of Dresden.

2. Anselm is Hoffmann’s romantic hero.

3. The originality of the composition of E. Hoffmann’s fairy tale “The Golden Pot”.

4. How is the synthesis of arts manifested in the “Golden Pot”