‘Kinaesthetic, Spastic and Spatial Motifs as Expressions of Romantic Irony in E.T.A. Hoffmann’s The Sandman and Other Writings’

Abstract

The Sandman has attracted a plethora of critical interpretations since it was first published in 1816, the most famous being Freud's essay on The Uncanny (1919). Many critics have focused on the motif of the eye and the legend of the Sandman who steals children's eyes when they refuse to go to sleep. The legends of Narcissus, Pygmalion and the Doppelgänger, which underpin the narrative of Hoffmann's novella, have also provided scope for psychological, poststructuralist, feminist, historicist and meta-romantic criticism. 1 This article examines Hoffmann's motivic preoccupation with kinaesthesia, spasticity, kinetic energy and paralysis. 2 First, it seeks to interpret the con-and in-voluted narrative structure of The Sandman as formally symbolic of the Romantic 3 idea of infinite perfectibility, in which the process of becoming is in continuous and creative flux. 4 Furthermore, it will show that the pervasive motif of grotesque bodies and awkward motor-neural movement is dialectically at variance with the spiralling prose form of the novella, thus generating Romantic Irony through this formal inner contradiction. 5 The aim is to interpret this Romantic Irony as a critique of the Romantic poet and his artistic quest. 6 Second, the article demonstrates that Hoffmann's particular use of kinaesthetic and spastic