The Aesthetic Views of E.T.A. Hoffmann

Bychkov Victor Doctor of Philosophy Chief Scientific Associate at Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences 109240, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Goncharnaya, 12, str. 1, Institut filosofii RAN vbychkov48@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

The outstanding German romantic Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (1776-1822) ^[1-4], who became a famous, ambiguously evaluated writer by the end of his life, was in his youth a composer and artist endowed with a fine taste and an acute aesthetic consciousness^[5]. It is this, implicitly permeating all of his work, that is the subject of this study. Creating works on the shaky edge of the fantastic and the real, spiritually pointed and ordinary, being a comprehensively gifted person, Hoffman treated art with special piety, like all romantics, in fact. At the same time, music has always been the ideal of artistic creativity for him, although he did not lose sight of other types of art, including verbal ("poetic"), when talking about creativity. Art in the understanding of Hoffmann has an anagogic (erect) character. Although it arises on an earthly basis and in the thick of everyday life, it leads a person to heaven, to the divine spheres: "art allows a person to feel his highest purpose and from the vulgar vanity of everyday life leads him to the temple of Isis, where nature speaks to him with sacred, never heard, but nevertheless understandable sounds" ^{[6, p. 25]}. Music in this regard is the most romantic art, because its goal is the infinite; it fills the human soul with an indescribable romantic longing.

Heaven itself gives the artist "divine sparks" that inspire him to create, delivering extraordinary spiritual pleasure. "There is no higher goal for art than to ignite such joy in a person, which frees his whole being, as from unclean slags, from all earthly anxiety, from every belittling oppression of everyday life and elevates him so that he proudly and joyfully raises his head and contemplates the divine, even comes into contact with him.". This joy gives a person faith "in the wondrous wonders of the ideal world" and makes him related to it. At the same time, art, Hoffman is convinced, enlightens and ennobles even the daily life of a person with its radiance ^{[7, p. 190]}.

Art is equated by Hoffmann, as by many romantics, with prayer and piety. In the novel "The Everyday Views of the cat Murra" ^[8], the abbot, persuading the composer Johannes Kreisler to join the monastery, shows that art, in its detachment from the world and striving for ideal spheres, is already leading him along this path. "The living feeling of a higher being, which will, and should, forever quarrel with the vulgar earthly vanity, shines mightily in art; it is involved in another world and, representing the sacred secret of heavenly love, is enclosed in your heart, filled with passionate longing. This art is fervent piety itself" ^{[9, p. 365]}. To Kreisler's objection that renunciation of the world can turn a monastery into a prison and an inhospitable desert for him, the abbot objects, trying to show the composer that he already lives in an art world remote from the earthly bustle, and "the spirit of art takes over you more and more day by day and with a mighty flap of a wing you ascend into shining clouds" ^{[9, p. 366]}. More than art, the monastery can no longer remove a person from the world, but will only give him even greater opportunities for creative gorenje.

The gift of art, according to Hoffmann, is also the gift of prophecy. In ancient times, poets were prophets ^{[10, p. 44]}, revealing to people in beautiful images the truth about the spiritual world, about the sacred fire that burned in their breasts. At that time, people "respected poets as prophets who proclaimed a beautiful unknown world full of brilliant wealth" ^{[7, p. 188]}. Hoffman writes with chagrin that modernity has lost this high understanding of poetry, and the crowd considers poets to be equal to themselves, no longer understanding the very essence of art as a high gorenje to the sky. Reflecting on the profound significance of the image of Don Juan in Mozart's opera of the same name, Hoffman argues that it is accessible to the understanding of only poetic and romantic souls: "Only a poet is able to comprehend a poet; only a romantic soul is accessible to the romantic", only a person who has accepted artistic initiation in the temple of arts is able to comprehend the utterance of poetic (musical in this case) inspiration ^{[6, p. 71]}.

The poet, like the saint, is not without a share of what is called madness among ordinary people. It is poetic madness, some madness, Hoffman is convinced, that helps to penetrate to a certain extent the "terrible secrets" of nature that are not accessible to so-called "reasonable" people ^{[10, p. 24]}. It is no accident that the beloved hero of Hoffmann's prose, kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler, often commits insane acts, behaves inadequately and expresses maxims contrary to reason. Kreisler, as you know, is to some extent an autobiographical and beloved character of Hoffmann. In his youth, the author signed his musicological articles with his name. Only a kind of madness helps the artist to create fantastic images that amaze with "boiling life and plastic completeness" ^{[10, p. 22]}.

The fantastic in art, if it is "backed up by poetic truth," is, the romantic Hoffman is convinced, an essential element of art, and one cannot help believing it no less than the most real reality ^{[10, p. 71]}. Fiction is convincing in art in the case – the German writer knows firsthand, but from the experience of his own creativity – when it is based on the realities of life: "The foundation of the fantastic scaffolding, on which fantasy wants to climb, must certainly be strengthened on the real ground of life, so that anyone can easily ascend after the author." Only in this case the reader will see that his life is connected with the life of the writer, and he will see himself belonging to the amazing realm of fantasy. Figuratively speaking, Hoffman writes, fantasy in art is like a fragrant garden that stretches just outside the city walls. So a citizen (reader) can enjoy it without interrupting his usual activities ^{[10, pp. 462-463]}. The heroes of fantastic stories should be given such convincing truthfulness that they are perceived as ordinary people living among us. These are the heroes of many fairy tales and short stories by Hoffman ^[11-12]. And the most realistic among them is, perhaps, the intellectual and poet Cat Murr from the novel "The Everyday views of Cat Murr". This fantastic character so convincingly represents a reasonable intellectual at the ordinary level that the reader is perceived as a more real figure than all the other human heroes from the romantic part of the book, placed by the author perhaps for this reason in the "waste paper sheets" ^[8].

The Serapion brothers (the heroes of the novel of the same name) talk about the fantastic in poetry leads, using the example of a plot about vampires, to an understanding of the terrible and terrible in a literary text ^[13]. Without absolutizing this topic, Hoffman is convinced that in certain situations the artist has the right to use the "lever of the terrible" in order to influence the inner world of the reader with a special, shock blow. After all, the terrible in art is only a reflection of some of our fears. A talented fantastic poet can use a terrible plot "to depict those vague, terrible forces that roam in our soul and strike our spirit, just like a series of electric shocks." At the same time, the poet does not bring the terrible effect to the destruction of the image; the terrible never turns into the disgusting under his pen ^{[14, p. 144]}.

A considerable number of famous poets used the lever of fear and horror to "make the innermost strings of the human heart sound." The names of Shakespeare, Tick, Kleist, Byron are mentioned in this plan. Discussing the use of the terrible in art, the Serapion brothers come to the conclusion that a talented poet organizes a poetic text in such a way that the chilling events taking place in it ultimately lead to a sense of "fascinating tragedy, to which our spirit obeys so willingly" ^{[14, p. 145]}. At the same time, the feeling of the terrible does not always arise on the basis of an image of something truly terrible; sometimes a poet can evoke it with almost ordinary events. As an example, Kleist's novel "The Locarnian Beggar Woman" is given. In one house, out of charity, a beggar woman lived behind the stove. When she passed away, someone invisible at night began to come behind the stove, betraying his presence by the sounds of footsteps and the rustle of straw bedding. And it was expressed in a way that caused the reader a feeling of horror, no less than when describing some fantastic monsters and vampires. The Serapion brothers often see the terrible combined with the great. In their opinion, Byron was distinguished by such a technique – his "Siege of Corinth" is mentioned in this connection. But one of his "brothers" did not even dare to read his "Vampire", because the very "idea of such a creature is capable of freezing the blood in the veins" ^{[14, p. 143]}.

Hoffman actually associates the terrible in painting with the sublime, without using the term itself, and with a romantic approach to reality ^[15]. As an example of such painting, he cites the work of the Baroque artist Salvator Rosa (1615-1673). In his paintings, Hoffman writes, there are no verdant spring meadows, blooming fields, fragrant hay fields, sweetly murmuring streams. "On the contrary, for him nature seems to exist only in the form of gigantically piled rocks, seaside cliffs and impenetrable forests! From her sounds, not the quiet breeze and the sweet rustle of leaves are accessible to his ear, but the wild roar of a hurricane and the roar of toppling waterfalls." The desert views depicted by him, people with wild, gloomy faces sneaking either singly or in "gangs", cause the viewer a feeling of fear and horror. This does not mean, of course, that Rosa himself was a bandit and a robber, but his artistic soul sought to express the terrible ^{[14, pp. 16-17]}. And in this terrible, especially in the landscape of the Rose, in the words of his student and colleague Antonio Scacciati, Hoffman gives his understanding of the romantic landscape in painting. He admires the depth and philosophical content of Rosa's landscapes: "You have managed to comprehend the innermost secrets of nature, which are contained in the hieroglyphic outlines of rocks, trees and waterfalls; you hear her sacred voices, understand her language and are gifted with a wonderful ability to reproduce the thoughts whispered by her. Yes!.. reproduction of the very essence of nature – these are the only true words that can be applied to your creations!" ^{[14, p. 25]}. Hoffman is convinced that Rose's paintings go far beyond the genre of landscape in the narrow sense of the word. They represent "historical views of nature in the deepest meaning of the word" [ibid.] and give the viewer genuine pleasure.

In general, art, which is often called by Hoffmann the generalized word "poetry", which should focus attention on the artistic essence of art – so art, according to Hoffmann, reveals many hidden secrets in nature and man, significantly enriching man himself. "The ability to know everything is possible only in poetry. Poetic natures have always been the beloved children of nature, and it is absurd to think that she resisted their attempts to lift the veil that covers her secrets." On the contrary, she contributed in every way to their understanding of the essence of their "gifts" ^{[10, p. 248]}. The poet has access to all the innermost corners of the human soul, he knows all the movements of the human heart, because nature itself acts as an assistant to him in his work. "The gaze of a true poet penetrates into the innermost depths of human nature and dominates all its manifestations, perceiving its various rays with his mind and, as in a prism, refracting them" ^{[7, p. 191]}.

Hoffmann, knowing art from the inside, moreover, its different types (he was, as already mentioned, a composer, a performer of music, an excellent draughtsman, and, finally, a purely romantic writer), saw the romantic meaning of art in its penetration into the secrets of nature and the elevation of man into spiritual, even divine spheres. He put the quintessence of such an understanding into the mouth of the court poet Roderich as one of the actors in the play "Princess Blandina":

The poet! – or – in German – the poet,

A wonderful, mysterious creature!

In the purple glow, in the glow of the sunset,

Nature appears to him in the rays,

What he sees is clear to him –

And life is hard, the life of the poor without shine,

Without festive colors, poor, earthly,

It appears to Him like a bright, clear day.

And as in the crystal of the bright stream

Flowers, bushes and the sky are reflected,

This is how all life and all nature are reflected

In the soul of a poet. My magic

It sparkles with small waves in everything,

He frolics and draws his own pattern.

Yes, this is my, poet's, life.

I can see a distant wonderland.

I give the beauty of romance to what I see.

                                ^{[7, p. 191, translated by A. Olenin]}

And this "beauty of romance" is understood by Hoffmans not as embellishment of real life and nature, but as penetration into their ideal essential foundations, to their ideal origins, to "truth". This is one of the essential principles of romantic aesthetics in general, and Hoffmann felt it well. He understood that the approach to the truth in art is a long and difficult path – for this a whole human life is "barely enough" ^{[10, p. 24]}.

Paying great attention to the connection of art with nature, the orientation of the artist to nature, Hoffman is far from a purely imitative principle in art. The artist must penetrate to the deep foundations of nature and express them by special artistic means. Of course, he needs to master the technique of his art perfectly, but this does not make him a true creator yet. A painter, for example, is obliged to be able to depict any plant with illusory accuracy, but the old masters, Hoffman emphasizes, depicted the plant world quite conditionally, and this is what contributed to the fact that the spirit emanating from the painting as a whole lifted the viewer into "higher spheres" ^{[7, p. 193]}. The same applies to the complete completeness of a verbal work, when all the dots are placed over i. Hoffman is a supporter of a certain understatement, so that the reader's imagination can work on the completion of the work itself, and after reading it, he was in no hurry to "safely put on his hat and go home", having no desire to "stop and look behind the scenes again" ^{[10, p. 275]}.

Accepting the convention to which the old masters resorted (Hoffmann primarily referred to the masters of the Middle Ages and Renaissance) when depicting the characters of biblical history in the clothes of their time, the German romantic tries to give this his own semantic explanation. He is convinced that in those ancient times, faith was so strong in people that they believed that all the biblical miracles were performed before their eyes, in everyday life; that is, they considered themselves really involved in the biblical story. "Thus, the holy Scripture, to which the pious artist turned his spiritual gaze, presented to him a completely modern life" ^{[9, p. 416]}. It's a completely different matter in today's society. Hoffman believes that it has so departed from God and does not correspond to the acts of Sacred history that the depiction of its figures in modern attire would seem to us "tasteless, ugly and even blasphemous" ^{[9, p. 417]}.

Reflecting on painting, Hoffman comes to the conclusion that it should not be allegorical. Allegorical paintings in his understanding are painted only by mediocre artists. A genuine pictorial painting "should not mean anything, but be", i.e. it should have the same existential status as reality itself. The German romantic sees the meaning of this existence in the fact that in the painting "groups of people, animals, fruits, flowers and stones are combined in a harmonious whole, one harmonious chord of heavenly music, which is true enlightenment" ^{[10, p. 126]}. In this understanding of art, Hoffmann anticipates M. Heidegger's ontological ideas about a work of art as an increment of being. 

A creative person lives in two worlds at the same time, says Hoffman: in the inner and the outer. There is also a spiritual force that allows the artist to know his inner world ^[16]. However, this world is surrounded by an external material world in which the artist really lives, and which has a significant impact on the inner world. "The phenomena of the inner world can rotate only in a circle formed by the phenomena of the outer world and, stepping over this last circle, our spirit loses solid ground, plunging into the realm of vague premonitions and ideas" ^{[10, pp. 44-45]}. The external world exerts its influence on our spirit, which somehow controls the inner world; with its help, the artist penetrates into the depths of nature and ascends into the spiritual spheres. Only genius is granted to overcome the influence of the outer circle – "the real flame of genius" cannot be extinguished by any external circumstances; no vicissitudes of fate can do anything against "the inner divine power of the spirit, which, if bent under their pressure, will bend like a bow, so that the arrow flies even faster" ^{[14, p. 82]}. The undisputed geniuses for Hoffmann were Goethe and Schiller. And, if Schiller did not possess the "heroic power" of Goethe, then with him it was replaced by "radiant purity,.. captivating us to the highest degree and exposing in their creator no less the power of genius" ^{[14, p. 83]}.

Hoffmann was interested in artistic creativity both in general and especially in relation to various types of art. At the heart of it, he saw the artist's constant striving for a certain ideal that had arisen in his inner world, which constantly eludes when trying to embody it in the material of art, and the artist is always in doubt about his powers. Hoffman figuratively describes the torments of the artist's creativity in the struggle for the ideal: "He contemplates the ideal and feels powerless to embody it in his work. It seems to him that the ideal is running away from him irrevocably; but then divine courage returns to him again; he cheerfully enters into the struggle, and doubt is resolved by sweet hope, which strengthens him in striving for his favorite ideal, to which he approaches closer and closer, although he never reaches it" ^{[10, p. 123]}. The ideal is one of the main internal driving forces of the creative process, and the artist does not meet anything like it in the surrounding reality, which can only give him material for creativity.

Meanwhile, this material is important and significant for art, for the artist's realization of the ideal, the pursuit of which drives his concrete creative efforts. At the same time, the "spirit of the poet" should not just perceive the string of characters and events he saw, but also "process them in his brain" so that, as in a chemical reaction, some new substance is formed, for example, "living and wonderful images in which we are without any hint of any individual personalities we recognize the living and living people among us" ^{[10, p. 313]}, i.e. to some extent, the ontologism of the work of art, which was discussed above, must be realized.

The main creative work, Hoffman is convinced from his own experience, is carried out in the inner world of the artist, who takes up the embodiment of the work only after he fully feels everything from the inside. So Mozart, according to the German writer, first created and worked out all the images and actions of his "Don Juan" in his mind before writing it down on paper ^[11]. Hoffman asks his supposed opponents with rhetorical pathos: "Don't you really understand that the artist has long carried his "Don Juan", his deepest creation, in his soul.. don't you understand that he thought over and rounded off in his mind the whole whole with all its characteristic, unique features, so that it was as if it had already been cast into an impeccable shape?" Only after that "the great artist took up the pen to record the opera" ^{[17, p. 38]}. The statement is, of course, debatable, but apparently based on Hoffman's own creative experience. According to the memoirs of other artists and writers, we know how many creative painful searches accompany the very process of creating a work in the material, how many drafts both the poet and the composer throw away before they manage to reveal what corresponds to their plan, which is constantly changing in the very process of its materialization. However, Hoffmann repeatedly claims that everything is like Mozart's in the passage given. The work is ready already in the artist's inner world completely before he realizes it in the flesh. At the same time, the creative process itself gives the artist pleasure, protects him from the adversities of the outside world. Hoffman writes in one of his letters that when he starts writing, "it seems to me that a wonderful kingdom is opening up in me and, coming out of the depths of my soul and putting on colorful forms, allows me to abandon the onslaught of the outside world" ^{[7, p. 222]}.

In artistic creativity, Hoffmann sees at least two opposite moments to some extent: imagination, which is closely related to fantasy, and reason, which the German writer identifies with reason. At the same time, reasonable grounds should prevail over imagination, but not limit the creative freedom of the author, which is based primarily on a sense of "immutable necessity" ^{[7, p. 217]}. A brilliant artist, says Hoffman, "even in moments of the strongest inspiration, he creates freely and always subordinates his imagination to reason. He is imbued with his thought, inspired by it and feels a certain uplift of spirit, but never allows it to dominate him" ^{[7, p. 216]}. The dialectic of imagination and rational grounds is especially noticeable when working with fantastic characters or phenomena. Discussing this topic, one of the Serapion brothers asserts that "no matter what fantastic nonsense the author comes up with, it will be of very little use to him if he does not illuminate it with a ray of reason and does not first weave a reasonable basis for the whole work. A clear, calm thought, laid as a basis, is most necessary for such works, because the freer and more fantastic the images rush in all directions, the firmer the main grain should be laid" ^{[10, p. 202]}. Although, Hoffman believes, one should also be careful with thought, because it "destroys the idea" and separates a person from mother nature ^{[18, p. 268]}.

In general, the German romantic insists on a certain harmony in the work of reasonable and extra-reasonable ("unconscious", in his terminology) grounds and focuses on the richness and beauty of the human soul, which is not limited in its creative impulse. Our life, says Hoffman, would be dead, beggarly and blind as a mole, if the world spirit did not endow us with "an inexhaustible diamond scattering of the soul, from which an amazing kingdom shines to us in radiance and brilliance, which has become our property" ^{[18, p. 271]}. It is this "kingdom" that seeks to express itself in art, in its various forms, with the help of artistic means of a particular type of art.

In music, for example, according to Hoffmann, the composer actively listens to the sounds of the surrounding nature: the howling of the wind, the murmur of a stream, etc. They are perceived by him as separate chords, from which it is possible to organize melodies with harmonic accompaniment. "Therefore, the sudden appearance of melodies in his soul, the unconscious, or rather, the unspeakable knowledge and perception of the mysterious music of nature is the basis of the musician's life and activity" ^{[19, p. 101]}. It is the initial sound of the natural world that initiates the unconscious cognition of the composer, coupled with inspiration, and creates outstanding music.

Hoffman describes two stages of musical creativity with a vivid figurative speech of the composer "cavalier Gluck" (the hero of the novel of the same name). In the first, the composer enters the "kingdom of dreams" through the "ivory gate". Bizarre visions surround him in this realm, charming and often terrible, and he creates his music based on them. Few people manage to penetrate this realm, but even fewer musicians are lucky enough to escape from it and rise to the next level of creativity – "to reach the truth." "This is the peak – contact with the eternal, the ineffable!" ^{[6, p. 52]}. Gluck himself was tormented by sorrows and fears in the realm of dreams. Illumination by the light of the second level came by itself. Suddenly the sounds of beautiful music broke through to him, rays of unearthly radiance illuminated him, and he further figuratively describes this crown of creative insight: "I woke up from my sorrows and saw a huge bright eye, it looked at the organ, and this look extracted sounds from the organ that sparkled and intertwined into such wonderful chords, which never I didn't even dream about it. The melody flowed in waves, and I swayed on these waves and longed for them to overwhelm me" ^{[6, p. 52]}. As a result of this insight, Gluck began to create even deeper and more beautiful music. And this insight appeared to him at least once more, when the heavenly eye opened to him in a sunflower flower. The composer, Hoffman is convinced, creates every time he begins to perform his own music. So Gluck, playing the final scene from "Armida" on the piano, noticeably deviated from the original score and elevated his own music to a higher level. Similarly, the playing of any gifted musician is to some extent co-creation, coloring the originally written music with new overtones. At the same time, the musician is as if struck by an electric current, and he plunges into a kind of detached state from the outside world [cf.:17, p. 15].

Just as a composer creates, so does an artist. All the artist's creativity is based on a deep understanding of nature in the highest sense of these words, when the aspirations of the artist and nature meet each other, and the gift of heaven descends on the artist. The dedicated artist "listens to the voice of nature, which strives to tell him its innermost secrets with the wonderful sounds of trees, bushes, flowers, mountains and rivers and gives birth to reverent premonitions in his chest; then, like God's spirit, a gift descends upon him – the ability to embody vague premonitions in visible images in a work" ^{[7, p. 193]}. And in this case, "misty images floating in space, passing through the artist's soul, get shape and colors and come to life, as if they have found their homeland" ^{[10, p. 277]}. This is how the painting created, Hoffman is convinced, was characteristic of the ancient masters who gave the world genuine artistic masterpieces.

No less inspiration than in music and painting is required for a talented dramatic actor ^{[15; 20]}. Moreover, he is required to revive the actor he is performing, who himself, and not the actor, begins to act on stage, "although under the supervision and control of his own "I" of the actor, whose consciousness never escapes him" ^{[7, p. 212]}. The inspiration of the actor, guided by the "mind hovering over him", is able to create a classic work of art. Hoffman, talking about the play of a talented actor, is convinced that the role that animates the character of the play "was recreated on stage by an inspired person, a poet in his soul, while the consciousness of his own "I" was the mind that releases the creative potencies hidden in the actor's soul and gives him the strength to breathe life into his role, fill it flesh and blood" [ibid.].

Dramatic art, Hoffman wrote, like no other is dependent on the performer. Therefore, a talented actor should have the ability to accurately represent the personality that the author of the dramatic work intended, and not to put his own in the foreground when playing ^[12]. His ability to bring to life the character conceived by the author "in accordance with the vital truth of the work" is essential ^{[7, p. 213]}. At the same time, a talented actor is endowed with an invaluable gift to master his body perfectly, every member of it, the movement of even the smallest part of it, every angle of his appearance, in order to be able to express any state of his soul in which his character lives during the game. The actor's gait, his conversation, movements, gestures – everything belongs on stage not to him, but to the character he represents. The actor's personal "I" should fade away, disappear as meaningless. "The complete renunciation of oneself, or rather, the oblivion of one's own self, is the first requirement of performing art" [ibid.]. A talented actor knows how to get used to the image created by the author, to his inner life. Unfortunately, Hoffman complains, there are few such artists. Nature does not lavish her gifts right and left, but bestows them only on those who were born under a lucky star. Therefore, there are no troupes consisting only of talented actors. In any case, every actor should constantly strive for the ideal of acting, intuitively feeling its unattainability. The theater, according to Hoffman, is an amazing place of a special poetic life of people endowed with the talent of an actor, the talent of transformation into other personalities.

Reflecting quite often and thoroughly on creativity, Hoffman pays some attention to aesthetic perception as the most important process in the field of the functioning of art, especially music, which, even in the heyday of his writing, Hoffman considered the highest art. In the novella "Don Juan", on behalf of a sophisticated listener (viewer) of Mozart's opera, he tries to show how with the help of music its main images and plot moves are revealed, what effect it has on the perceiver of it. Already the overture makes a vivid, imaginative, indelible impression on an experienced listener (the orchestra turned out to be excellent, he emphasizes): "In the andante, I was shocked by the horrors of the formidable underground regno all pianto (kingdom of tears); my soul was filled with trembling from forebodings of the most terrible. An exultant fanfare sounded for me with an unholy triumph in the seventh bar of the allegro – I saw fiery demons stretching out their red-hot claws from the impenetrable darkness to grab careless people who were dancing merrily on a thin shell covering a bottomless abyss. My spiritual gaze clearly saw the collision of a person with unknown, malicious forces that surround him, preparing his death" ^{[21, p. 64]}.

And further, constantly emphasizing that the vivid images of Leporello, Don Juan, Donna Anna arise in him under the influence of music, the hero of Hoffmann's novella shows what these images are in his perception. Don Juan appears to him as a magnificent figure, full of power and beauty; his face at certain moments is filled with a Mephistophelean expression that excites the listener "unaccountable trembling". It seems that he possesses the magical charms of a rattlesnake – his gaze attracts women towards their destruction. Meanwhile, in Don Juan, the listener of the opera sees "the most beloved child of nature", which endowed him with all the virtues available to the human being, which make a person related to the divine. However, this principle was defeated in him by the satanic one, which in the earthly life of people always struggles with divine gifts to man.

One of such gifts is love – "that mighty mysterious force that shakes and transforms the deepest foundations of existence" ^{[21, p. 72]}. And this gift was enslaved in Don Juan by the devil, instilling in him that through the enjoyment of a woman he can already in this life achieve heavenly pleasure, to which any human soul aspires. Under the influence of a satanic obsession, Don Juan trampled on everything sacred in life. Enjoying a woman and immediately abandoning her, he "not only satisfied his lust, but also wickedly mocked nature and the creator" and in this he saw his triumph over them ^{[21, p. 73]}. The music of the opera tells the listener that by seducing a woman, Don Juan infected her with an obscene passion for him. Donna Anna was also captured by such a temptation. "The fire of superhuman passion, the infernal flame penetrated her soul, and all resistance became futile. The voluptuous madness that threw Anna into his arms could only be ignited by him, only by Don Juan, because when he sinned, the crushing fury of infernal forces raged in him" ^{[21, p. 74]}. Captured by this superhuman passion, Anna realizes that only the death of Don Juan can save her from the fetters of sinful love, and in every way strives to bring her closer.

Hoffmann not only admires Mozart's opera, but he knows how to write such an opera, and gives advice to the young composer in this regard in a purely romantic spirit of understanding the creative act. He is convinced that in order to "touch and powerfully capture the listener, the artist himself must be imbued with a deep feeling, and only the ability to capture with the greatest force in sound hieroglyphs (in notes) what is unconsciously perceived by the soul in a moment of ecstasy is the true art of the composer" ^{[19, pp. 91-92]}. In order to achieve creative ecstasy, the composer must first, with all the mental strength and power of his imagination, get used to the poetic text that he took for his opera. To experience all the vicissitudes of this text, to pass through all the events, to be embodied in the image of each character: a tyrant, a lover, a courageous hero and a trembling maiden; to feel shame, fear, horror, grief, love delight, disappointment, death throes and the joy of enlightenment. "Be angry, hope! Get furious, desperate. Let your blood boil in your veins, your heart beats faster. From the fire of inspiration that ignited your chest, sounds, melodies, chords will light up, and then from the depths of your soul, speaking the wonderful language of music, your work will pour out" ^{[19, p. 92]}. At the same time, the composer should not forget about the technical laws of musical harmony, must learn from the samples of the music of his predecessors and constantly engage in musical exercises. Only in this case, an outstanding piece of music can arise that will conquer the souls of listeners. The spirit of music will dominate in him, because the listener's spirit understands only the language of the spirit, which ignites in the soul of the composer in the process of creativity. Mozart's "Don Juan" appeared in a similar way.

Musically, "Don Juan" seems to Hoffmann to be one of the greatest romantic works of our time (along with Mozart, he considered Haydn and Beethoven to be outstanding modern composers). In general, Hoffmann paid perhaps the greatest attention to music in all its forms, from opera and instrumental to singing and its perception in his philosophy of art. The whole world, especially nature, is saturated with music for Hoffmann, and it is music that seems to him to be a model and ideal for any high art. What the German romantic sees in music is his ideal idea of art as a whole. Giving the young composer advice on how to write an outstanding opera, Hoffman suggests that the text underlying it is also a genuine work of art.

The poet and composer talk about the relationship of text and music in the novel of the same name from the Serapion Brothers. And they are talking mainly about the principles of romantic opera and music in general^[3]. Hoffman considers the poet and composer to be brothers in the spiritual realm, priests of the same religion, absorbing wonderful melodies and poetic images from the realm of spirits. Speaking about opera, the composer claims that only high-quality poetry can become its basis, and since he recognizes only romantic opera as the highest, in which characters from the spirit world also act, he urges the poet to turn to the realm of spirits, "fly to the distant world of romanticism", find wonderful images there and, returning, "organically merge the miraculous phenomena of the spirit world with the phenomena of ordinary life." Only on the wings of a poet can we be transported from a wonderful world to an ordinary one and overcome the gap separating them ^{[10, pp. 68-69]}.

At the same time, Hoffman recognizes as a genuine opera only the one in which "the music follows by itself from the text as a necessary addition to it" ^{[10, p. 68]}. And the writer of the libretto should be guided by the "magic power of poetic truth", which is a consequence of the influence of higher forces on weak human capabilities. In opera, the poetic language surpasses the language of human everyday life and organically merges with the higher language of music. "Thus, if the influence of higher phenomena on us should be personally expressed in opera, revealing to us the essence of Romanticism, then it is clear that the language of this world should be much more expressive than ordinary or, even better, should be borrowed from the wonderful realm of music and singing" ^{[10, p. 69]}. Opera, Hoffman is convinced, in its highest manifestations is related to church music, in which a person, with the help of sounds "rushing from the golden strings of cherubim and seraphim," attains "knowledge of that kingdom of light where the mystery of his own being is revealed to him" ^{[10, p. 72]}. Church music seems to Hoffmann to be the ideal of musical art in general, which is closer to the spiritual sphere than other arts ^[20]. Therefore, "striving for the high and holy, the desire to express in a visible way the power of the spirit, warming and animating the whole universe, is the task of music," and it is best performed by church music in the hymn of thanksgiving to the Creator ^{[10, p. 317]}.

According to Hoffmann, the authentic church music accompanying the divine service is itself a cult, it seems to us unearthly – "the verb of heaven". "The premonition of the supreme being, ignited by sacred sounds in the human heart, is already the presence of the supreme being himself: it speaks in the clear language of music about the infinitely beautiful realm of faith and love." Listening to this music, we renounce everything earthly, and the very sorrow inherent in our earthly life is transformed "into a passionate longing for eternal love" ^{[19, p. 90]}. Hoffman sees the pinnacle of church music in the mass, showing that both human suffering and human joy are transformed in it into our attitude to God and find their expression in separate parts of the mass. At the same time, music is inextricably linked in them, as in the mass as a whole, with the poetic text. "In Kyrie, the mercy of God is invoked; Gloria praises His omnipotence and greatness; Credo speaks of the firm faith that must live in our soul; while Sanctus and Benedictus, speaking of God's holiness and greatness, promise salvation to believers. In Agnus and Dona we implore to send an intermediary who would grant peace and quiet to a truly believing soul" ^{[10, p. 315]}. At the same time, Hoffman emphasizes, all parts of the mass receive different musical embodiments from different composers (and even from one in different masses) with "sustained sanctity of style", which testifies to the extraordinary richness of music, which, starting from the music of nature, elevates a person to God himself.

It is no coincidence, Hoffman believes, that music, like painting, is the art of the Christian world, and not of Antiquity, where it was suppressed and muted by plastic. Only Christianity made it possible for music and painting to develop in all their depth and artistic richness, and precisely in the spaces of a highly developed religion and a Christian temple.  Then there were many outstanding composers who eventually gave birth to such musical geniuses as Handel, Bach, and later Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven. Hoffman is convinced that it was their connection with religion that allowed them to achieve the sublime in the best works of their music, detached from everything mundane. It is interesting to compare Hoffmann's music of different composers with architectural styles. In the conversation of the Serapion brothers about music , one of them compared the ancient church music with the Cathedral of St. Peter in Rome, and Bach's music with the famous Gothic masterpiece Strasbourg Cathedral. The majestic proportionality of the size of St. Peter's Cathedral calms the soul, and inside the Strasbourg Cathedral it is seized by some kind of anxiety, which "helps to excite in the soul a premonition of something unearthly, forcing the spirit to recognize heaven and believe in the infinite" ^{[10, p. 316]}. Hoffman develops the same thoughts in the Kreislerian, where in Bach's eight-voice motets he sees "the bold, wonderful, romantic architecture of the cathedral with all the fantastic decorations artfully combined into one whole, which proudly and magnificently rises to the sky" ^{[17, p. 37]}.

Hoffmann values music above other arts because it leads to "the wondrous miracle of knowing the eternal, purest light" ^{[9, p. 414]}, i.e. it elevates the composer and the listener to the heavenly spheres. And the music is not only specifically ecclesiastical, but also so-called secular, which is rich in the repertoire of Mozart, Beethoven and other major composers of that time. Music glorifies the "eternal" with the language bestowed by him, awakens in the souls of listeners "the raptures of the most ardent reverence", lifts them above the earthly vale to "the knowledge of the invisible", aspires "to the highest in pious love and longing" ^{[9, p. 481]}. Music is a great romantic art due to the fact that it always aspires to the spiritual worlds, it tells "in divine language about the wondrous wonders of that distant romantic country to which we strive with such an inexplicable desire" ^{[10, p. 63]}.

It is when thinking about music that Hoffmann develops a fairly clear idea of the principles of Romanticism in art. It should rely on nature, feel its deep music and proto–languages, on the one hand, and on the other - be directed to heaven, bypassing everyday life, and include spiritual beings from the magical world of spirits in its world. In the subject of perception, romantic art causes endless longing for the "wonderful world of spirits", for something unknown, incomprehensible. This is exactly what music is in Hoffmann's understanding. "Music is the most romantic of all the arts, perhaps, one might even say, the only truly romantic, because it has only the infinite as its subject. Orpheus' lyre opened the gates of hell" ^{[17, p. 27]}. Music opens to man an "unknown realm" that has nothing to do with the external sensory world.

The greatest composers Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven have raised instrumental music to a new level, and they breathe "the same romantic spirit", although this spirit has its own coloring for each composer. In Haydn's writings, "a childishly joyful soul is revealed. ... Mozart leads us into the depths of the realm of spirits. ... Beethoven's instrumental music also opens up to us the realm of the vast and boundless" ^{[17, pp. 28-29]}. All these are the rarest revelations of "romantic taste" and "romantic talent". Haydn, says Hoffmann, "romantically depicts" the human in everyday life. "Mozart is more interested in the superhuman, the miraculous, living in the depths of our soul. Beethoven's music moves the levers of fear, awe, horror, sorrow and awakens precisely that endless longing in which the essence of Romanticism lies" ^{[17, p. 29]}.

In singing, which Hoffmann values very highly as the unity of poetry and music, music plays a major role. It acts as a "wonderful philosophical elixir", improving the taste of the verbal drink. In the opera, any human feelings and passions: love, hatred, despair, etc. are clothed with "music in a brilliant romantic purple" ^{[17, p. 28]}. Speaking about the singing of the Meistersingers, Hoffman argues that the art of singing is the wondrous and best of the gifts with which God has blessed people. At the same time, the singing of each of the singers differs in its own characteristics related to its character and the environment from which it came. The songs of one of the participants of the singing competition carried nobility, tenderness, joyful fun; in the songs of another, the motives of "chivalrous firmness and directness" sounded; the third struck everyone with the historical fidelity of his songs, the fourth was dominated by "the brilliance of images and the richness of imagination". The singing of the fifth penetrated the hearts of people with "sincerity and some kind of passionate longing."  ^{[10, pp. 218-219]}.

The sixth struck everyone with the unusual effect of his singing on those present. At first, his song "expressed unbridled longing, as if the singer was knocking on the doors of fate itself with irresistible power, demanding the fulfillment of his desires. Then there was an appeal to the stars, and the gentle, trembling accompaniment (on the lute. – V.B.) sounded like the heavenly music of the spheres, and finally everything concluded with a series of passionate, strong chords, which expressed the deepest, possible only in paradise, the bliss of love and happiness" ^{[10, p. 228]}. The audience was deeply shocked and froze in amazement, but the landgrave, who managed the Minnesingers' competition, was dissatisfied with his singing. He saw in him not the piety of a singer filled with sacred delight in what is being sung, but "a cold astrologer measuring his subject with a compass and ruler" ^{[10, p. 231]}. The main thing in singing, according to Hoffman, is the openness of the singer's soul to the event being sung and to the spiritual spheres, the submission of the heart to the deepest love.

Singing and music in general awaken in the soul of the listener "a sense of true harmony" ^{[10, p. 51]}. The sounds of music and singing, first of all, immerse the listener into the world of wonderful experiences that already dominate his soul in reality. Here is one of the typical examples of the perception of singing, described by Hoffmann on behalf of his hero: "The melody, which I had never heard, but, however, clearly expressed the deepest torments of love, then rang like a crystal, then dully and languidly carried away somewhere in the distance, as if saying goodbye forever to all hope. I lay entranced. Rapture seized me, a swarm of ardent desires ignited in my chest, my breath froze, and I myself seemed to melt into inexpressible heavenly bliss, forgetting everything and turning all into hearing and attention" ^{[10, p. 261]}. The song seems to be about purely human love gives the listener heavenly bliss, takes him to the realm of the highest joy.

Hoffman in his works often cites examples of the perception of music, and always in them the principle of its anagogic influence, the idea of raising the human soul with the help of music to worlds far from the earthly, in which human life is fraught with many difficulties and sufferings, is put forward in the foreground. At the same time, the romantic nature of the music is constantly emphasized, causing some indescribable longing for something high and unattainable. Discussing the impact of a certain aria's ritornel, Hoffman writes: "It was sustained in very gentle tones and simple, but deeply penetrating sounds, it seemed to speak of the longing with which a devout soul ascends to heaven and there finds everything beloved, taken away from her here on earth" ^{[17, p. 19]}. The sounds of music are perceived by Hoffmann's hero as descending from another world, exalting him "above earthly sorrows in the blissful hope of soon seeing the fulfillment of all promises in a higher and better world", when the soul rushes on swift wings among radiant clouds to the "loud rejoicing of enlightened spirits" ^{[17, p. 20]}.

Music seems to Hoffman to be a fantastic park in which rare trees, shrubs, exotic flowers intertwine into a kind of magical kingdom. Every chord and every consonance in this kingdom affects the listener in its own way, causing amazing movements of the soul and spirit in him. In the mouth of his favorite hero, composer Kreisler, the German romantic puts his imaginative impressions of this or that chord. The sounds of the as-moll chord "take me to the land of eternal longing". Sextaccord E-dur: "Be strong my heart! Don't burst from the touch of the scorching ray that pierced my chest." Terzaccord E-dur: its sounds "gave me a magnificent crown, but in its diamonds thousands of tears sparkle and shine, shed by me, in its gold the flame that incinerated me smoulders." B-dur: "How cheerful life is in the fields and forests in the beautiful springtime!" etc. ^{[19, pp. 69-70]}. The world of music as the highest art form, in Hoffmann's understanding, significantly exceeds the world of everyday life in all spiritual parameters, and the German romantic is completely immersed in it, giving him the highest praise.

Being a convinced romantic, Hoffman paid special attention to irony, which he often almost identified with humor, considering him the son of irony, a "healthy mother" ^{[9, p. 166]}. The German writer saw irony rooted in human nature itself and, moreover, "conditioning it in its very essence, as if radiating along with the deepest seriousness wit, humor and the spirit of cunning" ^{[7, p. 214]}. Many of Hoffmann's works are permeated by a slight irony, which he sees in some of the classics of literature he reveres, among which he puts Shakespeare in one of the first places. The English writer has come to know human nature so deeply, says Hoffman, that tragedy and comedy are intertwined in his images into something integral, ironic. "All his characters are marked by the irony that manifests itself in the strongest moments, and then we are amazed at the wit and power of the author's imagination, whereas his comic characters are basically tragic" ^{[7, p. 215]}. Hoffman calls King John, Lear, Malvolio as carriers of the ironic principle in Shakespeare, and considers Falstaff "the most perfect exponent of remarkable irony and the richest humor" [ibid.].

Hoffman himself often ironically approaches his favorite art – music, more precisely – to the situation in which, as a rule, a talented musician finds himself in modern society. Irony in this case helps Hoffmann himself to show more vividly the sublime essence of authentic music. So, Hoffman tells with sad irony, a musician living in the attic of a large house cannot start working on his work until eleven in the evening, or even later, because a cacophony of sound is buzzing and screaming outside the window. At the open window next to the composer, girls are sitting and shouting the first stanza of some popular song with sharp, shrill voices at the top of their lungs. "Diagonally, across the street, someone is tormenting a flute; his lungs are like Rameau's nephew; and my neighbor, a French horn player, is doing acoustic experiments, making long-drawn sounds. Countless dogs in the neighborhood begin to worry, and my master's cat, excited by this sweet duet, screams at my window;.. climbing up the chromatic scale, he makes plaintively tender confessions to the neighbor's cat, with whom he has been in love since March" ^{[17, p. 16]}. What would the painter say, Kreisler says ironically (and Hoffman is talking on his behalf, depicting his suffering), if at the time when he was painting an ideal image, ugly faces were constantly poking at him? He could at least close his eyes and finish writing his image in his imagination, but cotton wool in the composer's ears does not help. The cat concert and all the other sounds of the street can be heard through it. In such an atmosphere, "the most sublime thoughts fly to hell!" ^{[17, p. 17]}.

Sarcastic irony permeates the "Thoughts about the high value of Music" by Johannes Kreisler ("Kreislerian"), in which the romantic composer with the most serious look and eloquently proves that the philistine ideas about music are the most correct and they need to be guided. "The purpose of art in general is to provide a pleasant entertainment for a person and to turn him away from more serious, or rather, the only occupations that befits him, that is, from those that provide him with bread and honor in the state, so that he can then return with redoubled attention to the real purpose of his existence – to be a good gear wheel in the state mill and ... start rolling and spinning again" ^{[17, p. 22]}. And no art form is more suitable for these purposes than music. She is just an easy break from serious human labor activity. So, the daughter of a certain employee diligently learns some songs in order to perform them to her tired father in the evening. Music does not require any mental work, but it promotes conversation, which is practiced at the so-called "aesthetic tea parties". With a good choice, music is allowed even by card players, who, however, are engaged in "more important business – winning and losing" ^{[17, p. 23]}. There is nothing more pleasant for a mindless pastime than music," says Hoffman ironically, who, as we have seen, revered music for the highest kind of spiritual and aesthetic activity of a person, elevating him to the divine spheres.

In a sharply ironic way, Hoffman, through Kreisler's mouth, argues that the main negative property of the opera is the desire to completely lead the audience into the depicted world. He turns to the machinist (a specialist in stage machines) and the decorator (a set designer) with advice on how to destroy the malicious illusion created by the poet and the musician, who have formed, – Hoffman notes with irony, – "a very dangerous alliance against the public." They take the viewer away from the real world, in which he feels very comfortable, and torment him with "all kinds of sensations and passions that are extremely harmful to health." The audience under the influence of the opera should cry, laugh, suffer, be horrified, admire, worry, "in a word, as they say, dance to their tune." Many viewers in the theater immediately begin to "believe fantastic nonsense", not even paying attention to the fact that the actors sing, and do not talk like all decent people ^{[17, p. 47]}. To save the viewer from all this theatrical obsession, Kreisler turns to the machinist and partly to the decorator, telling them how to act in order to destroy the illusion of an opera performance and remind the viewer that he is only in a place of entertainment. Boldly join the fight with the poet and musician, he urges, in order to destroy their evil intent to distract the viewer from the "real world". So, a significant role in this plan can be played by an out-of-place extended backstage, when, for example, a corner of a brightly lit hall enters the dungeon where the heroine suffers. "But even better are fake spotlights or intermediate curtains peeking out from above, as they deprive the scenery of the so-called truthfulness." The descent to the wrong place of the middle curtain also has a great effect in this regard. He creates confusion among the actors and causes laughter from the audience. The image on this curtain should be sharply different from the main scenery. For example, the view of a city street in a rocky desert, or a dense forest in a temple, will be of great benefit. In the same spirit, Kreisler offers many other tips to the machinist and decorator aimed at destroying the theatrical illusion, i.e. the artistic image created in the opera by the poet and composer. With the help of sharply directed irony, Hoffman achieves the opposite effect here – emphasizing the artistic significance of the opera work and those mistakes that the machinist and decorator often make. By the way, many of these tips are used in the theater today precisely to create a special theatrical effect that deliberately destroys artistry in theatrical art. Hoffmann, on the other hand, highly valued irony as a natural element of aesthetic consciousness and, as we have seen, could convey his aesthetic ideas to the reader with its help.

Hoffmann's implicit aesthetics, which in fact all boils down to the philosophy of art, presents us with a solid block of the aesthetics of Romanticism. Art appears in it as an amazing phenomenon that causes in the subject of perception an indescribable longing for some other, higher and more spiritual life than the life of an ordinary person. The artistic means of genuine, i.e., high art are focused on arousing in the recipient the experiences of this sublime, spiritually oriented life; ultimately, art elevates an aesthetically prepared person to this life, to the limit – to the Creator himself. Such an understanding of art was characteristic of many German Romantics.