Yes! Unfortunately, it does not seem to be so well known as some of his shorter tales, like the “Nußknacker und Mausekönig”, “Der Sandmann”, “Die Puppe”, or “Der goldne Topf”. Despite the loveliness of these works, I consider the “Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr” Hoffmann’s masterpiece, and it’s certainly my favorite early romantic novel, Werther notwithstanding. It’s so funny and imaginative! Outside of here, I have myself only met two other people who have read it. One was Portuguese, and the other German; surprisingly for me, the latter said that Hofmann, unlike Goethe, Schiller and Heine, was not mentioned in her literature classes during Middle and High School. I would not have expected that, since his influence in world literature and classical music is, if not so clear and extensive, perhaps, as that of Goethe and Schiller, at least as obvious as that of Heine, who would probably be the fourth mandatory reference in the German Literature of the 19th century. Hoffmann’s influence was conclusively substantial in the works of Pushkin, Poe, Gogol, Hans Christian Andersen, Dickens, Machado de Assis, Dostoyevsky, Baudelaire, Kafka, Borges, Sōseki (on whose “I Am a Cat” Murr had a strong and direct influence), Lǔ Xùn, Juan Rulfo and, through Borges, Kafka and Rulfo, at least indirectly on the whole magical realist style; not to mention the use of his works in the music of Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Saint-Léon and Offenbach. Writers with an influence as extensive as this are relatively rare, so I would naturally expect his nation to always come back to and talk about his works; although, stopping to think about it, few writers were ever as influent as Byron, and, at least since New Criticism, interest in his work seems to have become less general in the Anglosphere. Perhaps hers was an uncommon case, however.
Interesting. Half my family is Austrian, I'll try to remember to ask how much - if any - Hoffmann they encountered in school.
I've read that Victor Hugo is mostly ignored by modern Francophone poetry criticism. (Of course most Anglophones don't even know he was a poet, but that may just be because we can't read him.) I think maybe in his case and in Byron's the main reason is ideological: their popularity and unambiguous political stance is a rebuke to most of the English and French poetry that came after them. (Oh God, if I see one more apolitical academic explaining that REALLY Hugo and/or Byron's politics was superficial, not actually politics at all, sublimated personal animosities, really...)
Incidentally, have you ever heard of Machado de Assis’ “The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas”? Most Brazilian readers and critics consider it, and with good reason, our best national novel. It’s a very inventive 19th century comedy, depicting, in first person perspective, the life of a man from his own standpoint after death. Its narrative tone is close to that used by Pushkin in Eugene Oneguin – cheerful, digressive, removed, expressive –, but, unlike in the poem, with a strong presence of what the narrator calls some “fretful touches of pessimism”. Like Murr, it shows a strong Sternean influence, as well as the use of fantastic elements within earthlier scenarios, in order to handle and satirize important themes from the traditions in which the authors were participating – in Hoffmann’s case, early German Romanticism; in Machado’s, Realism. Even though it’s a comedy, however, and even though its tone is mostly upbeat, it’s actually a quite nihilist book, probably the most properly Schopenhauerian novel which, in the moment, comes to my mind. Like Gogol’s The Nose and The Overcoat, its use of fantastic elements for social satire can be seen as an early pioneering effort towards the establishment of magical realism, while its parody of Zola and social Darwinism, as well as its combination of Sternean digressions and Schopenhauerian existentialism, in this particular case, place Machado very close to Dostoyevsky, Ibsen and Kierkegaard. While usually classified as a realist novel, I believe existentialist might be a more accurate label, in the absence of a better one. Even this classification may not be completely precise, however, since Machado’s explorations of the potentials of first person narrative, especially as it pertains to unreliability, irony and bias almost make him look, at times, like a proto-modernist. His use of these devices is probably where his work was the most special. If you become interested in readinng it, the best translation is the Library of Latin America’s.
I have not heard of it, so thank you for the recommendation, including the recommended translation! Particularly since this sounds far, far, far more to my taste than the last introduction to Brazilian literature that was recommended to me (Clarice Lispector's The Hour of the Star).
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