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46 pages

English

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Happily engaged to the poet Amandus, Fraulein Anna is horrified to discover that a beautiful ring, mysteriously deposited upon her finger whilst tending her kitchen garden, forces her into marriage with the gnome Corduanspitz. Can Anna find any way of removing the ring? Will her poet lover shake off his passive demeanour and come to her aid? And has Corduanspitz truly relinquished all ties to his gnome heritage, as he so proudly claims?Around a love story very much of its time, Hoffman arranges a narrative that brings to mind the most successful elements of contemporary magical realism and surreal comedy. Always entertaining, yet capable of a focused though subtle morality, "The King's Bride" brings disparate elements into a masterful harmony.

Informations

Publié par	Alma Books
Date de parution	01 janvier 2018
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780714547701
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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The King’s Bride
E.T.A. Hoffmann
Translated by Paul Turner

ALMA CLASSICS

alma classics
Hogarth House
32-34 Paradise Road
Richmond
Surrey TW9 1SE
United Kingdom
www.almaclassics.com
The King’s Bride first published in 1821
First published by John Calder (Publishers) Limited in 1959
Translation © John Calder (Publishers) Limited, 1959
This edition first published by Alma Classics Limited (previously Oneworld Classics Limited) in 2009. Reprinted February 2010
This new edition first published by Alma Classics Limited in 2015
Front cover image © Andrea Peipe (Cap Photography)
Printed in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
isbn : 978-1-84749-454-2
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be resold, lent, hired out or otherwise circulated without the express prior consent of the publisher.

Contents
Introduction
Chronology
The King’s Bride
Notes

Introduction
T he first thing one notices about E.T.A. Hoffmann is his versatility. In the course of a relatively short life (1776–1822) he successfully practised four different professions: those of lawyer, artist, musician and writer; and it may be as well to trace his career in each of these fields separately.
Following the example of his Uncle Otto, who brought him up from the age of three, he studied law at university, and practised as a lawyer from 1795 until 1806, when Warsaw, where he was then employed on the Prus sian ad min is trative staff, was occupied by the French and all Prussian officials lost their jobs. In 1814 he resumed his legal career in Berlin, and in 1816 received the important ap point ment of Chairman of the Supreme Court of Justice, which he held until his death. Although he often grudged the time that his legal work took away from more creative activities, he was evidently very good at it.
His career as an artist began in 1795, when he sent two historical paintings to a friend’s wealthy uncle, in the hope that he would buy them. The uncle thought they were intended as a gift, and gratefully added them to his collection. At Posen, in 1802, Hoffmann got into trouble with the authorities for circulating subversive caricatures of the local military commandant, and as a punishment was transferred to the remote town of Plock, where he spent his spare time copying pictures of ancient vases and painting portraits. At Warsaw he painted murals in the Academy of Music, and at Bamberg, in 1808, he designed sets for several theatrical productions. Finally, in 1814 he celebrated the Battle of Leipzig by publishing a series of cartoons on the downfall of the Napoleonic regime.
One indication of his devotion to music is the fact that he changed his third Christian name from Wilhelm to Amadeus, as a tribute to Mozart. When he left uni ver si ty, he started giving music lessons – with the result that he fell in love with one of his pupils – and composing songs and incidental music for plays. In 1799 he wrote his first opera, Die Maske , and between then and 1816, when his last opera, Undine , was successfully performed in Berlin, he composed two symphonies and a great variety of vocal and instrumental music. In 1808 he was appointed Director of Music at the theatre at Bamberg, and in 1813 joined the Seconda Opera Company at Dresden in the same capacity. He was also a distinguished music critic, and from 1809 onwards was a regular contributor to the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung.
His writings, however, are his chief claim to fame. His first published work was an essay (1803) on the use of the classical chorus in drama. Then he wrote one or two plays, and a few dramatic fragments, but he found his true métier when he started writing fiction. Fantasiestücke , a collection of essays and stories published 1814–15, included the well-known Der goldene Topf , translated into English by Carlyle in 1827. In 1816 he brought out Die Elixiere des Teufels , a horrific novel of the supernatural partly inspired by The Monk of M.G. Lewis. It was followed by Nachtstücke (1817), a collection of stories in a similar vein, and finally by Die Serapionsbrüder (1819–21). The stories in this collection are inserted into a framework of conversation between various members of a club, some of whom represent aspects of Hoffmann’s own character, and others actual friends of his. Vinzenz, for instance, who tells the story of Die Königsbraut , is a certain Dr Koreff, Professor of Medicine at Berlin University, whose special interest was “animal magnetism” or hypnotism – hence the allusion on page 34.
Hoffmann was extremely sociable by nature, and his taste for alcoholic conviviality has been blamed for his early death. His love life may be said to have begun during his school days, when he and a friend tried to dig a tunnel underneath the wall of a neighbouring girls’ school, under the pretext of planting an exotic shrub. At the age of twenty he was forced to leave Königsberg for Glogau, as a result of the scandal caused by his association with a married woman. At twenty-six he married Michalina Rohrer, a pretty, good-natured but not very intellectual young lady, whose dim reflection may perhaps be seen in the portrait of Fräulein Ann in Die Königsbraut. The marriage was on the whole a happy one, but Hoffmann never became very domesticated, and at thirty-five he fell desperately in love with another pupil of his, a fifteen-year-old singer called Julia Marc, who was shortly afterwards persuaded by her family to marry a rich merchant from Hamburg.
In person, Hoffmann was extremely short, with a rather ugly face and a prominent nose. He always had a sense of physical inferiority, and there may perhaps be an element of personal resentment in the remarks on page 72 about the average female’s attitude to males. Indeed, the whole description of Corduanspitz, the little Gnome who “bore no resemblance whatever to the Belvedere Apollo ”, may possibly be regarded as an ironic self-portrait. At any rate, this half-comic, half-sinister figure is a very apt embodiment of Hoffmann’s literary personality, his characteristic blend of fantasy and realism, pathos and impish satire, buffoonery and magic.
– Paul Turner
London, 1958

Chronology
1776 Born on 24th January at Königsberg.
1795 Leaves university and enters legal profession.
1796 Moves to Glogau.
1798 Moves to Berlin, and composes first opera, Die Maske .
1800 Moves to Posen.
1802 Transferred to Plock, and marries Michalina Rohrer.
1803 First published work.
1804 Takes up new appointment on Prussian staff at Warsaw.
1806 Warsaw occupied by the French. Loses his job, supports himself by giving music lessons, painting portraits, etc.
1807 Visits Berlin.
1808 Appointed Director of Music at Bamberg.
1811 Falls in love with Julia Marc.
1813 Moves to Dresden to join Seconda Opera Company. Writes Der goldene Topf .
1814 Publishes Fantasiestücke . Returns to legal profession in Berlin, where he meets leaders of Romantic movement.
1816 Undine performed. Die Elixiere des Teufels published. Appointed Chairman of Supreme Court of Justice.
1817 Nachtstücke published.
1819 First volume of Die Serapionsbrüder published.
1821 Last volume published, containing Die Königsbraut .
1822 Dies on 25th June.

The King’s Bride
A Fairy Tale based on Real Life

1
In which various characters are introduced and their circumstances described, and the stage is pleasantly set for all the extraordinary scenes that will be enacted in the following chapters.
I t was a wonderful year. Magnificent crops of wheat, barley and oats were ripening in the fields, the peasant boys were busy picking peas and the cows were equally busy nibbling clover. There were so many cherries on the trees that, much as the sparrows would have liked to peck them all off at one go, they were forced to leave half of them over for another meal. Nature kept open house, and every day her guests had all the food that they could possibly eat. But her real triumph was Herr Dapsul von Zabelthau’s kitchen garden, where the beauty of the vegetables was so unprecedented that Fräulein Ann was quite understandably in ecstasies about it.
I suppose I had better explain right away who these two people were. Just imagine, dear Reader, that you are travelling through the lovely country beside the river Main. Warm breezes are wafting fragrance over the meadows, which glisten in the golden light of the rising sun. You cannot bear to stay cooped up in your carriage, so you get out and start wandering through a wood, beyond which, as you come down into the valley, you catch sight of a small village.
Suddenly you see a tall, thin man approaching, whose extraordinary costume immediately rivets your attention. Perched on top of a jet-black wig he wears a small grey felt hat, and everything else about him – coat, waistcoat, trousers, socks and shoes – is grey to match. Even his preternaturally long walking stick is painted grey. He comes striding towards you, with his great deep-set eyes staring straight at you, but appears to be quite unaware of your existence.
“Good morning, sir!” you call out, just in time to prevent a collision. At this he gives a start, as if he had suddenly woken out of a deep dream, raises his hat and addresses you in hollow, tragic tones.
“Good morning?” he repeats. “My dear sir, how thankful we should be that