Hoffmann traditions in Selma Lagerlöf ’s novel “Gösta Berling’s Saga”

Abstract

The article focuses on the study of Hoffmann traditions in Selma Lagerlöf ’s novel “Gösta Berling’s Saga”. The features of Hoffman’s poetics in the novel are revealed by using the methodology of the “Hoffman’s complex”, which is an ideological and thematic complex of motives and stylistic techniques inherent in the works by E. T. A. Hoffman. The “Hoffmann’s complex” is manifested in the novel in the problem of the rebellion of the Romantic hero-creator in relation to faith and religion, the problem of the relationship of the Romantic hero with femininity, the opposition of secular and Christian love, the motive of mechanization of man and society in the new capitalist industrial formation. The features of Hoffmann’s poetics were manifested in the novel “Gösta Berling’s Saga” also in the interweaving of Hoffmann’s images (Don Juan (“Don Juan”), Medardus (“The Devil’s Elixirs”) and plots (a defrocked monk, who under the influence of wine as an incarnate temptation, commits crimes and experiences a split of personality (“The Devil’s Elixirs”) and a rebellious Romantic hero in search of an unattainable ideal world in which his disintegrated personality must find consolidation (“Don Juan”). The conclusion sums up that S. Lagerlöf, relying on the plot, problems and images of E. T. A. Hoffman’s works (“Don Juan”, “The Devil’s Elixirs”, “Adventure on New Year’s Eve”), creates the author’s concept of spiritual transformation of personality through Christian love and reconsiders the image of a Romantic hero, transforming it into a new type of Christian Neo-Romantic hero.