Abstract
In this article I discuss Hoffmann's novel Die Elixiere des Teufels in terms of Freud's essay ‘The Uncanny’ (‘Das Unheimliche’), especially with regard to the figure of the double, and also in relation to Freud's insistence, articulated at the same time as this essay, on the death drive and its relation to repetition. The difficulties in working out the plot in a way which illuminates its engagement with history and memory are explored, as is its claim to narrate the life of the monk Medardus. The key notion of the apotropaic emerges as a nodal point in my reading of Hoffmann's complex and at times bewildering text.
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