242 Book Reviews Birgit Rôder, A Study of the Major Novellas of E. T. A. Hoffmann. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2003. xiv +193 pp. E. T. A. Hoffmann's reputation as "Gespenster-Hoffmann," the author of entertaining ghost stories affected his early reception. Only Ui the twentieth century did he begin to receive serious critical attention, but even then in a selective fashion. On one side, foUowing the lead of Freud's groundbreaking examination of Der Sandmann in terms of the "uncanny," psychoanalytically oriented critics such as James M. McGlathery (1981,1985) have looked at scattered tales as case studies in neuroses, reading Hoffmann as a "sexual humorist" (quoted 4), portraying unconscious sublimation. On the other side, Marxist critics, most notably Georg Lukács and Hans Meyer, argue that Hoffmann stands out from other Romantic writers for his realistic critique of bourgeois phUistinism and as an opponent to conservative tendencies in German culture. Yet other critics, such as Wulf Segebrecht and Rüder Safranski take an existential approach, looking at the despair of the artist. Only more recently have critics begun to look at Hoffmann's narrative elements. The most detaUed is Sheila Dickson's treatment of Hoffmann in her book on German Romantic prose (1994). For Dickson, the narrative form of the tales reveals more about the experience of the world than their specific content. Taking a largely thematic approach, Birgit Rôder (University of Reading, UK) attempts a synthesis. For her the key to Hoffmann's tales centers on the "Romantic dilemma," the struggle of the artist with the ideal. This dUemma is closely bound to the complex tensions between artists and society and between the aesthetic and the ideal. In turn it has implications with regard to gender, the way the artist (typically male) projects the ideal onto a beloved (female). "It is clear," says Rôder, "that if a genuine synthesis of artist, audience, and work of art is to be brought about, then both socio-political and aesthetic factors wUl play a vital role" (169). She limits her discussion to what she considers eight representative stories, divided and arranged thematically selecting a combination of the better known tales with some of the lesser known. Under the theme of madness, she treats Hoffmann's Das Fräulein von Scuderi and Der Sandmann; under love, Die Jesuiterkirche in G, Die Fermate, and Der Artushof; and finally under death, Don Juan, Das Sanctus, and Rat Krespel. Rôder also draws relevant paraUels with Die Serapionsbrüder, but only makes a passing reference to Hoffmann's masterpiece, Kater Murr. Der Sandmann (1816), one of Hoffmann's best-known noveUas, exemplifies Röder's approach. It embodies in aU its complexities "the inter-relationship of art and reality" (58), especially as manifest in the difficult relationship between the artist and his audience. The artist has a need for the other. He or she does not exist in a vacuum, but must produce or perform for an audience, which serves as a test or check on an iUusory ideal. At the same time, for this to work, the audience must be open to the imaginative wanderings of the artist. Only in this dialogue between artist and audience do both gain a more comprehensive understanding of the ideal, the world, and the irrational. The relationship between Nathanael and his fiancée Clara dramatizes the problems. WhUe not technically an artist Ui a professional sense, Nathanael considers himsetf poetic by nature, and is driven to tell fantastic stories, derived from chUdhood terrors about the Sandman. The imaginative expression provides a way to articulate and deal with his irrational fears. WhUe a compUant sounding board for his stories, Clara exemplifies the utilitarian values of the bourgeois. Goethe Yearbook 243 She is suspicious of the irrational, and sees art as merely decoration or commodity . When Nathanael's flights of imagination.become too extreme, Clara withdraws. Hurt, he turns to a mysterious young woman named OUmpia. She seems entirely receptive to his stories, and Nathanael faUs in love with her only to learn that she is an automaton, a complex puppet created by Coppelius and Spalanzani. The various relations demonstrate the complex dilemmas. Blinded by...