Episode 86: On E. T. A. Hoffmann's "The Sandman," and Freud's Sequel to It

Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

Society & Culture, Arts, Philosophy

4.8 • 688 Ratings

🗓️ 11 November 2020

⏱️ 84 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The German polymath E. T. A. Hoffmann is one of the founding figures of what we now call weird literature. In this episode, JF and Phil discuss one of his most memorable tales, "Der Sandmann." Originally published in 1816, it is the story of a young German student whose fate is sealed by a terrifying encounter with the eponymous figure during his youth. The story packs several tropes that would later become staples of the weird: the protean monster, the double, the automaton... Your hosts discuss how Hoffmann uses these tropes without letting any of them coalesce into a stable thing in the reader's mind, thereby effecting a slowbuild of ambiguity upon ambiguity that culminates in a true paroxysm of dread. The argument is made that Freud does essentially the same thing in his famous essay "The Uncanny," wherein Hoffmann's story plays an important role. REFERENCES E. T. A. Hoffmann, The Sandman Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto Edgar Allan Poe, American writer Sunn o))), American metal band La Monte Young,, American composer Stuart Davis, Aliens and Artists Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny Neil Gaiman, Mr. Punch Jaques Offenbach, Tales of Hoffmann Frank Zappa, American musician Ernst Jentsch,, German psychiatrist E. T. A. Hoffmann, The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr Weird Studies, episodes 73 and 74 on Carl Jung Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Spectrevision Radio
0:03.3	Welcome to Weird Studies, an arts and philosophy podcast with hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martel.
0:23.3	For more episodes or to support the podcast, go to weird'm J.F. Martel.
0:52.9	E.T.A. Hoffman was a civil servant, critic, composer,
0:56.9	artist and fiction writer, whose work epitomizes everything that romanticism stands for.
1:02.6	The irrational subversion of the order of reason, the transcendental reach of affect and emotion,
1:08.5	the exhumation of forces which the Enlightenment claimed to have buried deep
1:12.3	underground, in short, everything that we at weird studies dig most. He was born in 1776 and died in
1:19.3	1822 at the age of 46. In the course of that short life, he penned some of the most foundational
1:24.9	weird stories, including The Sandman, the one we discuss in
1:28.9	today's episode. It's the story of Nathaniel, a German university student whose weak constitution
1:34.9	makes him susceptible to prolonged bouts of febrile fantasy and paroxysmal insight, shades of
1:41.7	Poe, Baudelaire, and the other decadence who saw Hoffman as a patron saint of sorts.
1:47.1	In his youth, Nathaniel had a terrifying encounter with a figure he identified as the infamous sandman of German folklore,
1:53.8	a creature tasked with making sure little boys and girls went to bed on time.
1:58.3	Several years later, he encounters the same creature under a different guise,
2:02.7	and the faithful meeting leads to his obsession with a woman who may or may not be an automaton.
2:08.4	Phil and I have been talking about doing this strange story since Weird Studies' inception,
2:12.9	mainly because it's set a standard for weird literature that endures to this day.
2:18.7	Some listeners will be familiar with Hoffman's story from reading Sigmund Freud's famous essay, The Uncanny, another piece we
2:24.1	discuss at some length in the second half of this episode. Looking at Freud through Hoffman's
2:29.2	lens allows us to uncover the fabulous depths of the great psychoanalyst's work. It enables us to read the uncanny,
	...

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