1st Student's Major
World Languages and Cultures
1st Student's College
Arts and Humanities
Students' Professional Biography
Danielle Geistfeld was born in Mankato, Minnesota. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato, Minnesota in 2006. She also received a Bachelor of Arts degree in German from Minnesota State University, Mankato in 2015. Danielle hopes to continue her education in pursuit of an advanced degree in German.
Mentor's Name
Nadja Krämer
Mentor's Email Address
nadja.kramer@mnsu.edu
Mentor's Department
World Languages and Cultures
Mentor's College
Arts and Humanities
Abstract
This paper focuses on the short story Der Sandmann by E.T.A. Hoffmann. Originally published in 1817, Der Sandmann tells the story of Nathaniel and his struggle to distinguish what is real and what is fantasy, his descent into madness and his ultimate, yet ambiguous, vindication in the end. E.T.A. Hoffmann was a prolific writer of the German Romantic period (1795-1848), authoring works such as The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, the literary original of the well-known ballet by Tchaikovsky. Poe, Dickens, Kafka, Dostoevsky and Alfred Hitchcock all name Hoffmann as a major influence - he is widely regarded as the father of modern fantasy, detective and science fiction literature. Hoffmann wrote extensively about the weird, the fantastical: the uncanny. This paper explores the ideas presented in Hoffmann's two-century-old text, whos ideas play out prominently in contemporary American popular culture.
Recommended Citation
Geistfeld, Danielle
(2015)
"What Is Real: The Subjectivity of Reality in E.T.A. Hoffmann's "Der Sandmann","
Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato: Vol. 15, Article 2.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.56816/2378-6949.1187
Available at:
https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/jur/vol15/iss1/2
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License