Der Ehrgeiz der (wissenschaftlichen) ‚Eroberung‘ der Welt. Haimatochare von E.T.A. Hoffmann

Valentina Serra

2022-01-01

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Abstract

Among E.T.A. Hoffmann’s works, Haimatochare (1819) is an outstanding example of the author’s skillful use of subtlety and irony to illuminate not only the reality of his time but also the ‘dark sides’ of the human mind. His epistolary novella is inspired by the geographical and scientific zeal for discovery that characterized the end of the 18th and the first decades of the 19th centuries. In this short work, Hoffmann succeeds in critically portraying this thirst for discovery and the as-sociated pursuit of academic fame, using the example of two scientists who set out on a research expedition to the island of O-Wahu. The aim of this paper is to analyze the multi-layered literary construction of the novella from a cultural-historical perspective. After an introductory situating of the work in its historical context and some remarks on the literary genre of the epistolary novella, my interpretation will focus on three perspectives in particular : the theme of scientific persiflage and its implications ; the process of European, colonial conquest of the exotic Other, which also took the form of scientific research and appropriation ; the interpretation of this European conquest as the male conquest of an exotic, unspoiled, female world according to recent theories of postcolonial studies.