preface
"Fragment" can be said to be the most unique form characteristic of the German Romantics, because this form has not reached the quantity and quality of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries after the German Romantics, nor has it formed a stable and long-term genre, and the "fragment" is distinguished from artistic fairy tales and novellas as a separate form.
Fragments are not original to German romantic writers, as early as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in France, Germany and earlier ancient Greece, there were the predecessor aphorisms of fragments, but it was the Schlegel brothers, Novalis and others in the early romantics who made the fragments truly become the representative creative form of German romantics, and they consciously used the short length of fragments to express the "natural impulse" valued by romantics. Hoffmann received fragments, but unlike the Schlegel brothers, whose works existed as separate fragments, he not only adopted the form of fragments, but also sublimated fragments from pure literary forms and combined them with his novels as a creative idea.
"Fragments" of early German Romantics
The general academic community believes that the "fragment" in the history of Western literature has three meanings, the first is that the works handed down are incomplete and are real fragments. The second is a work that the author itself has not completed, and the reasons for unfinished work such as the death of the author, etc. The third is to use the flexibility of fragmentation to consciously create literary works and theories into fragmentary forms, and the fragments of the German Romantic School are mainly inherited from the third form.
"Fragment" is the main theoretical expression of the early German Romantics, characterized by its short and concise, flexible and free form, which is more conducive to the recording and expression of writers' emotions. Fragments of the early Romanticism were mainly written by Novalis and F. Schlegel. Novalis is the author of fragments such as " Pollen " and " Faith and Fraternity " , and F. Schlegel has a large number of fragments, mainly in five fragment collections, including " Critical Fragments " , " Art Garden Fragments " , " Athena " , " Philosophical Clerkship " and " Fragments of Poetry and Literature " .
The fragmentary creation of the early Romantics formed a collective creative situation, especially "The Temple of Athena", which is the most important publication of the early German Romantics, founded in 1797, the Schlegel brothers and Novalis and others participated, and did not sign the fragments of creation, so the "Temple of Athena" has a total of 451 fragments, but there is no signature, which is the embodiment of F. Schlegel's concept of "collaborative literature".
The early German Romantics philosophically admired Kant, who emphasized the importance of "genius" in artistic creation, arguing that "genius is: the exemplary originality of a subject's natural talent that manifests in the free use of his cognitive functions." That is, the early Romantics, deeply influenced by Kant, believed that the artistic creation of genius was not bound to any staid form, and was unlike anyone else, with unique originality, and this opposition to the stereotypical form of classicism and artistic dogmatism influenced the Romantics from a philosophical basis, so the early Romantics also adopted this originality as one of their principles and characteristics.
Hoffman's fragmentary creations
In Hoffman's creative career, "Tomcat Moore's View of Life" is the most important novel, not only because this novel is one of only two novels in Hoffman's life, but also because this novel is the pinnacle of Hoffman's creation and an excellent work that cannot be ignored in romantic literature. The novel is divided into two parts, one is the biography of Tomcat Moore and the other is the biography of the band conductor Krysler.
In the biography of Tomcat Moore, Hoffman portrays a Tomcat Moore with an intellectual culture, and describes Moore's process of education, literary creation, friendship with the curly dog Ponto, emotional twists and turns with the female cat Mimis, participation in youth student clubs, and return to the literary and artistic world. Krysler's biography tells the tumultuous life of the talented artist Krysler, who first left the court of the Grand Duke, then came to the small court of the Marquis, and was again forced to leave the court of the Marquis and take refuge in the monastery in the conflict with the female counsellor Bencong and the Prince of Naples, Hector.
And when he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Abraham sent a letter telling him that Kreisler's lover and Satoshi's daughter Yulia had finally married the Marquis's demented son, and the wicked Hector had not been punished in any way, and still married Princess Hedvega.
After writing these two parts, Hoffman died, and the third part was not published. For a long time, the academic community has focused on the irony and practical significance of "Tomcat Moore's View of Life", combining this novel with Hoffman's life and encounters, and believes that Hoffman's life can be seen everywhere in the novel. Tomcat Moore's biography is partly the main body of the novel, and Krysler's biography is interspersed with it, but Kreisler's biography is the core of the novel.
Hoffmann's incompatibility with reality into the novel is a complete understanding of the artist's relationship to reality, which is determined by his experiences wandering in Bamberg. Hoffmann experienced ups and downs at the Bamberg Theatre, first reused, then framed by his colleagues and plunged into a trough, and later with the appreciation of the new director and his artistic accomplishment, Hoffmann made the theater famous. Because of this experience, Hoffman had a deeper understanding of the artist's encounter and situation than other Romantic writers.
In this novel, Hoffmann makes full and innovative use of the fragmentary creative methods of the early Romantics, and the biographies of Tomcat Moore and Kreisler are artistically interspersed with each other, seemingly illogical and very chaotic, but in fact Hoffman's arrangement highlights the artistic conflict between the two parts as satirical comedy and tragedy, respectively.
Fragments are the embodiment of early romantic writers breaking through the shackles of traditional creative forms, and Hoffmann's first introduction of such seemingly fragmented and chapter-based writing into the creation of long novels is another huge breakthrough for him as a representative writer of the Berlin Romantics. Tomcat Moore and band conductor Krysler are completely different two images, their life trajectories are also completely different, the whole book takes Tomcat Moore's life as the main line, in fact, with more space to describe Krysler's life, part of the Tomcat Moore first-person vision of the social reality at that time to satirize, the other part in the third person perspective to expose the blow suffered by the genius artist in the society at that time, Hoffman cleverly interspersed the biographies of the two to form a complete novel, This is also the "humor" of early romantic parties.
On the other hand, "Tomcat Moore's View of Life" is an unfinished novel, the third part is in Hoffman's plan but because his death was not completed, so this is a typical fragmented work, Hans Meyer once proposed that although the novel is a fragment in form, it is complete in structure, and in the first two parts that have been completed, the novel reflects a complete plot and story structure, so "Tomcat Moore's View of Life" is structurally complete, which can be seen as Hoffman's intention to write the novel into fragments.
At the same time, this way of writing also reflects Hoffman's emphasis on exploration, the early romantic fragmentary creation pays attention to providing readers with the process of exploration and pursuit of conclusions, the writer himself will not show the reader the conclusion, Hoffman is fully inherited this artistic style, the unexpressed and expressed parts in the third part that has not yet appeared.
The fragments of early romantic writing are not simply fragmented fragments, but the perfect combination of individuality and totality, independent fragments have their own value, when they converge into a whole, they play a value in the overall except themselves, forming a complete whole, Hoffman is in this way, the seemingly illogical connection of the two parts of the biography interspersed together, forming a complete novel, therefore, "Tomcat Moore's view of life" In terms of writing style and structure, it is a complete fragmentary novel, and it is also a unique pinnacle of German romantic fragment creation.
epilogue
Hoffmann's fragments are very different from those of the Schlegel brothers, Novalis and others, he did not assemble the fragments into a volume, but expanded the fragments in a pattern, and the entire novel is a large fragment. He also does not stick to aphorism-style fragments, but draws the parts that can be used in novels and fairy tales from the flexible and free connotation of fragments, so Hoffman has never created fragments, but the spirit of fragments is common in his novels, which is more free and profound.