Overview
This is a comparative study of the work and thought of the German Romantic writer E. T. A. Hoffmann and the French poet Charles Baudelaire. Hoffmann was introduced into France in 1829 and Baudelaire could have read his work in the numerous translations that were published in the following decades. This book attempts to explain Baudelaire's fascination with Hoffmann's combination of humour and the fantastic, showing the extent to which the two men shared very similar views about art in particular and the world in general. Although earlier critics had referred to Baudelaire's interest in Hoffmann and the influence Hoffmann had over him, none had examined the question at such length, nor analysed in such detail the way in which each exploited the fantastic.